McDonald's to show calories on UK menus

McDonald`s restaurants in Britain are showing the calorie count for each item on the menu. Ed Ou/AP

More than 1,000 McDonald's restaurants in Britain are displaying the calorie count of each fast food item on their menus as part of a government-led program to fight obesity.

McDonald's said the counts will be displayed on wall-mounted menu boards from Sept. 4 in all of its 1,200 U.K. restaurants.

The chain is one of several food companies partnering with the British Department of Health to encourage customers to adopt a healthier diet. It has also promised to remove artificial trans fats from its products, although it did not sign up to a salt reduction pledge.

McDonald's is already displaying calorie menu boards in New York City.

Other chains that have signed up to the British calorie display program include KFC, Pizza Hut and Starbucks.

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Most Nunavut toddlers lack healthy diet: studies

More than half of Nunavut's Inuit preschool-aged children are lacking adequate daily nutrition, a new pair of studies suggests.

Research published this month in the Journal of Nutrition and the International Journal of Circumpolar Health showed that 56 per cent of Nunavut Inuit households with a young child were considered "child food insecure" in a dietary health survey.

The surveys, conducted in 16 Nunavut communities in 2007-08, also showed that seven out of 10 households with a child between the ages of three and five were "food insecure".

Child food insecurity rates in the survey sample were 10 times higher than national figures reported in the Canadian Community Health Survey, in which about five per cent of households were considered child food insecure.

Dr. Grace Egeland, a McGill University associate professor in the school of dietetics and human nutrition, was the lead author for both papers.

The data should be used to help those characterized as food insecure plan how to improve their diets, she says.

"What's happening is that these stressors in the communities are having an impact on nutritional status, and over the long term, we would anticipate it would have implications on health," Egeland said.

"These are subtle changes in diet that over the long term can have negative consequences."

Food insecurity has been associated with lower education, household income and social assistance, according to Egeland.

The information for both reports was gathered as part of an Inuit Health Survey for International Polar Year.

Data from 1,901 households were considered in the Journal of Nutrition report. The other report, which focused more on preschoolers' dietary characteristics, considered data collected from 388 participants.

The International Journal of Circumpolar Health report concludes that both traditional foods and foods purchased from markets are needed in order for children to be considered food secure.

"Support systems and dietary interventions for families with young children are needed," the report adds.

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Montreal heart researcher stripped of status

A prominent researcher with the Montreal Heart Institute has been stripped of his lab, privileges and status following an investigation into scientific misconduct.

The institute launched an investigation earlier this year after two studies by Dr. Zhiguo Wang were retracted from prominent scientific journals.

Those studies, conducted in 2007 and 2008, explored irregular heart rhythms. The research was done at the cellular level and did not involve patients.

Dr. Zhiguo Wang At the time, Wang blamed the error on a mix-up of images used to illustrate the data. He said the research itself was solid and had been reproduced.

On Friday, the Montreal Heart Institute (MHI) said its investigation found Wang “deviated from MHI’s ethical standards of proper scientific conduct and his responsibilities as a researcher.”

Dr. Jean-Claude Tardif, director of the MHI Research Centre, said the hospital had concerns with how images used in the research were manipulated -- and that it must enforce strict scientific standards.

Wang has been stripped of his privileges at the institute and his lab has been closed.

MHI also requested retractions of three additional published articles, but did not disclose any further details of its investigation.

Wang could not be reached for comment Friday.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) funded one of the studies retracted earlier this year. The other was funded by the Canadian Diabetes Association.

CIHR said it has frozen Wang's funding.

They're also considering additional measures, which could include barring the researcher from applying for future grants.

Based on the MIH findings, the Canadian Diabetes Association said Wang is no longer eligible for their grants.

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Banned e-cigarettes on sale in Regina stores

Electronic cigarettes are illegal and unreliable as a quit-smoking tool, according to Health Canada, but they’re still easy to buy in Regina stores.

The cigarettes, commonly called e-cigarettes, contain cartridges of flavoured liquid that is vapourized and inhaled. They're marketed as an alternative to smoking tobacco.

They’re available online, although Health Canada and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which regulate the cigarettes as drugs, have not approved them for sale.

In Regina, smoke shop owner Ashok Brahmania says he sells about 15 e-cigarette kits a week. He also say he’s been assured they’re legal.

“It has to be approved by Health Canada, and it seems to me I asked our supplier,” he said. “This one is approved by Health Canada.”

In fact, Health Canada says it doesn’t approve any form of electronic cigarette for sale in Canada. And there is no proof e-cigarettes help smokers give up tobacco, the department says.

Janice Burgess of Regina, who helps people quit smoking, says not enough research has been done on electronic cigarettes. She worries the vapour is a risk to others, just as second-hand tobacco smoke is.

“People around the person using the e-cigarette will be exposed to whatever is in the liquid cartridge,” she said.

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Four confirmed West Nile cases in Que.

The number of reported human cases of the West Nile virus in Quebec is now up to four.

That's the most human cases than the province has seen in the last six years.

In all confirmed cases, the infection was found when the patients donated blood. They were all reported in August.

Dr. Horacio Arruda of the province’s public health department said the recent cases shouldn't be cause for panic.

This is the time of year when human cases typically start to emerge.

"It just reminds us that this disease exists it can exist again so be careful, especially if you are in the risk groups," he said.

Authorities say all the cases are in southwestern Quebec, including the greater Montreal area.

Humans become infected with West Nile when they are bitten by a disease-carrying mosquito.

While many infected people suffer only mild, flu-like symptoms, people with weakened immune systems are at greater risk for developing more serious health effects like meningitis and encephalitis.

According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, the first reported human cases of West Nile in this country were in 2002.

The following year, there were 1,400 human cases reported.

The annual numbers have dropped significantly since that time.

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Fewer antibiotics prescribed to kids

The push to get pediatricians to stop prescribing antibiotics for the wrong illnesses is paying off a bit, a new U.S. government report found.

Since the early 1990s, there's been a 10 per cent drop in prescription rates for antibiotics for kids 14 and younger, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday.

Antibiotics are often used — but don't work — against viral illnesses like colds and flu. Antibiotics fight infections caused by bacteria. Misuse can lead to antibiotic resistance.

Experts say doctors inappropriately prescribe antibiotics more than 50 per cent of the time, and more often with respiratory infections.

The CDC found larger declines — about 25 per cent — in how often doctors used antibiotics against sore throats, colds and some other upper respiratory infections. But there was no significant change in how often they prescribed the drugs for ear infection, bronchitis and sinusitis.

The new findings represent progress, but also suggest that doctors are still prescribing antibiotics too often, said Dr. Lauri Hicks, a CDC epidemiologist who worked on the study.

"The bad news is we still have a long way to go," she said.

The CDC study was the government's first look at the issue in about a decade. It was based on an annual survey of doctors' offices, and compared rates from 1993-1994 to 2007-2008.

The improvement could be partly driven by rapid diagnostic tests that help doctors pinpoint whether a sore throat is caused by a virus or strep bacteria, CDC researchers said. The study also found fewer parents took their kids to doctors for upper respiratory infections, which could be thanks to a vaccine against pneumococcal bacteria that became available in 2000.

A public health campaign about antibiotics may have also had some impact, CDC officials said.

Doctors have not always followed recommendations to cut back on antibiotics, partly because of pressure from parents, said Dr. Kenneth Bromberg, chairman of pediatrics at the Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York.

Moms and dads who have been up with sick, screaming infants in the middle of the night tend to expect more from a doctor than advice to keep an eye on the problem. Often, they want antibiotics, and may not stop at one doctor to get them, he said.

"In this new age of consumerism, they will go somewhere else and get what they want," Bromberg said.

The taxing nature of ear infections may be why the CDC didn't find a decrease in the antibiotic prescribing rate for that problem, he added.

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Human gut bacteria seem to be picky eaters

People who eat a diet high in fats and animal protein tend to have a different group of bacteria flourishing in their gut compared with those who eat a mostly plant-based diet, researchers have found.

Researchers suspect that the microbes within us affect our vulnerability to infectious disease and interact with the immune system. The new study was part of the scientific effort to try to understand how bacteria interact with their human hosts. One type of bacteria preferred the guts of people eating a carnivorous diet high in saturated fat while another type of bacteria thrived on a carbohydrate-based diet. Elise Amendola/Associated Press

Either of two specific types of microbes seem to take over the human gut and dominate, the study in this week's online issue of the journal Science suggests.

Bacteroides prefer the guts of people eating a carnivorous diet high in saturated fat while another type of bacteria, Prevotella thrive on a carbohydrate-based diet.

In the study, researchers collected stool samples from 98 subjects who also filled in questionnaires about their diet.

Dr. James Lewis of the University of Pennsylvania and his co-authors then used gene sequencing technology to examine the genetic code of bacteria from the participants' colons. That's how they found the two groups of bacteria, known as enterotypes.

In the second part of the experiment, 10 healthy, non-obese Americans stayed in a hospital for 10 days as part of a controlled eating study. Half ate high-fat, low-fiber diet, and the other ate a low-fat, high-fibre diet.

The investigators found that although the gut microbial communities changed slightly within 24 hours of the diet switch, peoples' enterotypes stayed largely the same over the 10-day study.

"Changes were significant and rapid, but the magnitude of the changes were modest, and not sufficient to switch individuals between the enterotype clusters associated with protein/fat and carbohydrates," the study's authors said.

The findings complement those of a recent study that compared the diet of European children who eat a typical Western diet high in animal protein and fat to children in Burkina Faso, who eat a high carbohydrate diet low in animal protein, the researchers said.

In that study, the Bacteroides enterotype dominated in the European samples whereas the African samples were dominated by Prevotella — the same pattern as in the latest study.

Other differences between Europe and Burkino Faso could explain the findings but diet offers "an attractive potential explanation," Lewis and his co-authors said.

Their next step is to determine whether those with the Bacteroides enterotype have a higher incidence of diseases associated with a Western diet, and whether long-term diet changes can lead to a lasting switch to the Prevotella enterotype.

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New swine flu strain sickens 2 U.S. kids

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the new virus contains a gene from the H1N1 swine flu that caused a worldwide scare two years ago, plus parts of other viruses that have infected pigs. Jessica Rinaldi/Associated Press

A new strain of swine flu has shown up in two children in Pennsylvania and Indiana who had direct or indirect contact with pigs.

The virus includes a gene from the 2009 pandemic strain that might let it spread more easily than pig viruses normally do.

So far, there's no sign that the virus has spread beyond the two children, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday.

"We wanted to provide some information without being alarmist," because people have contact with pigs at fairs this time of year and doctors should watch for possible flu cases, said Lyn Finelli, the CDC's flu surveillance chief. "We're always concerned when we see transmission of animal viruses to humans."

People rarely get flu from pigs — only 21 cases have been documented in the last five years — and it's too soon to know how infective this virus will be, she said.

The new strain is a hybrid of viruses that have infected pigs over the last decade and a gene from the H1N1 strain that caused the pandemic two years ago. It is the first combination virus to turn up in people since the pandemic, said Michael Shaw, a lab chief at the CDC. It's classified as an H3N2 virus.

The first case was an Indiana boy under age five who was sickened in late July. He had no contact with pigs, but a caretaker did in the weeks before the boy fell ill. He was hospitalized and has recovered, and no other family members appear ill.

The second case was a Pennsylvania girl, also under age five, who had contact with pigs at an agricultural fair last month. She, too, has recovered, and health officials are investigating reports of illness in other people who went to the fair. No additional cases have been confirmed so far.

The viruses in the two children were similar but not identical. Both were resistant to older flu medicines but not to Tamiflu or Relenza.

The gene from the 2009 pandemic is one of the things that makes this new strain worrisome, said Dr. John Treanor, a flu specialist at the University of Rochester School of Medicine.

"There is some evidence that that gene is particularly important for transmission from person to person," he said.

This year's vaccine, which is the same as last year's, likely would not protect against the new swine strain, Treanor and Finelli said. They are encouraged that so far it does not appear to have spread easily between people, and that local health officials detected and reported the novel strain so quickly.

"Maybe it will be no big deal but it's important to keep track of this," Treanor said.

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China charges 5 after chemical dump in reservoir

Five people including managers of two companies in China have been charged in connection with a massive dumping of toxic waste into the Chachong Reservoir that could affect the drinking water for tens of millions of people.

The dumping of more than 5,000 tonnes of hexavalent chromium-contaminated waste allegedly occurred between April and June, and came to light after 77 livestock, mostly sheep, died after drinking from a local pond.

The arrests and charges were announced Sunday at a news conference in Qujing City by authorities in southwest Yunnan Province.

Chen Jun, deputy mayor of Qujing City, said among those charged are managers of the Luliang Chemical Industry Company Ltd. and the Sanli Fuel Company Ltd..

According to China Daily, a Luliang Chemical Industry employee and two employees from a coal company are also charged.

The dumping of more than 5,000 tonnes of hexavalent chromium-contaminated waste allegedly occurred between April and June, and came to light after 77 livestock, mostly sheep, died after drinking from a local pond.

Government officials initially denied the contamination of the reservoir, which feeds into the Pearl River — one of China's longest and most valuable waterways.

At the time, officials said they had contained and cleaned the chromium-contaminated soil and water, but they now say the cleanup won't be complete until the end of 2012.

Hexavalent chromium is easily absorbed by the body, and can cause vomiting, abdominal pain, dermatitis and eczema. Short-term and long-term contact or inhalation poses a cancer risk.

Yunnan province is a major producer of vegetables and other farm products for Hong Kong and southern China.

The Hong Kong secretary of health says authorities are testing vegetables for any signs of contamination.

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Are NHL enforcers' addictions, depression a result of on-ice brain trauma?

Neurosurgeon Robert Cantu and his team at Boston University study the brains of deceased athletes. They have already examined the brains of Reggie Fleming, an enforcer in the '60s, and Bob Probert, an enforcer who retired in 2002 after 16 NHL seasons and died in July 2010 of a heart attack.

Cantu and his research team Ann McKee, Robert Stern and Chris Nowinski found that both Fleming and Probert had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease caused by blunt impact to the head.The researchers also examined the brain of Dave Duerson, a former National Football Leaguye player who committed suicide in February. Duerson also had CTE.

The brains were studied at the Centre for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, a collaboration between Boston University Medical School and the Sports Legacy Institute, which was co-founded by Cantu.

In the interview, Cantu explains that addiction, depression and anxiety may result from CTE.

In the last four months, three National Hockey League enforcers have died tragically. In May, Derek Boogaard died from a combination of too many painkillers and alcohol. Rick Rypien, was found dead in his home in Alberta on Aug.15, an apparent suicide, and, most recently, Wade Belak was found dead in a Toronto hotel on Aug. 31.

On Friday Lorraine Belak, Wade's mother, confirmed to CBC that her son suffered from depression. Rypien also dealt with depression.

Cantu and his team have examined Derek Boogaard's brain but the results are not yet public.

CBC News: What is it about NHL enforcers that could possibly explain the recent deaths of Derek Boogaard, Rick Rypien and Wade Belak?

Robert Cantu: We've studied several deceased NHL players who were enforcers and the two that we brought public so far — Reggie Fleming and Bob Probert — both died with chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

Dr. Robert Cantu explained to CBC News that because of their role, NHL enforcers are likely to have suffered concussions, which can lead to the brain disease CTE. Vernon Doucette/Boston University PhotographyWe have also had a number of brains come to us, mostly from NFL players who committed suicide, and their brains have shown chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

So anytime I hear of an athlete who has had a lot of head trauma who commits suicide, I am immediately concerned that chronic traumatic encephalopathy may have played a role. And I would like to study their brain to see whether the presence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy is there.

What is it that happens to a brain that suffers, perhaps repeated, damage from concussion or hard blows?

The ultimate hallmark of CTE is the abnormal hyper-phosphorylated tau protein deposit that can be stained for and identified. Tau is throughout the brain, though it is in particular locations in greater concentrations.

The medial temporal lobe is the area of highest concentration. That medial temporal lobe has functions of:

memory,impulse control,addiction,emotions,depressionand anxiety.

So when that area of the brain is damaged, you have problems in those areas and that's what we see with CTE.

Looking at the brains you've examined, of athletes that have died, why would CTE be a factor in a suicide?

Because the difficulty handling impulses and the difficulty with emotions, especially depressive emotions, are impaired with CTE. That's why depression is very common with CTE.

Georges Laraque, the Montreal Canadiens tough guy, spoke about the enforcer role in a CBC interview Thursday. He said that a lot of enforcers find the pressure tough to deal with and so use drugs and alcohol to cope, and develop problems as a result. What are your thoughts on that?

The medial temporal lobe, as I said, is associated with addictive behaviours and alcohol and drug abuse are addictions. So it is very consistent. And we find that addictions are very common in people with CTE and we find that some of the brains that come our way, came our way not because of a conscious suicide but because somebody was involved with drugs and/or alcohol and the combination became lethal.

So it could be an accidental combination, or driving while impaired, that sort of thing?

Yes.

What about the pattern, are enforcers more or less likely to suffer from concussions?

Derek Boogaard's death on May 13 was ruled accidental, the result of a toxic mix of alcohol and the powerful pain killer oxycodone. Boogaard, right, fights Jody Shelley at a Nov. 4, 2010 hockey game in Philadelphia. Matt Slocum/Associated PressI have seen a number of enforcers in my practice. They tell me that about one out of every four or five times that they fight they suffer what sounds to me like a concussion, meaning they get stunned or they have other post-concussion symptoms.

And they tell me they go to the penalty box and they never tell the training staff they've had a concussion. And they don't complain of their symptoms because they are afraid if they do they will be replaced, their job will be lost.

How common are athlete suicides?

I don't think we have a real good handle on that. There is evidence to suggest that it is less common than it is in non-athletes at the high-school level, that playing sports improves one's self esteem and gives a better chance not to have depression overtake them. Some high school athletes commit suicide, so it's not an absolute protection. We don't have a good handle.

Do you have a better handle with professional athletes?

According to Dr. Cantu, addictions and depression are very common in people with CTE. Vernon Doucette/Boston University PhotographyNo, except that we're beginning to keep closer score, if you know what I mean, and we don't like what we're finding.

We've not had a good data system for recording athletic suicides. It's something that really is needed.

In addition to the data set on athlete suicides, what else should be done to reduce the number of athlete suicides?

Just like there's concussion education mandated by the new legislation in many U.S. states, that education should include a bit about, if you have depression or overwhelming sadness, that you seek help. There are suicide hotlines and crisis control situations available to people.

In other words, we don't ever want to study another brain that came to us by way of suicide.

Will we study them? Of course, but we do not want them to come to us because of that.

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Chocolate could reduce heart risk by a third

Eating more chocolate could reduce the risk of developing heart disease by 37 per cent, a report in the British Medical Journal suggests.

Researchers at Cambridge University compiled an analysis after looking into seven studies of about 114,000 people and found that people who consumed the most chocolate had a 37 per cent lower risk of developing heart disease and a 29 per cent lower risk of suffering a stroke than those who consumed less chocolate.

The studies looked at the consumption of dark chocolate as well as milk chocolate, chocolate drinks and other chocolate confectionaries.

"Cocoa products containing flavonol have been known to have an encouraging potential to help prevent cardio-metabolic disorders," the report said.

Oscar Franco, a clinical lecturer in public health, and one of the authors of the report added that it is more than just one element in chocolate that makes it beneficial.

"[There are] antioxidants, flavonoids, it's many things that come together," Franco said. "What we see with elements is they are complex structures that have many factors, many chemicals that come together, interact with each other, so they can produce a beneficial effect."

The authors did not suggest a specific amount of chocolate to consume in order to lower the risk of cardio-metabolic disorders.

"We were not able to quantify the exact quantity or the frequency so how frequently you would [need to] consume chocolate," Franco said, "What we found were that the beneficial effects occur if you consume chocolate at least more than twice per week."

Although the analysis suggests a certain benefit to eating higher quantities of chocolate, eating too much chocolate can still have harmful effects, especially in popular, commercialized products that contain high sugar and fat which could lead to weight gain, a higher risk of hypertension, diabetes and general cardiovascular disorders.

"Moderation is key," Franco added. "Everything in excess will have a deleterious effect on your health."

Although the study seems to show that consumption of chocolate products seem to be associated with a "substantial reduction in the risk of cardio-metabolic disorders" Oscar Franco, a clinical lecturer in public health, along with this colleagues at Cambridge University said further experimental studies are needed.

Authors also do not advocate stopping regular and already established diets regarding the prevention of heart disease but rather the advice is to continue consuming high levels of fruits and less meat.

Franco suggests that the idea of finding a positive effect of chocolate isn't just a way of justifying the popular dessert but is a concept that "goes back centuries to the times of the Mayans and Aztecs" — groups who were known to use chocolate for a variety of purposes including prevention of heart problems, coughs and even aphrodisiacs.

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Vitamin A could save 600,000 kids' lives a year

Vitamin A supplements can save the lives of children in low- and middle-income countries, a new review suggests.

The evidence is so strong that it would be unethical to continue comparing the supplements to placebo, say researchers who analyzed the findings of 43 randomized trials involving more than 215,000 children aged six months to five years.

Vitamin A must be obtained from the diet. It helps form and maintain healthy skin, teeth, skeletal and soft tissue, mucus membranes, and skin, according to the U.S. National Institute of Health.

Vitamin A was associated with reducing mortality in children by 0.76 times.

"Comparable with previous reviews, this review shows that vitamin A supplementation is associated with large and important reductions in mortality for children in low- and middle-income countries," Dr. Evan Mayo-Wilson of the Centre for Evidence-Based Intervention at the University of Oxford and his co-authors wrote in this week's issue of the British Medical Journal.

"This adds substantively to previous reviews in providing a plausible pathway and indicating that vitamin A supplementation reduces the incidence of and mortality from diarrhea and measles."

The World Health Organization estimated that as many as 190 million children younger than five may be vitamin A deficient globally.

Reducing deaths with vitamin A supplements in these children could equate to more than 600,000 lives saved each year, the researchers estimated.

In a journal editorial accompanying the research, Andrew Thorne-Lyman and Wafaie Fawzi from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston supported the recommendation for vitamin A supplementation, saying that although more research is needed in how to more effectively provide supplementation to those who need it, placebo trials are no longer necessary.

"Most national vitamin A programs supplement children twice a year, yet evidence suggests that more frequent supplementation could reduce mortality even further," they wrote.

"Research into alternative dosing approaches and delivery mechanisms, with proper evaluation, might enable programs to be more effective."

The active form of vitamin A is found in liver, whole milk and some fortified foods.

The review was funded by the World Health Organization's Department of Nutrition for Health and Development.

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Cost of aging population on health care 'overblown'

Fears that Canada's aging population could lead to soaring health-care costs may be greatly exaggerated, say researchers, who suggest that the predicted "grey tsunami" may turn out to be more like a "grey glacier."

Two studies by health economists at the University of British Columbia say other factors are driving up health-care costs -- primarily the growing use of specialists, increasing diagnostic tests for the elderly and higher consumption of ever more costly drugs.

One study, by Steve Morgan, examined total health-care spending in British Columbia from 1996 to 2006, the most recent years for which complete data were available. The other study by Kimberlyn McGrail analyzed statistics on visits and fees paid to B.C. physicians during the same time period.

Both studies found that the per-capita cost of health care rose, even after adjusting for inflation and population changes. They concluded that neither the sharpest rise in cost nor the larger share of the increase was driven by the aging population, but by factors that can be controlled by health-care providers or policy-makers.

"British Columbia's demographics are reasonably representative of the rest of Canada, so these figures show that nationwide, the health-care system is as sustainable as we want it to be," Morgan said in a release.

Both he and McGrail, whose papers were published Monday in the journal Healthcare Policy, noted that spending and visits to general practitioners declined during that period. However, the use of specialists — including those focused on diagnostic procedures — went up.

McGrail said the increased costs may reflect an evolving health-care system, not necessarily an expanding one.

'Such growth is well within the reach of expected economic growth and productivity.'—Steve Morgan, researcher

"There is no single cause for this shift — it's the result of millions of treatment and referral decisions by thousands of clinicians," she said. "But it does reflect that patients are receiving a different style of care than they used to. They are seeing more different doctors and are having more tests done."

For his study, Morgan looked at total spending on acute-care hospitals and physician-provided medical services, which make up the core of government-funded health care in Canada. For comparison, he analyzed prescription drug spending, which for the most part is not publicly funded.

During the 10-year period, per-capita spending on hospital care and doctor visits increased only slightly faster than the overall 17 per cent inflation rate. In contrast, per-capita spending on prescription drugs rose by 140 per cent.

Population aging caused expenditures on hospital care, medical care and prescription drugs to grow by less than one per cent a year. And despite the aging of the baby-boom generation, Morgan's projections suggest the demographic's impact will remain the same over the next 25 years.

"Such growth is well within the reach of expected economic growth and productivity," he said.

The impact of the aging population is less severe than most people assume because populations age more gradually than individuals, Morgan said. Compared to young people, the elderly are less likely to receive costly interventions for adverse health events, so the greying of the population could actually lead to reduced costs for acute care towards the end of life, he added.

McGrail's study suggests a perceived physician shortage in the province may have resulted from a gradual increase in diagnostic procedures for elderly patients at the expense of "hands-on" care for the general population.

People under age 25 reduced their doctor visits by 6.5 per cent during the study period, while visits by those 75-plus went up by 18.2 per cent. Spending on diagnostic services went up across all age groups, but for those over 75 the spending increase was significant: up 64 per cent over the study period.

While the number of visits a typical patient made to a particular physician dropped, there was an overall increase in the number of different physicians that a patient saw per year.

"Patients are seeing more different doctors, fewer times each, but overall having more contact with physicians," said McGrail. "We don't know if this shift in services has actually led to better outcomes and higher quality of life, or if we are simply giving people more tests and more diagnoses."

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Obesity deterrents by governments called for

Taxing sweetened drinks such as pop and limiting junk food ads for children could help curb obesity worldwide, researchers say in a medical journal series.

This week's issue of the Lancet includes a series on trends in obesity, which increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes and some cancers.By taxing sugar-sweetened beverages, governments could make it easier for children to make healthy choices, researchers say. iStock

"By imposing tax on sugar-sweetened beverages and limiting marketing of unhealthy foods to children, governments can lead in making it easier for children to make healthy choices," said the lead author of one of the papers, Steven Gortmaker, a professor of the practice of health sociology at Harvard School of Public Health.

Increasing taxes and marketing restrictions have helped in tobacco control and likely would work in reducing consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks, the researchers suggest.

Obesity is often defined in terms of the body-mass index or BMI, a measure of heights and weights. In adults, a BMI of 30 or more is considered obese.

A second paper in the series projected that if present trends continue, about half of men and women in the U.S. will be obese by 2030.

Some 32 per cent of men and 35 per cent of women are now obese in the United States, Claire Wang at the Mailman School of Public Health in Columbia University in New York and her co-authors said.

In Britain, obesity rates are projected to be between 41 to 48 per cent for men and 35 to 43 per cent for women by 2030, up from 26 per cent for both sexes now.

"An extra 668,000 cases of diabetes, 461,000 of heart disease and 130,000 cancer cases would result ," for the U.S. and U.K. combined, Wang's team wrote.

Beyond compromising the healthy, productive lifespan of populations, the increases in obesity could add an estimated $48 to $66 billion US a year in the U.S.

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