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TRONDHEIM, Norway, April 30 (UPI) — Researchers in Norway say obesity increased the risk for fibromyalgia, but exercise decreased fibromyalgia risk.

Study leader Paul Mork of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim found women who reported exercising four times per week had a 29 percent lower risk of fibromyalgia compared with inactive women.

“Similar results were found in the analysis of the summary score combining information on frequency, duration and intensity of exercise; women with the highest exercise level had a somewhat lower risk than inactive women,” Mork said in a statement.

Mork and colleagues based the study on data collected from the Nord-Trondelag Health Study, the first part conducted in 1984 and the second part in 1995. In the 11 years between, 380 new cases of fibromyalgia were reported among the 15,990 women participants.

The study, published in Arthritis Care & Research, also found being overweight or obese a strong and independent risk factor for future development of fibromyalgia. Being overweight or obese and inactive — pointed to a further disadvantage than being overweight or obese alone, the study said.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

DALLAS, April 30 (UPI) — A study of pregnant women found the three anti-viral drugs used to treat influenza appear safe for the women and their babies, U.S. researchers said.

“A woman has to balance the benefits and potential risks of any medication taken during pregnancy. But with influenza, the added risks of complications from the disease in pregnancy need to be considered,” senior author Dr. George Wendel of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center said in a statement.

“This is the first large study that systematically looked at the safety of all these drugs in pregnancy.”

Wendel and colleagues analyzed the medical records of women who gave birth at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas from 2003 to 2008 — before H1N1 influenza.

The study compared pregnant women without flu and 239 pregnant women who had influenza and were treated with one of the flu medications Tamiflu, Relenza and Flumadine.

The study, published in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, found no differences in the mothers’ rates of pre-eclampsia, preterm birth, gestational diabetes, premature membrane rupture, fever during labor or prolonged hospital stay.

However, in two cases premature children had a bowel condition, necrotizing enterocolitis, but since the mothers each received a different anti-viral, the prematurity may have been the common factor between the two babies, the researchers said.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

SILVER SPRINGS, Md., April 30 (UPI) — Food safety begins not at home, but while shopping, U.S. experts advise.

FoodSafety.gov, produced by government agencies with a role in food safety, says being smart about food safety begins with food shopping.

“Protecting your family against foodborne illnesses begins not at home but at the supermarket, grocery store or any other place where you buy food that you plan to store and serve,” Doriliz De Leon, a consumer safety officer at the Food Safety and Applied Nutrition Office of Compliance, part of the Food and Drug Administration, says in a statement.

De Leon recommends before actually buying food check for store cleanliness and the condition of cans, jars and frozen food packages. Check for irregularities and damage.

To keep food safe while shopping, De Leon suggests:

– Separating raw meat, poultry and seafood from other foods.

– Adding frozen foods and perishables last to the cart.

– Eyeballing fresh eggs for cracks and cleanliness.

– Being mindful of transport time and temperatures.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

ANAHEIM, Calif., April 30 (UPI) — A U.S. researcher advises those counting calories to look beyond the organic label.

Brian Wansink of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., says people often underestimate the number of calories in an organic snack and over-reward themselves by eating more.

Wansink and colleagues found people who ate cookies labeled as “organic” believed their snack contained 40 percent fewer calories than the same cookies without the label.

The researchers found those most likely to do this were people who report usually buying organic foods and those who say they usually read nutritional information labels.

“An organic label gives a food a ‘health halo,’” study co-author Wansink says in a statement.

He advises those who desire a more accurate calorie count to guess and then double the number.

“You’ll end up being more accurate, and you’ll probably eat a lot less,” he says.

The study findings were presented at the Experimental Biology conference in Anaheim, Calif.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

LOS ANGELES, April 30 (UPI) — U.S. researchers found 34.7 percent of patients age 60 and older were at-risk drinkers.

Researchers at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, said drinkers at risk were those who drank more than two drinks on most days or those who consumed one to two drinks on most days whose drinking could worsen the effects of a disease — such as hepatitis — or of their medication.

“Compared to the U.S. Census population age 60 and older, the sample studied was more likely to be white, married, well-educated and high-income,” lead study Andrew Barnes said in a statement. “However, the adjusted associations of patient demographics with at-risk drinking found in our research should be more generalizable than the descriptive data published previously.”

Barnes and colleagues looked at 3,308 older patients at primary care clinics around Santa Barbara, Calif.

The study, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, also found participants who had not graduated from high school had 2.5 times the odds of at-risk drinking as those who had completed graduate school.

However, those with annual household incomes between $80,000 and $100,000 had 1.5 times the odds of being at-risk as those with incomes under $30,000.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

ATLANTA, April 30 (UPI) — There were large increases in seasonal flu coverage for U.S. children and a moderate increase for adults ages 18-49 for 2009-10, health officials said.

Influenza A H1N1 pandemic last April made the 2009-10 influenza increased public awareness of the seriousness of influenza because of the media coverage of pandemic-associated hospitalizations and deaths, especially among youth, a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

The 2009-10 flu season was the first to implement recommendations from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to vaccinate everyone ages 5-18. By Jan. 31, state seasonal influenza vaccination rates for those age 6 months to age 17 ranged from 23.6 percent in Nevada to 67.2 in Hawaii. The median vaccine coverage for this age group was at 40 percent — 16 percentage points higher than the previous flu season 2008-09, the report said.

Median coverage for adults ages 18-49 with high-risk conditions was 38.3 percent — similar to the previous flu season — and ranged from 21.2 percent in Mississippi to 63.4 percent in Minnesota for the high-risk group, the report said. However, in adults ages 18-49 without high-risk conditions seasonal flu coverage was 30 percent higher in 2009-10 than the year earlier.

Seasonal influenza vaccination coverage was 45 percent for adults age 50-64 and 68 percent for adults age 65 and older — similar to previous flu seasons, the report said.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

Lack of sunlight increases MS risk

MELBOURNE, April 30 (UPI) — Babies whose mothers don’t get enough sunlight during the early part of pregnancy are more likely to develop multiple sclerosis, scientists in Australia said.

A lack of sunlight — the main source of Vitamin D — during the first three to four months of pregnancy can affect how a baby’s central nervous and immune system develops, said scientists from the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne and Australian National University in Acton.

Babies born in November and December, during the Australian summer, had their early months in the winter and so were 32 percent more likely to develop MS than babies whose early months were in the summer and were born in May and June, during the Australian winter, the scientists said. Their results from studying 1,524 patients with MS born between 1920 and 1950 appeared recently in an online edition of the British Medical Journal.

“These results add to the weight of existing evidence suggesting vitamin D plays a role in the development of MS,” Doug Brown, an MS researcher, told The Times of London in a story published Friday.

Bee colonies experience winter drop

WASHINGTON, April 30 (UPI) — A dramatic loss in domestic bee colonies is being blamed on starvation, pesticides, poor weather and weak colonies, U.S. apiary experts said.

Losses of domestic, managed colonies totaled 33.8 percent from October 2009 to April, said a survey released Thursday by the Apiary Inspectors of America and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. There was a 35.8 percent overall colony loss in the winter of 2007-2008.

The losses threaten the future of U.S. crop pollination and the domestic honey industry, said Jerry Hayes, a hive inspector with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

The loss of hives, known as Colony Collapse Disorder, likely was caused by a combination of factors, including environmental stresses, nutrition problems, pathogens and parasites, the survey said.

The survey reported only winter losses and not the number of colonies that fail during the summer, which can be significant, Hayes told The Miami Herald in a story reported Friday.

Genome tests offer crystal ball to future

PALO ALTO, Calif., April 30 (UPI) — A genome report soon will cost no more than $1,000, enabling more people to learn about the health risks encoded in their genes, U.S. researchers said.

The price of a full genome report has dropped to below $10,000 and will continue to drop, WebMD reported Friday.

Stephen Quake, 40, a bioengineer at Stanford University, said he underwent genome testing to learn whether he had any of the risk factors that caused a 19-year-old relative to die suddenly in his sleep.

Stanford researchers determined Quake carries three gene variants linked to sudden cardiac death and is at increased risk for clogged arteries, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.

“It is all bad news,” Quake told WebMD, saying every person who examines their genome will find they carry risk genes for more than one serious or deadly disease.

The helpful news is that genome analysis can guide doctors in prescribing preventative treatments, WebMD reported. In Quake’s case he learned he’s genetically more likely to respond to low doses of cholesterol-lowering drugs with a lower risk of side effects.

Pokeberry valuable in solar production

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., April 30 (UPI) — A purple berry used by U.S. Civil War soldiers to write letters home could be used to advance solar power in poor rural areas, scientists said.

Pokeberries proliferate even during drought and in rocky, infertile soil, said David Carroll, director of Wake Forest University’s Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials.

When applied to fiber-based solar cells, the berry’s dye acts as an absorber, helping the cell’s fibers capture more sunlight to convert into power, Carroll said in a release from the university Thursday.

“They’re weeds. They grow on every continent but Antarctica,” Carroll said.

Newly developed fiber-based solar cells can produce twice as much power as current flat-cell technology and are less expensive to produce, he said.

“It’s a low-cost solar cell that can be made to work with local, low-cost agricultural crops like pokeberries and with a means of production that emerging economies can afford,” Carroll said.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

WALNUT CREEK, Calif., April 30 (UPI) — The newly completed genome sequence of the African clawed frog could provide clues to some of the world’s most ancient creatures, a California scientist said.

The genome of the frog, Xenopus tropicalis, fills a major gap among such vertebrates sequenced so far, said Uffe Hellsten, a researcher with Joint Genome Institute, Walnut Creek, Calif.

“When you look at segments of the Xenopus genome, you literally are looking at structures that are 360 million years old and were part of the genome of the last common ancestor of all birds, frogs, dinosaurs and mammals that ever roamed the earth,” Hellsten said in a release from the Institute Thursday.

The clawed frog was among the last commonly used laboratory organisms to be sequenced after the mouse, chicken, nemotode, zebrafish and fruit fly, Hellsten and other scientists wrote in a recent issue of the journal Science.

The frogs are especially suited to laboratory work because their large eggs are easy to inject with chemicals, the scientists said.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

PALO ALTO, Calif., April 30 (UPI) — A genome report soon will cost no more than $1,000, enabling more people to learn about the health risks encoded in their genes, U.S. researchers said.

The price of a full genome report has dropped to below $10,000 and will continue to drop, WebMD reported Friday.

Stephen Quake, 40, a bioengineer at Stanford University, said he underwent genome testing to learn whether he had any of the risk factors that caused a 19-year-old relative to die suddenly in his sleep.

Stanford researchers determined Quake carries three gene variants linked to sudden cardiac death and is at increased risk for clogged arteries, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.

“It is all bad news,” Quake told WebMD, saying every person who examines their genome will find they carry risk genes for more than one serious or deadly disease.

The helpful news is that genome analysis can guide doctors in prescribing preventative treatments, WebMD reported. In Quake’s case he learned he’s genetically more likely to respond to low doses of cholesterol-lowering drugs with a lower risk of side effects.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

GIRONA, Spain, April 30 (UPI) — The warmer temperatures associated with climate change could speed the spread of the invasive mosquitofish in northern Europe, scientists in Spain said.

The mosquitofish, Gambusia holbrooki, is native to the United States and was introduced in Spain in 1921. Since then, it has spread to more than 50 countries on every continent except Antarctica, the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology Climate Change said in a release Thursday.

The freshwater fish thrives in Mediterranean rivers, where it displaces small native fish that live in fresh or brackish water.

The mosquitofish has yet to become established in the United Kingdom, Germany and Nordic countries, but that could change as temperatures warm and the fish extends its breeding territory, said Emili Garcia-Berthou, an aquatic researcher at the University of Girona.

“Its distribution is clearly limited by temperature,” Garcia-Berthou said.

In Spain, the mosquitofish has reduced populations of native toothcarp to the point where toothcarp are considered in danger of extinction, Garcia-Berthou said.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.