Sacramento Bee, 10/12/08 (http://www.sacbee.com/749/story/1307764.html):

  “…Teen suicides, which had been on a downward trajectory for the previous two decades, showed an 18 percent rise in 2004 over the previous year, according to a recent report by Journal of the American Medical Association. Although the rate dipped slightly in 2005, the most recent year charted, the number remains well above predicted levels.

As for depression, the World Health Organization reports that one in 33 children and, among them, one in eight teens, is clinically depressed. The organization predicts those numbers could double by 2020…

Experts, for their part, continue to debate the reasons for the spike in suicides.

Some medical professionals, including the National Mental Health Association, blame the effect of the “black box” warning that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration put on antidepressants in 2004, the year before suicide rates rose precipitously. The warning stemmed from several reported cases in which antidepressants were said to have brought on teen suicides…”

NY Times, 10/13/08 (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/health/policy/13vitamind.html?_r=1&sq=+%22Vitamin%20D%22%20+health&st=nyt&oref=slogin&scp=1&pagewanted=print): 

The country’s leading group of pediatricians is recommending that children receive double the usually suggested amount of vitamin D because of evidence that it might help prevent serious diseases.

To meet the new recommendation of 400 units daily, millions of children will need to take vitamin D supplements each day, the American Academy of Pediatrics said. That includes breast-fed infants — even those who get some formula — and many teenagers who drink little or no milk.

Baby formula contains vitamin D, so infants fed only formula generally do not need supplements. However, the academy recommends breast-feeding for at least the first year of life, and breast milk is sometimes deficient.

Most commercially available milk is fortified with vitamin D, but most children do not drink enough of it — four cups daily would be needed — to meet the new requirement, said Dr. Frank Greer, who helped write the report.

The new advice is based on mounting research about potential benefits from vitamin D besides keeping bones strong, including suggestions that it might reduce the risk for cancer, diabetes and heart disease. But the evidence is not conclusive, and there is no consensus on how much of the vitamin would be needed for disease prevention.

The advice replaces a 2003 academy recommendation for 200 units daily. That is the amount the government recommends for people up to age 50; 400 units is recommended for adults ages 51 to 70, and 600 units for those 71 and older. Vitamin D is sold in capsules and tablets, as well as in drops for young children.

The Institute of Medicine, a government advisory group that sets dietary standards, is discussing with federal agencies whether the recommendations should be changed based on the new research, said a spokeswoman, Christine Stencel.

The recommendations were to be released Monday at an academy conference in Boston. They will be published in the November issue of the academy’s journal, Pediatrics.

St. Petersburg Times, 10/12/08 (10/12, Greene) reported that some medical facilities are using biometrics to streamline hospital admittance procedures.  For instance, “Tampa Bay’s largest hospital group,” Baycare, has implemented “the Patient Secure Identity system.”  Following “a large hospital chain in the Carolinas” that launched the system last year, “registration clerks” at certain Florida facilities use the “little block box,” which consists of a “tiny built-in camera” that beams infrared light into the palms of patients’ hands.  It scans “an image of the veins inside” their palms, “a signature that’s supposed to be as unique as a fingerprint.”  Then, a “computer records it in digital code.”  The “scanners save time, and are more accurate than names and numbers for collecting patient records.”  Moreover, they “can cut down on fraud by helping find patients who try to use someone else’s name or insurance.” Eventually, “hospitals even plan to use the devices to identify unconscious patients who” are admitted into the emergency department (ED).

Bloomberg, 10/12/08 (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601202&sid=aGK.3qfYo.x0&refer=healthcare):

 Family physicians and internists, when confronted with patients who are stressed out and showing signs of heart problems, are more likely to chalk up the symptoms to anxiety if the sufferer is female, a study found.

When the patients didn’t complain of a specific and recent source of stress in their lives, there was no difference in the way men and women were diagnosed for heart disease or referred to a cardiologist. The findings, presented at the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics meeting in Washington today, may help explain why women often don’t get prompt treatment for heart disease, which is their leading cause of death, the researchers said.

Doctors in the study read vignettes about a 47-year-old man or a 56-year-old woman, whose ages would have given them a similar risk of heart disease. When the story said the patient appeared anxious and reported a recent cause of stress, doctors interpreted chest pain, shortness of breath and irregular heart rates as psychological symptoms rather than heart disease more than twice as often in the woman. In reality, stress is a risk factor that can signal an elevated risk of heart disease in anyone, the researchers said.

“Given the overlap of coronary heart disease and anxiety symptoms, and given the higher prevalence of anxiety symptoms or disorders in women, physicians need to be aware of gender differences,” said researcher Gabrielle Chiaramonte, a postdoctoral associate at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York. “They need to be especially careful to rule out coronary heart disease before considering an anxiety diagnosis,” she said in a statement.

Gender Bias

The gender of the physician didn’t affect the results. An earlier study yielded similar findings among medical students and physician assistant students, showing the bias is deep and widespread, the researchers said. Given that women are more likely to discuss stress with their doctors, and don’t always have conventional symptoms of heart disease such as chest pain, physicians need to be aware of gender bias, they said.

“We know that there is a delay in diagnosing coronary heart disease in women, and this is an important step forward in understanding why,” said Alexandra Lansky, an associate professor at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and director of the Women’s Health Initiative at the Cardiovascular Research Foundation in New York.