Living Today: Issues of modern living

CHOCOLATE MILK JUST AS GOOD

A University of Vermont study finds that chocolate and strawberry flavored milks give children the calcium they need in a form they'll actually drink, without adding extra fat and sugar to their diets.

Researchers evaluated data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Continuing Survey of Food Intakes of Individuals to determine the typical beverage intake of 3,888 children from ages 5 to 17.

The results show children who drink flavored milk consume fewer nutrient-poor soft drinks and fruit drinks than their counterparts who don't drink flavored milk.

"While many moms may be concerned that flavored milk will add to their child's added sugar intake, this study shows that flavored milk actually helps boost their overall calcium intake, without impacting their total added sugar intake," says Rachel Johnson, the study's lead author.

Soft drink and fruit drink consumption are crowding out more nutritious beverages like milk and negatively affecting children's diet quality, Johnson said.

Government recommendations state that children ages 4 to 8 need 800 milligrams of calcium a day, or the equivalent of about three glasses of milk, while children ages 9 to 18 need 1,300 milligrams of calcium, or the equivalent of about four glasses of milk.

DOGS CAN PASS INFECTION TO HUMANS

A professor of microbiology at Aberdeen University in Scotland says he has found evidence that half of Britain's 6 million dogs are carriers of campylobacter, a potent bug that has bewildered scientists.

Cases of campylobacter, which causes symptoms ranging from severe stomach upset to paralysis, have surged in recent years.

Scientists had assumed poultry was the main source of infection, but Pennington says people can contract it from their dogs when petting or stroking the animals, The London Sunday Times reports.

Pennington, who is to present his findings to a House of Lords committee later this month, said, "We now know that half of pet dogs are infected with it, perhaps by picking it up in the wild at certain times of year."

Confirmed cases of campylobacter infection jumped from 25,000 in 1986 to 56,000 last year, but studies show the real incidence could be up to 10 times higher.

In rare cases it can trigger Guillain-Barre syndrome, a condition that results in creeping paralysis, starting in the hands and feet, then moving slowly toward the neck.

In dogs, the infection can cause severe temporary illness but the animals may also be able to transmit the disease in their feces for weeks or months afterwards, Pennington said.

BEES TO SNIFF FOR RIPE FRUIT

Trained bees are being used to sniff out the ripeness and flavor of fruit before it arrives on supermarket shelves in Britain, London's Sunday Telegraph reports.

In a program backed by the British supermaket chain Sainsbury's and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, honeybees detect airborne molecules in concentrations of less than one part per billion to "smell" whether fruit is ripe.

If successful, the screening process could revolutionise the delivery of all fresh supermarket produce, as well as fish and meat.

The new system has been devised by scientists at the Institute of Arable Crop Research at Rothamsted, Harpenden, Herts and Insense, a biotechnology company.

"Honeybees are amazingly sensitive, they can detect molecules at concentrations that are equivalent to detecting a grain of salt in a bathful of sand," said Professor Paul Davis of Insense.

According to Davis, the bees are easily trained to detect the molecules and their response is photographed and analyzed by computer.

Davis said the system could also be used to detect the ripeness of crops in the field, ensuring that they are harvested in time to reach peak flavor on supermarket shelves.

'SAFE-SEX FATIGUE'

Every three months about 10,000 people in the United States are newly infected with the virus that causes AIDS -- a level that has remained roughly constant since 1998, according to the International AIDS Conference in Barcelona, Spain.

However, doctors from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta say they are seeing troubling signs that might mean the rate of infections will rise once again.

Some fear the "safe sex" message that has been everywhere for the past 20 years may be resulting in "safe-sex fatigue."

Dr. Ron Valdiserri, deputy director of the CDC's National Center for HIV, Sexually Transmitted Diseases and Tuberculosis Prevention, said the rate of syphilis has increased from about 2.2 per 100,000 in men in New York City in 1996 to 6.9 per 100,000 in 2001. Most of those infections are occurring in men who have sex with men.

Valdiserri said that maintaining the message of safe sex is difficult and that some people are getting bored with HIV and tired of prevention messages.

(Thanks to UPI's Ed Susman)