A weekly look at the latest news you need to live a healthier life
Untreated depression may stifle vaccine
Depression might lower the effectiveness of the shingles vaccine, a new study found.
The research showed that adults with untreated depression who received the vaccine mounted a relatively weak immune response. But those who took antidepressants showed a normal response to the vaccine, even when symptoms of depression persisted.
Shingles, an acute and painful rash, strikes 1 million Americans each year, mostly older adults. Health officials recommend that those over 60 get vaccinated. The condition is caused by reactivation of the same virus that causes chickenpox, varicella-zoster.
In the new study, published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, researchers followed a group of 92 older men and women for two years. The authors of the study speculated that treatment of older people with depression might increase the effectiveness of the flu shot and other vaccines as well.
LEARN MORE: chop.edu, search for “shingles vaccine”
Flu shot might curb early birth
Pregnant women who received the flu vaccine during the 2009 influenza pandemic lowered their risk of delivering premature babies, a new study found.
Typically flu vaccination rates among pregnant women have hovered around 13-18 percent nationally.
But a push by health officials during the 2009 season drove vaccination rates for the H1N1 vaccine up to about 45 percent in the United States, where they have since remained.
Some expectant mothers have been reluctant to get flu shots over concern about the health of the fetus, but the study showed that flu vaccination was not only safe but protective, said Dr. Saad Omer of the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, the senior author of the study.
Omer and his colleagues looked at the electronic medical records of 3,327 pregnant women between April 2009 and April 2010.
The study, published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, found that the infants born to vaccinated mothers had a 37 percent lower likelihood of being premature, and they also weighed more at birth than babies born to unvaccinated women.
LEARN MORE: cid.oxford journals.org, search for “H1N1”
New advice on preventing fractures
A government task force has formally recommended that healthy post-menopausal women avoid taking low daily doses of vitamin D and calcium to ward off bone fractures.
The group, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of experts in prevention and primary care, based its recommendations on extensive reviews of more than a hundred studies.
They characterized low doses as 400 international units or less of vitamin D and 1,000 milligrams or less of calcium.
Taking those amounts daily, the task force wrote in its recommendations, “has no net benefit for the primary prevention of fractures.”
But there is good evidence, the group said, that taking them could increase the likelihood of kidney stones.
The task force also looked at the use of the supplements in men and pre-menopausal women.
The group concluded it was unable to “assess the balance of the benefits and harms” of using the supplements to prevent fractures in these groups.
The recommendations, however, do not apply to people with osteoporosis or vitamin D deficiencies, the task force said.
LEARN MORE: www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org
The New York Times