News in brief - March 8, 2004

Cereal can be good for your heart - Childhood flu shots cost-effective - Many asthmatics sensitive to aspirin and don't know it - As age increases, so does car-crash risk

Cereal can be good for your heart

Cereal boxes may be right. Consuming dietary fiber from fruits and cereals may indeed lower the risk of coronary heart disease, according to an article in the Feb. 23 Archives of Internal Medicine.

However, while eating vegetables may be good for other aspects of health, vegetable fiber seemed to have no impact on coronary heart disease or mortality, according to the study.

The dietary fiber from fruits and cereals may act by lowering blood pressure and reducing cholesterol. Although studies suggest that the more fiber a person eats, the lower the risk of heart disease, few studies have looked at the relationship between dietary fiber and heart disease.

Mark A. Pereira, PhD, now at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and colleagues, analyzed the pooled results of several studies from the United States and Europe that included 91,058 men and 245,186 women to determine whether the source of dietary fiber had any effect on the reduction of heart disease risk.

The researchers found that for each 10 g/day increment of cereal and fruit fiber consumed, there was a 14% decrease in risk for coronary heart disease and a 27% decreased risk of dying from coronary heart disease.

Childhood flu shots cost-effective

Just as a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation kicks in that children 6 to 23 months old should receive a flu shot, a study citing the cost effectiveness of the vaccine is released.

A flu vaccination is effective in averting illness and can save $10 to $25 per child compared with the cost of treating children who develop the flu, according to a study in the March 1 Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Vaccinating children may also protect adults. Influenza can spread like wildfire through a school and can be carried home to infect family members, according to the study. Vaccinated children may help keep the virus from ever reaching their parents.

The severity of the last flu season and the widespread publicity of children's deaths has heightened awareness of the availability and need for the flu vaccine for children.

"In this country, we should have a very permissive attitude toward influenza vaccine," said Kathleen Neuzil, MD, MPH, author of an editorial accompanying the research article. "If you're six months and older, the vaccine is available to you, you can get it and it can prevent influenza."

Many asthmatics sensitive to aspirin and don't know it

About a fifth of asthmatics will have an attack if they take aspirin. Most of them are also sensitive to ibuprofen and naproxen, although very few are aware of this, according to a study published in the Feb 21 British Medical Journal.

Researchers in Australia reviewed studies looking at the prevalence of asthma induced by aspirin and other nonprescription pain relievers. They found that 21% of adult and 5% of child asthmatics would test positive for aspirin sensitivity with an oral provocation test. A similar number also test positive for reactions to nonsteroidal inflammatory drugs. Only 3% of adults and 2% of children, however, knew they had this asthma trigger.

The authors concluded that aspirin sensitivity may be more common than previously believed and recommended that asthmatics be aware of this possibility. They also wrote that warning labels on these over-the-counter medications should include information about asthma risks.

Acetaminophen was rarely associated with asthma exacerbations with only 7% experiencing an attack after taking this pain reliever.

As age increases, so does car-crash risk

The risk of dying in a car crash increases significantly as a person ages, according to a report issued by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety last month. According to the Older Driver Involvement in Injury Crashes report, those older than 65 are twice as likely to die in a crash as those 55 to 64. Those older than 75 are more than two times as likely and those older than 85 are four times as likely to die in a car crash.

Researchers at the Texas Transportation Institute in College Station analyzed 25 years worth of crash data from that state on behalf of the foundation. Although the data was only from one state, authors of the report believe that it is generalizable to the rest of the country and that older drivers be periodically assessed by themselves, their caregivers and their physicians to determine if they are safe to drive.

"Second only to teen drivers, older drivers are the second most likely group to sustain injuries or death in traffic crashes," said Peter Kissinger, president of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. "It is vital that seniors periodically and honestly review their driving performance."