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DIABETES Close to 20 million Americans have diabetes, and nearly that many have a condition doctors have started to call prediabetes. Experts project that by the end of the decade, 10% of the U.S. will be diabetic. A big part of the problem is that cases of Type 2 diabetes, which used to be called adult-onset diabetes, are exploding among children and young adults. For kids at risk, drinking more milk might help. A study found that because the lactose in dairy products metabolizes slowly, it can help regulate blood-sugar levels. This doesn't mean kids should live on milk shakes and fried mozzarella sticks. They need milk, but they also also need to exercise, maintain a healthy weight and eat a high-fiber diet.
DEFIBRILLATOR If you suffer a cardiac arrest, your only chance of survival is to have your heart shocked back into operation within minutes. That's why portable defibrillators are popping up everywhere, notably on airplanes, and why the FDA last year approved the first household version, called the HeartStart Home Defibrillator. It isn't cheap ($2,295), and you can't use it on yourself. Because 70% of cardiac arrests occur at home, perhaps that's where the HeartStart should be.
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EXERCISE What's a couch potato to think? First, researchers told us that even a 30-minute walk in the park a few times a week was enough to get the bulk of the cardiovascular benefit of exercise. Then other studies argued that intense activity was much better. Now the government has weighed in with new guidelines that call for an hour of exercise daily--double the previous recommendation. It's enough to make you throw up your hands and look for the TV remote. Don't. The message may be mixed, but it's really very simple: doing anything is always better than doing nothing. And doing more is even better. It's a lesson Americans seem to have missed; 25% get no regular exercise at all.
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FETAL HEARTS In a surgical first, doctors fixed a deadly heart-valve defect in a 5-month-old fetus. Guided by ultrasound, they angled a needle-thin catheter into the aortic valve, a spot one-eighth of an inch in diameter in a beating heart the size of a grape. A minuscule balloon was then inflated to enlarge the constricted valve, which had been obstructing the flow of blood to the body. Eleven weeks later, doctors induced early labor, anticipating the need for another operation, but the repair job had worked so well that the 5-lb. 8-oz. healthy baby boy didn't require a second procedure.
FRENCH FRIES Cooking potatoes and other starchy foods at high temperatures can trigger the formation of acrylamide, a compound that has been shown to cause cancer in lab rats. Scientists also know there are toxic consequences to breathing the acrylamide in cigarette smoke. So are chips and fries even worse for us than we thought or just the latest food fright? A report by the American Council on Science and Health concludes that we can relax. There is no evidence that acrylamide, when consumed in food, poses a cancer risk. But all the other reasons for going easy on deep-fried food still apply.
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