Fitness Blog

Take Some Tylenol and Call Me in the Morning: What will we do without cough and cold medicine? I can hear it now, that familiar refrain - "Tylenol doesn't do anything." And it doesn't, at least not for runny noses, sneezes, and coughs, despite what the expert says:

Children’s Tylenol and Children’s Motrin, when sold by themselves, were excluded from the discussions because the medicines in those products, acetaminophen and ibuprofen, respectively, are safe and effective in treating fevers and aches even in young infants.

Tylenol and Motrin are sold in syrupy concoctions that help coughs because the syrup coats the back of the throat and calms cough receptors, said Dr. Ian Paul, a pediatrician at Penn State Children’s Hospital in Hershey, Pa., who consults for industry.

The committee skipped any lengthy discussion of antihistamines like Benadryl, because there is little debate that such medicines are effective for allergies. Benadryl, also known as diphenhydramine, also puts some children to sleep. But nearly all the experts said deliberate sedation should be discouraged.

The medicines that earned the most scorn were those commonly sold to treat coughs, runny noses and congestion, including dextromethorphan and phenylephrine.

None of them have any proven effect on children’s cold symptoms. All have risks.

The advisory panel is right, however, about the effectiveness of the medications. They are effective mostly in that they give a parent something to do so they don't feel as if they're standing by while their child suffers. The number of children injured by the drugs, however, has been exceedingly small:

A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that at least 1,519 children younger than 2 had serious health problems from 2004 to 2005 after having been treated with common cold medicines. Three children died, the disease control agency found.


But the argument is, that if they don't do any good in the first place, then why tolerate any risk? But, according to this story, the pharmaceutical companies say the issue is accidental overdosage, not inherent risk in properly dosed drugs:

The Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA), which represents manufacturers and distributors of over-the-counter medicines, said in a statement: "The data clearly show that these medicines are very safe when used as directed and that harm to this age group, while very rare, is attributable in most cases to accidental ingestion an issue of safekeeping that is best addressed through education."

So what to do? My recommendation would be not to use them. Runny noses and coughs aren't in the category of intolerable suffering, and these products aren't likely to be much benefit anyway.

I Screen, You Screen: The American Academy of Pediatrics is recommending that all children be screened for autism. They've only press-released their recommendations, however, so it's difficult to assess them. Wouldn't it be nice if professional organizations actually released their recommendations to their members before they did so to the public? It would make it so much easier for doctors to discuss the news stories with their patients. They're releasing them today at their annual conference, and later in the November issue of their journal, which is not yet available online. (Though it may be in AAP member's mailboxes.)

Part of any well child visit is screening for developmental delays, so one has to wonder what's different about these recommendations. Are they setting lower limits for what's abnormal so that those mild cases of autism (which some argue aren't really autism or even disease) can be treated? If that's the case, then don't be surprised when a couple of years from now there's a upward spike in the number of cases of autism. And don't blame it on vaccines.

Magnet-Free Europe: For some reason, the EU was proposing severe restrictions on the use of MRI scans, a proposal which has been halted- for now. Here's the reasoning behind the original restrictions:

The Directive was drafted by DG Employment, with the aim of minimising workers’ exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMF). Currently eight million MRI patient examinations per year are carried out in Europe, said Professor Dag Rune Olsen, who works in experimental radiation therapy at the Norwegian Radiation Hospital, Oslo, Norway, and is chairman of the physics committee of the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ESTRO). “But these are likely to have to stop, since the Directive sets limits to occupational radiation exposure which will mean that anyone working or moving near MRI equipment will breach them, thus making it possible for them to sue their employers. Even those maintaining or servicing the equipment may be affected,” he said.

Radiation exposure? MRI's don't emit radiation, they detect the magnetic spin of atoms. The EU is worried that workers will be mesmerized by the MRI's. Sally Szwarc has more.

Spooky Skulls:Spooky brain pictures. Background here.

Of Mice and Mazes: Do high blood pressure medications prevent Alzheimer's? They do in mouse brains - in test tubes and in mazes:

The researchers then tested Diovan in mice that were genetically at risk for Alzheimer's disease.

Some of the mice drank water laced with Diovan. Their Diovan dose was lower than that used for people with high blood pressure.

For comparison, other mice got ordinary water without Diovan.

After drinking their assigned water for 11 months, the mice took a memory test in which they had to learn and remember the path through a watery maze.

The mice that drank the Diovan water fared best in the maze test.

But when the researchers tested mice without the dementia gene glitch, Diovan treatment didn't help or hurt the mice navigate the watery maze.

We'll have to wait a while to see how this pans out. What works on mice in mazes doesn't necessarily work on men in mazes.