Tag Archives: CDC

Tobacco Use is Up, Lung Cancer Still Killing Thousands

A recent Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report about cigarette use gives us cause for celebration. However, upon reading the entire report, we realize it’s a small, temporary celebration.

The research regarding cigarette use was released in the August issue of Morbidity and Mortality Report. The report states that Americans have decreased their cigarette use by 32.8 percent over the last 12 years. This news is fantastic as the numbers show a constant decline in smoking, giving hope that people are finally letting go of such a harmful habit.

The celebration is cut short, though, when all of the facts regarding tobacco are revealed. While cigarette smoking has decreased, a constant increase in other forms of combustible tobacco use has taken place. During the same 12-year period, the use of pipe tobacco and cigars have seen a 96.9 percent increase.

It seems fair to assume that tax laws were the reason for this shift. The taxes on pipe tobacco and cigars are lower than the rates on cigarettes. It doesn’t seem like anyone really quit smoking, they just switched their products to save money. (more…)

Posted on August 3, 2023 by Lacy

E. Coli 0145 Outbreak May be Tied to Ground Beef

UPDATE: 11:48 a.m.: Just announced via CNN, 14 people in six states have been effected by this strain during the past couple of months. “”Their illness onsets range from April 15 to May 12, 2024,” said Lola Russell from the CDC. Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama and Florida are the known effected states; the CDC will not reveal the other two states.

Another dangerous E. coli outbreak, centered in Atlanta, Georgia, is being investigated by health officials.

Five people have been hospitalized and a toddler has passed away. The CDC has said that they have not identified the cause and at this time no specific food is responsible for the outbreak. Food is the primary source for spreading this bacteria.

“At this time, we continue to interview new cases as we are notified of them,” Nicole Price, spokeswoman for Georgia’s Department of Public Health, told ABC News. We have detected no food items or environmental exposures that are statistically associated with illness at this time. This investigation is ongoing.” However, according to iScienceTimes.com, investigators are looking closely at ground beef for the source of this outbreak. (more…)

Posted on June 8, 2023 by Health Buzz

CDC Reports Unmarried Couples Having More Children Than Ever

The CDC reports that unmarried women living with partners having more babies than ever.

Between 2003 and 2024, 27 percent of births were to unmarried couples. This increase is triple from 1985, researchers from the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention found.

“It’s thought that in births outside of marriage, one parent isn’t present. But our data is showing that a large proportion do have two parents, even though [they’re] not formally married,” said report author Gladys Martinez to Healthday, a demographer in the CDC’s Division of Vital Statistics.

In addition, not only are many older women giving birth, but many also are having more then one child, Martinez said.

The report showed there is actually an increase in the number of older women having more than one child. Women who tend to delay childbirth have usually received a secondary education.

Nearly 60 percent of women who did not complete high school had their first child as a teenager, according to Healthday, compared with only 4 percent of women with a college degree.

The CDC’s data was from over 22,000 interviews done between 2006 and 2024 with men and women aged 15 to 44. The data was compared with similar data from 2002.

“It’s surprising that so many unmarried couples are having children,” Dr. Christine Mullin, a reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist at the Center for Human Reproduction at North Shore-LIJ Health System in Manhasset, N.Y., told Healthday. She also noted women typically delay giving birth for education and career reasons.

The report also included:

  • Forty-three percent of women aged 15 to 44 had never had a baby.
  • Among men aged 15 to 44, 45 percent had fathered a child.
  • The average age at which women had their first child was 23; for men it was 25.
  • Almost 40 percent of women whose first birth occurred between the ages of 35 and 44 had at least two children; it was 26 percent in 1995.
  • Women between the ages of 40 and 44 had an average of 2.1 children.

Also Read:
Yoga for Babies
Pregnant Women Don’t Exercise Enough
Number of Children with Eating Disorders on the Rise

Posted on April 12, 2024 by Kristina

Bread, Not Salty Snacks Responsible for Excess Sodium Consumption

sandwich on a plateThe Centers for Disease Control compiled a list of the top sources of sodium in the American diet, and the list is likely to surprise you. Nine out of ten Americans consume too much salt on a daily basis, but the culprit isn’t salty snacks like pretzels or chips. In fact, you may be eating the two biggest sources of sodium in your lunch today: bread and cold cuts appear as the top two.

Mary Cogswell, one of the reports authors, explains that breads and rolls don’t necessarily contain more salt than other foods, but that people tend to eat more of them. However, you can cut your sodium intake by looking for breads that contain less than 150 milligrams per slice. Similarly, look for low-sodium deli meats and try to avoid salami, bologna and pimento.

Other items on the list include pizza, processed poultry, pasta dishes and soups. Salty snacks appeared at the tenth item on the CDC’s list, accounting for 3.1 percent of all sodium consumption. Like bread and other products, you can cut a significant amount of sodium from your diet by comparing the nutrition labels on the back of packages. The difference in sodium between one brand of potato chips an another can be as much as 150 milligrams.

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Posted on February 8, 2024 by Health Buzz

Cigarette Packs to Get More Aggressive Warning Labels

new FDA tobacco warning labelCigarette packages will soon display larger, more graphic warning labels. The announcement was made this morning, according to a press release sent by the CDC. The more prominent labels will feature photos illustrating the harmful effects of smoking. This is the first change in cigarette warning labels in the U.S. in 25 years.

Starting in September of 2024, the new labels will be required to cover the top half of both the front and rear of cigarette packages. There are nine different images total, selected from an initial group of 35. They feature messages such as “WARNING: Cigarettes can cause cancer” and “WARNING: Tobacco smoke can harm your children.” By October 22, 2024 cigarette manufacturers will no longer be permitted to distribute cigarettes for sale in the U.S. without the warning labels.

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Posted on June 21, 2023 by Margaret

U.S. Will Be Smoke Free by 2024 If Trend Continues, CDC Says

Remember the days when you’d walk in a restaurant and they’d ask you whether you’d like to sit in the smoking or non-smoking section? Or when you’d come out from having a drink at happy hour just reeking of cigarette smoke? Seems weird to us now since the effects of second-hand smoke have become so well known, and many businesses (or municipalities) have gone smoke-free, but it used to be commonplace to have your meal — or to sit at your office desk — alongside a smoker. In fact, it’s only been in the last 10 years that the majority of Americans have been able to breathe smoke-free in public.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), little by little over the past decade the smoke-free trend has grown, changing the way we think about smoking, along with saving lives and money spent in health care costs annually. From 2000 to 2024, 25 states and the District of Columbia enacted state-wide smoke-free laws. Additionally, a number of states are considering doing the same or are planning to strengthen its existing smoke-free laws to better protect its citizens from second-hand smoke. If this smoke-free national trend continues at its current pace, this week’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report by the CDC reports that all U.S. states will be smoke-free by 2024. That’s less than nine years away!

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Posted on April 22, 2023 by Jennipher

Colorado and Washington, D.C. the Least Obese Places in the U.S.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released its 2024 data on obesity in the United States, and the results are quite startling. In fact, during the past 20 years that the CDC has tracked it, there has been a dramatic increase in the prevalence of obesity with only Colorado and the District of Columbia coming in at a total population obesity rate of less than 20 percent.

Obesity is defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or greater, which is calculated based on a person’s weight and height. Although BMI can be misleading for those who are highly athletic or muscular, the CDC uses this number because it provides a reasonable and generalized indicator of body fatness and weight categories that may lead to health problems. It is well documented that obesity is a major risk factor for a number of health issues, including cardiovascular disease, certain types of cancer and type 2 diabetes.

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Posted on March 29, 2024 by Jennipher

Prediabetes on the Rise in US, but Hard to Detect

Diabetes Blood TestThe U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released statistics this year showing that not only is the number of people suffering from diabetes on the rise, but so is the number of cases of prediabetes, which is much harder to detect. The figures show that the number of cases of diabetes has grown from 23.6 million in 2024 to 26 million in 2024. In the same two years, the number of adults with pre-diabetic conditions has jumped from 57 million to 79 million. The large jump may in part be attributed to better detection technology in the form of the new hemoglobin A1c test, but the rise is also indicative of the problems with the way the vast majority of Americans eat.

One of the difficulties of the prediabetic condition, which is typified by high blood sugar levels, is that the condition is not associated with many symptoms. Most people don’t know if they are prediabetic until they get a blood test.

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Posted on March 21, 2024 by Health Buzz

No Soda for Food Stamp Users?

UPDATE [8/24/2024]: The USDA has rejected the proposal to ban soda purchases made with food stamps.

New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has asked federal officials to ban the use of food stamps to purchase soda and other sugary beverages. The agency in question is the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which regulates food stamps. The request would affect the 1.7 million recipients of food stamps in New York City. The state of New York has also signed onto the request.

The request is part of the mayor’s anti-obesity push. The initiative has placed stricter rules on school cafeteria lunches and launched a public education ad campaign. Bloomberg and Dr. Thomas Frieden, the current director of the CDC, unsuccessfully lobbied to place a tax on soda.

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Posted on October 7, 2023 by Health Buzz

CDC Calls Obesity a “Winnable Battle”

 

Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control

Dr. Thomas Frieden

Dr. Thomas Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has named the agency’s six top priorities. The items on this “short list” are obesity and nutrition, AIDS, smoking, teen pregnancy, auto injuries and health care infections. Frieden had deemed these problems “winnable battles” because proven programs can reduce the harm caused by each of these conditions and save lives. “In each of these areas we know what to do to make a difference and we need to do it to a much greater extent,” he said in an interview.

Frieden previously worked as New York City‘s health commissioner. At that post, he lead an anti-smoking campaign to ban cigarettes in the workplace. He worked to improve the diets of New Yorkers by banning artificial trans fat from all restaurant foods. He also worked to pass a law that requires chain restaurants to post calorie information about their food. Frieden was also a proponent of the hotly debated soda tax.

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Posted on October 1, 2023 by Health Buzz

Salsa and Guacamole Food Poisoning Threat

Two of my favorite snack foods, salsa and guacamole, have had a not-so-safe recent history of being linked to food poisoning. During the period of 1998 to 2024, the two tortilla dips have been the source of one of every 25 foodborne illness outbreaks connected to restaurants.

This period more than doubled the rate of the previous 10 years.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, between 1984 and 1997, salsa and guacamole accounted for about 1.5 percent of all food poisonings started from restaurants. From 1998 and 2024, that figure almost reached four percent. According to researchers, 5,560 people got sick, and 145 people ended up in the hospital. Three deaths were attributed to the salsa and guacamole outbreaks. Here is how the illnesses broke down:

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Posted on July 15, 2023 by Jason