HEALTH REPORTS

Worker on ship housing Games security staff has leprosy

 A worker on a cruise ship housing police and Canadian armed forces working at the Olympics has been treated for leprosy but was no threat to public health, a Vancouver Coastal Health spokeswoman said on Friday.

The worker was diagnosed with the disease on Thursday, she said, but worked in the ship's engine room and had no contact with the security personnel staying on it during the February 12-28 Games.
She said he was not Canadian but would not divulge his nationality nor if he was already heading home.
"This disease is very treatable and not considered highly contagious. His life is not in danger," she added. "We have a handful of cases of people on ships coming into Vancouver every year."

Health Tip: Reduce Your Baby's Risk of SIDS

  Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) describes the sudden death of an infant younger than 1 year without explanation.
The condition is sometimes called "crib death" because that's where the infants often are found. But cribs don't cause SIDS, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development says.
Here are the institute's recommendations for how you may reduce an infant's risk of SIDS:

• Always put babies to sleep on their backs.
• Baby should always sleep on a firm surface, such as a crib mattress, with only a fitted sheet. The crib should NOT contain pillows, blankets, sheepskins, bumpers or quilts.
• Don't smoke -- before or after having baby -- and keep baby away from secondhand smoke.
• Don't let baby sleep in your bed.
• You can allow baby to sleep with a clean and dry pacifier, but don't force it on baby if the infant doesn't want it.
• Prevent overheating while the infant sleeps, using light clothing and making the room temperature comfortable.

Teens Might Exercise More If They Think It's Fun

The best way to get teens to exercise is to focus on the fun of physical activity, a new British study suggests.  Our study shows that for inactive teenagers, emphasizing the emotional benefits of exercise may be a more effective way to encourage exercise than highlighting traditional health benefits," study co-author Reema Sirriyeh, of the University of Leeds in England, said in a statement from the British Psychological Society. The study examined the value of sending daily text messages about exercise to 128 students aged 16 to 19 at four schools in West Yorkshire. The teens received the messages for two weeks.
Some students received messages that made exercise sound enjoyable, such as "Physical activity can make you feel cheerful," while others got messages highlighting health benefits, such as "Physical activity can keep your heart healthy." A third group received both types of messages, the study authors noted.
The researchers found that the level of activity among all the teens grew by an average of 31.5 minutes of moderate activity per week after receiving the messages for two weeks. Inactive teens who received the messages geared toward the emotional benefits of exercise boosted their levels of activity by two hours per week.
"Statistics from the British Heart Foundation show that from the age of 16, girls' levels of physical activity begin to decrease," Sirriyeh noted. "As patterns of behavior that start in the teenage years tend to persist into adulthood, it's vitally important that teenagers get into healthy patterns, like taking regular exercise."
The findings were published online Feb. 17 in the British Journal of Health Psychology.

Dolphins May Warn of Health Risks in Humans

 Scientists report that dolphins suffer from diseases similar to those found in humans, and the mammals' experiences could shed light on the effects that contaminated water and seafood have on people.
"Dolphins and humans are both mammals, and their diet includes much of the same seafood that we consume," Carolyn Sotka of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Human Health Initiative said in an agency news release. "Unlike us, however, they are exposed to potential ocean health threats such as toxic algae or poor water quality 24 hours a day."
"Our ecological and physiological similarities make dolphins an important 'sentinel species' to not only warn us of health risks but also provide insight into how our health can benefit from new medical discoveries," Sotka said. She was scheduled to lead a session on dolphin health Thursday in San Diego at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Other recent findings about dolphin health to be discussed at the session include:

• Bottlenose dolphins off the coast of Georgia have been found to have the highest levels of contaminants known as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) ever detected in marine animals. It's possible that the PCBs could be weakening the immune systems of the dolphins, scientists say.
• Bottlenose dolphins may become the first natural animal model for type II diabetes, according to researchers from the National Marine Mammal Foundation. Not only have dolphins developed similar mechanisms to handle sugar, but a diabetes-like state in dolphins also appears to progress to insulin resistance, iron overload and kidney stones, as it can in humans.
• Researchers from the Marine Animal Disease Lab at the University of Florida have found at least new 50 viruses in dolphins, most of which had not been found previously in any marine mammals. This has provided insight into how viruses infect land animals and humans and could help prevent disease outbreaks, the researchers said. For example, papilloma virus, which is known as HPV in humans and can lead to cervical cancer, appears to lead to genital warts but not cancer in dolphins