HOW CAN PARENTS put the brakes on this weekend's nonstop sugar frenzy? One piece at a time feels stingy, but a handful is gluttonous. Here are some tips to maintaining order in your munchkins' Halloween munchfest. Have your kids select their favorite candies from their trick-or-treat bags. Combine all that is left over into a family bowl that can be stored out of their reach. Of course, this is where your self-control comes into play as well. Since Halloween falls on a Sunday, you can treat your kids with an item of their trick-or-treat loot in their school lunches. Giving them a little taste through the day may reduce their need to dive into the bag when they get home. Shorten the trick-or-treat route. The less time your kids spend going door-to-door and the fewer houses and businesses they hit, the less candy you'll have to worry about them gorging themselves on over the next week.
A STRESSFUL CHILDHOOD that includes abuse, neglect or family dysfunction might not break someone's heart but can damage it. Adults who reported adverse childhood experiences had a 30 to 70 percent higher risk of developing heart disease than others who did not, according to a new study in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. Emotional, physical or sexual abuse, emotional or physical neglect and household dysfunction that included incarceration, substance abuse or mental illness were linked to ischemic heart disease, which causes arteries to block and can lead to heart attacks. Only divorce or separation of parents had no effect on heart disease risk. A greater risk for diabetes, obesity and hypertension also existed. The study is the first to suggest that heart disease in adulthood might be a long-term consequence of childhood trauma.
PEOPLE WHO SUFFER from a particular form of schizophrenia are more likely to have been born in the early summer months than are others with the disease, a new study has found. Schizophrenia is a devastating mental illness marked by delusions and hallucinations and so-called negative symptoms such as emotional flattening and inability to achieve at the level of peers. In one category of patients, those with what is known as deficit schizophrenia, the negative symptoms are especially pronounced and enduring. Scientists from Maryland, New York, Virginia, Ireland and France examined previous research from six countries in which patients' deficit or nondeficit schizophrenia could be determined. The studies encompassed 1,594 patients. In all, patients with deficit schizophrenia were much more likely to have been born in June or July compared to other patients, whose births tended to occur during winter months, the study found. "This analysis supports the notion of a separate disease within schizophrenia," the authors conclude this month in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
BLUES LEGEND B.B. KING is lending his name and his voice to the fight against diabetes with a contest sponsored by LifeScan Inc., maker of the OneTouch blood glucose monitor. The "Give the King Something to Sing Contest" is seeking blues ballad lyrics 50 words or less that promote diabetes management, submitted by anyone whose life has been affected by the disease - a patient, a caregiver or a loved one. The grand prize is a trip for two to Las Vegas to attend a recording session where King, a diabetes patient himself, will sing the song. The contest runs Nov. 1 through Dec. 31, and all the details are at www.lifescan.com
