The Morning Drill: July 15, 2011

A collection of dentistry and health related links/comments to start your day.

Secondhand Smoke Boosts Neurobehavioral Problems in Kids

Secondhand smoke exposure in the home is associated with an increased risk for neurobehavioral disorders among children younger than 12 years of age, according to new research.

Zubair Kabir, MD, PhD, from the Tobacco Free Research Institute, Dublin, Ireland, and colleagues reported their findings online July 11 in Pediatrics.

"The results from this study show yet another reason not to smoke around your children," senior author Hillel Alpert, ScM, from Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, told Medscape Medical News.

"We previously reported the association with otitis media. A whole range of childhood diseases have been associated with second-hand smoke exposure and smoking in the home, including those reported in Surgeon General reports, so a smoke-free home has major protective advantages against childhood diseases," Dr. Alpert said.

Respiratory problems, an increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome, acute respiratory infections, and more frequent and more severe asthma attacks have been reported in children exposed to secondhand smoke. Yet, write the researchers, in 2007, about 5.5 million of US children lived in households where someone smoked inside the home.

Men Have Higher Cancer Death Rates Than Women

Men are more likely than women to die of cancer in the U.S., a new study shows.

"Our research suggests that the main factor driving greater frequency of cancer deaths in men is the greater frequency of cancer diagnosis, rather than poorer survival once the cancer occurs," says study researcher Michael B. Cook, PhD, BsC, of the National Cancer Institute.

The study is published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

Cook says that if investigators "can identify the causes of these gender differences in cancer incidence, then we can take preventative actions to reduce the cancer burden in both men and women."

Male Smokers Have Lower Risk for Joint Replacement Surgery

Men who smoke have less risk of undergoing total joint replacement (TJR) surgery of the hip or knee than those who have never smoked, according to the results of an Australian cohort study reported online July 8 in Arthritis & Rheumatism.

"Our study is the first to demonstrate a strong inverse correlation between smoking duration and risk of total joint replacement," said lead author George Mnatzaganian, PhD, from the University of Adelaide in Adelaide, Australia, in a news release. "The independent inverse associations of smoking with risk of total joint replacement were evident also after adjusting for major confounders and after accounting for the competing mortality risk in this elderly cohort of men. Further investigation is needed to determine how smoking impacts the development of [osteoarthritis]."

'Alarming' Vitamin D Deficiencies in NFL Football Players

Vitamin D deficiency might be unusually high among American football players, with black players and players who have suffered muscle injuries showing significantly lower vitamin D levels, according to a study presented here at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine 2011 Annual Meeting.

Researchers testing the vitamin D levels of 89 professional football players from the New York Giants National Football League (NFL) team in the spring of 2010 found that 27 players (30.3%) had deficient total 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels (below 20 ng/mL), and as many as 45 players (50.6%) had levels consistent with vitamin D insufficiency (between 20 and 31.9 ng/mL).

Only 17 players (19.1%) had values within normal limits (above 32 ng/mL).

"We found that an alarming percentage of players — 80.9% — had abnormal vitamin D levels of less than 32 ng/mL," said lead author Michael K. Shindle, MD, an orthopaedic surgeon from Summit Medical Group, in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey.

In addition, all players sustaining injuries that caused them to miss at least 1 practice or game had vitamin D levels that were significantly lower than players without muscle injury, he said.

"Among the 18% of players who sustained a muscle injury in the previous season, all had statistically significant lower vitamin D levels, compared with those without muscle injury. There were no other statistically significant differences between those who did and did not sustain the injuries."

Enjoy your morning!