Daily Rounds: Obese Moms Raise Kids' Asthma Risk; Checking Up On The Freshmen; Easy Flu Shots; The Prostate Wars

Obese mothers put children at higher risk of asthma | Reuters '"We found that there was a clear increased risk of childhood asthma, medication use and hospitalization with increasing degree of obesity and overweight in mothers in early pregnancy," said lead author Adrian Lowe from the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute and University of Melbourne.' (Reuters) At BU, a checkup call from the top - Metro - The Boston Globe "The first semester of college can be a difficult time, college administrators say. Most students are living away from home for the first time, and miss their parents and siblings. Many struggle with the increased academic demands, and feel lost socially. Especially at a large, city college, the scope of change can seem overwhelming. Elmore hopes that a well-meaning phone call - or even a message - can let students know the school is looking out for them, and that someone is there if they need it." (bostonglobe.com)

Viewpoint: Cuts in health care will eventually cost us all | masslive.com "Cutting Medicaid simply shifts costs to states and low-income residents, threatening coverage and ultimately driving up overall health care system costs.When uninsured people need care and do not have access to a primary care physician they are forced to seek treatment in acute care settings like emergency rooms. The care provided in these important centers is both expensive and often uncoordinated. The cost for this expensive and uncompensated care is passed along in the form of higher insurance premiums." (MassLive.com)

Pharmacies Inject Convenience Into Flu Shot Market : Shots - Health Blog : NPR "If you decided at 4 o'clock in the morning you wanted to go out and had nothing better to do than get a flu shot, you could walk right in and you could get a flu shot," says Scott Gershman, pharmacy manager at a Walgreens drugstore in Springfield, Va. Shelley Troff and her 13-year-old son dropped by Gershman's pharmacy one afternoon in September to get their annual shots. Troff says she didn't even consider going to her doctor's office. "To be frankly honest, Walgreens is easier," she explains. "Since this is one mile from my house and the clinic is 20 minutes from my house, this is where I come." (npr.org)

Can Cancer Ever Be Ignored? - NYTimes.com "Patients and their doctors are now faced with radically polarized views about the logic of routine testing. On one side are physicians like Mohler, who argue that the test can reduce a man’s chances of dying of prostate cancer, plain and simple. This side of the debate is passionate, backed by the persuasive conviction of men who have survived prostate cancer and well financed by the multibillion-dollar industry that has grown up around the testing and treatment of the disease. The other camp makes a less emotionally satisfying argument: on balance, scientific studies do not support the claim that screening healthy men saves lives. Screening, Brawley and others argue, can lead healthy men into a cascade of further testing and treatments that end up injuring or even killing them. As Richard Ablin, who discovered a prostate-specific antigen, put it in an Op-Ed in The New York Times, using the P.S.A. test to screen for cancer has been “a public health disaster.”' (nytimes.com)