Happy New Year, and welcome to the first edition of the HealthInsite newsletter for 2008! As usual, a very special welcome to any new subscribers!
It's back to school for many children, and so it's timely that a report from the RMIT University in Melbourne has prompted experts to call on governments to support and educate parents in how to provide healthier lunches for their children. It seems that despite all the information available to parents on healthy eating, parents continue to make questionable choices when it comes to their children's lunchboxes.
Also in this edition, our very own Department of Health and Ageing has launched a skin cancer campaign aimed at people aged between 13 and 24 years - you may have seen a commercial on free-to-air television, heard something on the radio, or seen a promotion in the newspaper. While the campaign is targeting young Australians, it serves as another reminder to all of us about the importance of preventing skin cancer.
Our last news item relates to Ovarian Cancer Awareness Week, and a campaign launched by the National Breast and Ovarian Cancer Centre in association with the National Ovarian Cancer Network.
News Items
A lesson in healthy lunchboxes
The Australian newspaper recently reported on a study done by the RMIT University's Parenting Research Centre that highlighted an urgent need to help educate parents to prepare healthier lunchboxes. The preliminary findings of the study revealed that almost three-quarters (72%) of children did not have any salad or vegetables in their lunchbox, and almost half (48%) had their total recommended daily amount of junk food (such as chocolate, chips, or cake) just in their lunchbox.
The study looked into the lunchboxes of 170 students aged five and six at five schools spread across Melbourne. RMIT University researcher, Dr Leah Brennan, said that the results were very worrying, especially given all of the available information and media campaigns focussing on healthy eating. "We need to be doing something to help parents prepare a healthier lunchbox that has more vegetables, and fewer serves of extra foods," she said.
Dr Brennan said research needs to be undertaken on the factors influencing what parents put in their children's lunchboxes. Elaine Crowle, president of Parents Victoria, said parents were often rushed for time and pre-packaged food was often the most convenient option.
Associate Professor Jeff Walkley from RMIT University's School of Medical Sciences provided several useful suggestions that parents could employ to improve not only the health of their children, but their success at school. "Consistently, research has shown us that healthy young people are more likely to be happy and do well at school. Being active and eating well can make the rigours of school life easier and can contribute to a successful school experience. To help their children get the most out of school, parents can support their children by encouraging them to be active and eat a healthy diet. Limit the TV and computer time kids get each day to only a couple of hours, provide water, fruit and vegetables in the lunch box and encourage kids to get out and move around. It's a cheap investment in your child's health.
The Australian Government has launched a new phase in its National Skin Cancer Awareness Campaign. The 13-24 year age group is the primary target audience for the campaign because it is this group that has been least likely to use adequate protection, and has the highest frequency of sunburn.
The Campaign aims to make young people aware of five effective ways to protect themselves from the sun:
seek shade
wear sun-protective clothing that covers as much of your body as possible
put on a broad brimmed hat that shades your face, neck and ears
wear wrap-around sunglasses
apply SPF30+ broad-spectrum water-resistant sunscreen every two hours
A national media campaign alerting women to the symptoms of ovarian cancer was launched last week, and follows recent survey results revealing that many Australian women are unaware of the warning signs of Australia.s biggest gynaecological cancer killer.
Every year nearly 1100 Australian women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer and nearly 900 die from the disease, the sixth most common cause of cancer death in women.
While advances have been made in survival rates for breast cancer, survival rates for ovarian cancer have barely improved.
Symptoms include
abdominal bloating, abdominal or back pain, appetite loss or feeling full, changes in toilet habits, unexplained weight gain or loss, indigestion, or heartburn fatigue.
Every woman will have experienced one or more of these symptoms at some stage, said Dr Zorbas. But if any of these symptoms are unusual for you and they persist, it is important to see your doctor. No one knows your body like you do.
The National Breast and Ovarian Cancer Centre will also launch a new ovarian cancer training module for its General Practitioner Education Series.
Australia scores world-first with most advanced telephone hearing test
A new version of a special hearing test developed by Australian Hearing and its research arm, the National Acoustic Laboratories, is now the most advanced telephone hearing test in the world. Australians will be able to determine whether they have a hearing loss by calling a toll free number and responding to sounds played over the telephone as part of a sophisticated, world leading service.
The new telephone service, which uses breakthrough technology, will make it easy for the thousands of Australians who suffer from a hearing loss to determine whether or not their loss is severe enough to warrant further treatment.
People can access the service by calling 1800 826 500 toll-free and following the voice prompts.
Information Partners
We are delighted to be able to welcome BluePages as our newest HealthInsite Information Partner! BluePages has been established by the Centre for Mental Health Research at the Australian National University to provide information about:
the symptoms of depression and how depression is diagnosed
which medical, psychological and alternative treatments work for depression (and which don't)
people, organisations, books, web sites and other resources that may be helpful if you are depressed.
Medicine Regulator Places Boxed Warning On Stilnox
Australia's medicines regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), has issued a warning, including in the product information documents, for medicines containing zolpidem. This follows reports of bizarre and sometimes dangerous sleep-related behaviours such as sleep-walking and sleep-driving in some users of the drug.
According to a recent TGA safety alert, 1,032 reports of suspected reactions to zolpidem products have been entered into the TGA's Adverse Reactions database as of 4 January 2008. More than two-thirds of these reports (687) were received in the past twelve months, and 394 reports included mention of abnormal sleep-related events, including sleep-walking, sleep-eating and sleep-driving. Nearly 10% of all reports (103) included mention of sleep-driving.
The TGA has reiterated that these medicines are indicated for short-term use ONLY, and should not be used with alcohol. Caution should be exercised using any sleeping medicines, particularly in patients taking other medicines that act on the brain, such as antidepressants. It is vital that doctors ensure that sleeping medicines are only used according to their approved indications with appropriate medical monitoring.
In the past year, the TGA has published warnings about the risks of these medicines, written to Australian doctors and pharmacists organisations, limited the size of packets of zolpidem available for dispensing to encourage only short-term use, and revised the product information and consumer medicines information to explicitly warn of these side-effects.
The TGA has arranged an urgent meeting with the National Prescribing Service to discuss development of additional educational materials for prescribers further emphasising the need to only use sleeping medicines where clinically indicated for short periods of time, and to remind them of the risks of inappropriate use of these medicines.
Latest Resources
The HealthInsite team regularly adds new items to the database including new information partners, new topic pages and news items. Why not take a look at the list of new and updated material added to the database in the past month!
What's in the Next
Edition?
The next edition will be out later this month and will focus on topical news items and more useful tips. But for now, that's it from all of us here at HealthInsite!
