You may be more racist than you think, study says
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/01/07/racism.study/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
By Elizabeth Landau
CNN

(CNN) -- Would you get upset if you witnessed an act of racism?
A new study shows that many people may unknowingly hold racist views, contrary to how they view themselves. A new study published Thursday in the journal Science suggests many people unconsciously harbor racist attitudes, even though they see themselves as tolerant and egalitarian.

"This study, and a lot of research in social psychology, suggests that there are still really a lot of negative associations with blacks," said Kerry Kawakami, associate professor of psychology at York University in Toronto, Ontario, and lead author of the study. "People are willing to tolerate racism and not stand up against it."

The authors divided 120 non-black participants into the roles of "experiencers" and "forecasters." The "experiencers" were placed in a room with a white person and a black person, who played out pre-arranged scenarios for the experiment. The scenarios began when the black role-player bumped the white role-player's knee when leaving the room. In the first scenario, the white person did not comment afterwards. In the "moderate" case, the white person said, "Typical, I hate it when black people do that," after the black person left the room. In the "extreme" case, the white person remarked, "Clumsy n****r."

The "forecasters," meanwhile, predicted how they would feel in these situations.

The magnitude of the results surprised even the authors, Kawakami said. Experiencers reported little distress in all three scenarios, much less than the forecasters did in the moderate and severe situations. "Even using that most extreme comment didn't lead people to be particularly upset," said co-author Elizabeth Dunn, assistant professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Immediately afterwards, the participants were asked to choose either the black person or the white person as a partner for an anagram test. More than half of experiencers chose the white partner -- regardless of the severity of the comment that person made earlier. As for the forecasters, less than half chose the white partner when a comment was made, but most chose the white person when no comment was made. "Some people might think that they're very egalitarian and they don't have to deal with their prejudices, and that's not related to them at all, when in actual fact they may hold these hidden biases," Kawakami said.

The study is consistent with decades of psychology research pointing to the same thing: People are really bad at predicting their own actions in socially sensitive situations.

Retired Canadians cite health issues as a major reason for their retirement, according to RBC Poll

Retirees would rather have good health than no financial worries

TORONTO, Jan. 6 /CNW/ - According to the 19th Annual RBC RRSP Poll, approximately one-in-four retired Canadians cited health issues as the main reason for their retirement. Only nine per cent of pre-retired Canadians however believe that health issues will trigger them to retire. Besides health issues, qualifying for a pension (24 per cent) and company downsizing (13 per cent) were the leading factors that prompted Canadians to retire.

"We are seeing that pre-retirees have not planned for the possibility that health issues may force them to retire," said Lee Anne Davies, head, advanced retirement strategies, RBC. "Prior to retirement, it's important to take the time to think about how changes in your health, or the health of someone depending on you, could affect when and how you live in retirement." The study found that health is top of mind for retired Canadians. In fact, when retirees were asked to state the best gift they could receive in retirement, good health (53 per cent) ranked higher than no financial worries (30 per cent). The reverse is true for Canadians who have not yet retired, with 38 per cent ranking no financial worries over health (34 per cent) as the best gift they could give themselves in retirement.

"One of the fundamental steps to ensuring a successful retirement is to develop a plan," said Davies. "As Canadians plan for retirement, there may be a number of questions that arise regarding physical, mental and financial health. It's important for Canadians to consider what they can do to integrate the maintenance of good health into their retirement planning." According to the poll, half (51 per cent) of Canadians who are retired have changed their lifestyle to ensure a healthy retirement. Eighty percent of those who did change their lifestyle say they have a better diet, 69 per cent are exercising more and 64 per cent are attending regular medical appointments. Forty-one per cent of pre-retired Canadians plan on becoming healthier in retirement with 80 per cent of those planning on having a better diet, 79 per cent exercising more and 32 per cent attending regular medical appointments.

Statistics Show Dementia Affects More Than 71,000 Canadians Under Age 65
http://www.alzheimer.ca/english/media/putyourmind09-release.htm

Number of people living with Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia could reach 1.3 million

January 5, 2009 – Soon, Alzheimer's disease and related dementias won't only be about our parent's generation. It will also be about ours. This comes from new data released today to mark the start of Alzheimer Awareness Month, confirming that more than 71,000 Canadians living with Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia are under the age of 65.

Part of the initial findings of a study undertaken by the Alzheimer Society in conjunction with RiskAnalytica, this new information on the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias paints a potentially frightening picture about the present and future impact of dementia on Canadian Society.

"Of those living with Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia, approximately 15 per cent of them are under age 65. This means that it isn't only our health care and social systems that are being overwhelmed," says Scott Dudgeon, CEO of the Alzheimer Society of Canada. "The reality is that the businesses and industry sectors are also being affected as our boomer generation, a generation of leaders and mentors, are affected by dementia."

Highlights from the initial findings of the study Rising Tide: The Impact of Dementia on Canadian Society include:

• Approximately 500,000 Canadians are living with Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia

• Of the 500,000 people affected, more than 71,000 of them are under the age of 65, and approximately 50,000 of them are under the age of 60.

• 1 in 11 people over the age of 65 currently have Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia

• Women make up 72 per cent of Canadians with Alzheimer's disease.

• Within just five years, an additional 250,000 Canadians could develop Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia.

• Within a generation (25 years), the number of people living with Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia could reach between 1 million and 1.3 million.

"As it stands today, the number of Canadians living with Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia will more than double within a generation," says Ray Congdon, Volunteer President of the Alzheimer Society of Canada. "This new data only reinforces the fact that Alzheimer's disease and related dementias are a rising concern in this country, an epidemic that has the potential to overwhelm the Canadian health care system if changes are not made today."

The Alzheimer Society is issuing a call to action for all Canadians this January, asking them to do what they can to help turn the tide, and ease the impact of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. These actions can include making a donation to support critical research, raising their voice to this country's parliamentarians, and doing the things they can to help reduce their own risk of developing dementia.

"Every Canadian has a reason to care," says Jim Mann, an Alzheimer Advocate who was diagnosed with the disease at the age of 58. "Alzheimer's disease and related dementias are a tragic reality for a rapidly growing number of Canadian families. The time to act is now."

Alzheimer's disease and related dementias are progressive, degenerative diseases that destroy vital brain cells. They are not a normal part of aging. Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, accounts for approximately 64 per cent of all dementias in Canada. While each of the related diseases has unique aspects, symptoms include a gradual and continuing decline of memory, changes in judgment or reasoning, mood and behaviour, and an inability to perform familiar tasks.

The Alzheimer Society is the leading, nationwide health organization for people affected by dementia in Canada. The Society is a principal funder of Alzheimer research and training, provides enhanced care and support to people with the disease, their families and their caregivers, and is a prominent voice within all levels of government. Active in more than 140 communities across Canada, the Society is also a key player in Alzheimer's Disease International, an organization at the forefront of world wide efforts to fight dementia.

The 2009 Awareness Campaign was made possible in part through the generosity of the following sponsors: Pfizer Canada Inc., CN, Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy, Janssen-Ortho Inc., and Genworth Financial Canada.

For more information on the Rising Tide: The Impact of Dementia on Canadian Society, please see the attached fact sheet. For more information on the Alzheimer Society, Alzheimer's disease or related dementias, or how to become an Alzheimer Advocate, please visit www.alzheimer.ca.

Dementia drug death risk warning
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7817583.stm

Experts have condemned the commonplace prescribing of sedatives to people in the UK with dementia.

It comes as a three-year study published in The Lancet Neurology reports a doubling of the risk of early death in those on the drugs long-term. As many as 100,000 people in UK care homes with dementia are routinely prescribed anti-psychotic drugs for aggressiveness or agitation.

Ministers said they were reviewing the use of the drugs in dementia care. Current guidelines state that anti-psychotics can be given to patients who are severely agitated or violent for short periods of time. However, figures suggest the drugs are overused and are given for an average of one to two years.

Warnings

The latest research is not the first time the dangers of anti-psychotics in dementia patients have been reported. After a 2005 study published in the US, the Food and Drug Administration required anti-psychotic drugs to carry its strongest "black box" warning on its labels regarding dementia patients. The study, first reported at a conference in 2007, involved 165 patients with Alzheimer's disease living in care homes in Oxfordshire, Tyneside, London and Edinburgh.

The patients who were already taking the drugs were either continued on treatment or given a dummy pill for a year. There was a significant increase in risk of death for patients who continued taking anti-psychotics during the course of the study. After two years, 46% of patients treated with anti-psychotics were alive compared with 71% on the placebo.

Three years after the start of the study, fewer than a third of people on anti-psychotics were alive compared to nearly two-thirds taking the placebo. The researchers said most periods of aggression in dementia were self-limiting and would pass. Better education of staff would take away the need for medication, they said. Study leader Professor Clive Ballard, King's College London, who is director of research at the Alzheimer's Society, said the drugs were appropriate in some patients with severe aggression for short periods.

"But the serious concerns of the drugs shown by our research emphasise the urgent need to put an end to unnecessary and prolonged prescribing." Co-author Professor Robin Jacoby, an expert in old age psychiatry at the University of Oxford said: "A large number are on medication for no good reason at all.

"It's a question of education."

He explained it was not entirely clear why the risk of death increased but one explanation could be people on the drugs being more inactive so at risk of things like chest infections and pneumonia. Rebecca Wood, chief executive of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, said the results were a "wake-up call". "We must avoid the use of these drugs as a potentially dangerous 'chemical cosh' to patients who would be better off without it."

Review

The government said it was currently carrying out a review of anti-psychotic drugs and the issue would be addressed as part of the long-awaited National Dementia Strategy for England due to be published shortly. Care services minister Phil Hope said the inappropriate administration of medication is "entirely unacceptable".

"Guidance to health professionals and care staff is very clear, anti-psychotic drugs should only be used when they are appropriate as part of best clinical care practice. "But there is undoubtedly strong evidence which suggests that these drugs are being over used."

Dr Richard Perry, consultant neurologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, said: "This work highlights the pressing need to develop and evaluate alternative pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments for behavioural symptoms in dementia."

Dr Tim Kendall who drew up the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines on dementia said they had advised the drugs were used "sparingly".

"When doctors routinely ignore the evidence in this flagrant way, as recent surveys seem to suggest, for a group of people who are disenfranchised and very dependent, it should be considered a very serious matter indeed."

Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/health/7817583.stm

Taking the cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins.
Who benefits?
January 12, 2009
International Herald Tribune

A large new study seems to suggest that millions of people with low cholesterol could benefit from taking the cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins. That would be a boon for some drug companies, but whether it would be good for all patients remains an open question.

The study, led by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, involved some 17,800 participants. They included men 50 and older and women 60 and older with no history of heart disease or high cholesterol. But they all had high levels of C-reactive protein, or CRP, which is often a measure of inflammation in artery walls, and many had such other risk factors as high blood pressure, obesity and smoking. Half were given the statin Crestor, made by AstraZeneca; the other half received a placebo.

The benefits of the statin were so striking that a monitoring board stopped the trial in midcourse so the placebo group could get the medicine, too. Those who got the statin had 54 per cent fewer heart attacks, 48 per cent fewer strokes and 20 per cent fewer deaths. Whether the statin helped because it reduced normal cholesterol to even lower levels or because it reduced CRP levels is not clear. Some 16 million to 20 million Americans take statins to reduce bad cholesterol, but some experts believe the new study suggests several million more should probably take statins as well.

Before rushing ahead, it will be crucial to establish who might really benefit. An editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine, where the study was published, stresses the importance of establishing the long-term safety of drastically lowering cholesterol levels before committing patients who have no clinical signs of disease to decades of drug treatment. Participants who took Crestor also had a worrisome increase in diabetes.

The results must also be evaluated in the light of two potential conflicts of interest. The lead investigator stands to benefit from a patent involving the use of CRP to evaluate the risk of cardiovascular disease, and AstraZeneca financed the study, whose results it is now trumpeting as "dramatic."

The task ahead for the writers of medical guidelines is to define exactly who could benefit by taking statins.

Lack of sleep 'raises cold risk'
From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7823599.stm

Sleeping for under seven hours a night greatly raises the risk of catching a cold, US research has suggested.

A team from Carnegie Mellon University found the risk was trebled compared with those who slept for eight hours or more a night. It is thought that a lack of sleep impairs the immune system and the body's ability to fight off the viruses that cause colds and flu.

The study appears in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine. Previous research has suggested that people who sleep seven to eight hours a night have the lowest rates of heart disease. However, there has been little direct evidence that getting a good night's sleep can help ward off a cold.

The researchers studied 153 healthy men and women with an average age of 37 between 2000 and 2004. Each was interviewed about their sleeping habits over a two-week period. They were then quarantined and given nasal drops containing rhinovirus, which causes the common cold. For the following five days the volunteers reported any signs and symptoms of illness, and had mucus samples collected from their nasal passages. And 28 days after exposure to the virus, blood samples were taken from each volunteer so tests could be carried out to see if they had developed antibodies to fight infection.

Sleep quality

The less an individual slept, the more likely they were to develop a cold.

The quality of sleep also appeared to be important. Volunteers who spent less than 92% of their time in bed asleep were five-and-a-half times more likely to become ill than those who were asleep for at least 98% of their time in bed. The researchers believe that lack of good quality sleep disturbs regulation of key chemicals produced by the immune system to fight infection.

Professor Ron Eccles, director of the Common Cold Centre at the University of Cardiff, said sleep and the immune system were closely linked.

He said: "The immune system may control the sleep-wake pattern and lack of sleep or sleep disturbance may depress the immune response to infection.

"I do believe there is enough information on this to indicate that lack of sleep or sleep disturbance will reduce our resistance to infections such as colds and flu."

Dr Adrian Williams, director of the Sleep Disorders Centre, at St Thomas' Hospital, London, said the study echoed previous work in animals suggesting sleep had an effect on immunity.

Dr Neil Stanley, a sleep expert at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, agreed that previous research had shown that poor sleep impacts on immunity, but he said there was little data on its effect on specific infections, such as colds and flu.

Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/health/7823599.stm

Keep Fire Safety In Mind As Temperatures Drop
Fires related to heating equipment can occur

TORONTO, Jan. 13 /CNW/ - As many parts of Ontario prepare to be blasted by chilling Arctic temperatures this week, the Fire Marshal of Ontario is urging the public to keep fire safety in mind when taking steps to deal with colder winter weather. Winter months traditionally see more fires in Ontario homes related to heating equipment and appliances. People need to pay close attention to
potential fire hazards related to the use of fuel-burning appliances, space heaters and even block heaters in their vehicles.

QUOTES

"Block heaters should be treated just as any other piece of electrical equipment around the home," explains Pat Burke, Fire Marshal of Ontario. "Cords and connections should be in good repair and caution should be used to ensure circuits are not overloaded."

QUICK FACTS

• Burn dry, well-seasoned wood in fireplaces and woodstoves to reduce the risk of excessive creosote build-up in chimneys.

• Allow ashes from your woodstove or fireplace to cool before emptying them into a metal container with a tight-fitting lid. Keep the container outside.

• Keep intake and exhaust vents for furnaces and heating appliances free of ice and snow accumulations to reduce the risk of carbon monoxide build-up from inefficient combustion. Install carbon monoxide (CO) alarms to alert you to the presence of this deadly gas.

• Keep space heaters at least one metre (3 feet) away from anything that can burn, including curtains, upholstery, and clothing.

• Replace worn or damaged electrical wires and connections on vehicles and extension cords and use the proper gauge extension cord for vehicle block heaters.

• Consider using approved timers for vehicle block heaters rather than leaving heaters on all night.

• Ensure that vehicles are not left running inside any garage or building.

• Ensure there is a working smoke alarm on every storey of your home.