What’s in the news: Jan. 12 -- ‘No’ to airline obesity forms: MDs

When the Supreme Court of Canada ordered Air Canada and WestJet to give obese passengers an extra seat for free if they are "functionally disabled by obesity" it opened a can of worms for physicians that it might not have anticipated. The two airlines announced their policies last week: passengers will be deemed eligible for a free extra seat only if they provide "a doctor's certificate of their disability or need for an attendant when travelling, as well as medical approval for travel," in Air Canada's wording. Now, the Canadian Medical Association -- which has long been waging a war against businesses requiring any form of a doctor's note -- is upset at the idea of having fill out even more paperwork that doctors feel should not fall to them. "The question of whether or not someone can fit into a specific seat on a specific plane is not a medical decision," said CMA President Dr Robert Ouellet in a release. "As much as we support the rights of these travellers, we do not feel that airlines should try and pass the buck to physicians over what is essentially a business matter.. We will be writing directly to Air Canada and WestJet asking that they immediately revisit their requirements for doctors' certificates." [CMA News] The airlines' policies show "a disregard for the use of scarce medical resources," Dr Ouellet said. [Canadian Press]

Alzheimer's patients treated with antipsychotics are twice as likely to die within three years as those who are not given antipsychotics, a new study in The Lancet Neurology reported. [The Lancet Neurology abstract] [Canadian Press]

Obnoxious teenagers are much more likely to develop mental health problems as adults, showed a new study in the British Medical Journal by a team of British researchers, led by psychiatric epidemiologist Ian Colman, a University of Alberta professor of public health. The study showed that teenagers with what are called "externalizing," or antisocial, behaviour are twice as likely as adults to suffer from severe symptoms of depression or anxiety, and 1.5 times as likely to report a history of "nervous trouble" or to abuse alcohol. They were also twice as likely as adults who had had non-aggressive youths to become parents before the age of 20, and marital and interpersonal difficulties were much more common, as were educational, employment and financial problems. Many of those connections have been made before, but Dr Colman's study -- a 40-year follow-up of over 3,600 residents of Great Britain -- has cemented the correlation, even after the researchers accounted for differences socioeconomic backgrounds, cognitive ability and adolescent mental health conditions. [BMJ]

Specially tinted glasses designed by a group of Toronto medical researchers may help reduce the health risks of nighttime shift work, such as an elevated incidence of breast cancer and heart disease. The yellowish lenses block a certain wavelength of light that appears to be responsible for hormonal changes in the workers. The glasses must still undergo further testing, including a trial involving night-shift nurses at Toronto Western Hospital. [Globe and Mail]

Dr Ellen Warner, an oncologist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, in Toronto, has launched PYNK, a guidance and counselling program for girls and young women diagnosed with breast cancer. [Canadian Press] PYNK is the first Canadian breast cancer initiative targeted at young women. "On an emotional level, younger women face their breast cancer diagnosis while coping with intimate early relationships, fertility uncertainty, younger families, emerging careers, social isolation, body image issues, and need for personal time," said Dr Warner. [Sunnybrook news release]

In a new study, Toronto and Sherbrooke surgeons reported the rate of complications from the fairly new high-tech Gamma Knife surgical procedure. A very small percentage of patients who underwent Gamma Knife surgery had serious problems either during or afterwards, the authors reported. "Treatment is not risk free, and some patients will develop complications; these are likely to decrease as institutional experience matures. Expanding availability and indications necessitate discussion of these risks with patients considering treatment." [Journal of Neurosurgery abstract]

Should dentists and dental hygienists learn to recognize undiagnosed cases of diabetes based on their examinations of periodontal conditions? "There is sufficient evidence of a bidirectional relationship between diabetes and periodontal disease to formulate guidelines for screening for undiagnosed diabetes and the co-management of patients with diabetes in the clinical practice of dentistry and dental hygiene," wrote University of Manitoba periodontics professor Casey Hein. "For those dental and nondental practitioners who embrace the opportunity to become more actively involved in this important arena of healthcare, this new and exciting level of clinical practice is certain to benefit patients and be professionally rewarding." [Compendium of Continuing Education in Dentistry]

The ratio of physical therapists to the general population increased much, much faster in the United States throughout the last two decades than it did in Canada, reported a new study published online by researchers University of Toronto and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. [Physical Therapy abstract]

Physician for Human Rights, an advocacy organization based in Massachusetts, will release a report tomorrow calling for Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe to be charged with crimes against humanity, reported GlobalPost. Charges should be brought against him for "presiding over the destruction of a health system and an economy. It is not mismanagement, it is calculated. It is criminal," Physicians for Human Rights CEO Frank Donaghue said. "The Mugabe government created the grounds for the cholera epidemic by allowing the water supply system to break down, by not repairing broken sewer pipes and allowing public water to become contaminated, by closing hospitals and allowing the entire health system to collapse... Cholera is not just a disease, it's a crime." More than 1,800 Zimbabweans have died of cholera since the disease began to spread last year. [GlobalPost]

"Can Playing the Computer Game 'Tetris' Reduce the Build-Up of Flashbacks for Trauma?" asked a new study. The answer, believe it or not: "Playing 'Tetris' after viewing traumatic material reduces unwanted, involuntary memory flashbacks to that traumatic film, leaving deliberate memory recall of the event intact. Pathological aspects of human memory in the aftermath of trauma may be malleable using non-invasive, cognitive interventions. This has implications for a novel avenue of preventative treatment development, much-needed as a crisis intervention for the aftermath of traumatic events... Further research is required but potential clinical applications of our paradigm include use by emergency services in the early post-trauma period, e.g. to victims of rape or delivering such tasks to populations subject to regular trauma exposure e.g. firefighters or those involved in armed combat." [PLoS ONE] [Newsweek -- Lab Notes]

What patients lie to their doctors about, and why. [Newsweek]

The latest edition of the Health Wonk Review, the anthology of the best health policy writing by bloggers, is online. [The Health Care Blog]

Voting is open until this weekend for the Medical Weblog Awards 2008, hosted by Medgadget. Nominees for the best medical blog of the year are Clinical Cases and Images, Clinical Correlations, The Health Care Blog, Kevin, M.D., and the Wall Street Journal Health Blog. The only Canadian medical blog to turn up in any of the awards' categories this year is the Toronto Star's Medical Ethics blog, by reporter Stuart Laidlaw. [Medgadget's Medical Weblog Awards 2008]

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