Cold Drugs and Children

According to the Washington Post on January 29, 2008 (article here), more than 7000 children per year get rushed to emergency rooms due to adverse reactions to cough/cold medicines. According to the article, most of the problems occur in children ages 2-5, who got into the medicine on their own.

The researchers based their conclusions on information from a “nationally representative sample of 63 emergency rooms in 2004 and 2005.” This is coming as the FDA considers whether to further restrict the use of these products. The issues are the risks involved and the possibility that the products simply aren’t effective in young children.

Pediatricians are arguing that the drugs are not effective in young children and pose too great a risk to continue to allow their usage; the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, an industry group, says that the report shows that the problem really lies in parents giving incorrect dosages or failing to make sure the medicine is out of the reach of children. Last year, the industry voluntarily withdrew all products marketed for children under the age of two, but insisted that the products were safe for children older than 2.

The CDC said that last year at least “1500 children younger than 2 had complications in 2004 and 2005 from the products, and an FDA review noted dozens of cases of convulsions, heart problems, trouble breathing, neurological complications and other reactions, including at least 123 deaths.”

In terms of this most recent information, the researchers identified 301 cases between January 1, 2004, and December 31, 2005. “Cold and cough drugs account for 5.7 percent of all medicine-related visits to the emergency room by children younger than 12. The cases did include prescription and OTC products, but researchers said that most of them involved nonprescription products.

Nearly 80 percent of the cases in the ages 2-5 involved situations in which children got into the medicine without their parents’ knowledge.

Basically, the researchers recommended several steps to make the products safer and reduce the risk. Examples include: encouraging parents to put the medicines out of the reach of children, to encourage them to keep them capped, designing better child-proof containers, and also avoiding the use of colors that make products appealing to children.

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Ok, what I really want to know here is this: are the products effective or not? I can certainly take care of keeping the products out of the reach of my children and make sure the caps are on good, but I don’t want to use them if they aren’t going to help!

Researchers say to drink and exercise

Now here is a study I can get behind! According to Danish researchers, “drinking is healthy, exercise is healthy, and doing a little of both is even healthier.” This is according to an article published by Reuters on January 8, 2008 (here).

Obviously, you are not supposed to go out and get drunk every night – that is most definitely NOT healthy and not what is being touted by doctors. Rather, a drink or two regularly in addition to regular exercise is a healthy way of life.

According to the article, people who neither exercise nor drink have a 30-49 percent higher risk of heart disease than those who do one or both of the activities, according to a report in the European Heart Journal. “Several major studies have found that light to moderate drinking – up to two drinks a day on a regular basis – is associated with a lower risk of heart disease, and some have also found this leads to a lower risk of some cancers.” The Danish study, though, is the largest of its kind to examine the combined effect of drinking and exercise, and it found there were additional benefits from doing both things. Non-drinkers had a 30-31 percent higher risk of heart disease compared to moderate drinkers, regardless of the level of activity. Moderate consumption of alcohol was defined as up to 2 drinks per day (1-14 drinks per week). Teetotalers were able to reduce their risk of heart disease by exercising at least moderately. The people with the lowest risk of dying from any cause were those who performed both activities while those at the highest risk were those who were physically inactive, heavy drinkers.

Just something to think about…and of course, you do have to wonder if a study next week or next month will find the opposite. My husband’s doctor did indeed recommend a drink a day for health benefits; he gets a kick out of telling people that he’s having a drink due to doctor’s orders.

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