News in brief - Aug. 9, 2004

Food allergy law passed - Women's migraines strongly associated with menstruation - Alzheimer's drug shows some benefit - Low-salt diet benefits normotensives, too

Food allergy law passed

President Bush was expected to sign the Food Allergen and Consumer Protection Act in late July. The law would require that food labels disclose the presence of any of eight common allergens: milk, egg, peanut, tree nut, fish, shellfish, wheat and soy.

The label language is also to include only terms that are understandable to the estimated 11 million Americans who have food allergies and their families. The law would take effect on Jan. 1, 2006.

The legislation was a cooperative effort of the food industry, the Food and Drug Administration and advocacy groups, according to the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network.

"Foods that are safe for most Americans can be deadly for others," said Rep. Nita Lowey (D, N.Y.), the bill's sponsor in the House. "Food-allergic consumers depend on labels to make life-and-death decisions, yet they are forced to crack a code of complicated scientific terms for everything they eat," said Lowey at the bill's House passage.

Women's migraines strongly associated with menstruation

Women are 1.7 times more likely to experience a migraine attack in the two days before menstruation and 2.5 times more likely to have one in the first three days of their period. These attacks are also more likely to be severe at this time of the month that any other, according to a study in the July 27 issue of Neurology.

Researchers at the City of London Migraine Clinic, England, analyzed diaries of 155 women with migraine in order to support the inclusion of menstrual migraine in the International Classification of Headache Disorders and the long-held belief of many women that their problems are related to hormonal fluctuations.

"For many women with migraine, the time of attacks is not random," wrote Elizabeth Loder, MD, director of the Headache Management Program at Spaulding Hospital in Boston, in an accompanying editorial.

Those on hormonal contraception were excluded from this study because this group is believed to have confounded previous studies that have failed to find an association.

Alzheimer's drug shows some benefit

People with mild cognitive impairment who took the drug donepezil were at reduced risk of progressing to Alzheimer's disease for the first 18 months of a 3-year-study compared with those who were given a placebo, according to preliminary data from a clinical trial supported by the National Institute on Aging.

However, the reduced risk of progressing to Alzheimer's disappeared after 18 months, and, by the end of the study, the probability of progressing was the same for the two groups. Over the course of the three-year study, the participants with mild impairment on donepezil averaged 661 days until a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, while those on placebo averaged 484 days.

The Memory Impairment Study was conducted nationwide at 69 sites and involved 769 participants with mild cognitive impairment who were tested for Alzheimer's disease at 6-month intervals. The average age of participants was 73.

Low-salt diet benefits normotensives, too

People with normal blood pressure who reduce their daily intake of salt by just over 4 g a day for a month will, on average, lower their systolic by two points and their diastolic by a point, and this could lead to fewer heart attacks and strokes, according to an analysis of the literature published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews last month.

Reducing salt intake has long been recommended as a way to prevent hypertension. The World Health Organization urged last year that the populations of developed countries reduce their salt intake from the current 9-12 g per day to 5 g or 6 g per day. Many studies have also shown that reducing salt intake can lower the numbers for hypertensives. Benefits to those with normal blood pressure have been a little less clear until this review.

Authors of the paper suggested, however, that reducing salt intake was less a matter for the individual but rather one for society.

"The amount of salt we currently consume is a chronic long-term toxin that is slowly raising our blood pressure," said Dr. Graham MacGregor, professor of cardiovascular medicine at St. George's Hospital Medical School in London, England. "Clearly the problem ... is that 80% of our salt intake now comes from salt hidden in foods. A reduction in the salt concentration of food is currently being carried out in the United Kingdom with the support of the Dept. of Health and Food Standards Agency. Other countries, including the United States, need to follow suit."