THURSDAY, Nov. 19 (HealthCare Tips) -- A Spanish study has found that long-term moderate drinking decreased the risk of heart disease by up to one-third in men and to a lesser degree in women.

The type of alcohol - beer, wine or spirits - made no difference, the researchers reported in the Nov. 19 online issue of Heart. The Spanish analysis used 10-year data on 15,500 men and nearly 26,000 women who were participants in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer study.

But for men, there was a point at which the coronary benefits of alcohol declined, and risk began to rise again.

The rate of coronary heart disease for non-drinking women in the study was 56 per 100,000. For women listed as low drinkers, averaging less than 5 grams a day, it was 42. For women who were moderate drinkers (5 to 30 grams a day), it was 36; for high drinkers (30 to 90 grams a day) it was 12; and for heavy drinkers (more than 90 grams a day) it was 12.

The rates for men were 398 per 100,000 for those who never drank, 318 for low drinkers, 255 for moderate drinkers, 278 for high drinkers and 334 for heavy drinkers, the researchers reported.

The results for women were not statistically significant, perhaps because the numbers in many categories were too small, said the report from the Public Health Department of Gipuzkoa, Basque Government, in San Sebastian.

The finding comes as no surprise, said Eric B. Rimm, an associate professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, who has done research on alcohol and heart disease.

"This is one of a long line of such studies, probably 60 or 70 done in different populations around the world," Rimm said. "But it is comforting, showing that even if you live in a Mediterranean country and eat the different diet there, moderate drinking puts you at a much lower risk of heart disease."

The report showing that the source of alcohol made no difference does help puncture one explanation for what has come to be called the "French paradox," the low level of heart disease seen in that country despite consumption of what Americans would describe as an unhealthy, fat-rich diet, Rimm said. Some experts have attributed the paradox to the beneficial effects of red wine.

Instead, it is just alcohol in general, Rimm said. "A number of well-done studies have shown that people who drink have higher levels of HDL cholesterol," he said. "In a week or two of drinking, HDL cholesterol goes up appreciably."

HDL cholesterol is the "good" kind that prevents formation of artery-blocking plaque deposits.

The newly reported study, like all others on the issue of alcohol and the heart, is observational, with no attempt at controlling intake, noted Dr. Kenneth Mukamal, an internist at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

"I don't think it's substantially different from what we've seen before," Mukamal said. "We've probably pushed the observational data as far as we can."

So Mukamal has obtained funding from the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism for a pilot project to determine if a controlled trial of the effects of alcohol on the heart is possible. He and his colleagues are enrolling 40 adults who will try to drink exact amounts of either alcohol or an alcohol-free beverage daily for six months.

"We're hoping to see over time what differences there are in those assigned to the nonalcoholic and those assigned to the alcoholic beverages," Mukamal said. Most important, the study will show whether people can stick to such a regimen for a prolonged period. Results of the pilot project should be available in about a year, Mukamal said, and those results will help determine whether a longer, larger trial is possible.

Meanwhile, it's important to remember that "clearly, heart disease is not the only thing to consider when you talk about drinking alcohol," Rimm said. Overindulgence raises the risk of cancer, accidents, obesity and many other problems, and can also cause the heart muscle damage called alcoholic cardiomyopathy, he noted.

The American Heart Association recommendation is that "if you drink, do so in moderation." That means one to two drinks a day for a man, one drink a day for a woman, with a drink defined as 12 ounces of beer, 4 ounces of wine or 1 ounce of 100-proof spirits.

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 18 (HealthCare Tips) -- New research suggests that having multiple sclerosis puts pregnant women at slightly higher risk for giving birth via cesarean deliveries or having babies that grow at a slower rate in the womb.

But the researchers, whose findings were published online Nov. 18 in Neurology, also reported that pregnant women with MS were not more likely than other women to develop such circumstances as preeclampsia or premature rupture of membranes.

The findings came from an examination of a national database that included details on about 18.8 million childbirths in 38 states, including deliveries by an estimated 10,000 women with MS.

The two groups of pregnant women differed somewhat. Those with MS were more likely than those without chronic medical conditions to have fetuses that suffered from restricted growth, as defined by weight measured through ultrasound. Among women with MS, 2.7 percent had fetuses in that category, compared with 1.9 percent of other women.

Women with MS were also more likely to have a cesarean delivery: 42 percent had a c-section, compared with 33 percent of other women.

However, the study found that women with MS had lower pregnancy complication rates than did women who had diabetes before becoming pregnant.

"These results are supportive for women with MS," study author Dr. Eliza Chakravarty. of Stanford University School of Medicine. said in a news release from the American Academy of Neurology.

"Women and their doctors have been uncertain about the effect of MS on pregnancy, and some women have chosen to delay or even avoid pregnancy due to the uncertainty," Chakravarty said. "We found that women with MS did not have an increased risk of most pregnancy complications."

TUESDAY, Nov. 17 (HealthCare Tips) -- Children who are fearless at 3 years of age might just be poised for a life of crime.

According to a new study, poor fear conditioning at the tender age of 3 can predispose that person to break the law as an adult. Yet other factors, such as education of the parents, large family size, nutrition, physical activity, configuration of the household and other elements also play a role, the researchers concluded.

"There's no 100 percent correspondence between conditioning deficits and crime: Not all poor conditioners will become criminals and not all criminals have the early fear conditioning deficits," explained study author Yu Gao, a research associate in the department of criminology at the University of Pennsylvania. His findings are published in the Nov. 16 online issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Specifically, what Gao and his associates set out to determine is whether dysfunction of the amygdala, an almond-shaped mass that resides deep in the human brain and is linked to fear conditioning as well as emotions and mental state, leads to an inherent intrepidness and disregard for the law.

Twenty years ago, the research team tested almost 1,800 children who were 3 years old from Mauritius, an Indian Ocean island off the coast of southeastern Africa, by exposing them to two sets of sounds, one with a short shrill noise, and the other deeper in pitch and with a pleasant tone, and then measuring the children's physical responses through an electrode attached to their index and middle fingers. Sweating upon hearing the loud noise indicated a sense of fear, while no sweat meant the child lacked fear -- that is, had poor fear conditioning.

Two decades later, using court records, Gao and his team tracked down 137 study participants - 131 males and six females - who had committed serious crimes involving property, drugs, violence and driving. These individuals had shown an absence of fear during testing at age 3, whereas 274 study participants who had grown to adulthood without a criminal record had displayed typical fear responses.

Experts agreed that the findings don't constitute a cause-and-effect situation, but hailed the study for its longevity and what the work adds to what is known about how childhood factors influence adult behavior.

"Any time you have a 20-year study, that's significant," said Dr. Elissa P. Benedek, an Ann Arbor, Mich.-based psychiatrist who has worked in private practice with children and adults for more than 40 years and is a past president of the American Psychiatric Association.

"It's good for putting another link in the chain in terms of what is early brain dysfunction, and what increases the risk for such behaviors as attention-deficit disorder and criminal activity. It's another link back to whatever we all ready know about early brain dysfunction that may cause problems later in life," Benedek added.

So what do the results mean for individuals with fear conditioning deficits and their loved ones, and for society at large? It's a wake-up call about potential problems, said Gao and other experts in the field. To enhance the proper working of the amygdala, which is believed to reduce criminal behavior in later life, enrichment programs are essential.

In fact, according to Gao, some at-risk children between the ages of 3 and 5 who have benefited from those programs, which include sound nutrition, adequate physical exercise and cognitive brain stimulation, had shown an improvement in brain functioning by age 11 that reduced the chances of criminal behavior by 35 percent 20 years later.

Addressing parental concerns, Benedek added: "Don't be discouraged if your child has early brain dysfunction. It doesn't mean that he or she is going to grow up and be a criminal. The brain can change and grow."

Labels: blood-brain barrier

PFCs are found in packaging, paper and exposures were evident in most people, researchers say.

MONDAY, Nov. 2 (HealthCare Tips) -- Chemicals used in food packaging, paper and textile coatings may affect blood cholesterol levels in people, U.S. researchers have found.

Previous studies have found that polyfluoroalkyl chemicals (PFCs) are present in the bodies of most people. In this new study, a team at the Boston University School of Public Health analyzed the association between serum cholesterol levels and four PFCs: perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), and perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS).

The analysis of data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey revealed that people with levels of PFOS, PFOA and PFNA in the top 25 percent had higher total and non-HDL cholesterol (primarily the "bad" LDL cholesterol) than those with levels in the lowest 25 percent.

The association was most noticeable for PFNA, with a 13.9 milligram per deciliter difference in estimated cholesterol levels between people with the highest and lowest levels of the chemical, the study authors noted.

The researchers found little evidence of a link between PFC levels and body size or insulin resistance, according to the report in the Nov. 2 issue of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

"Though these results are based on cross-sectional data and are exploratory, they are consistent with much of the human epidemiologic literature and indicate that polyfluoroalkyl chemicals may be exerting an effect on cholesterol at environmentally