Health Highlights: Jan. 14, 2010
Jan. 15 -- Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:
Parenthood Linked With Lower Blood Pressure: Study
Parents have lower blood pressure than adults without children, says a U.S. study.
It included 198 participants, ages 20 to 68, who wore portable monitors that took blood pressure readings three times an hour, 24 hours a day, USA Today reported.
"Women were driving the effect. Women with children had the lowest blood pressure, and women without had the highest," said study co-author Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a psychologist at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.
The study, which appears in the journal Annals of Behavioral Medicine, found no differences between parents with children under age 2, parents with teens and parents with children over 18 years old.
That finding suggests that blood pressure readings indicate "something about the people who choose to be parents, rather than the day-to-day experience of being a parent," Thomas Kamarck, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, told USA Today. He wasn't involved in the study.
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Adenovirus 14 Outbreaks More Common Among Civilians: Report
Based on an analysis of an outbreak in Alaska, U.S. researchers advise that adenovirus 14 (Ad14) should "be considered in the differential diagnosis for patients with community-acquired pneumonia, particularly when unexplained clusters of severe respiratory infections are detected."
Prior to 2003, outbreaks of Ad14 respiratory infections in the United States typically occurred among military recruits, the researchers noted. But there have been increasing numbers of outbreaks of severe and sometimes fatal Ad14 infection among civilians.
The new study looked at an outbreak of community-acquired Ad14 in a remote community on Prince of Wales Island, Alaska. Those most likely to become infected included Alaska Natives (61 percent), males (70 percent), and people with underling pulmonary disease (44 percent). Patients over age 65 were five times more likely to be hospitalized than younger patients.
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