Why Deadly Measles Is on the Rise

By Denise Foley for Completely You

Measles was officially eradicated in the U.S. in 2000.

But someone forgot to tell the rubeola virus, the highly contagious organism that causes this once common -- and sometimes deadly -- childhood disease. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently announced that measles cases were on the rise in the U.S., with more infections in the last year than the previous 15.

Many doctors and parents of young children today have never seen a case of the measles, let alone an outbreak.

But I have seen a measles outbreak, and I do know how serious it is. I got my immunization the hard way: I had the measles. At the age of 8, I spent 10 days in a dark room, delirious with fever, my parents taking turns placing cold washcloths on my head. I recovered, but other children weren’t so lucky. They died -- often from pneumonia -- or suffered brain damage as the result of encephalitis, a brain inflammation. About 1 in 10 cases results in ear infections that can cause permanent hearing loss.
Even worse, a rare, frightening complication can occur up to 27 years after a measles infection, particularly in those who contract the disease as babies or young children. Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) is a fatal, progressive disease that is characterized by mental deterioration and neuromuscular disorders that can result in blindness, an inability to walk and a persistent vegetative state. (Read more about it here.)

What You Don’t Know About Measles -- But Should
Most cases of measles in the U.S. are imported. Measles epidemics are still rampant in Europe and other parts of the world where immunizations aren’t mandatory as they are, with some exceptions, in the US. For example, a measles epidemic has been raging in France since 2008. More than 22,000 cases have been reported since it began, more than 700 people developed complications and six have died. About 90 percent of the U.S. measles cases originated overseas.

Aiding and abetting this dangerous rise: a susceptible population. “A lot of it is because of that stupid 1998 paper in The Lancet connecting vaccinations with autism,” says Clyde Martin, an expert in health statistics at Texas Tech University. “It has been completely discredited -- the data was falsified -- but people still believe it.”

That false study is a major reason why some parents won’t have their children immunized. This alarms Martin because of what his numbers are telling him. Martin took a close look at a 1987 measles epidemic in Lubbock, Texas, which was mainly centered at Texas Tech. He examined the medical records of every single student who was affected, and he pored over their vaccination records too.
Many students were vaccinated once the epidemic broke out. But it took a whopping 98 percent of them being immunized to finally stop the epidemic, which drives home the importance of making sure every child gets the vaccine. It only takes a 30-second exposure at 10 feet to contract the virus.

With some parents and doctors being lax about immunization, says Martin, “it’s the making of a disaster.”

Eliminating “Personal Belief” Vaccine Exemptions
An easy solution: Eliminate the so-called “personal belief” exemptions to the measles vaccine. The most measles cases have occurred in states with these exemptions that allow parents to opt out of mandatory immunizations because of secular, rather than religious, beliefs. Many of them are based on that one discredited study published in 1998 linking vaccines to autism.

As Martin’s study indicates, you need a high percentage of people vaccinated to get what’s called “herd immunity” to prevent the spread of the disease. An unvaccinated child who contracts the measles has a five-day symptomless period in which he can infect others, including babies that are too young to be vaccinated who are at high risk of SSPE. (See what can happen to an exposed child here.)

Martin thinks some of those exemptions need to be eliminated, particularly those that are granted because parents believe something to be a scientific fact that isn’t. (Read more about the debate here.)

“We’ve got to be stricter on the giving of exemptions,” says Martin. “For religious reasons? I have no real problem with that because there aren’t that many. Some people can’t take the vaccine because they’re allergic to eggs, which are used to manufacture it. But ‘Because I don’t want my kid to have autism’ is not acceptable.”

Denise Foley   is Completely You’s “News You Can Use” blogger. She is a veteran health writer, the former deputy editor and editor at large of Prevention, and co-author of four books on women’s health and parenting.

Why You Shouldn’t Work at Night

By Denise Foley for Completely You

An estimated 27 million people in the U.S. are going to work when the rest of us are going to bed. That’s about one-quarter of the U.S. workforce. But working the graveyard shift appears to edge you closer to the graveyard.

A just-published Harvard study found that irregular sleep patterns disrupt your body clock, which sets the stage for diabetes. Add this to studies that found that women working the night shift are at higher risk for breast cancer, and you have a clearer picture of the dark side of working at night.

The Link Between Lack of Sleep and Diabetes
At Harvard, neuroscientist Orfeu Buxton and his colleagues had 21 healthy volunteers spend almost six weeks living in a lab where their diet, activity, sleep and light conditions were strictly controlled. For three of the weeks, they were only allowed about 5.5 hours of sleep every 24 hours at varying times of the day or night to mimic jet lag, a rotating work shift or a simple 24/7 lifestyle.

What happened sure looked like diabetes. “After three weeks of circadian disruptions and sleep restriction, the subjects’ blood sugar went much higher and stayed higher for three to four hours after they ate a standardized meal,” says Buxton. In three volunteers, blood sugar reached levels so high they could have been diagnosed with prediabetes.

In addition, the participants’ metabolic rate -- how efficiently they burned calories for energy -- slowed by 8 percent. Their meals were controlled so they didn’t gain weight, but a metabolic slowdown like that would, over a year, produce a 10-12 pound weight gain, says Buxton.

Insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas, helps the body scoop up glucose (sugar) from the blood and use it as fuel. But when you work the night shift, it can disrupt this process, causing blood sugar increases that could eventually lead to diabetes. The good news is that the volunteers’ bodies returned to normal after they got enough sleep at the right time for nine nights.


But that’s not good news for people who work rotating shifts who never get enough sleep at the right times. There’s no way to know when the damage from a perpetually disrupted body clock becomes permanent, says Buxton.

What to Do If You Work the Night Shift
Here are a few ways to keep your blood sugar -- not to mention your energy and your digestive tract -- healthy:

1. Be extra-careful to eat healthfully. “People who are sleep-restricted prefer more food and inappropriate food, like high-carb potatoey-ricey things, sugar and fat, which are more likely to go directly to fat,” says Buxton. So be sure to do the following to ensure you’re not one of them:

• Maintain a normal eating pattern (three meals a day and two snacks, with breakfast when you wake up, no matter what time it is).
• Stick to foods that are less likely to raise your blood sugar. Protein (e.g., nuts, poultry, and low-fat dairy) gives you a steady stream of energy, while chocolate doughnuts from the vending machine give you a quick burst followed by a rapid letdown.
• Avoid excessive caffeine. Since caffeine can stay in your system for up to seven hours, have it once at the beginning of your shift but not close to quitting (and sleep) time. Stick to water the rest of the time.
• Have a carb snack, like whole-grain bread and jam, before your head hits the pillow. Carbs will help you sleep.

2. Fit in some exercise. Night shift workers are also likely to be too tired to exercise once they leave work. Plus, they have a tough time sleeping when it’s light out and the rest of the world is awake. If you can’t exercise after work, says Buxton, try doing it during breaks while you’re on the job, when you have the energy.

3. Make it easier to sleep. When you go home at night -- err, in the morning -- make sure you have room-darkening shades and a white noise machine so it seems like night in your bedroom. Your body clock is regulated by light exposure. You need total darkness to produce the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin.

Do you have trouble sleeping? Find out how to sleep better tonight!
Photo: @iStockphoto.com/ContentWorks
Denise Foley   is Completely You’s “News You Can Use” blogger. She is a veteran health writer, the former deputy editor and editor at large of Prevention, and co-author of four books on women’s health and parenting.

Blog

Why Sad Movies Make You Happy

By Denise Foley for Completely You

In 1978, I went to see the movie The Deer Hunter with a group of friends. Around the midpoint of the film, which explored the devastating effects of the Vietnam War on a group of friends from a small industrial town in western Pennsylvania, I started to cry. By the end of the film, I was sobbing. And to my friends’ embarrassment, I continued to sob even as we got into our car in the crowded parking garage. I was a mess.

Fast-forward to a year later. I am in my little apartment, doing my Saturday morning cleaning, with the TV humming in the next room. I suddenly become aware of music playing, and although I don’t recognize the tune, I find my eyes filling with tears. I go to the living room to see what it is. It’s a promo. For The Deer Hunter.


Fast-forward to today. In a study published in the journal Communication Research, Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, a communications professor at Ohio State University, and colleagues found that people love sad movies because of their unlikely benefit: They can make you happy.

Knobloch-Westerwick’s study involved 361 college students who watched an abridged version of the 2007 film Atonement, a film about two separated lovers who become the casualties of war. (It was drawn from the book by Ian McEwan, one of my favorite authors, though I found its overarching theme -- that one can make a mistake that reverberates over a lifetime -- far sadder than the story of doomed love.)

Before, during and after watching the film, the viewers were asked about their lives and feelings. The researcher wanted to determine how happy they were before plunging them into the big-screen chaos and tragedy, then to track their fluctuating emotions as the story unfolded and ended.

At the film’s conclusion, Knoblock-Westerwick and her colleagues asked the students how much they enjoyed the movie and to write about how it led them to reflect on themselves, their lives, their relationships, and life in general.

And here’s where the unexpected happened. The viewers who felt saddest while watching the movie were more likely to write about people with whom they had close relationships. That in turn increased their happiness afterward. Sad movies may make you cry, as Sue Thompson sang in her 1961 bobby-soxer hit, but they also seem to remind you that your life isn’t so bad.

“People seem to use tragedies as a way to reflect on the important relationships in their own life -- to count their blessings,” said Knoblock-Westerwick in an interview. “That can help explain why tragedies are so popular with audiences, despite the sadness they induce.”

There might even be a chemical reason for the paradox. Across the OSU campus from Knobloch-Westerwick is David Huron, professor of arts and humanities at the School of Music and the Center for Cognitive Science. In his studies exploring the emotional effects of sad music, he found that that when people are feeling sad, their bodies produce a hormone called prolactin. Yes, the same hormone linked to breastfeeding in women. He knows because he took people’s blood while they were listening to sad and happy music and analyzed it. (Read a synopsis of the study here.)

Listening to sad music actually thrusts you into a “sham” state of sadness so that your body produces prolactin, nature’s version of a warm hug. Huron believes that prolactin has a consoling effect that is meant to be protective.

So there you have it. In our “down the rabbit hole” world, sad is happy. I still can’t watch The Deer Hunter or Old Yeller, though. I’ve never seen Bambi and don’t plan to relive the Titanic sinking in 3D. But I do listen to sad music when I’m sad and I have to admit, it does make me feel better. In fact, I’m even a bit concerned that Adele has announced she’s no longer writing sad songs. What will I do now when I have the blues?

What’s your favorite sad movie or song? Tell me about it!


For more great health and lifestyle content, visit me here at Completely You

Denise Foley   is Completely You’s “News You Can Use” blogger. She is a veteran health writer, the former deputy editor and editor at large of Prevention, and co-author of four books on women’s health and parenting.

How Global Warming Is Giving Us Breathing Problems

By Denise Foley for Completely You

You may have enjoyed this year’s balmy winter, but it’s a cause for alarm among scientists. All across the U.S., temperatures broke all records. March 2012 was the warmest March ever recorded -- and records go back to 1895. The first quarter of the year was also the warmest, and the period between April 2011 and March 2012 was the warmest 12-month stretch on record. Across the country, there were 7,775 new daytime highs.

Temperatures in the U.S. have already risen more than 2 F in the last century, and like the price of gas, they’re still going up. In fact, they’re expected to climb another 1-2 F by 2020.

Still think climate change is a myth?

What does this warming spell bode for your health? Get ready for some bad air days, the experts warn. By 2020, said the Union of Concerned Scientists in a report released last year, rising temperatures will cause higher ground-level concentrations of ozone that could lead to 2.8 million more occurrences of acute respiratory symptoms, such as asthma attacks, shortness of breath, coughing, wheezing and chest tightness. And that’s not just in people with respiratory problems.

The Dangers of Ozone
Ozone is a colorless gas found in the air we breathe. Where it occurs determines whether it’s good or bad. It’s good when it’s in the Earth’s upper atmosphere (anywhere from 10-30 miles from the surface), shielding us from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays. But when it’s near the ground, it’s a result of air pollutants from vehicle exhaust and power/chemical plants interacting in the presence (and heat) of sunlight.

This earthbound type of ozone -- the main component of smog -- can irritate your respiratory system, make it difficult to breathe deeply (particularly when you exercise), inflame and damage the cells that line your lungs, aggravate asthma and other lung diseases (e.g., emphysema and chronic bronchitis), and make you more susceptible to respiratory infections. You can even experience severe chest pain.
How common is it? Unfortunately, these days, it’s as much a part of summer as the ice-cream man.

How to Protect Yourself
Children, the elderly, and people with chronic lung conditions are most susceptible to health problems from ozone exposure, though even healthy people can experience upper respiratory problems and even permanent lung damage as a result of breathing in ozone.

“Some people are sensitive to ozone gas, and you’ll probably know it if you are,” says Dr. Nick Hanania, pulmonary physician and director of the Adult Asthma Clinic and Pulmonary Diagnostic Laboratory at Ben Taub General Hospital. “Once you inhale it, you get upper airway irritation, with sneezing, itchy nose, and coughing. Ozone can also prime the airways for allergies, irritating the airways so they’re more susceptible to allergens.”

Here are a few tips from Dr. Hanania and other experts to protect yourself and your family:

• Pay close attention to ozone alerts if you have chronic respiratory problems, small children or older relatives, or if you are older yourself. Now, along with temperatures and precipitation, your local meteorologist includes ozone levels as well as pollen and other pollutants in the forecast as part of the Air Quality Index (AQI). If the ozone is high, limit the time you and your family spend outdoors. Stay inside with the air-conditioning. If you don’t have AC, go somewhere that does. Window fans can keep you cool, but they can also draw ozone inside.
• If you need to be outside -- for yard work, for example, or to exercise -- do it early in the morning or in the evening when ozone levels are usually lower. If you usually jog or play tennis, pick a less intense activity during high-ozone periods. Walk rather than run, for instance. “When you’re exercising, you’re inhaling more air per minute than if you’re just sitting,” says Hanania.
• Forget masks. Ozone is a gas, and it will pass through even the finest filter.
• Get your own personal ozone alert. EnviroFlash is a free service that alerts you when ozone is approaching dangerous levels. Sign up here.

Do you live in a high-ozone area? Talk about it below or tweet me @Completely_You

Photo: @iStockphoto.com/LPETTET
Denise Foley   is Completely You’s “News You Can Use” blogger. She is a veteran health writer, the former deputy editor and editor at large of Prevention, and co-author of four books on women’s health and parenting.