The Health News USA April 2 2018

• The FDA wants to make it easier for consumers to know whether the food they’re eating is good for them and encourage companies to make products that are more nutritious. The agency plans to explore what it means for food products to be considered healthy and may create an icon or symbol to label those that meet the possible new definition, Commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced recently in a speech at the National Food Policy Conference. The FDA wants input on the word “healthy,” including what it means and whether consumers would benefit from creating an icon or symbol to display on food products that meet the definition.
• A recent study suggests that some adults in the U.S. who use supplements to get their daily requirement of calcium are taking higher doses than necessary. Researchers examined nationally representative survey data on dietary habits and vitamin and supplement use collected between 1999 and 2014 from 42,038 adults. The study found that about one in twenty adults got a substantial portion of their daily calcium from supplements.
• Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont are the four healthiest states for women, infants and children nationwide, according to a new series of rankings detailing just how clustered health outcomes have become in the U.S. Regionally, the Northeast was the strongest performer in this year’s iteration of the United Health Foundation’s America’s Health Rankings, which compares states on the basis of infant mortality, drug-related deaths and individual access to dedicated health care providers.

News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 2nd of April 2018. Read by Tabetha Moreto.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/29/fda-to-consider-updating-health-claims-food-manufacturers-can-make.html

The Food and Drug Administration wants to make it easier for consumers to know whether the food they’re eating is good for them and encourage companies to make products that are more nutritious. The agency plans to explore what it means for food products to be considered healthy and may create an icon or symbol to label those that meet the possible new definition, Commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced recently in a speech at the National Food Policy Conference. In addition to implementing, Obama-era updates to nutrition labels, the FDA will also consider what health claims food products can make and how manufacturers can list ingredients. It also may make definitions of some foods more flexible and may reduce sodium.
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Gottlieb compared the initiative to the agency’s overhaul of tobacco policy, which includes lowering the amount of nicotine in cigarettes to minimal or non addictive levels while trying to switch adult smokers to potentially less-risky nicotine alternatives like e-cigarettes.
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The FDA wants input on the word “healthy,” including what it means and whether consumers would benefit from creating an icon or symbol to display on food products that meet the definition. It’s also considering “natural,” a controversial word Gottlieb said the agency will have more to say on soon. The agency is also exploring whether it should go beyond promoting specific nutrients to include food groups Americans tend not to eat enough of, such as whole grains, low-fat dairy, fruits and vegetables and healthy oils.
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In September, the FDA said it would postpone the deadline to update nutrition labels by two years for large manufacturers, to two thousand twenty instead of two thousand eighteen. It has upheld requiring some restaurant chains to add calorie counts starting May seven, two thousand eighteen, though it has proposed offering flexibility on how to provide the information than what was originally given.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-supplements-calcium/many-in-u-s-take-more-calcium-supplements-than-necessary-idUSKBN1H52WY

A recent study suggests that some adults in the U.S. who use supplements to get their daily requirement of calcium are taking higher doses than necessary. Researchers examined nationally representative survey data on dietary habits and vitamin and supplement use collected between nineteen ninety nine and two thousand fourteen from forty two thousand thirty eight adults.

The study found that about one in twenty adults got a substantial portion of their daily calcium from supplements.  In the study’s first year, two point five percent of supplement users got more than the estimated daily amount of calcium necessary. This peaked at six point seven percent of supplement users from two thousand three to two thousand four, then dipped to four point six percent by two thousand thirteen to two thousand fourteen.

Senior study author Pamela Lutsey of the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis said: “Supplemental calcium has potential benefits, particularly in relation to bone health, however, it may also put people at increased risk of kidney stones, cardiovascular disease and adverse gastrointestinal symptoms.”
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Americans get most of their dietary calcium from dairy products, such as milk, yogurt and cheese, all of which are rich natural sources of calcium. Non dairy sources include cruciferous vegetables, such as Chinese cabbage, kale and broccoli. Researchers noted in the journal Bone that for women up to age fifty and men up to age seventy, total daily calcium intake from all sources of eight hundred milligrams is recommended to meet the estimated average requirements of most people. After age fifty for women and seventy for men, this goes up to one thousand milligrams a day.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2018-03-27/massachusetts-is-the-healthiest-state-for-women-and-children-report

Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont are the four healthiest states for women, infants and children nationwide, according to a new series of rankings detailing just how clustered health outcomes have become in the U.S. Regionally, the Northeast was the strongest performer in this year’s iteration of the United Health Foundation’s America’s Health Rankings, which compares states on the basis of infant mortality, drug-related deaths and individual access to dedicated health care providers, among sixty two variables in all.

Five of the six states comprising the New England region of the U.S. ranked among the top ten for women’s and children’s health – the only exception being Maine, which was found to have high prevalences of “excessive drinking among women” and tobacco use during pregnancy, according to the report. Maternal mortality in Maine also jumped ninety one percent since two thousand sixteen to fifteen point seven deaths per one hundred thousand live births, contributing to the state’s overall ranking of twenty first among states.

Massachusetts, meanwhile, again took the top spot in this year’s rankings. Since two thousand sixteen, smoking among women between the ages of eighteen and forty four has dropped twenty two percent, while tobacco use during pregnancy is down nearly eight percent and neonatal mortality dropped three percent to three point one deaths per one thousand live births. The primary drawback for Massachusetts was the relatively high cost of infant child care, though its low percentages of uninsured women and teenage birth rates helped keep the Bay State at the front of the pack. The findings are not dissimilar to the U.S. News Best States health care rankings, which awarded Hawaii the top spot and placed Massachusetts fifth overall, taking into account care access, quality and overall public health. The Best States health rankings and United Health Foundation rankings share eight of the same top ten states: Iowa, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Colorado and Utah.