Wellnews by Scott LaFee

Every new parent works toward the day when their child makes the leap from breast milk to complementary baby foods (the mushy stuff that comes in little jars). It's a sign of growth and development. A new study, however, cautions against rushing into baby foods, suggesting that delaying their introduction while simultaneously extending breast-feeding may help prevent babies from becoming obese adults.

Danish researchers followed a group of individuals from birth to adulthood, noting how long they were breast-fed, when they began eating baby foods and what kind of weight gain they experienced through the years. They found that neither breast-feeding duration nor timing of complementary foods had a significant impact on body mass during childhood, adolescence or early adulthood. However, when volunteers reached age 42, the risk of being overweight decreased with the increasing age at which complementary foods had been introduced when the volunteers were infants.

For example, for each month the introduction of vegetables was delayed, the risk of being overweight at age 42 was reduced by 10 percent.

GET ME THAT. STAT!

The typical length of a patient visit with a general practitioner is 21.8 minutes. More than 133 million Americans (as of 2005) had at least one chronic condition, such as heart disease or diabetes. If a general practitioner were to provide all of the recommended preventive and high quality chronic care services prescribed under the current health care model to a typical patient roster, that work alone would require 18 hours per day.

STORIES FOR THE WAITING ROOM

If you're not already feeling sick waiting to see your doctor, consider this: People with migraine headaches may be at increased risk of heart attack and other risk factors for heart disease.

The overall risk is small, but a study out of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York found that people who had migraines were about twice as likely to have a heart attack as people without migraines, or 4.1 percent of people with migraines compared to 1.9 percent of those without.

BODY OF KNOWLEDGE

If you are left-handed, chances are your mother was also left-handed, but your father was right-handed.

PHOBIA OF THE WEEK

Achluophobia — fear of the dark

VERBATIM

Doctors said that the test most commonly used to screen for colon cancer doesn't go far enough. They're recommending a procedure that involves photographing the entire colon. I say, don't give CBS an idea for another reality show.

— Comedian Bill Maher

CURTAIN CALLS

In 2004, a Spokane, Wash., man called police to ask what he should do with a dead 59-year-old woman in his freezer. The man had been the woman's caregiver and told police she had died a week earlier. He had put her in the freezer "to protect her whole dignity."

When authorities arrived, they could not remove the body because it was frozen solid among various foodstuffs. Instead, they hauled the entire freezer to the morgue and the man to a local hospital for a psychological evaluation.

To find out more about Scott LaFee and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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