Incident shows Taser may have affected heart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A quick shock from a Taser may have zapped a man's fluttering heart back into a healthy rhythm, doctors reported on Tuesday.
They cited the incident as evidence that the devices, which are used by police who want to use less-than-deadly force to incapacitate people but are condemned by some civil rights groups as dangerous, may affect the heart as critics allege.
In this case, the outcome was a happy one, the doctors reported in the Annals of Emergency Medicine. Several lawsuits in the United States and Canada contend the devices, which use an electric charge to subdue an attacker, can stop the heart.
The 28-year-old patient was fleeing police and jumped into a lake in April, when the water was still very cold.
"I don't know exactly what he had done but he fled capture from them and he hid in a lake," said Dr. Kyle Richards, a cardiologist at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut, who treated the man when he was taken to an emergency room.
Richards said the patient was experiencing an irregular heart rhythm known as atrial fibrillation, possibly as a result of the cold and shock.
After treatment, the patient was eager to leave. "He got very combative and started yelling in my face and that's when I left the room and got security," Richards said.
Police and security used a Taser stun gun, which shoots out a lead connected to two barbs that can deliver up to 50,000 volts. They used a low-voltage charge meant to cause pain rather than a longer, higher-voltage jolt meant to incapacitate.
The patient calmed down and another electrocardiogram showed his heart rhythm was normal
"This is the first report of a patient receiving a shock of this kind and having a positive outcome," Richards said.
Amnesty International says that since 2001 more than 290 people have died in North America in incidents involving the weapon. Taser International says there is no evidence the gun directly caused the deaths.
Richards said studies done in pigs show the weapon can affect the heart muscle.
This case provided a controlled situation, with almost continuous monitoring of the patient's heart.
Richards noted that the patient was not hooked up to the electrocardiogram at the precise moment of being shocked.
"People can spontaneously go from atrial fibrillation into a normal rhythm without any intervention at all. You cannot conclusively say that the Taser did it," he said. But he said he believed it did.
"It's just one more thing that says, hey, Tasers can actually affect the heart."

Child obesity epidemic seen leveling off

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. childhood obesity epidemic leveled off this decade after surging for about 20 years, but a worrisome 16 percent of young people remain obese, risking serious health problems, researchers said on Tuesday.
Obesity rates remained essentially unchanged among boys and girls ages 2 to 19 from 1999 to 2006, researchers led by Cynthia Ogden of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The study found that 32 percent fit the government's definition of being overweight, 16 percent fit the definition for obesity and 11 percent were extremely obese.
Childhood obesity rates had tripled in the two decades starting in 1980, Ogden said. Changes in diet -- more fatty and sweetened foods -- and less exercise helped fuel the trend.
"The prevalence is still very high. And so it's not as if the problem is solved. But there is some reason for cautious optimism," Ogden said in a telephone interview.
The study did not show any drop in childhood obesity. And it did further illustrate ongoing racial disparities.
Dr. David Ludwig, a childhood obesity expert at Children's Hospital Boston, said it is too soon to know if the findings represent a mere temporary lull in a long-term upward trend or a true, enduring leveling off of an epidemic.
"This study is a glimmer of hope," Ludwig said in a telephone interview, saying it might show that public health efforts to increase awareness of obesity may be paying off

The researchers examined height and weight measurements for 8,165 people ages 2 to 19 taken in government surveys from 2003 through 2006, allowing them to calculate body mass index, or BMI, a measure of obesity.
GROWING PROBLEM
They compared the data with numbers dating back to 1999, finding no statistically significant differences in rates.
Childhood and adult obesity has emerged as a growing problem not only in the United States but in many countries around the world.
Obese children are more likely to be saddled with risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol, as well as type 2 diabetes. They also are at higher risk for asthma.
They also are much more likely to be obese in adulthood, when they may face the many health problems linked to obesity such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and some cancers.
The study illustrated ongoing ethnic and racial disparities.
It found that 17 percent of boys 2 to 19 overall were obese, but 23 percent of Mexican American boys were obese compared to 17 percent of blacks and 16 percent of whites. For girls, 16 percent were obese, including 24 percent of blacks, 19 percent of Mexican Americans and 14 percent of whites.
"Obesity is striking poor and minority children more severely than whites and wealthier populations," said Ludwig, who wrote an editorial in the journal to accompany the study and had a book on the subject published last year

The childhood obesity epidemic has been driven by significant changes in the U.S. diet dating back decades, with more fatty and sugary fast foods, snacks, processed foods and beverages and fewer fresh fruits and vegetables.
Many children also have become more sedentary, watching more TV, playing video games and getting less exercise

Cancer risk soars in HIV-infected people: study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People with HIV have a much higher risk for many cancers, including anal cancer, but a lower risk for prostate cancer, researchers said on Tuesday.
Some types of cancers like Kaposi's sarcoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma have long been associated with people infected by the AIDS virus.
The study focused on trends from 1992 to 2003, finding that these two types of cancer became relatively less common among HIV-infected people in the United States. But other cancers are on the rise among these patients, who are living longer thanks to anti-HIV drugs.
Anal cancer by 2003 had become 59 times more common among HIV-infected people than the general population, according to the study in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Hodgkin's disease was 18 times more common in this population, the study also found. In addition, liver cancer was seven times more common, lung cancer 3.6 times more common, the skin cancer melanoma and throat cancer both three times more common, and colorectal cancer 2.4 times more common.
The study involved 54,780 men and women infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS.
It found HIV-infected people had a small reduced risk for prostate cancer. The researchers said that may be because men with HIV infections are more likely to have lower testosterone levels, which could be protective against prostate cancer.
"The study was done because we all know that now people with HIV are living longer, and HIV is looking more like a chronic disease. So we wanted to look at one of the other very large chronic killers in America, cancer," Dr. Pragna Patel of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who led the study, told Reute

SCREENING IMPORTANT
Patel said doctors who care for HIV-infected people should be aware of this increased risk for a range of cancer types, and consider screening.
She called the study the largest analysis of cancer trends among HIV-infected people in the United States ever done.
The virus devastates the body's immune system, raising susceptibility to illnesses and infections. Many early AIDS patients developed Kaposi's sarcoma, a cancer previously associated with older people or people receiving immunosuppressant medications following an organ transplant.
But the advent of combination drug therapy in the 1990s called highly active antiretroviral therapy, or HAART, greatly extended the lives of many HIV-infected people, particularly in developed countries.
"Most significant was the finding of anal cancer being so elevated even in the HAART era," Patel said.
She said multiple factors may be involved, but the increased risk may be linked to the fact that anal sex by homosexual men can spread the human papillomavirus, or HPV, which is known to cause anal cancer.
"Of course, anal sex and how many times you have anal sex and how many sex partners you have -- that all matters with regard to HPV infection," Patel said.
Human papillomaviruses are common viruses that can cause warts among other things. About 30 types increase the risk for cancers, including cervical cancer. These are passed through sexual contact with an infected partner.

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