Wide Disparities in Health Care by Race and Region: “Race and place of residence can have a staggering impact on the course and quality of the medical treatment a patient receives, according to new research showing that blacks with diabetes or vascular disease are nearly five times more likely than whites to have a leg amputated and that women in Mississippi are far less likely to have mammograms than those in Maine,” reports The New York Times.

The study was conducted by researchers at Dartmouth and was commissioned by the nation’s largest health-related philanthropy, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which announced a three-year, $300 million initiative intended to narrow health care disparities across lines of race and geography.

Repairing the Damage, Before Roe: “With the Supreme Court becoming more conservative, many people who support women’s right to choose an abortion fear that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that gave them that right, is in danger of being swept aside,” writes Waldo L. Fielding in this op-ed. “When such fears arise, we often hear about the pre-Roe ‘bad old days.’ Yet there are few physicians today who can relate to them from personal experience. I can.” Read on.

Legal Effects of Marriage for Same-Sex Couples: The San Francisco Chronicle has a comprehensive run-down of the legal and financial changes same-sex couples face if they get married in California.

Plus: What happens to the status of couples already married if the November initiative to ban same-sex marriage passes? Expect heavy litigation and a decision ultimately decided by the California Supreme Court, says UCLA law professor Brad Sears.

Paying for Health Care in Retirement – Good Luck: “I write about health care, and still the realization hit me like a ton of bricks today after I put down a just-released report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute. None of the presidential candidates have been talking about how to fix Medicare," writes Judith Graham at the Chicago Tribune.

Here’s the sobering EBRI report (PDF), effectively titled: “Savings Needed to Fund Health Insurance and Health Care Expenses in Retirement: Findings from a Simulation Model.”

On Becoming a Woman: In case you were looking for some, er, real-life advice, Blinky has excerpts from this 1950′s guide. Here’s analysis from Echidne, who calls it “a fascinating trip into the sexual politics of the past.”

“On the other hand,” she adds, “almost everything in those excerpts is advocated in this country somewhere, right this very moment. Abstinence is the responsibility of girls, for example. Women gentle and home-directed while men are strong and outer-directed? I was just told this by a liberal guy.”

Speaking of Abstinence: The National Abstinence Education Association has launched a $1 million campaign to recruit 1 million parents to “lobby local schools to adopt sex education programs focusing on abstinence and to work to elect local, state and national officials who support the approach,” reports the Washington Post.

The campaign comes as Congress is debating whether to authorize about $190 million in federal funding for such programs, which have come under increasing criticism because of a series of reports that concluded they are ineffective. Such criticism has prompted at least 17 states to refuse federal funding for such programs.

The group hopes to counter that trend, in part with a provocative video that asserts that comprehensive sex education encourages sexual activity by teenagers and a Web site that offers advice to parents about sex education.

Plus: Five days later, the same WaPo reporter, Rob Stein, wrote a page-one story about a new study by the Centers for Disease Control that found “a decade-long decline in sexual activity among high school students leveled off between 2001 and 2007, and that the rise in condom use by teens flattened out in 2003.”

The new figures renewed the heated debate about sex-education classes that focus on abstinence until marriage, which began receiving federal funding during the period covered by the latest survey and have come under increasing criticism that they are ineffective.

“Since we’ve started pushing abstinence, we have seen no change in the numbers on sexual activity,” said John Santelli, chairman of the department of population and family health at Columbia University. “The other piece of it is: Abstinence education spends a good amount of time bashing condoms. So it’s not surprising, if that’s the message young people are getting, that we’re seeing condom use start to decrease.”

Not surprisingly, proponents of abstinence-only programs blamed comprehensive sex-ed.

Hands Up if You’ve Experienced Street Harassment: The F-Word is gathering comments here, in response to comments here.

Breast Cancer News from ASCO Conference: Several breast cancer-related studies presented at the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago are summarized here by Daily Women’s Health Policy Report. Meeting abstracts from the conference are available here.

Eat Locally, Think …: “The local food movement typically has been about improving the health of the planet,” writes Tara Parker-Pope. “But now researchers are trying to find out if eating locally farmed food is also better for your health. A team of researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has received a grant to study the public health impact of moving toward a local, sustainable food system.”

Chicago can’t hold a carrot stick to California when it comes to the availability of locally grown produce, but the farmers markets rock during the summer and fall. How ’bout where you live?

If I Could Be Anywhere Right Now: It would be here.

Ethics Worth More Than Financial Payments: “With little fanfare, a small number of prominent academic scientists have made a decision that was until recently all but unheard of. They decided to stop accepting payments from food, drug and medical device companies,” reports The New York Times.

No longer will they be paid for speaking at meetings or for sitting on advisory boards. They may still work with companies. It is important, they say, for knowledgeable scientists to help companies draw up and interpret studies. But the work will be pro bono.

The scientists say their decisions were private and made with mixed emotions. In at least one case, the choice resulted in significant financial sacrifice. While the investigators say they do not want to appear superior to their colleagues, they also express relief. At last, they say, when they offer a heartfelt and scientifically reasoned opinion, no one will silently put an asterisk next to their name.

Blogging Against Disablism Day: Coming May 1. Last year, more than 170 people took part. Diary of a Goldfish has the details: “You can write on any subject, specific or general, personal, social or political. In the previous two BADDs, folks have written about all manner of subjects, from discrimination in education and employment, through health care, parenting, family life and relationships, as well as the interaction of disablism with racism and sexism.”

Plus: Tips on language.

“My Beautiful Mommy”: “Oh I just can’t think of enough bad things to say about this book but for starters…” begins Lucinda Marshall’s critique of a new children’s book written by a plastic surgeon to help kids age 4-7 get with the whole “mommy makeover” (tummy tuck and breast augmentation). It’s emblematic of reactions read ’round the web (though EW surprisingly feels the need to ask, “a practical solution for a well-defined demo, or pure evil?” Hmmm. Let me think.)

The book got a lot of attention this week after this Newsweek story came out. Making Light has good info on how a self-published vanity-press book made major league headlines … including a mention on Wait, Wait …. Don’t Tell Me” this morning.

Plastic Surgery on TV: When Botox, face lifts and reconstructive surgery gets in the way of acting, is it appropriate for a critic to call it out? Mary McNamara at the L.A. Times writes:

People should be free to look as they choose, and this town is tough on women — don’t talk to me about Judi Dench and Helen Mirren, they’re British. Would an American woman ever get away with anything approaching Nicolas Cage’s hair or James Spader’s increasing portliness? Of course not.

But television is a visual art, and if people are going to significantly alter the way they look in ways not directly connected with the roles they are playing, it can affect not only their performance but the whole tone of the show.

So you tell me, what is a critic supposed to say when part of the problem with a show is that the leading lady’s face seems incapable of movement or her eyes appear to be moving toward the sides of her head or her lips just look weird?

Plus: Maureen Ryan on women keeping it real: “In future, I’ll not only attempt to acknowledge when a plastic face impedes the enjoyment of a show, but I’ll also make it my business to congratulate the women who look like they’ve lived, for hanging on to what’s made them distinctive individuals.”

Remember the Controversy Over Contraceptives in Portland, Maine?: “For all the firestorm surrounding the decision to make prescription contraceptives available at King Middle School, only one girl has used the service in the six months since the program began, officials say,” reports the AP.

As of Thursday, the only student to obtain a prescription for contraceptives was a 14-year-old girl, the city reported in response to a Freedom of Access request from The Associated Press.

“If it helps one student who otherwise might be in a position of being at risk, then it’s worth it,” said Lisa Belanger, who oversees Portland’s student health centers.

Falling Breast Cancer Rates Prevalent Only Among White Women: “New research shows a sharp drop in U.S. breast cancer cases in recent years was limited to white women, possibly because they abandoned hormone replacement therapy in greater numbers than minority groups,” reports Reuters.

White women had been more likely to use hormone therapy, and were also the most likely to abandon the drugs after U.S. regulators warned about the cancer link in 2003, according to Dr. Dezheng Huo of the University of Chicago and the study’s lead investigator.

“The sharp reductions seen in Caucasians aged 50 to 69 years were not seen among other ethnic groups,” Hou told the American Association for Cancer Research.

The researchers said the decline has been mainly among women older than 50 with estrogen-receptor positive cancer.

Why We’re Fatter: This Slate article isn’t new — in fact, it was published in 2006 — but it was just brought to my attention and it’s definitely an interesting read. Writer Sydney Spiesel reviews five of the 10 explanations for obesity identified in a study by David Allison and Scott Keith of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

“In all likelihood, the rise in obesity results from a combination of several of these factors, each making its own contribution and perhaps interacting with other causes in some yet-more-complicated way,” writes Spiesel.

History As Appetizing As Tater Tots: I admit I fall hard for history texts that bring in the social and cultural implications, which is why I’m putting this on my summer reading list: “School Lunch Politics: The Surprising History of America’s Favorite Welfare Program” (Princeton University Press, 2008) by Susan Levine, a University of Illinois at Chicago professor of history.

“The National School Lunch Program has outlasted almost every other 20th century federal welfare initiative and holds a uniquely prominent place in popular imagination,” Levine said in this UIC release. “It suggests the central role food policy plays in shaping American health, welfare and equality.”

Levine, by the way, is also the author of “Degrees of Equality: The American Association of University Women and the Challenge of Twentieth Century Feminism,” and “Labor’s True Woman: Carpet Weavers, Industrialization and Labor Reform in the Gilded Age.”

Strategic Spending on Organic Foods: With the price of organic foods rising, here’s some good advice for shoppers who want to prioritize spending on those organic fruits and vegetables that have a high pesticide residue when grown conventionally. Check out the The Environmental Working Group’s list of 43 fruits and vegetables tested for pesticide residue.

Today’s just a mini-dose … I’ll be at WAM! this weekend and hope to see many of you there!

More Women Pursue Claims Of Pregnancy Discrimination: “Pregnancy-bias complaints recorded by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission surged 14% last year to 5,587, up 40% from a decade ago and the biggest annual increase in 13 years,” reports the Wall Street Journal.

The Carrot Some Vegans Deplore: Kara Jesella writes in The New York Times:

Two things that you can find a lot of in Portland, Ore., are vegans and strip clubs. Johnny Diablo decided to open a business to combine both. At his Casa Diablo Gentlemen’s Club, soy protein replaces beef in the tacos and chimichangas; the dancers wear pleather, not leather. Many are vegans or vegetarians themselves.

But Portland is also home to a lot of young feminists, and some are not happy with Mr. Diablo’s venture. Since he opened the strip club last month, their complaints have been “all over the Internet,” he said. “One of them came in here once. I could tell she had an attitude right when she came in. She was all hostile.”

The story begins like something straight out of The Onion, but it turns into a rather, er, meaty discussion of feminist politics and food … Read more at Feministing.com.

Perceptions: Feminists More Open-Minded on Weight: “A new study finds that women who describe themselves as feminists are more forgiving than other women when assessing the attractiveness of women who are either very underweight or very heavy,” reports The New York Times.

You’ll find the study in the journal Body Image — also see Rachel’s smart analysis. Here are some previous studies on feminism and body image.

The Mystery Suspect in the U.S. “Obesity Epidemic”: Writing at Women’s Media Center, Paula J. Caplan, Ph.D., an author and lecturer at Harvard, discusses the effect of psychotropic drugs on weight gain. She begins:

Here’s one surefire way to make anyone feel helpless, hopeless, even crazy: Teach them that others will value them mostly for being thin and being nurturing, and put them in situations where they are too agitated or sad to be cheerful caretakers for family and friends. When they ask for help, give them a pill that may calm them down or pep them up but will have a good chance of increasing their weight. This has been the fate of millions of women, who then are more likely than men to blame themselves for their part what is being called the U.S. obesity epidemic.

The Washington Post has an interesting if somewhat frustrating front-page story today about the rise of allergies and immune-system diseases — which experts say have “doubled, tripled or even quadrupled in the last few decades, depending on the ailment and country.”

“Allergic diseases” includes ailments such as hay fever, eczema, asthma and food allergies. Autoimmune diseases include lupus, MS, Type 1 diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease. In addition to varying theories about what’s causing the increase in both, scientists are implementing various methods in an attempt to stem the problem:

The cause remains the focus of intense debate and study, but some researchers suspect the concurrent trends all may have a common explanation rooted in aspects of modern living — including the “hygiene hypothesis” that blames growing up in increasingly sterile homes, changes in diet, air pollution, and possibly even obesity and increasingly sedentary lifestyles.

“We have dramatically changed our lives in the last 50 years,” said Fernando Martinez, who studies allergies at the University of Arizona. “We are exposed to more products. We have people with different backgrounds being exposed to different environments. We have made our lives more antiseptic, especially early in life. Our immune systems may grow differently as a result. And we may be paying a price for that.”

Along with a flurry of research to confirm and explain the trends, scientists have also begun testing possible remedies. Some are feeding high-risk children gradually larger amounts of allergy-inducing foods, hoping to train the immune system not to overreact. Others are testing benign bacteria or parts of bacteria. Still others have patients with MS, colitis and related ailments swallow harmless parasitic worms to try to calm their bodies’ misdirected defenses.

Yes, worms.

While the good-hygiene theory is favored among some scientists, dissenters point to the rise of asthma in poor, inner-city environments as evidence that there must be something else going on.

“That theory is so full of holes that it’s clearly not the whole story,” said Robert Wood of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

The story clocks in at close to 1,500 words — which is nothing to sneeze at — but the topic seems worthy of a magazine-length article, at the very least, and I would love to read more. Maybe you’ve read something more comprehensive on this topic? If so, please share.

Tara Parker-Pope has the skinny on “Skinny Bitch,” the hit diet book that has surprised some readers with its strict vegan coda (the Times reported on that aspect last year) and its harsh words for readers.

Parker-Pope points to this Salon story, in which Julie Klausner raises questions about the book’s castigatory language: “This book is a PETA pamphlet in chick-lit clothing and an innovative fusion of animal rights activism with punitive dieting tactics that prey on women’s insecurities about their bodies.” Klausner continues:

The relentless bullying peppered throughout the authors’ advice accounts for much of the book’s humor, including quips like “you need to exercise, you lazy shit,” “coffee is for pussies” and “don’t be a fat pig anymore.” It was a formerly anorexic friend of mine who nailed it when she read excerpts from the book. “When you have an eating disorder,” she told me, “that’s the voice you hear in your head all the time.”

Thanks to “Skinny Bitch,” women who hate their bodies no longer need rely on their own self-loathing to stoke the flames of what seems like motivation but is actually self-flagellation — penance for the sin of being too fat. Now dieters can have the convenience of a former model (Barnouin) and a former modeling agent (Freedman) putting their transgressions in the black-and-white terms of right and wrong. “If you eat crap,” they chirp, “you are crap.”

Get ready for more in-your-face advice: The authors have signed an additional two-book deal, on top of their follow-up cookbook, “Skinny Bitch in the Kitch.”

In a NYT story earlier this year on the cookbook, Kimberly Latham, a fashion publicist in New York, acknowledges that she “would never have read ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma.’ I’m not even sure I know what an omnivore is. But I know what a skinny bitch is, and I know I want to be one.”

Debbie Rasmussen, the publisher of Bitch magazine and a vegan herself, provides a more rational analysis: “Obviously I’m in favor of assaults on the food industry … On the other hand, the constant equating of skinny and healthy is something I have a real problem with. And replacing junk food with vegan junk food is not my idea of how to change our unhealthy food culture.”

Plus: The Christian Science Monitor looks at the rise of self-help books, including “Skinny Bitch,” that criticize the reader.

Via the New York Times’s “Well” blog, we learned of a new study in the American Journal of Public Health in which low-income women receiving federal funding through the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program were provided with $10 per week in vouchers to buy produce of their choosing at a farmers’ market or grocery story.

The study was intended to assess whether provision of these vouchers would actually increase fruit and vegetable consumption, as a test of proposed changes to the WIC program to cover produce.

The researchers found that access to these vouchers increased women’s weekly consumption of fruits and veggies just over one and a half servings per week for those shopping at grocery stores, and nearly doubled that with an increase of three servings per week for those shopping at farmers’ markets.

I sincerely hope nobody is surprised that giving vouchers for farm stands to low-income women increased their produce intake – it seems obvious that access to these rather expensive items might be the major barrier for these women, rather than the old stereotype of poor people deliberately making poor food choices.

If you’re not familiar with WIC, a program intended to improve the nutrition of pregnant and lactating women and their young children, the long-standing rules are difficult to understand and somewhat bizarre. Under the old rules, the only produce covered was carrots (and some fruit juices), although baby carrots were explicitly excluded.

However, the program’s food packages have been reviewed over the past few years (they haven’t been updated since 1980), and the Institute of Medicine issued a report at the USDA’s request recommending numerous changes.

As a result, changes to the program to be implemented by mid-2009 will provide vouchers for WIC recipients to use for a range of produce. The new rules will not, however, require farmers’ markets to accept these cash-value vouchers – WIC has its own “Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program, although this provides no more than $30 per year per recipient for use at the markets.

It’s great that WIC is adjusting to cover produce. However, if the study above provided $10 per week to women and increased their produce consumption by three servings per week, WIC’s addition of $8 per month in veggie coverage (with a couple of extra bucks for the children and breastfeeding women) is unlikely to make a tremendous impact. WIC is intended to be a supplement, not an entire food budget, but I question whether this small measure will have any effect on the “nutrition risk” WIC is supposed to reduce, or whether it’s simply a politically expedient move.

Note: If you’re interested in reading the 68-page report detailing changes to the WIC program (and there are many), public comments received, and the rationale for accepting or rejecting the Institute of Medicine’s recommendations, it’s online as a PDF.

“Our research with consumers has told us that women today are increasingly mindful of making choices that positively impact their lives.” — Katie Bayne, CMO of Coca-Cola North America, Atlanta

What’s a company to do when its product is not recommended as part of a healthy lifestyle? Simple: Put on a little red dress.

Diet Coke and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute are teaming up to promote “The Heart Truth” campaign, which aims to raise awareness of women’s risk of heart disease. In 2002, The Heart Truth campaign introduced a red dress as a national symbol for women’s heart disease. If you haven’t seen it yet, you will soon.

Starting Jan. 22, the red dress will appear on Diet Coke, Caffeine-Free Diet Coke and Diet Coke Plus products — 2.5 billion of them, AdWeek reported Monday. Look for print and online ads to begin in February, during American Heart Month.

And what says heart disease better than Fashion Week? According to AdWeek:

Diet Coke will be leveraging events as well, sponsoring the Heart Truth’s Red Dress Collection fashion show during Fashion Week 2008. From mid-February through April, Diet Coke will tour 10 cities with the Heart Truth Road Show. The exhibit will show six red dresses previously worn by celebrities and offer free health screenings.

How very chic.

What’s not so chic — and what Coca-Cola would prefer doesn’t get mentioned — is that consumption of both regular and diet soda is linked to a metabolic condition that can lead to heart disease. A study published last year in the American Heart Association journal Circulation found that people who drink one or more soft drinks per day have a more than 50 percent higher risk of developing the metabolic syndrome that has been linked to heart disease, stroke and diabetes than people who drink less than one soda per day.

“The point is that the risk is high no matter how many soft drinks one consumes and no matter what type of soft drink one consumes,” said Dr. Ramachandran S. Vasan, associate professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and one of the study authors. “This adds to what we already know about how soft drinks may be associated with weight gain and metabolic risk.”

The American Beverage Association took issue with the study (well, duh), and the American Heart Association responded with a statement: “It is important to note that the study does not show that soft drinks cause risk factors for heart disease. It does show that the people studied who drank soft drinks were more likely to develop risk factors for heart disease.”

Indeed, a number of nutrition experts quoted in this ABC News story doubt that diet soda, which doesn’t contain calories, would by itself increase risk factors. “There is no reason to think that soda — as much as I do not think it should be a part of a healthy diet — would cause heart disease,” said Dr. Darwin Deen, associate professor of clinical epidemiology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. “But it comes as no surprise that people who do drink soda do other heart-harming things, thus creating an association between soda drinking and [heart disease].”

Deen added that the sweetness of diet soda is on par with regular soda, and it could be acting as a trigger of sorts. “What this means is that soda drinkers are less likely to enjoy the taste of an apple or a fresh tomato and more likely to need stronger flavors (like salt) to make their food taste good. This may be part of the explanation.”

There are, of course, plenty of other reasons to avoid drinking soda; at the very least, soda displaces more nutritious drinks.

The Heart Truth campaign lists almost 30 corporate partners on its website. (So far, Coca-Cola is not mentioned.) At some point you have to wonder what the guidelines are for partnership — and whether association with an unhealthy beverage will alter the campaign’s taste.

Plus: Our Bodies Ourselves Executive Director Judy Norsigian discusses how campaigns to educate women about the risk of heart disease can potentially exploit women’s health concerns. And here’s coverage of racial bias in heart disease treatment.

Giving is Good: Yes, but how good? The L.A. Times looks at the research, some of which seems to indicate that gift-giving improves health and longevity.

Where to Give: A donation to Our Bodies Ourselves will not only make you feel better, but it’s guaranteed to improve the health of women around the globe.

Plus: See Katha Pollitt’s annual holiday donation list.

Dear Santa …: Flea’s story about answering a letter to Santa from an 8-year-old girl is my favorite holiday blog post. Mrs. Claus rocks.

Color Lines: Rosalyn Ball at The F-Word covers gender stereotypes via the toy aisles. And Feminist Law Professors identifies the most unnecessary use of pink. Ever.

A Holiday Bonfire Made Out of Tulle: “Disney likes to think of the Princesses as role models, but what a sorry bunch of wusses they are,” writes Barbara Ehrenreich at The Nation.

“Typically, they spend much of their time in captivity or a coma, waking up only when a Prince comes along and kisses them. The most striking exception is Mulan, who dresses as a boy to fight in the army, but — like the other Princess of color, Pocahontas — she lacks full Princess status and does not warrant a line of tiaras and gowns. Otherwise the Princesses have no ambitions and no marketable skills, although both Snow White and Cinderella are good at housecleaning.”

File Under News You Can Use: If you’re feeling under the weather and it seems like no cold medicine will do, you may start to wonder if there are any medical benefits to having, say, a hot brandy. Fortunately, there’s an answer to that question.

And, for those who want to ring in the new year organically, there’s news on that, too. Now, about that chocolate …

There’s no question that the addition of folic acid to most breads, pasta and rice has led to a noticeable decrease in the rate of neural tube impairments, such as spina bifida and anencephaly, in newborns. In fact, according to the Boston Globe, fortifying foods with this essential B vitamin has saved more than 1,000 babies born in the U.S. and Canada each year from these debilitating and sometimes deadly impairments.

But all this fortification could be too much of a good thing, according to data from researchers at Tufts University, who found that the rate of decrease corresponds to a noticeable increase in the rate of cases of colorectal cancer. Lawrence Lindner of the Globe writes:

The study, published in Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention, shows that before the late 1990s, the incidence of colon cancer was decreasing on a steady, predictable curve, presumably because of increased screening with colonoscopies, during which precancerous polyps and early cancers are removed. However, the curve has shifted.

Colon cancer cases continue to decline, but since the advent of folic acid fortification, there have been four to six more cases of colon cancer per 100,000 people in the United States and Canada each year than the original curve would have projected — translating to an estimated extra 15,000 people diagnosed per year in this country and another 1,500 in Canada.

Nothing’s been proven for sure, but the theory is that while folic acid can help protect noncancerous cells from becoming cancerous, “an estimated 35 percent to 50 percent of people over 50 already have precancerous polyps — and for them, the extra folic acid may be dangerous,” writes Lindner. “The precancerous cells replicate more rapidly than normal ones, and folic acid seems to put that process into overdrive.”

Joel Mason, the leader of the study and director of the Vitamins and Carcinogenesis Laboratory at the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center at Tufts, said this doesn’t mean folic acid fortification should cease.

“It is highly unlikely that women in their 20s and 30s, childbearing age, harbor any precancerous or cancerous cells, and there is incontrovertible evidence now that supplemental quantities of folic acid are going to help prevent really devastating birth defects,” Mason said.

Rather, once people reach middle age, they should be cautious about taking supplemental folic acid in multivitamins.

“The single biggest risk factor for colon cancer is older age,” adds Mason.

A new study has linked a “meat-sweet” Western diet with increased risk for breast cancer in postmenopausal Asian women.

Overweight postmenopausal women who ate a typical Western diet were more than twice as likely to develop the disease than women whose diets rely more on vegetables and soy, which is more common in Asian countries.

The “meat-sweet” diet was described by researchers as including “primarily pork but also poultry, organ meats, beef and lamb and with saltwater fish, shrimp and other shellfish as well as candy, dessert, bread and milk.” The “vegetable-soy” diet included “different vegetables, soy-based products, and freshwater fish.”

This news comes on the heels of a study we noted last year that links consumption of red meat to breast cancer.

Breast cancer rates among women in Asia have traditionally been low, but they have increased steadily in the past decades. The reason for the rise is unclear, but some researchers have postulated that it may be due to environmental factors or the shift to a more Western diet.

The BBC reports that according to the Chinese Anti-Cancer Association, “the incidence and death rates of breast cancer in China’s major cities rose respectively by 37% and 38.9% during the 1990s.”

In the study, the increased risk appears to occur only in postmenopausal women who are overweight. The research didn’t examine whether the increased risk was due to the Western diet, being overweight, or a combination of the two.

The study was published in the July issue of “Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.” It involved close to 1,500 Chinese women from the Shanghai Breast Cancer Study.

Plus: Also noticed at the BBC — “Sausage Additive Linked to Cancer.” Argh.

Noting that “Alli is just the latest in a long string of weight-loss strategies that aim to boost corporate profits more than to increase health,” Judy Norsigian and Heather Stephenson of Our Bodies Ourselves summarize the concerns and potential dangers associated with the first over-the-counter diet drug approved by the FDA.

Their commentary, published at Women’s eNews, also makes the case for government reform that could lead to healthy diet changes. But first, here’s the big question:

Who would trust a diet pill that has no proven health benefits and requires you to keep an extra pair of pants handy in case of uncontrollable diarrhea and oily discharge?

GlaxoSmithKline is betting that a lot of people will. The international pharmaceutical giant, with consumer products headquarters in Pittsburgh, has launched a $150 million marketing campaign for its new diet pill. It anticipates annual sales in the billions.

That marketing campaign, by the way, was noted by Prescription Access Litigation, which recently honored GlaxoSmithKline with a Bitter Pill Award: With Allies Like This, Who Needs Enemas?

And as for those side effects …

The orlistat in alli blocks the absorption of about one-quarter of the fat a person consumes. That fat passes right through the body, which causes negative gastrointestinal effects (such as gas and oily leakage that soils clothes) in about half of the people who took alli in clinical trials. Those negative effects may be an excellent motivator to stick to a low-fat diet, but people may compensate by eating more sugar, which isn’t healthy.

Weight is a major public health concern, but as Norsigian and Stephenson point out, alli is not part of the solution:

Its high cost and negative effects are not worth the minimal “benefit” of a small increase in short-term weight loss, and it has no proven health benefit. In fact, it decreases the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins A, D and E and beta-carotene. The FDA recommends that anyone taking alli also take a daily multivitamin.

Rather than suggesting that overweight individuals pop more pills or adopt yet another dieting scheme, we need to encourage lifelong healthy eating and regular physical activity. We also need to address negative social and environmental forces that contribute to our rapidly expanding national waistline.

They go on to offer a number of suggestions to combat the trends that have led to the rise of obesity in children and adults since the 1980s. Perhaps the most important thing to remember, though, is that “health at any size is a much better goal than thinness.”

Plus: Wikipedia is a good jumping-off point for resources about the “health at any size” approach to healthy living, which prioritizes intuitive eating and physical activity over a focus on dieting and weight loss. This Mescape article, “Health at Every Size: Toward a New Paradigm of Weight and Health,” is particularly good. “What Is Size Acceptance?” includes a number of links, analysis and resources.

Like the title? I stole it from Prescription Access Litigation, which recently announced that its latest Bitter Pill Award goes to GlaxoSmithKline, for the marketing of the first FDA-approved over-the-counter diet drug alli (pronounced “ally,” get it? this pill is on your side).

PAL is a national coalition of over 130 consumer advocacy organizations (including Our Bodies Ourselves) that criticizes direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs. Here’s their take on alli:

Alli is an Over-the-Counter (OTC) version of a previously prescription-only drug, Xenical. PAL believes that, by aggressively marketing alli and eliminating the need for a doctor’s supervision, GSK will cause this drug to be used inappropriately and even abused. PAL is particularly concerned that the drug will be used by teenagers and people with eating disorders. Since anyone can walk into a pharmacy and buy this drug, there are no controls in place to prevent this.

Alli is the most recent example of a drug to shift from requiring a doctor’s prescription to being available to anyone who walks into a pharmacy. While there are prescription drugs with long safety records that can be used Over-the-Counter by patients appropriately without a doctor’s supervision, alli is not one of them. Rather, the switch to OTC appears geared towards increasing the sales of a drug that has minimal effectiveness, disgusting and possibly dangerous side effects and uncertain risks. Prescription sales of Xenical have been steadily declining over the past 5 years, down from $202 million in 2000 to $86.6 million in 2005, according to IMS Health. A recent Zogby/UPI poll found that 29% of Americans said they would likely try an over-the-counter weight-loss pill.

Now about those side effects and risks … the L.A. Times ran a story on Friday that portrayed the “feeding frenzy” sparked by the new drug (their headline, really). Carla Hall writes :

It works in the digestive system by blocking the absorption of about 25% of fat that is consumed.

In a theoretical 3,000 calorie-a-day diet with about 100 grams of fat, the drug would eliminate about 225 calories.

But it can also result in what the manufacturer describes as loose stools and gas with an oily discharge. “It’s probably a smart idea to wear dark pants, and bring a change of clothes with you to work,” the drug’s official website says. (The drug maker’s literature and website say side effects can be minimized with a low-fat, reduced-calorie diet.)

But the women buying alli Thursday were unfazed by the warnings.

At a San Fernando Valley Walgreens that had sold 10 boxes — with one man among the buyers — no one was asking the pharmacist about side effects. ” ‘Will it work?’ That’s the only question they’re asking,” said the store’s pharmacy manager, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

And the answer to that question is that while the manufacturer claims dieters can lose up to 50 percent more weight with the drug than with dieting alone, that’s only if the dieter maintains a low-fat, reduced-calorie diet (and keep in mind for most dieters we’re talking an additional five pounds give or take). And according to PAL, the “additional weight loss that results is quite minimal, with two studies showing that patients who took orlistat, the active ingredient of alli, for four years, only lost 2.8% more weight than patients taking a placebo.”

GlaxoSmithKline is even hoping that the nasty side effects — which get worse if fatty foods are ingested — will act as a disincentive, leading users to eat less out of fear of leaky, oily discharge.

The L.A. Times notes that while alli is intended for overweight people 18 and older, the controls are unclear:

At some stores, it could simply be picked up off the shelf and taken to a cashier for purchase. But at a Walgreens in the San Fernando Valley, the drug was being held behind the pharmacy counter, according to the pharmacy manager. As sales were rung up, “the register prompts us to check for I.D. for a birth date,” said the pharmacy manager, who added that she would not sell it to someone under 18.

What’s absolutely clear is that this drug is so far proving to be quite popular, particularly (but not surprisingly) with women, according to pharmacists interviewed by the L.A. Times.

“And they’re not fat,” said Roe Love, a pharmacist and store manager of a Walgreens in Santa Monica.

Last month we pointed to a study in the journal Pediatrics that found increasing rates of childhood obesity in the United States may be contributing to an earlier onset of puberty in girls.

Writing in Women’s eNews, Molly M. Ginty looks more closely at the Pediatrics study and at another March study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, that found girls’ girth is also likely responsible for earlier onsets of menstruation: The average age of first menstruation, writes Ginty, declined from 13.3 years in girls born before 1920 to 12.4 years in those born during the early 1980s.

Though research linking weight to puberty dates back for centuries, the recent Pediatrics paper was the first to peg which comes first. It indicated weight gain triggers early puberty, instead of early puberty triggering weight gain.

In the United States in the early 1800s, breast buds and menarche arrived around ages 13 and 16 respectively. Those changes now come around ages 9 and a half and 12 and a half.

Scientists say girls are eating more food and putting on pounds, which is causing their bodies to boost production of the hormone leptin.

“Leptin is made in fat cells and is necessary for normal reproductive function,” says Paul Kaplowitz, chief of endocrinology at the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington and author of “Early Puberty in Girls,” published in 2004 by Random House. “There’s an evolutionary benefit to this. You don’t want to get pregnant if there isn’t enough food for you to carry a pregnancy successfully. You would risk the baby’s life and your own.”

Ginty also covers other factors that can accelerate puberty, including exposure to chemicals, birth weight, genetics and home environment — researchers have found that absence of a father and the presence of an unrelated male, such as stepfather speeds up the process.

A large-scale study is in the works:

To better track the physical causes of puberty, the Bethesda, Md.-based National Institutes of Health has launched a study of 14,000 children born in 2001 that is “longitudinal” and will follow its subjects over time. The results of this research will not be available for 10 years or more.

A two-part series in Women’s eNews explores the dangers of exposure to toxins and synthetic chemicals and the potential impact on reproduction and human disease. In part one, writer Molly M. Ginty writes about signs in the animal kingdom that could portend health problems for humans:

In California, female sea lions are spontaneously aborting their fetuses.

In the Great Lakes area, mother gulls are sharing nests and raising eggs together because their male partners have forgotten how to parent.

In upstate New York, female frogs have as much testosterone in their bodies as males.

Scientists say these aberrations all share a common link: exposure to toxic chemicals called “endocrine disruptors,” which pollute the air, soil and water.

“At the rate this pollution is going, we will likely have population decreases in many wildlife species, especially amphibians and fish that are more susceptible to toxins because their skin is constantly exposed to these chemicals in an aquatic environment,” says Sarah Janssen, a science fellow at the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council.

“These animals serve as canaries in the coal mine for human females, teaching us how synthetic chemicals might affect our nervous system development, immune function, fertility and other health outcomes.”

It was quite frustrating to read that in 1996 Congress called on the EPA to step up its study of endocrine disruptors, but the EPA has yet to do so because of complications setting up the research.

In part two, Ginty discusses two studies slated for 2007 about the relationship of synthetic chemicals to disease. California will be the first state to measure chemical contaminants in people an attempt to discover which pollutants are most common. The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development will begin a $2.5 billion study to track children’s exposures to chemicals, from birth to age 21.

Plus: Read an earlier story by Molly M. Ginty on women pushing for more eco-friendly products. From the Environmental Working Group, the “Body Burden” — findings of studies on pollution in people. And from “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” a comprehensive discussion on environmental health and the Precautionary Principle. There’s also a separate section on environmental pollution and breast cancer.

A front-page story in today’s Washington Post reports on the findings of a study linking consumption of red meat with a certain type of breast cancer. The study was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The background and results can be viewed here, but the full text requires registration.

From the WP, Rob Stein writes:

Younger women who regularly eat red meat appear to face an increased risk for a common form of breast cancer, according to a large, well-known Harvard study of women’s health.

The study of more than 90,000 women found that the more red meat the women consumed in their 20s, 30s and 40s, the greater their risk for developing breast cancer fueled by hormones in the next 12 years. Those who consumed the most red meat had nearly twice the risk of those who ate red meat infrequently.

The study, published yesterday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, is the first to examine the relationship between consumption of red meat and breast cancer in premenopausal women, and the first to examine the question by type of breast cancer.

Although more research is needed to confirm the association and explore the possible reasons for it, researchers said the findings provide another motivation to limit consumption of red meat, which is already known to increase the risk of colon cancer.

“There are already other reasons to minimize red meat intake,” said Eunyoung Cho, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, who led the study. “This just may give women another good reason.”

Continue reading here.

The study doesn’t address the question of why red meat is a potential culprit, but Stein notes that previous research has uncovered several possible connections: “Substances produced by cooking meat may be carcinogenic, naturally occurring substances in meat may mimic the action of hormones, or growth hormones that farmers feed cows could fuel breast cancer in women who consume meat from the animals.”