What does this say about the state of our treatment regimens when before a shivering person is given a blanket she is given drugs?

It tells me that hospitals have a knee jerk reaction to giving drugs and give them for anything immediately. I think it’s safe to say that most people at home taking care of a sick family member who is shivering would get him or her a blanket.

Apparently this has to be proven to the healthcare industry and the article goes on to quote a clinician who actually has to explain the benefits of using a blanket over medication:

“[the blanket's] simplicity, low cost, widespread availability, lack of adverse effects, and the potential to avoid sedation … make it an attractive treatment option.”

It looks like instead of studies that focus on developing new treatments, we are having to backtrack to correct treatment mistakes of several years. Of course there have got to be treatment manuals with guidelines for helping patients, but who could blame the writers of these manuals for assuming doctors and nurses would have the basic human decency to get someone a blanket if she is cold?

Well, according to CSPI (Center for Science in the Public Interest), the FDA has demanded “that General Mills halt its grossly exaggerated and misleading health claims for Cheerios cereal.“

What are the claims?

• Cheerios can reduce “bad” cholesterol levels by 4 percent in just 6 weeks
• Cheerios can ward off heart disease and cancers of the colon and stomach

These are pretty serious claims and General Mills doesn’t provide any evidence to back them up (the actor on the commercial definitely doesn’t count).

According to CSPI, the FDA does support a general claim that “eating diets low in saturated fat and cholesterol, and high in fiber-containing fruit, vegetable, and grain products may reduce the risk of heart disease. But the claims for Cheerios portrayed the mentioned diseases not included in the FDA-authorized claim and failed to mention the importance of eating a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol.” So General Mills ran with this just because Cheerios has some processed wheat in it.

This is a very strong move by the FDA, and if General Mills does not comply, Cheerios will be taken off the shelf and possibly taken to court. What products could be next? The CSPI legal director Bruce Silverglade explains, “the FDA is signaling the entire food industry that the Bush era policy of lax enforcement has come to an end. The FDA should also stop misleading claims for so-called ‘whole grain’ products that are mostly made with white flour and foods claimed to be made with fruit when they only contain trivial amounts of juice.” That is probably half of most grocery stores!

If you were looking to lower your cholesterol with Cheerios, don’t fret. There are several alternative treatments that have been proven to do the trick, including garlic, artichoke, and good ole vitamin B3. Check About.com: Alternative Medicine for more.

Buddhist Deity Meditation Temporarily Augments Visuospatial Abilities, Study Suggests – Science Daily. Looks like DY meditation might need to be added to the lots of sleep & good breakfast test-taking regimen.

And this is mostly unrelated and a little older, but I hadn’t heard this until today:
Scientists Find ‘Baffling’ Link between Autism and Vinyl Flooring – Scientific American. Chemicals are the culprit, again.

Is this really such a surprise and actually a problem?

Just 6 days previous to announcing this study, ScienceDaily discussed a study that showed that doodling while listening to a tape allowed members of the research panel of the Medical Research Council’s Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge to remember information more clearly.

Looks like it’s actually beneficial for everyone to have something going on on the side to help with concentration. The folks studying the kids found this was true for all of the young students as well: both ADHD kids and non-ADHD kids were still and calm when they were painting on a computer program while watching Star Wars.

A few schools in Wisconsin and Minnesota seem to get it. The New York Times has a piece about schools that have switched over to using desks that allow children to sit or stand. Most of them stand most of the time. And fidget as much as they want to.

“At a stand-up desk,” Ms. Seekel said, “I’ve never seen students with their heads down, ever. It helps with being awake, if they can stand, it seems. And for me as a teacher, I can stand at their level to help them. I’m not bent over. I can’t think of one reason why a classroom teacher wouldn’t want these.”

Researchers are currently studying these children to see if it does significantly change their performance and even how much it might accelerate their calorie-burning.

Whatever the long term benefits may be, Sarah Langer, 12, sees the advantage of a stand up desk pretty simply:

“At least you can wiggle when you want to.”

The Court of Appeals sided with the private citizen and decided consumers should not be “expected to look beyond misleading representations on the front of the box to discover the truth from the ingredient list in small print on the side of the box.”

The lawsuit will continue with the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) as counsel. Unfortunately in the meanwhile, the product will remain with baby and toddler food at the supermarket, instead of in the candy isle.

Gerber is definitely not the only offender of deceptive food product marketing, and hopefully a ruling against the company will help shape future marketing of unhealthy foods. If all is handled correctly, the candy isle will soon become half of the grocery store.