AAA Says 2-of-5 Drivers Admit Nodding Off at the Wheel

GOOD AFTERNOON all! well this weekend went by way too fast and i couldn't help but stop and read this article because i know we have all done it once in our lives and lets face it it is not the safest thing to do especially if your driving with you kids. hopefully you guys enjoy the rest of the article, an d have a great weekend. Happy Veteran's day.

A new study from AAA has revealed that driving while drowsy is more common and more deadly than previously thought.

The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety analyzed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's crash data from 1999-2008 and estimated that nearly 17 percent of fatal crashes -- 4,400 deadly accidents a year -- are the result of sleepy drivers.

In addition, a recent study by AAA foundation found that 41 percent of drivers said they'd fallen asleep at the wheel, with 1-in-10 admitting to having done so in the last year.

"Just like alcohol and drugs, being very tired while you're driving decreases your awareness," said Peter Kissinger, the foundation's president and CEO. "It slows your reaction time and it impairs your judgment."

Results from the foundation's study coincide with the start of Drowsy Driving Prevention Week by the National Sleep Foundation, which has been pushing for better drowsy-driving awareness and education since 1991.

Staying awake for 24 hours can leave a person as impaired as someone with a 0.1 alcohol level -- the equivalent of consuming six drinks. Twenty-five percent of drivers surveyed said they have driven in the last month despite being so tired that they couldn't keep their eyes open.

"The bottom line is that people think they can handle it," said Dr. Robert Basner. "They are actually not handling it well and fatal accidents do occur."

Basner said that when a drowsy person drives, they cannot maintain alertness, their coordination is off and their judgment suffers. Fatigue messes with the brain. When the body expects to sleep, it releases chemicals like melatonin. When the body is forced to remain awake, the brain has to fight those chemicals and that leaves the person in a fog.

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Lights out, phones on: Many teens text all night long

GOOD MORNING ALL! hope everyone had a good and safe Halloween. I'm not going to lie i have a horrible case of the Mondays lol but hey reading and finding articles keeps me entertained for hrs. This is the latest article i found on " teens" texting all night long.. and i put teens in " " because to be honest I'm 21 years old and i sometimes do this.. i fall asleep with a laptop or a phone in front of me, either doing hmwk or just txting all night long. so i wouldn't say this is a teen problem.

Every night, Christy Ross, an 18-year-old freshman at the University of Delaware, goes to sleep cradling a cell phone.

“I get into bed and reach for my phone to text someone, listen to music, or play a game before I fall asleep rather than just shutting my eyes. Sometimes I even feel a slight pressure to stay awake and continue a conversation (especially if it is with a cute boy)," she says. "A text message going off in the middle of the night will wake me up and I will usually respond.”

Ross is not alone in her habits, reveals a study released Monday. Teens send an average of 34 texts a night (adding up to 3,400 a month) after going to bed — in some cases up to four hours after hitting the sack, found researchers from JFK Medical Center, in Edison, N.J.

The evidence has been mounting that teens mightily prefer texting to actual contact with family members, with studies from Nielsen and Kaiser contributing data that show teens consider the loss of a cell phone more dire than the loss of an internal organ.

But the new research is especially concerning, experts say, because it finds that half of the kids kept awake by electronic media suffered from a whole host of mood and cognitive problems, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety, depression, and learning difficulties.

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Caffeinated Booze Four Loko, Not Drugs, Sickened Students at Party

GOOD MORNING!
this article is crazy.. well for me at least i mean i know my Friends drink this and i have in the past ( didn't like it) but i mean its scary i guess i didn't know what i was drinking, and to know that my little sister at a party could be possibly drinking this is pretty scary.

A highly caffeinated, but legal alcoholic drink was responsible for sickening dozens and sent nine Central Washington students to the hospital and led to an investigation of whether the party-goers had been drugged, police said today.

Police said some 50 students became sick after consuming large amounts of the controversial but legal beverage Four Loko, which combines as much alcohol found in a six pack of beer with as much caffeine in five cups of coffee.

This is the latest incident involving alcoholic energy drinks like Four Loko. Already such drinks are banned on college campuses around the country and today the Washington State attorney general lent his voice to a growing chorus of state authorities calling on the federal government to ban the drinks outright

The university announced at a news conference today in Ellensburg, Wash., that the blood-alcohol content of students ranged from .12 percent to .335 percent. In Washington, 0.08 is the legal limit for intoxication. 0.3 can be lethal.

Nine students were hospitalized after the Oct. 8 party at a house where about 50 people had been drinking.

Police called to the scene of the house party, in Rosyln, Wash., about 30 miles from the university, found young people – many of them women – passed out throughout the house and on the front lawn.

Authorities at the time said they did not believe incident was a result of heavy drinking, but that someone had surreptitiously slipped drugs, possibly date rape drugs, into people's drinks.

Police today said there was no evidence of drugs found, only the energy drink.

"Perhaps even more disturbing," said Chief Steve Rittereiser was that students were drinking beer and hard alcohol on top of Four Loko.

"It was really scary," Katelynn Allen, a Central Washington University freshman who was at the party but did not drink told ABC News affiliate KOMO-TV.

"Everything was going fine, the music was playing, people were having fun - and then all of a sudden all the girls were puking everywhere," she said. "Girls were outside on their backs."

Nicknamed "blackout in a can" and "liquid cocaine," Four Loko has already been banned from several college campuses after students became ill.

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It's National Teen Driver Safety Week (Oct. 17-23), So Talk to Your Kids

Hello! :) its been awhile since i last updated this, lots has happened. as we all know its breast cancer month , but not only that this week in October is national driver safety week. hopefully everyone is having a good month/ week, cant wait for the holidays!

Car accidents are the leading cause of death among teens — 16-to-19-year-olds are four times more likely to be in a fatal car crash than 25-to-69-year-olds — so it makes sense to devote a week to a national discussion about safe driving. That's this week (Oct. 17-23): National Teen Driver Safety Week. And if overall distracted driving rates are any indication, adults could use a refresher course anyway.

This year's Teen Driver Safety Week theme is distracted driving — taking your eyes off the road, hands off the wheel or mind off the task at hand for any reason — an increasingly recognized threat to highway safety. Research shows that inexperienced drivers under age 20 are the most likely to have fatal distraction-related accidents. (More on Time.com: Study: Car Crash Rates Increased Despite 'Texting While Driving' Bans).

A University of Utah study found that using a cell phone behind the wheel — regardless of whether or not it is hands-free — increases a driver's reaction time equal to someone with a 0.08 percent blood alcohol concentration, the legal threshold for intoxication.

Teen passengers also increase the risk of distracted driving: one teen in the passenger seat of a young driver's car doubles the risk of fatal crash, while three or more teen passengers quadruples the risk. (More on Time.com: Why Are Black Bikers More Likely to Die in Crashes than Whites?).

To learn more, see Teen Driver Source — a research tool compiled by the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and State Farm Insurance, the organizations that launched National Teen Driver Safety Week in 2007.

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POM Wonderful health claims are bogus

GOOD MORNING.. well i should say good AFTERNOON lol. basically its Monday the longest day of the week! and i mean who doesn't have a bad case of the Monday's! interesting article if you are a fan of the POM juice. i know i am. hope everyone had a great weekend.


POM Wonderful isn't quite as wonderful as it claims, the Federal Trade Commission said Monday, after filing a complaint that challenges the company's statements that pomegranate can prevent and treat everything from heart disease to erectile dysfunction.

The agency called the claims -- found in advertisements in print publications and on the Internet -- "false and unsubstantiated" and based on flawed medical research.

In a story this March, the Tribune named POM Wonderful as one of several products on the market that made health claims in its advertising that are permissible only for FDA-approved drugs. Yet, POM Wonderful has staked its name on the fruit's health benefits.

According to POM Wonderful, since 1998 the company has paid $34 million to support pomegranate-related research at universities and by other scientists, yielding approximately 55 published studies.

A spokesman for POM Wonderful said the company will issue a statement later today.

The FTC is asking a judge to issue an order that would require the company to stop making claims that pomegranate products can cure, prevent or treat any disease unless the claims are first approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

At the same time, Mark Dreher, POM Wonderful's former head of scientific and regulatory affairs and an expert endorser, has agreed to settle a related case against him for the health claims he endorsed on POM products. Dreher has agreed to stop making those claims, the agency said.

The labor-intensive and messy pomegranate was stuck on the sidelines of the American fruit market until 2002 when Beverly Hills billionaires Stewart and Lynda Resnick planted enough of the fruit to quadruple the market, simultaneously introducing POM Wonderful juice to consumers.

By 2004, the formerly shy fruit showed up as the hottest flavor for everything from candles to a sprays and was featured on "Sex in the City," Oprah Winfrey's O and even Time magazine.

Among the advertising claims the FTC is challenging are that the product has "super health powers," that drinking an 8 ounce glass of POM Wonderful slows the rate of prostate cancer, that the juice can treat erectile dysfunction and that it has been proven reduce arterial plaque by 30 percent.

"Any consumer who sees POM Wonderful products as a silver bullet against disease has been misled," David Vladeck, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement. "When a company touts scientific research in its advertising, the research must squarely support the claims made. Contrary to POM Wonderful's advertising, the available scientific information does not prove that POM juice or POMx effectively treats or prevents these illnesses."

The administrative complaint does not mean the company has violated the law, the FTC said. A hearing has been scheduled for eight months from now before an administrative law judge.

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Kids Exposed to Strain of Cold Virus More Likely to Be Obese

How was every ones weekend. Great i hope! anyways I'm getting very tired on this lazy Monday afternoon aand tha 230 feeling is starting to kick in i should have listening to my sister and drank some caffeine because now I'm suffering lol well anyways here's an article i thought was pretty fascinating.

Children exposed to a particular strain of a common cold virus are more likely to be obese than those not exposed, a new study suggests.

In a study of 124 children, ages 8 to 18, nearly 80 percent of those who had been exposed to a virus called adenovirus 36 were obese. They weighed an average of 50 pounds (23 kilograms) more than kids who were not exposed to the virus, said study researcher Dr. Jeffrey B. Schwimmer, associate professor of clinical pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego.
And among kids who were obese, those exposed to the virus weighed an average of 35 pounds (16 kg) more than obese kids who hadn't been exposed to the virus, he said.

"The bottom line is, it's a big number," Schwimmer told MyHealthNewsDaily. "Certainly, it's more than enough to be associated with health problems."

Thirty-five to 50 extra pounds is a lot for a child, considering an average, healthy 8-year-old usually weighs between 50 pounds and 90 pounds (23 kg to 41 kg) to begin with, Schwimmer said.

There are more than 50 strains of the adenovirus, which is the virus most commonly responsible for respiratory illnesses that range from the common cold to pneumonia-like sicknesses. Most people are exposed to some strain of the virus before age 10, according to the Nemours Center for Children's Health Media.

Scientists determined whether children had been exposed to the adenovirus by looking for antibodies in their blood.

The virus may affect obesity by infecting "pre-fat" cells - cells that have the ability to store fat - in the body and causing them to mature more quickly, Schwimmer said. It may also inhibit the cells' ability to break down fat, so fat cells become greater in both number and size.

"The more rapidly they become mature, the more fat cells a person will have," he said.
But that doesn't mean people should panic about being exposed to this strain of virus, he said.

Even if the virus is a causal factor for obesity, not every person will have the same reaction to infection.

Childhood obesity has more than tripled over the last 30 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Much attention has been paid to factors such as food intake, exercise, sedimentary lifestyles and genetics, but viral infection is another factor that should also be considered, Schwimmer said.

"Body weight regulation is complicated and differs from person to person," he said. "For some people, [exposure to the virus] may be a tremendously important factor, and less so for others."

Previous research has linked adenovirus strains to obesity in both animals and humans, but this study is the first to look at the role of the virus in childhood obesity, said Dr. Nikhil Dhurandhar, chief of the Infection and Obesity laboratory at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana, who has been studying what he calls "infectobesity" for the past 20 years.

"If there's at least some part of obesity that is caused by infections, then there is a potential to have a vaccine to prevent this type of obesity," said Dhurandhar, who is not involved with the study.

Researchers hope to learn whether children who are obese and were exposed to the virus respond to weight-loss methods differently than children who were never exposed the virus. They also hope to investigate the possibility of preventing the virus with a vaccine, and, if so, explore how to determine who should get it.

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FDA Mulls Removing Weight-Loss Drug From U.S. Market

Hello how was everyone weekend i hope well!. summer is almost official over and fall will be here within a week or so. :) recently my sister has been taking some diet pill and this article interested me for some reason. hopefully you enjoy it.

WASHINGTON—A federal advisory panel is being asked to help decide whether Abbott Laboratories' weight-loss drug Meridia should stay on the market.

Meridia has been the subject of an ongoing safety review. Earlier this year, the European Medicines Agency ordered Abbott to remove Meridia from the European market and the FDA toughened warnings on the drugs' label saying it shouldn't be used in patients with a history of heart problems. At the time, the FDA also said the product should be discontinued in patients who don't lose at least 5% of their baseline body weight within the first three to six months of treatment.

Now the FDA is considering whether to remove the product from the U.S. market. Meridia will be discussed Wednesday by the agency's endocrinologic and metabolic drugs advisory committee, which is made up of non-FDA medical experts.

The panel is being asked to vote on what additional regulatory action it thinks the FDA should take, including whether the product should be withdrawn from the U.S. market. The FDA usually follows the advice of its advisory committee but isn't required to do so. The FDA posted background materials for Wednesday's meeting on its website Monday.

The panel will primarily discuss a clinical study known as Scout, which was conducted in patients with a history of heart disease or diabetes. It showed patients in the study had a higher rate of cardiovascular events compared to patients on a placebo medication.

An FDA clinical review of the study said, "in a population of middle-age and older overweight and obese subjects, treatment with [Meridia] for an average of 3.5 years increased the relative risk for major adverse cardiac events by 16%." However, the FDA said the data from the study haven't been fully analyzed.

According to another FDA memo, agency staff said there was evidence that while Meridia improved some cardiac-risk factors, it "may have a detrimental effect on others," such as an increase in blood pressure and heart rate. Still, the memo said, given the modest decrease in body weight seen with most patients taking Meridia, "even a small increase in cardiovascular risk seems unwarranted."

In a document also posted on the FDA's website, Abbott said use of Meridia in the target population currently described on the product's label is associated with a low rate of cardiovascular events.

The company said it supports placing a boxed warning on the product giving doctors "advice on monitoring and discontinuation of therapy based on blood pressure, pulse, and weight loss parameters." A boxed warning is FDA's toughest warning on a drug label.

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