Health Highlights: August 1, 2008

• U.S. Senate Passes Bill Banning Lead from Children's Products
• Hypnosis Helps Dementia Patients: Study
• Performance Anxiety May Raise Risk of Eating Disorders in Female Athletes
• Living Near Highway Raises Risk of Low Birth-Weight Baby: Study
• FDA Orders Aranesp and Procrit Label Changes
• House Passes Bill Giving FDA Control Over Tobacco

Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:

U.S. Senate Passes Bill Banning Lead from Children's Products

The U.S. Senate on Thursday passed a bill that bans lead from children's toys and other products. The measure also bans, either permanently or pending further study, children's goods that contain chemicals called phthalates, which are widely used to make plastic products softer and more flexible.

The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 89-3. On Wednesday, the House passed the measure 424-1. The Bush Administration has objected to certain parts of the bill but a White House spokeswoman said President Bush would sign it, the Associated Press reported.

The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act would permit only tiny levels of lead in products for children 12 or younger, giving the U.S. the most stringent lead standards in the world.

Last year, lead paint was a major factor in the recall of 45 million toys and other children's items, the AP reported. Many of those items came from China.

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Hypnosis Helps Dementia Patients: Study

Hypnosis slows the progression of dementia, according to results of a U.K. study.

Researchers compared dementia patients who had hypnosis to patients who received standard treatment and those in group therapy that encouraged discussion of news and current affairs, United Press International reported.

Patients in the hypnosis group showed improvements in concentration, memory, socialization, relaxation, motivation, and daily living activities.

"Over the 9-month period of weekly sessions, it became clear that the participants attending the discussion group remained the same throughout. The group who received 'treatment as usual' showed a small decline over the assessment period, yet those having regular hypnosis sessions showed real improvement across all of the areas that we looked at," Dr. Simon Duff, a forensic psychologist at the University of Liverpool, said in a news release cited by UPI.

"Participants who are aware of the onset of dementia may become depressed and anxious at their gradual loss of cognitive ability and so hypnosis -- which is a tool for relaxation -- can really help the mind concentrate on positive activity like socialization," Duff said.

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Performance Anxiety May Increase Risk of Eating Disorders in Female Athletes

Competitive female athletes who worry about their performance may be more prone to eating disorder-related attitudes and behaviors, suggests a University of Denver study that included 274 undergraduate women at a large southeastern university.

The participants included: varsity athletes, who exercised an average of two hours per day; club athletes, who practiced their sport an average of four times per week; independent exercisers, who exercised on their own at least three times per week; and non exercisers, who exercised 0-2 times per week, United Press International reported.

The women had standard assessments for eating disorders, self-esteem, and sports-related anxiety. The researchers found that competitive athletes who are anxious about their performance may be at higher risk for eating disorder symptoms than women who are less anxious about their sports performance and those who aren't involved in competitive athletics.

Coaches and athletic departments should watch for signs of sports-related anxiety in their female athletes, said the researchers.

The study appears in the International Journal of Eating Disorders.

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Living Near Highway Raises Risk of Low Birth-Weight Baby: Study

Living near a highway increases a woman's risk of having a low birth-weight baby, according to a study of almost 100,000 live births in Montreal between 1997 and 2001.

Women who lived within 200 meters (about 219 yards) of a highway had a 14 percent greater risk of pre-term birth and were 17 percent more likely to have a low birth-weight baby than women who didn't live close to a highway, CBC News reported.

Affluent women appeared more at risk, found authors of the study, which appears in the August issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

"Among affluent mothers who live within 200 meters of a highway, the odds of delivering an infant with low birth weight increase by 81 percent, while their odds of delivering a pre-term baby increase by 58 percent compared to mothers who don't live anywhere close to expressways," study author Dr. Melissa Genereux said in a news release cited by CBC News.

"Advantaged mothers may be more susceptible to environmental hazards because they have been protected from other hazards," the study authors wrote. "These mothers may be particularly susceptible to exposure to air pollution during pregnancy, which is hypothesized to interfere directly with intrauterine growth via pollutant absorption and placental exchange, or indirectly by increasing maternal susceptibility to infection or impairing maternal respiratory function."

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FDA Orders Aranesp and Procrit Label Changes

Labels on the anemia drugs Aranesp and Procrit must be changed in a way that could limit their use in treating cancer patients, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says.

It's the first time the FDA has used its authority under a 2007 law that gave the agency the power to order changes in a drug's prescribing information, The New York Times reported. Before the new law, the FDA could only negotiate with drug makers to change labels.

Amgen makes both Aranesp and Procrit, but Procrit is sold under license by Johnson & Johnson.

In the past year, sales of both drugs fell after studies suggested their use to treat anemia caused by chemotherapy could actually worsen cancer and shorten patients' lives, the Times reported.

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House Passes Bill Giving FDA Control Over Tobacco

Legislation that would subject the tobacco industry to regulation by U.S. health authorities was passed Wednesday by the House in a 326-102 vote.

Under the bill, the Food and Drug Administration would have the power to regulate tobacco products. The FDA couldn't ban tobacco or nicotine, but it could order the reduction or elimination of cancer-causing chemicals in tobacco smoke, the Associated Press reported.

In addition, the bill would: further tighten restrictions on tobacco advertising; impose new penalties for selling to minors; prohibit candy-flavored cigarettes and cigars; and give the FDA authority to ban menthol, the most common type of flavoring.

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act appears to have enough support to pass this year, but it's unclear whether the Senate will have time to act, the AP reported. The White House issued a veto threat Wednesday.

A potential sticking point as the Senate considers the measure is its treatment of menthol, a favorite choice among black smokers. The National African American Tobacco Prevention Network has said it won't support the bill unless it included an outright ban on menthol. But given that menthol represents more than 25 percent of cigarettes sold, tobacco makers' support for the bill could be in jeopardy if the legislation included a menthol ban, the AP said.