Personal Health: News and Notes

Kale is getting hyped by celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Ryan Seacrest.

Turns out there's quite a bit of science behind this leafy green: The cruciferous veggie - which is in the Brassica family, along with broccoli - is a potent source of Vitamin K, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, fiber, and carotenoids, says registered dietitian and nutritionist Cheryl Harris, of Harris Whole Health in Fairfax, Va.

Research has also shown that kale has 45 different flavonoids with a variety of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects.

It has been shown to lower cholesterol and may reduce the risk of certain types of cancer. A new laboratory study also found that kale extract inhibits the production of existing colon cancer cells.

Still, it's best not to go overboard. Simply integrate it into an overall healthful diet full of other fruits and vegetables.

- Washington Post

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Bisphenol A, or BPA, is a chemical widely used to prevent metal corrosion in food packaging, and more than 90 percent of Americans have detectable BPA in their urine. Now a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association has found that high levels of urinary BPA are linked to a higher risk of childhood obesity.

Scientists randomly selected 2,838 children ages 6 to 19 from participants enrolled in a larger health study, and measured their urinary BPA levels. About 34 percent were overweight; nearly 18 percent were obese.

The rate of obesity in children in the highest quartile of BPA concentrations was about twice that among children in the other 75 percent, the researchers found, even after controlling for age, income, parental education, TV watching, and diet.

Leonardo Trasande of the New York University School of Medicine said that while diet and physical activity are the leading causes of obesity, other possible factors such as BPA should be considered.

- New York Times

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People with type 2 diabetes may be healthier if they have a doctor who shows high levels of empathy.

Researchers studied 20,961 diabetes patients in Parma, Italy, and tested 242 of their primary care physicians for empathy with a well-validated questionnaire that measures doctors' understanding of the patient's experiences, concerns, and perspectives, as well as their communications skills.

In the study, in the September issue of Academic Medicine, the researchers divided the doctors' empathy scores into high, moderate, and low. Then they tracked the occurrence of acute metabolic complications - hyperglycemia, radically low insulin production, and diabetic coma - in the patients.

The doctors' age or sex had no effect on the frequency of complications.

But the complication rate among patients of the most empathetic doctors was about two-thirds that of patients whose physicians scored lower on the questionnaire.

Study author Daniel Z. Louis, a research associate professor of family and community medicine at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, said compassion was a significant factor in good health care.

- New York Times

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Time to get your flu vaccine - and a surprising new report shows babies and toddlers seem to be getting protected better than the rest of us.

Last year's shot won't help this year: Two new strains of influenza have begun circling the globe, and the updated vaccine appears to work well against them, government officials said last week.

Just because last year was the mildest flu season on record doesn't mean the virus might not bounce back to its usual ferocity this winter, said Howard Koh, assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

A yearly vaccination is recommended for nearly everybody, but new figures show that last year 52 percent of children and just 39 percent of adults were immunized. Three-quarters of tots ages 6 months to 23 months were vaccinated. But even though seniors are at especially high risk of severe illness or death if they catch the flu, just 66 percent of them were immunized.

The only ones who shouldn't get vaccinated are babies younger than 6 months and people with severe allergies to the eggs used to make the vaccine.

- Associated Press