For a few decades now, major employers across the United States have focused on providing wellness programs that encourage employees to adopt healthy lifestyle habits, such as nutritional eating, exercise and smoking cessation. This is based on the premise that a healthy workforce will be more productive, and ultimately will help reduce health insurance costs. [Read more…]
Is your workplace making you sick?
October 28, 2015 By Leave a Comment
New evidence: A link between air pollution and stroke
April 9, 2015 By Leave a Comment
We’ve had clear evidence for decades that air pollution is bad for your health, specifically your lungs and heart. The data show air pollution increases your risk of asthma, COPD and pneumonia. But a new systematic review unveils another serious risk: stroke. [Read more…]
Growing evidence: Environmental factors influence heart disease
November 10, 2014 By Leave a Comment
In the United States, we regularly hear messages about how to prevent heart disease. Eat more vegetables. Exercise more. Avoid fatty meats. But there is a large and growing body of evidence that demonstrates the environment also impacts our risk of developing cardiovascular disease. [Read more…]
Gardening as a treatment for dementia
August 5, 2014 By Leave a Comment
Researchers believe nearly 4 million Americans over age 60 suffer from some form of dementia. Their symptoms may include memory loss, impaired judgment and reasoning, loss of communication skills, agitation and paranoia. [Read more…]
The evidence on climate change
April 24, 2014 By Leave a Comment
The theory that the earth’s climate is warming has been a highly debated topic in the media for more than a decade. Proponents of the theory point to evidence about melting polar ice caps and increased storm activity, while critics say there’s not enough data to know what’s happening over the long-term. But what does the evidence really say?
Are mammograms worthwhile?
February 18, 2014 By Leave a Comment
The National Cancer Institute recommends that women age 40 and older have a mammogram to screen for breast cancer every 1 or 2 years. But now a new study is raising questions about whether mammography is really worthwhile. [Read more…]
Update: New evidence on Parkinson’s disease
June 26, 2013 By Leave a Comment
According to the National Institutes of Health, at least 500,000 Americans suffer from Parkinson’s disease, and about 50,000 new cases are reported each year. The disease is a progressive neurological disorder that is caused by the degeneration of neurons in a region of the brain that controls movement. Tremors are the most common symptom, but others include rigid limbs and slow movement. [Read more…]
Evidence on child well-being across the globe
April 19, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Ensuring children grow up to be healthy, productive and fulfilled adults are major goals of every society. Children across the world today face complex risks and challenges including the wide availability of unhealthy foods, the prevalence of bullying and increases in drug and alcohol abuse. [Read more…]
The facts on mold for hurricane victims
November 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Nearly a month after hurricane Sandy battered the east coast, homeowners in New York and New Jersey are still trying to dry out their homes and assess all of the damage. For those whose homes were flooded, a major problem they will face is mold.
Mold spores thrive in flooded homes, where everything is damp and there is plenty of organic material as a base for them to grow and thrive. They often cause respiratory problems, irritate the skin and eyes, and can lead to lung infections.
Here at EBL, the topic of mold in homes is not a new one. Just last year, we wrote about a systematic review by the Cochrane Collaboration that details the best ways to prevent respiratory problems caused by mold.
Luckily, there is plenty of solid evidence on effective ways to cope with mold in your home. Joe Laquatra, a professor of design and environmental analysis at Cornell, is an expert in coping with mold in homes and a member of the New York State Center for Indoor Environmental Quality. He has developed a comprehensive, evidence-based information sheet that details the health effects of mold in homes and the best methods for removing it.
Among his recommendations are:
- Homes that are wet for more than 48 hours are at risk of developing mold.
- It’s best to discard wet ceiling tiles, cellulose insulation, and often drywall as well.
- If mold is detected over more than ten square feet of a home, the best course of action is to hire a mold remediation contractor. Another fact sheet offers tips about selecting a contractor.
The take-home message: Mold is a serious issue in homes that have experienced flooding. It’s important to understand all of the facts to avoid health problems caused by mold.
To spray or not to spray?
July 3, 2012 By 1 Comment
Lyme disease – an infectious disease spread by ticks that thrive in wooded areas – is on the rise in the Northeast. The disease can be debilitating if undiagnosed, causing chronic fatigue, joint pain and
neurological problems.
As a mom, it’s a really worry for me. My kids are outside every day, often on trails or in wooded areas. I check them daily for ticks, but one would be easy to miss.
This year, I’ve often debated with other parents the risk and benefits of using bug spray. On one hand, there is clear evidence that the insecticide DEET – or N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide – effectively repels ticks. But on the other hand, there are cases where it is clear that DEET has led to health problems including skin problems, hallucinations and seizures.
So I went hunting for some more sweeping analyses on what the evidence says about DEET. The Journal of Family Practice provided a good summary of several systematic reviews on the use of DEET in children. Both found the risk of adverse reactions was low – about 0.1 percent of children exposed experiences an adverse reaction – and that there was no clear dose-dependent relationship between exposure and extent of severity of the reaction.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control maintains that DEET doesn’t present health concerns if it’s used according to the instructions, including not applying it to open wounds, under clothing, or near eyes or mouth.
As a mother, though, the narrative reports of small children undergoing hospitalization for seizures and neurological problems – even though it’s a very small number of cases over decades – stick in my mind. So we use bug spray with DEET sparingly. If I know the kids will be in the woods or fields where there are higher populations of ticks, I’ll give them a light spray – always with a bath that night to wash off all of the spray. Even though the evidence shows DEET is safe, I still feel uneasy about this issue.
What about you? Are you comfortable using buy spray on a regular basis?
How your working environment impacts your health
March 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Adopting a healthy lifestyle can be tough these days, especially for parents working hard to make ends meet. Yes, there are gyms and organic grocery stores, on-demand yoga and healthy cooking magazines. But for working parents, long hours and irregular schedules make can make it difficult to eat healthily and exercise.
A cadre of researchers are Cornell’s College of Human Ecology are working on this problem, conducting the research and pulling together the best evidence to help families exercise more and eat healthier.
Among them is nutritional sciences professor Carole Devine, who has created and evaluated a program that helps change workplace environments to support physical activity and healthy eating.
The program, called Small Steps are Easier Together, is an active collaboration between Cornell faculty, Cooperative Extension educators and worksite leadership teams across New York. Pilot studies have been conducted in 23 sites since 2006. It involves worksites creating wellness leadership teams, who work with Cornell researchers to implement evidence-based strategies – like creating walking groups, posting maps, and offering more fruit and vegetable options in the cafeteria – to increase walking and promote healthier eating.
The most recent analysis of the program included 188 participants in 10 rural worksites. It found the percentage of sedentary women had declined to from 42 percent to 26 percent. A total of 35 percent of the women moved to a higher activity level.
Devine is also pulling together the evidence on how working conditions impact food decisions for families at home and on the job.
Her research has found that the stress of a busy job impacts parents’ ability to serve healthy meals, leading them to serve quicker and less healthy meals, such as fast food. She’s investigated a variety of coping strategies such as negotiating a more flexible work schedule and teaming up with a neighbor to take turns preparing meals.
Devine’s work highlights the connections between work environments and health, and provide some evidence-based strategies to improve public health.
New evidence on global warming
January 19, 2012 By 1 Comment
An international team of researchers have developed a new plan to slow climate change – one that involves reducing levels of two of the lesser-known contributors to global warming.
Their paper, published this week in the journal Science, recommends 14 actions to reduce emissions of methane gas – a greenhouse gas more powerful than carbon dioxide – and black carbon – the technical term for soot, which absorbs heat from the sun’s rays.
Among the measures they suggest are:
- encouraging people to use switch cleaner diesel engines and cookstoves
- building more efficient kilns and coke ovens
- capturing methane at landfills and oil wells
- reducing methane emissions from rice paddies by draining them more often.
Adopting the study’s recommendations would reduce projected temperatures by approximately 0.5°C by 2050, as well as avoiding millions of premature deaths due to air pollution and increasing crop yields thanks to reductions in ozone.
The proposal is a projection, to be sure. But there is a large body of evidence available that shows there are many benefits to reducing these contaminants.
Systematic reviews show that reducing soot levels improves lung function and pregnancy outcomes. And it’s been clearly documented that methane gas warms the atmosphere, and that reducing its levels will boost agricultural yields.
So, in fact, the new study delivers another benefit, as noted in this New York Times column: it offers practical solutions with the immediate benefits of improving health and helping farmers produce more.
To us, it seems like a proposal worth putting into practice.
