Talk Plus Meds to Beat Booze
'I've lost the craving to drink," marvels Walter Kent. The 61-year-old from Cumberland, R.I., is one of nearly 1,400 alcoholics who participated in a stop-drinking study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Prior to the study, they had been guzzling booze, on average, 3 days out of every 4. Over four months, researchers put them on various combinations of medication and counseling. The best results came from naltrexone, a pill that dulls the urge to drink, and nine short sessions in which doctors, nurses, and pharmacists talked with them about ways to stay with treatment. "At the end, people were drinking only 1 day in every 5," says Robert Swift, a Brown Medical School psychiatrist who was one of the investigators; 20 to 30 percent were completely dry. That's good. And it shows that people might be able to get help from ordinary doctors, not just from special rehab services.
Take More Steps With Your Kids; Going the Full Round of Chemo; What if the Nation Gets the Flu?
Take More Steps With Your Kids
Get your kids moving, says Eric Small, an author of a new statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics urging parents to help stave off childhood obesity. The AAP wants parents to take walks or otherwise get physical with their children at least once a week. Children should get 60 minutes of exercise a day, but PE in schools is shrinking. "Kids need more PE," Small laments, "and they're getting less." At least there's progress on the calorie front: Beverage makers have agreed to pull sugared sodas and whole milk out of all school vending machines over the next three years, as well as diet sodas and sports drinks from machines in elementary and middle schools. - Betsy Streisand
Going the Full Round of Chemo
Given the frequent side effects, it's unsurprising that some cancer patients quit chemotherapy early. But stopping even a few months too soon can be as bad as getting no chemo at all. A study to be published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that late-stage colon cancer patients who had five to seven months of chemo survived twice as long as did the 31 percent who dropped out after one to four months. A study in last week's Journal of the National Cancer Institute listed frailty, medical complications, and lack of psychological support among reasons for quitting. -Katherine Hobson
What if the Nation Gets the Flu?
The federal government has unveiled its long-awaited plan for coping with an influenza pandemic that could kill 2 million people and keep 40 percent of workers at home for weeks. As in Hurricane Katrina, the secretary of homeland security would coordinate the nation's response; the secretary of health and human services would direct federal medical efforts. The report offers concrete but self-evident advice, such as "find out if you can work from home" and "plan for the possible reduction or loss of income if you are unable to work." Masks aren't endorsed--whether they reduce infection outside hospitals is unclear. State and local officials say big questions, such as how to divvy up scarce antiviral drugs and vaccines, remain unanswered. - Nancy Shute
This story appears in the May 15, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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