American heart health takes bad turn
ATLANTA, Sept. 25 (UPI) -- Obesity, diabetes and hypertension are eroding heart health gains of past decades, U.S. researchers say.
The study, published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, finds only one in 12 U.S. adults -- 8.3 percent -- had a low-risk profile for cardiovascular disease in the 1994-2004 period. However, there is one encouraging finding: Fewer adults are smoking.
Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys shows 4.4 percent of adults rated low risk in 1971-1975, 5.7 percent in 1976-1980, 10.5 percent in 1988-1994 and 7.5 percent in 1999-2004.
"Until the early '90s, we were moving in a positive direction, but then it took a turn and we're headed in a negative direction," the lead author, Dr. Earl Ford of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said in a statement.
The adults in the study were ages 25-74 and were considered low risk if they never smoked or were former smokers, were never diagnosed with diabetes, and kept total cholesterol below 200 milligrams per deciliter and blood pressure below 120/80 without the help of medication.
Chemicals linked to testicular cancer
COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Sept. 25 (UPI) -- Higher levels of environmental chemicals in breast milk are linked to a higher incidence of testicular cancer, researchers in Denmark found.
Konrad Krysiak-Baltyn and colleagues in Denmark, Finland and Germany measured levels of 121 chemicals in 68 breast milk samples from Denmark and Finland to compare exposure of mothers to environmental endocrine disrupting chemicals.
There is a worldwide increase in testicular cancer, but the cause remains unknown, Krysiak-Baltyn said.
In some countries, such as Denmark the prevalence of this disease and other male reproductive disorders is conspicuously high, while in Finland the incidence are markedly lower, Krysiak-Baltyn said.
"We were very surprised to find that some endocrine disrupting chemicals levels, including some dioxins, PCBs and some pesticides, were significantly higher in Denmark than in Finland," Niels Skakkebaek, a senior member of the research team at the Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen said.
"Our findings reinforce the view that environmental exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals may explain some of the temporal and between-country differences in incidence of male reproductive disorders."
The findings are published in the International Journal of Andrology.
Feathered dinosaur fossil found in China
BEIJING, Sept. 25 (UPI) -- A feathery four-winged fossil found in China proves birds evolved from dinosaurs, archeologists at the Academy of Science in Beijing said.
The fossil is the most well-preserved of several dinosaur-related fossils with feathers found this year in northeastern China, Xu Xing, a professor at the academy told the BBC in a story published Friday.
"All over the skeleton, you see feathers," Xu said of Anchiornis huxleyi, which has 4-foot-long wings and belongs to the Troodontidae, a family of theropods most closely related to birds.
The fossils, excavated from Jianchang County, are believed to be more than 150 million years old, about 10 million years older than Archaeopteryx, the oldest recognized bird, which was discovered in Germany.
A. huxleyi's four wings may have been key to the evolutionary transition from dinosaurs to birds, said Xu, whose findings were presented this week at the annual Society of Vertebrate Paleontologists, held this year at Britain's University of Bristol.
Vitamin D lack linked to blood pressure
CHICAGO, Sept. 25 (UPI) -- Vitamin D deficiency in younger women is associated with increased risk of high blood pressure in mid-life, a U.S. researcher said.
Co-investigator Flojaune C. Griffin, a doctoral candidate in epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health in Ann Arbor and colleagues examined women enrolled in the Michigan Bone Health and Metabolism Study.
They analyzed data from 559 Caucasian women living in Tecumseh, Mich., beginning in 1992 when the women were ages 24-44, with an average age of 38 years.
The researchers took blood pressure readings annually throughout the study and measured vitamin D blood levels once in 1993.
The study found premenopausal women who had vitamin D deficiency in 1993 had three times the risk of developing systolic hypertension 15 years later compared to those who had normal levels of vitamin D.
"This study differs from others because we are looking over the course of 15 years, a longer follow-up than many studies," Griffin said in a statement."Our results indicate that early vitamin D deficiency may increase the long-term risk of high blood pressure in women at mid-life."
The findings were presented at the American Heart Association's 63rd High Blood Pressure Research Conference in Chicago.
