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A.
The Unhealthy Habits of Schoolchildren
Narrator:
This is Science Today. There's been a steady rise
in unhealthy lifestyle habits among our nation's
schoolchildren - namely, the consumption of high
fat diets and a lack of exercise. Joanne Ikeda,
a nutrition specialist at the University of California,
Berkeley, says all together, it's taking a serious
toll.
Ikeda:
We're seeing children who have high blood pressure;
we're seeing children who have early signs of coronary
heart disease. We're seeing a dramatic increase in
rates of Type II diabetes in children.
Narrator:
Ikeda says part of the problem is the fact that
school kids spend too much time sitting - either
in school, in front of a computer or in front of
the television. And then there's the problem of
soft drink consumption.
Ikeda:
Soft drink is replacing milk in the diets of
children. Kids are not getting enough calcium -
particularly those who drink soft drinks on a regular
basis. And it's putting these kids at higher risk
of osteoporosis later.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
Some Important Facts about Flu Shots
Narrator:
This is Science Today. The peak time for influenza
is December - that's why Mary Lynch, a professor of
nursing at the University of California, San Francisco,
says there's always a big effort to have flu shots
available during the months of October and November.
Lynch: One very important thing
to remember about the flu shot is that from when you
receive it, it typically takes at least two weeks
before your body can generate an appropriate antibody
response or an appropriate inflammatory response.
Narrator: Lynch says another thing to
remember is that the flu shot itself cannot cause
influenza.
Lynch:
Because it is a killed vaccine. There is absolutely
nothing within that flu shot that you'll receive that
will cause you to directly get influenza. This is
not a live virus, it's a killed virus. This is a vaccine
that is safe even for individuals who are immune suppressed.
Narrator:
For
Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
Understanding the Scientific Downside of Biotechnology
Narrator:
This is Science Today. The Mexican government has
recently discovered that some of the country's native
corn varieties have been contaminated with genetically
engineered DNA. Dr. Norman Ellstrand, a professor
of genetics at the University of California, Riverside,
says this is a clear indication of how quickly genetic
material can move from one place to another.
Ellstrand:
I have focused on the question of whether transgenes
- that is to say, engineered genes - will move from
crops to their wild relatives through sexual reproduction.
Then the hybrids will bear these transgenes and in
some cases, the transgenes may be the sort of things
we don't want to end up in a wild population.
Narrator:
Such as corn produced with pharmaceutical or industrial
compounds.
Ellstrand:
Those corn plants will also be creating a lot of pollen
and the pollen will go to other fields and if those
other fields are for human or animal consumption,
we may find ourselves or animals ingesting compounds
that we may not want to ingest.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
Don't Always Count on End-of-life Decisions
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Various studies have found
that family members and doctors are often unaware
of patient preferences when it comes to do-not-resuscitate
orders or other life-and-death decisions. Peter Ditto,
a professor of psychology and social behavior at the
University of California, Irvine, found this to be
the case in a study of living wills, or advance directives.
Ditto:
What I'm really interested in is getting sort of the
psychology of advance directives. How is it that people
can try to decide in advance what sort of medical
treatments they would want if they're in a very serious
medical condition - a state very different from the
one they're in now.
Narrator:
Ditto found that for the most part, advance directives
did not significantly help people accurately predict
patient preferences.
Ditto:
The point that the research makes is that if you believe
that a simple statement like that is going to communicate
your wishes with somebody else, that's not a good
assumption. That it's going to at least take a more
elaborate process. It's an ongoing process of discussion
sort of examining the reasons for people's wishes,
the values that underlie their wishes.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.
The Link Between Well-done Meat and Cancer
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Cooking meat at very high temperatures
produces harmful chemicals called heterocyclic amines.
Mark Knize, a biomedical scientist at the Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory, has been studying the
link between lifetime consumption of well-done meat
and cancer.
Knize:
It's kind of an intriguing problem - what really causes
cancer in people and are these compounds involved.
One of them that we isolated here at the Lawrence
Livermore Lab actually causes breast cancer in female
rats and colon cancer and prostate cancer in male
rats and those are just the kinds of cancers that
people on Western sort of a diet, which is high in
meat, high in fat - those are the kinds of cancers
they get.
Narrator:
Knize and his colleagues discovered, however, that
flipping meat every minute while cooking, greatly
reduces these carcinogenic compounds.
Knize:
Flipping more often makes lower amounts of the heterocyclic
amines - it also actually cooks the meat a little
faster, which is a great benefit. So you could cook
faster if you flip about once a minute, is what we
discovered.
Narrator:
For
Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
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