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Long in total, worth a good gander at
it.
Aviva
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Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 11:30 AM
Subject: bmj.com: Press releases * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * UK health news: Each weekday you can receive by email the headlines of the health stories that have appeared in the UK national press. Visit: http://bmj.com/uknews/ * * * * * * Sponsored by BMJ Publishing Group * * * * * bmj.com Customised @lerts: Press Releases for Saturday, 04 January 2003 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- bmj.com: http://bmj.com/ This issue's table of contents: http://bmj.com/content/vol326/issue7379/ Press Releases for this issue: http://bmj.com/content/vol326/issue7379/press_release.shtml Daily summaries of health stories appearing in the UK Press http://bmj.com/uknews/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- bmj.com -- Press Releases ______________________________ Releases Saturday 4 January 2003 No 7379 Volume 326 Please remember to credit the BMJ as source when publicising an article and to tell your readers that they can read its full text on the journal's web site (http://bmj.com). If your story is posted on a website please include a link back to the source BMJ article (URL's are given under titles). ______________________________ (1) Breast feeding can relieve pain during medical procedures (2) One in five GPs in England want to quit (3) Concerns over drug industry creation of new diseases (4) Men with diabetes father smaller babies ______________________________ (1) Breast feeding can relieve pain during medical procedures (Analgesic effect of breast feeding in term neonates: randomised controlled trial ) http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7379/13 Breast feeding during a painful procedure reduces the response to pain in newborn infants, finds a study in this week's BMJ. Researchers identified 180 healthy newborn infants undergoing venepuncture (a common procedure in which a vein is pierced to withdraw blood). During the procedure, infants were either breastfed, held in their mother's arms without breast feeding, given 1ml of sterile water as placebo, or given 1ml of glucose solution followed by a pacifier. Pain related behaviour was evaluated using recognised pain rating scales, and video recordings of the procedure were assessed by two observers blinded to the purpose of the study. Pain scores varied significantly among the groups. Of 44 infants in the breastfeeding group, 16 showed no indication at all that the venepuncture and blood sampling had even occurred. No reduction in pain response was seen in infants who were simply held in their mother's arms, possibly because these infants were dressed and did not have skin to skin contact with their mothers, say the authors. "Our findings are clinically important as they show that natural protective mechanisms may safely and non-invasively be activated by breast feeding during medical procedures," they conclude. Contact: Ricardo Carbajal, Paediatrician, Unite Douleur Hopital d'Enfants, Armand Trousseau, Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (2) One in five GPs in England want to quit (National survey of job satisfaction and retirement intentions among general practitioners in England) http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7379/22 The proportion of general practitioners intending to quit direct patient care within the next five years has risen from 14% in 1998 to 22% in 2001, finds a study in this week's BMJ. Researchers surveyed 1,949 general practitioner principals in England about their intentions to quit direct patient care and the factors that could be associated with this (790 were surveyed in 1998 and 1,159 in 2001). The proportion of general practitioners who were under 65 years of age and intending to quit direct patient care within the next five years rose from 14% in 1998 to 22% in 2001. This rise was due mainly to a decline in job satisfaction (mean of 4.64 in 1998 to 3.96 in 2001) together with a slight increase in the proportion of doctors from ethnic minorities and in the mean age of doctors. This finding is likely to be a source for concern to the NHS but at least partly reflects wider societal trends, say the authors. The organisation and governance of general practice has greatly changed in recent years, and doctors may be experiencing difficulty in adapting to these changes. Job dissatisfaction among general practitioners may additionally reflect a more global discontent of doctors with their changing role in society, they suggest. The results need to be treated cautiously as doctors' intentions to quit may not translate into action, they add. However, if as few as half of those reported here actually leave, this would still be cause for concern given the current shortage of general practitioners. Given that job satisfaction is an important factor underlying intention to quit, improving this aspect of doctors' working lives might help improve retention, they conclude. Contact: For further information please contact Public Affairs Division, British Medical Association, BMA House, Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9JP, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (3) Concerns over drug industry creation of new diseases (The making of a disease: female sexual dysfunction) http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7379/45 Drug companies are sponsoring creation of a new medical disorder known as female sexual dysfunction in order to build markets for drugs among women, despite controversy surrounding the medicalisation of sexual problems, finds an article in this week's BMJ. Over the past six years, researchers with close ties to the pharmaceutical industry have been developing and defining the new disorder at company sponsored meetings, writes journalist, Ray Moynihan. One of the milestones in the making of the new disorder was a JAMA article in February 1999, which suggested that 43% of women aged 18-59 have female sexual dysfunction. However, leading researchers have raised serious concerns about this figure, describing it as misleading and potentially dangerous. Many researchers believe that portraying sexual difficulties as a dysfunction will encourage doctors to prescribe drugs that change sexual function, when attention should be paid to other aspects of the woman's life. It's also likely to make women think they have a malfunction when they do not. But perhaps the greatest concern is the ever-narrowing definitions of "normal" which help turn the complaints of the healthy into the conditions of the sick, says the author. Although the corporate sponsored creation of a disease is not a new phenomenon, the role of drug companies in the construction and promotion of new conditions needs more public scrutiny, he concludes. Contacts: Please note, the author of this study is currently unavailable. Journalists may contact any of the researchers quoted in the article for further comment: Dr Irwin Goldstein, Professor of Urology and Gynaecology Boston University School of Medicine Ed Laumann, Professor of Sociology, University of Chicago Dr Sandra Leiblum, Professor of Psychiatry, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Dr John Bancroft, Director, Kinsey Institute, Indiana (4) Men with diabetes father smaller babies (Parental diabetes and birth weight of offspring: intergenerational cohort study) http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7379/19 Children born to fathers with diabetes weigh less than other children, finds a study in this week's BMJ. Using data from a large study of British births in 1958, researchers set out to test whether a father's non-insulin dependent diabetes or a mother's diabetes starting after childbirth was associated with the birth weight of their offspring. The offspring of the fathers with diabetes weighed on average 186 g less than other children. Father's adult height or social class did not explain the association between a father's diabetes and the birth weight of his offspring. The child's birth order also made no difference to the effect of a father's diabetes on the birth weight of his offspring, say the authors. In contrast to the paternal effect, active diabetes in the mother increases the birth weight of offspring, they add. "Our findings support the hypothesis that common genetic factors contribute both to the risk of non-insulin dependent diabetes and decreased prenatal growth," they conclude. Contact: George Davey Smith, Professor of Clinical Epidemiology, Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, UK Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ______________________________ FOR ACCREDITED JOURNALISTS Embargoed press releases and articles are available from: Public Affairs Division BMA House Tavistock Square London WC1H 9JR (contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) and from: the EurekAlert website, run by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (http://www.eurekalert.org) To unsubscribe from or edit your subscriptions to any bmj.com Customised Alert, point your browser at http://bmj.com/cgi/customalert . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ (C) 2003 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd --- Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
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