The Swampscott Board of Health has announced a schedule of free flu and pneumonia clinics, open to all adult residents, 18 and older, on a first-come, first-served basis.
Clinics are scheduled:

· Wednesday, Nov. 12, 9 to 11:30 a.m., Congregation Shirat Hayam, 55 Atlantic Ave.

· Tuesday, Nov. 18, 9 to 11:30 a.m., Congregation Shirat Hayam, 55 Atlantic Ave.

· Tuesday, Dec. 2, 6 to 8:30 p.m., Swampscott Council on Aging Senior Center, 200R Essex St.

All insurance cards, both Medicare and HMO, must be brought on the day of the flu clinic.

Roseanne Morrissey, Swampscott’s public health nurse, offers the following information and suggestions:

Influenza or “flu” is an infection of the respiratory tract that can affect millions of people every year. It is highly contagious and occurs mainly in the late fall, winter, or early spring.

Influenza is spread from person-to-person through mists or sprays of infectious respiratory secretions causes by coughing and sneezing. It is very important to cover your nose and mouth while sneezing or coughing. Then, you must promptly wash your hands and do so every time you cough or sneeze.

Perhaps the simplest and most effective way to avoid influenza is to wash your hands often with soap and warm water. You should wash your hands for at least 20 seconds. (Tip: have your children sing the “Happy Birthday” song twice while washing their hands). When the soap is combined with this scrubbing action, it helps to dislodge and remove germs.

When soap and water are not available, you may use alcohol-based gel sanitizer or hand wipes. If you are using a gel, rub the gel into your hands until they are dry. The gel doesn’t need water to work; the alcohol in the gel kills germs that may cause the flu. It is important to note that hand wipes and gel sanitizer do not remove dirt that may be on your skin.

Avoid touching your eyes, t lose and mouth. Germs are often spread when people touch something that is contaminated with germs and then touch their eyes, nose or mouth. Some germs can live up to two hours on surfaces such as doorknobs, tables or shopping carriages.

To minimize these side effects of air pollution — especially if you have heart or lung disease — the American Academy of Family Physicians offers these suggestions:

1. When pollution levels are high, stay inside as much as possible.
2. If you must engage in outdoor activities, try to schedule them first thing in the morning or in the evening, after sunset.
3. When air quality is poor, don’t exercise outdoors.
4. Avoid any outdoor activities that require you to exert yourself. Taking in more air also means breathing in additional pollutants.

While he is grateful for the help, the hospital is absorbing a bill of more than $80,000, part of the $4.3 million it spends on such patients as Nordlund in a year’s time. When all of the charity and uncompensated care is added up for 2007, Genesis wrote off $42.3 million, officials there said, a percentage that has grown dramatically over the past few years.

Nordlund has a high school degree and a year of post-graduate training. He has worked in factories most of his life and is skilled at welding and driving a forklift tractor. Divorced, he is the father of two teenage girls and has an extended family, several of whom live near his father’s farm in Albert City.

He moved to Sacramento, Calif., for a job last year, but he began having seizures — eventually found to be caused by the brain cancer — in January. When the seizures became more frequent, he returned home to his father’s home and a hospital in Buena Vista County, roughly three-fourths of the way across the state. With no job or health insurance, his best option for coverage is IowaCare.

IowaCare is the state program that provides health benefits to low-income adults not eligible for Medicaid or Medicare. In 2005, it replaced the former “state papers” charity procedure that had been in effect since 1919.

The program essentially covers all eligible Iowans. About 27,000 are enrolled now, and that number is expected to grow. With one exception, treatment is provided at University Hospitals in Iowa City. For Polk County residents only, it is available at Broadlawns Medical Center in Des Moines.

Because Nordlund’s address is Albert City, 175 miles northwest of Des Moines, his treatment was ordered to take place at University Hospitals. He was transferred to Davenport for radiation therapy because of some state-of-the-art equipment available at the Genesis Cancer Care Institute.

The appropriation is $63 million for the IowaCare program, which includes a complicated mix of state and federal funds. That amount is expected to grow to $81 million next year as the needs increase.

“It’s outrageous,” said Sara Sadhwani, project director for the Asian Pacific American Legal Center in Los Angeles. “It seems absolutely premature to mandate this for immigrant women.”

The new requirement went into effect Aug. 1 and will affect more than 130,000 immigrants a year.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in June 2006 approved the vaccine Gardasil for females ages 9 to 26 to block strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, a sexually transmitted virus that can cause cervical cancer. About 4,000 women in the U.S. die of the disease each year.

The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended the vaccine for 11- and 12-year-old girls, with catch-up shots up to age 26. The vaccine works best if given early, before a young woman is sexually active and might have contracted the virus.

Unknown to many immigrant and health advocates, a 1996 immigration law directs the Citizenship and Immigration Services to require that new immigrants receive any inoculation recommended for U.S. residents by the CDC’s immunization committee.

CDC spokesman Curtis Allen added that his agency’s immunization committee, a panel of physicians that advises the CDC, did not consider the immigration implications of its recommendation.

“They made the recommendation based on the effectiveness and importance of the vaccine,” he said. “That’s their charge, and not immigration.”

A broad analysis of genes has turned up 26 mutations linked with the most common form of lung cancer, several of which play a role in other cancers as well, researchers said on Wednesday.

The findings, published in the journal Nature, double the number of genes already linked with lung adenocarcinoma, a type of non-small cell lung cancer that accounts for 40 percent of the more than 1 million lung cancer deaths each year.

“We think that our study may achieve a real impact on the cure of lung cancer patients,” Dr. Matthew Meyerson of the Broad Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University said in a telephone briefing.

Meyerson was part of an international team that decoded 623 genes from tumors in 188 lung cancer patients and compared these to genes from normal tissues from the same people.

They found 26 genes that were most commonly altered in the tumors, most of which had never been linked with lung cancer. Some had been found in other types of tumors.

The new genes included mutations in neurofibromatosis 1, a gene known to cause a rare neurological disorder and raise the risk of nerve and brain tumors; ataxia telengiectasia mutated or ATM, which has ties with leukemia and lymphoma; retinoblastoma 1, which is linked with a rare childhood cancer of the eye; and adenomatosis polyposis coli or APC, which is common in colon cancer.

Many of the mutated genes also share common biological pathways or gene networks.

“Looking at the pathways helps simplify the picture,” said Richard Wilson of Washington University in St. Louis, who helped lead the project.

PROMISING DRUGS

One of the most promising of these pathways is the mitogen-activated protein kinase or MAPK pathway, altered in more than 70 percent of the tumors. Drug compounds called MEK inhibitors that affect this pathway have already shown promise in mice with lung cancer.

About half of the tumors had defects in the p53 pathway, which is critical for suppressing tumor growth. Companies such as Introgen Therapeutics Inc (INGN.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) are working on drugs that affect this pathway.

Some 30 percent of the tumors had mutations in the mTOR pathway, raising hope that drugs that inhibit the mTOR protein might help some lung cancer patients. Swiss drugmaker Novartis’ (NOVN.VX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) mTOR inhibitor for kidney cancer, Afinitor, is currently under review by U.S. regulators.

The researchers also saw that a familiar class of genes known as tyrosine kinases, which trigger cell growth, played a key role in lung tumors. Gene families in this group include EGFR and VEGF.

Genentech (DNA.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Roche Holding AG’s (ROG.VX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) drug Avastin targets VEGF, while their pill for advanced lung cancer called Tarceva interferes with EGFR. A recent study found combining the two did little to help lung cancer patients live any longer.

Meyerson said genetic testing may help determine which patients might benefit from current drugs, but he said many new drugs will likely come from the findings as well.

“Probably, we will need a lot more drugs. What’s great is we’ve identified many new drug targets,” he said.

Some analysts predict the market for non-small cell lung cancer could exceed $4 billion between 2010 and 2015.

The information with Reuters

Experts said that might be because parents are more aware and quicker to have their kids checked out by a doctor.

About 1 in 26 children had food allergies last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Wednesday. That’s up from 1 in 30 kids in 1997.

The 18 percent increase is significant enough to be considered more than a statistical blip, said Amy Branum of the CDC, the study’s lead author.

Nobody knows for sure what’s driving the increase. A doubling in peanut allergies — noted in earlier studies — is one factor, some experts said. Also, children seems to be taking longer to outgrow milk and egg allergies than they did in decades past.

But also figuring into the equation are parents and doctors who are more likely to consider food as the trigger for symptoms like vomiting, skin rashes and breathing problems.

“A couple of decades ago, it was not uncommon to have kids sick all the time and we just said ‘They have a weak stomach’ or ‘They’re sickly,’” said Anne Munoz-Furlong, chief executive of the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network, a Virginia-based advocacy organization.

Parents today are quicker to take their kids to specialists to check out the possibility of food allergies, said Munoz-Furlong, who founded the nonprofit in 1991.

The CDC results came from an in-person, door-to-door survey in 2007 of the households of 9,500 U.S. children under age 18.

When asked if a child in the house had any kind of food allergy in the previous 12 months, about 4 percent said yes. The parents were not asked if a doctor had made the diagnosis, and no medical records were checked. Some parents may not know the difference between immune system-based food allergies and digestive disorders like lactose intolerance, so it’s possible the study’s findings are a bit off, Branum said.

However, the study’s results mirror older national estimates that were extrapolated from smaller, more intensive studies, said Dr. Hugh Sampson, a food allergy researcher at the Mount Sinai School of medicine.

“This tells us those earlier extrapolations were fairly close,” Sampson said.

The CDC study did not give a breakdown of which foods were to blame for the allergies. Other research suggests that about 1 in 40 Americans will have a milk allergy at some point in their lives, and 1 in 50 percent will be allergic to eggs. Most people outgrow these allergies in childhood.

About 1 in 50 are allergic to shellfish and nearly 1 in 100 react to peanuts, allergies that generally persist for a lifetime, according to Sampson.

Some people have more than one food allergy, he said, explaining why the overall food allergy prevalence is about 4 percent.

Children with food allergies also were more likely to have asthma, eczema and respiratory problems than kids without food allergies, the CDC study found, confirming previous research.

The study also found that the number of children hospitalized for food allergies was up. The number of hospital discharges jumped from about 2,600 a year in the late 1990s to more than 9,500 annually in recent years, the CDC results showed.

Also, Hispanic children had lower rates of food allergies than white or black children — the first such racial/ethnic breakdown in a national study.

The reason for that last finding may not be genetics, said Munoz-Furlong. She is Hispanic and said people in her own family have been unwilling to consider food allergies as the reason for children’s illnesses. “It’s a question of awareness,” she said. AP

Experts say about 80 percent of a person’s sun exposure occurs during daily activities-walking to the car, sitting in front of a window-and that one year of incidental sun exposure is like spending a week at the beach without sunscreen.

To keep skin healthy and protected throughout the day, incorporate a moisturizer that contains SPF into your daily skin care routine, as hydration and sun protection are key elements for maintaining healthy skin.

Skin that is dry may be unable to perform its primary function, which is to protect your body from environmental damage, such as free radicals, pollutants and the sun’s UV rays.

Additionally, skin that is dry has a difficult time renewing itself from sun damage, leaving it vulnerable to premature aging, including wrinkles and age spots.

Look for a nongreasy moisturizer with sunscreen, such as Aveeno Daily Moisturizing Lotion with SPF 15, which combines the natural moisturizing benefits of colloidal oatmeal to soothe dry skin with Active Photobarrier Complex, a sun-protection technology that is specifically engineered to deliver very high, very broad and photo-stable UVA and UVB protection.

The moisturizer also contains rich emollients that provide 24- hour moisturization, leaving skin soft, smooth and healthy looking.

For more information, visit www.aveeno.com.

Choose all your ingredients carefully and make a few simple substitutions, and it’s easier than you might imagine to create tasty, decadent treats with significantly less calories and fat. Here are a few tips to help:

• Use low-fat sour cream or plain yogurt in place of sour cream.

• Try low-fat versions of half-and-half or cream cheese to reduce fat.

• Use egg substitute in place of fresh eggs to lower calories and fat, or use two egg whites in place of one whole egg.

• Choose recipes with cocoa; it is naturally fat-free.

• Select fresh or frozen fruit for a sweet ending to the day. Serve with fat-free whipped topping and a few toasted nuts for a special touch.

• Traditional recipes for such mouthwatering desserts as cheesecake and Bananas Foster have a high share of calories from sugar and fat. By substituting Karo Lite Syrup for original Karo syrup, you can easily reduce calories. This simple substitution can work in a variety of your favorite Karo recipes with the same great results.

Although Karo Lite Syrup is great for most dessert recipes, for best results in candy and no-bake cereal bars, use original Karo Light or Dark Corn Syrup.

Here are two tantalizing, guilt-free recipes to try the next time you are looking for a little sweet treat:

Lite Frozen Chocolate Cheesecake Pie

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Freeze Time: 6 to 8 hours

Yield: 8 servings

½ cup Karo Lite Syrup

½ cup fat-free half-and-half

1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips

2 tablespoons cocoa

2 tablespoons sucralose sweetener

1 tablespoon sugar

1 package (8 ounces) fat-free cream cheese, softened, cut into cubes

1 teaspoon vanilla

11/2 cups (4 ounces) reduced- calorie whipped topping

1 9-inch chocolate cookie crumb crust

1. Heat syrup and half-and-half in a microwave-safe container for one minute. Stir in chocolate chips and heat for 30 seconds; stir until smooth and well blended. Pour mixture into blender or food processor; add cocoa, sucralose, sugar, cream cheese and vanilla.

2. Blend on medium speed in blender until very smooth. Add whipped topping and mix until uniformly blended.

3. Pour into crust. Cover and freeze for at least six hours. Remove from the freezer and thaw for 15 to 30 minutes before serving. Garnish with additional whipped topping and cocoa, if desired.

Recipe Tip: For a Mocha Pie, stir two teaspoons instant coffee granules into the Karo Lite Syrup mixture before microwaving.

Lite Bananas Foster

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 5 minutes

Yield: 4 servings

1 tablespoon trans-fat-free margarine

1 tablespoon sucralose sweetener and brown sugar blend

11/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon cinnamon

Pinch of ground nutmeg

3 firm, ripe, 7-to-8-inch bananas, peeled, halved and sliced lengthwise

¼ cup Karo Lite Syrup

1 tablespoon rum or banana liqueur, optional

Low-fat vanilla ice cream

1. Melt margarine in a large skillet over medium heat. Stir in brown sugar blend, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg.

2. Add syrup when mixture begins to bubble; gently stir in bananas. Cook bananas for about one minute per side until hot. Add rum, if desired. Remove from heat and serve immediately over ice cream.

For pecan and pumpkin pie recipes, visit www.karosyrup.com.

Full of chocolate flavor yet low in fat, this Lite Frozen Chocolate Cheesecake Pie is a great dessert choice.

Luscious Lite Bananas Foster is rich in flavor but lower in calories, thanks to a few simple ingredient substitutions.

This mechanical force may be harnessed throughout biology by tissues to aid wound formation, organ development and other processes that require cell movement, according to a Duke University team that melds biology with physics to investigate force at the cellular level.

Cells are known to move in coordinated fashion during the closure of an eye-shaped opening on the back of a developing fruit fly embryo, a model system Duke biophysicists have been working on for nearly a decade. Duke biology chair Dan Kiehart likens this dorsal closure event to drawing the strings on a sleeping bag.

The newly discovered force created by apoptotic cells imploding and withdrawing “is making a force sort of like a friend helping you tuck the edge of the sleeping bag in,” Kiehart said.

Dying cells appear to occur at random times across the plane of cells comprising the shrinking opening, in a pattern that totals about 10 percent of the population of cells. When Kiehart first observed them in 2000, he thought “well if it’s only 10 percent, I can ignore it.”

Physics post-doctoral researcher Yusuke Toyama thought that the apoptotic cells might be particularly significant for force production. Toyama, who’s training started in particle physics but has moved toward biology, began carefully measuring the motion of cells immediately surrounding a dying cell.

What he saw through the microscope, by laser-induced fluorescence, was that as a dying cell collapsed and sunk beneath the surface, it contributed to the forces pulling the edges of the opening closer together.

“So apoptosis is not a single cell event but is amplified by the five-to-seven surrounding cells,” Toyama said.

On balance, these dying cells exert perhaps a third to a half of the force that is moving the edges of the opening together, so it’s a very significant part of the process, said Glenn Edwards, professor of physics and director of Duke’s Free Electron Laser Lab. “The forces at work here are measured in perhaps billionths of a Newton, but that’s because you’re moving cells,” Edwards said. At the cellular scale, these forces are quite substantial.

The group’s findings appear in the Sept. 19 edition of Science. Funding for the research was provided by the National Institutes of Health.

Though this finding is so far limited to dorsal closure in the fruit fly embryo, Edwards and Kiehart are going to begin looking for the mechanical force of apoptosis elsewhere. Their earlier findings on the fruit fly model so far have appeared applicable to wound closure and organ development in vertebrates like humans.

It’s entirely possible, Kiehart said, that evolution has harnessed the mechanical force created by dying cells in many other ways. “In evolution, biology uses what is available to it.”

————-
ScienceDaily - Adapted from materials provided by Duke University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Talking with other parents, I realized that many are getting bombarded with misinformation regarding sports nutrition. Therefore, I decided to write up some nutrition guidelines for active kids so that you will have answers to the most commonly asked questions. Active pre-teen females (ages 6 to 12) require anywhere from 1600-2200 calories per day, while males of the same age range need 1800-2400 calories per day.

The more time spent doing physical activity means more calories and other nutrients are needed to support the demands of physical activity as well as normal growth and development. Fortunately, most athletes will naturally increase their food intake because their hunger will increase. But as a parent, what you can do is make sure your child is eating a little more food when they’re active than when they’re not.

Carbohydrates

While many adults try to stay away from carbohydrates, battling the buldge, they are the main source of fuel for muscles during exercise. Children should be offered carbohydrate-rich foods at each meal and snack time.

Avoid giving your children simple carbohydrates such as cookies, candy or soft drinks before exercise. Instead, offer complex carbohydrates such as breads, cereals, rice and pasta. These foods are digested relatively quickly, so blood sugar levels will remain stable before practice or a game. If your child is nervous before a game and has trouble eating, then offer them liquids such as sports drinks.

Protein

Young athletes get all the protein they need when eating a carbohydrate-rich, well-balanced diet. Excess protein that replaces carbohydrates can actually impair athletic performance. Good sources of protein include chicken, turkey, eggs, cheese, milk, yogurt, dried beans and legumes, and lean meats.

Hydration

Child athletes need plenty of fluids. Grade school children are especially susceptible to heat exhaustion and heat stroke because they do not produce sweat as easily as adults. As a result, your child’s body temperature will rise faster, and they can become dehydrated quickly. To prevent dehydration, encourage your child to drink 3-4 ounces of fluids every 15 minutes.

Remember-not all beverages are created equally. Avoid beverages high in sugar, like fruit juices and soft drinks, because they are absorbed more slowly and may increase the chance of stomach cramps and nausea. Sports drinks containing carbohydrates and electrolytes like sodium and potassium are recommended to help keep your child well-hydrated.

Pre-exercise and post-exercise meals

Active children need to eat a small meal or snack every 3-4 hours to help keep their energy up and blood sugar stable, especially when they’re exercising. A pre-event meal is suggested, and it serves two main purposes: first, it can prevent your child from feeling hungry before or during the activity. Second, it helps supply fuel to the muscles so that your child can go the distance during practice and the event.

The pre-exercise snack or meal should be high in carbohydrates and low to moderate in protein, fat and fiber so it can easily be digested. Some suggestions include fresh fruit low in fiber (plums, melon and peaches), breads, bagels and crackers.

The post-exercise snack or meal should be moderate in protein and include carbohydrates, a combination that will help replenish glycogen stores and repair muscle tissue. Some ideas include fruit yogurt and a banana, turkey and cheese sandwich or spaghetti with meat sauce.

Copyright © 2007 Procter & Gamble Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.