Public Health Roundup: Risks From Exercise Equipment; San Diego Offers Weight Loss Help
A creative treatment for kidney stones and the latest research on spinal cord injuries also make news.
Sacramento Bee:
Exercise Equipment Can Be Dangerous To Your Health
About 460,000 injuries involving exercise equipment – primarily treadmills – are treated in hospital emergency rooms annually, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.Despite such dangers, consumers are largely on their own in avoiding injury while exercising. Local and state authorities do not inspect how gym or fitness centers place their equipment, whether it’s dumbbells, elliptical machines or treadmills. ... But a lawsuit by a south Sacramento grandmother against one of the country’s biggest fitness chains could be “a game changer,” at least in how gym equipment is situated. (Buck, 9/26)
San Diego Union-Tribune:
Expanding Choices To Help Shrink Waistlines
Most people, in San Diego County or elsewhere, can’t afford to take off for the better part of a year to lose weight. But as a major center for health care, the county offers a full range of weight-loss options. In San Diego County, hospital systems such as Sharp Healthcare, Palomar Pomerado Health System, Scripps Health and UC San Diego Health offer dietary and exercise programs, along with various forms of bariatric surgery. (Fikes, 9/24)
Los Angeles Times:
Got Kidney Stones? Try Riding A Roller Coaster To Dislodge Them
Just ask any one of the 300,000 Americans who, in any given year, develop kidney stones: What if the excruciating pain of passing one of those little devils could be prevented by strapping yourself into a make-believe runaway mine train, throwing your hands in the air and enduring G-forces as high as 2.5 for about three minutes? Would you do it? (Healy, 9/26)
Mercury News:
UCSF: Human Cell Transplants Treat Mice With Spinal Cord Injury
Researchers have successfully transplanted healthy human cells into mice with spinal cord injuries, bringing the world one step closer to easing the chronic pain and incontinence suffered by people with paralysis. The research team did not focus on restoring the rodents’ ability to walk; rather, it helped remedy these two other debilitating side effects of spinal cord injury. If successful in humans, the findings could someday ease the lives of those with these distressing conditions, said Dr. Arnold Kriegstein, co-senior author of the study and director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UC San Francisco. (Krieger, 9/23)