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Job-related eye strain and injuries cost the American economy billions each year in lost productivity, but 90 percent of those problems could be prevented with simple measures, such as having workers wear properly designed and fitted protective eyewear, experts say.

“Healthy vision is critical to successfully completing job-related tasks,” James Sheedy, director of the Vision Ergonomics Laboratory at the College of Optometry at Pacific University and the American Optometric Association’s (AOA) occupational vision specialist, said in a news release. “And while most people think of construction or manufacturing as high-risk occupations where eye injuries are prevalent, even jobs requiring ’smart phones,’ laptops and desktop computers can cause vision problems if not used properly.”

Eye strain, dry eyes, headaches, fatigue, blurred vision and loss of focus are among the symptoms of computer vision syndrome (CVS).

“CVS can be a serious problem for those who spend hours in front of a computer or hand-held electronic device on a daily basis. However, in this digital era, no one expects Americans to simply stop using these devices. Small steps can make big changes to ease vision strain,” Sheedy said.

To mark Save Your Vision month in March, the AOA offers the following tips for preventing computer vision syndrome:
After at least every 20 minutes, take a 20-second break and look at something 20 feet away.
Increase the font size on hand-held devices so that you can use them at a distance that’s comfortable for your eyes, instead of having to hold the devices close to your eyes.
Adjust the brightness of your screen to a comfortable intensity — neither too bright nor too dim.
Try to reduce glare on hand-held device screens by making sure lighting is not directly behind the head or in front.
Position your computer or monitor or hand-held device slightly below eye level. This position makes it easier for the eyes to focus on reading material.

The AOA also says that workers in many professions — ranging from auto repair to health care — need to use protective eyewear to reduce the risk of eye injuries. The use of proper eye protection, such as safety glasses, goggles, face shields and helmets, could prevent thousands of eye injuries.

Eye protection is also important when working around the home.

Children with behavioral problems are at increased risk for chronic pain when they reach adulthood, new Scottish research has found.

The study of nearly 20,000 people born in 1958 found that those with “severe behavior disturbances” between the ages of 11 and 16 were about twice as likely to have chronic widespread pain (CWP) by the time they were 45 as those who didn’t have behavioral problems as children.

The association between childhood behavior and CWP was not explained by social class, early reporting of symptoms, or adult psychological distress. The researchers believe a dysfunction in the interaction between the nervous system and hormones that occurs in childhood may have long-term consequences for adult health.

“We know already that severe adverse events in childhood such as hospitalization after a road traffic accident and separation from mothers are linked to CWP in adulthood. In addition, aspects of childhood behavior are strongly related to children reporting CWP. However, until now, it was unknown whether maladjusted behavior in children was a long-term marker for CWP in adulthood. Our study shows that it is,” study author Dr. Dong Pang, an epidemiologist at the University of Aberdeen, said in a news release.

“Early life experience, such as emotional stress due to past trauma, may have a lifelong impact on the neuroendocrine system [hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis], which in turn leads to behavioral problems in childhood and CWP in adulthood as well as other mental problems. Further research at molecular and genetic levels are needed to clarify this,” Pang added.

The study findings are published in the  online edition of the journal Rheumatology.

Excessive weight gain during pregnancy, especially the first trimester, may increase a woman’s risk of gestational diabetes, say U.S. researchers.

Their three-year study included 345 pregnant women with gestational diabetes and 800 pregnant women without gestational diabetes, which is defined as glucose intolerance that typically occurs during the second or third trimester of pregnancy.

After the researchers adjusted for a number of factors — age at delivery, previous births, pre-pregnancy body-mass index and race/ethnicity — they found that women who gained more weight during pregnancy than recommended by the U.S. Institute of Medicine were 50 percent more likely to develop gestational diabetes, compared to those whose weight gain was within or below the IOM recommendations.

The link between pregnancy weight gain and gestational diabetes was strongest among overweight and non-white women.

The study was published online Feb. 22 in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.

“Health-care providers should talk to their patients early in their pregnancy about the appropriate gestational weight gain, especially during the first trimester, and help women monitor their weight gain. Our research shows that weight gain in early pregnancy is a modifiable risk factor for gestational diabetes,” lead author Monique Hedderson, a scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in California, said in a Kaiser news release.

Gestational diabetes — which causes complications in as many as 7 percent of pregnancies in the United States — can lead to early delivery, cesarean section and type 2 diabetes in the mother. It also increases the child’s risk of developing diabetes and obesity later in life.

Genetically altered mosquitoes that cannot fly may help slow the spread of dengue fever and could be a harmless alternative to chemical insecticides, U.S. and British scientists said on Monday.

They genetically altered mosquitoes to produce flightless females, and said spreading these defective mosquitoes could suppress native, disease-spreading mosquitoes within six to nine months.

There is no vaccine or treatment for dengue fever, which is endemic in the tropics and is particularly prevalent in Asia and the western Pacific. The disease, which causes severe flu-like symptoms and can kill, is spread through the bite of infected female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.

“This could be the first in a new wave of products that might supplant insecticides,” researcher Anthony James of the University of California, Irvine, said in a telephone interview.

There are an estimated 50 million cases of dengue fever each year and about 2.5 billion people — two-fifths of the world’s population — are at risk, mostly in Africa and southeast Asia, according to the World Health Organization.

James’s team, including a group from the British biotechnology firm Oxitec Ltd., altered mosquito genes to disrupt development of the insects’ wing muscle.

The genetic modification grounded only the virus-carrying females and did not affect the males’ ability to fly, they wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1000251107.

The idea would be to distribute tens of thousands of eggs that would hatch out these genetically modified males, that would proceed to create a new generation of flightless, and thus doomed, daughters.

Because eggs are so small and easy to distribute, there would be far more genetically modified mosquitoes than natives, so they could in effect blot out the dengue-carrying population.

“We stack the numbers in our favor by releasing a lot of these things,” James said.

“The technology is completely species-specific, as the released males will mate only with females of the same species,” added Oxitec’s Luke Alphey, who led the study.

Alphey said using genetically modified mosquitoes would be an environmentally friendly alternative to chemical insecticides and would be egalitarian.

“All people in the treated areas are equally protected, regardless of their wealth, power or education,” he said.

Both Oxitec and Oxford University have applied for a patent.

The current work is focused on mosquitoes that carry dengue fever, but the researchers said it could be adapted to other species that spread malaria and West Nile fever.

(Editing by Maggie Fox and Sandra Maler)

A device that helps the heart’s left ventricle pump blood in people who have severe heart failure but who aren’t candidates for heart transplant has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The HeartMate II is already FDA-approved for people awaiting heart transplant and other “complex” forms of treatment, the agency said in a news release.

The heart-assist device is a small mechanical pump that’s surgically implanted just below the heart. A cable that powers the pump passes through the user’s skin to a controller that’s worn around the wrist. A physician has the ability to program the pump’s speed, based on the user’s needs, the FDA said.

As a condition of approval, the California-based device maker, Thoratec Corp., will conduct an additional clinical study to further evaluate the device’s performance, the agency said.

Common wisdom holds apples to be a healthy snack, and a new study agrees, finding that a component of fruit called pectin boosts levels of friendly germs in the digestive system.

Microbiologists at the University of Denmark’s National Food Institute tested the effect of apple consumption by feeding rats a diet of whole apples as well as apple-derived products such as apple juice and puree.

The researchers then checked the bacteria in the guts of the rats to see if consuming apples affected levels of “friendly” bacteria, which are bacteria that are beneficial for digestive health and may reduce the risk of some diseases.

The study findings were published online Jan. 20 in the journal BMC Microbiology.

“In our study we found that rats eating a diet high in pectin, a component of dietary fiber in apples, had increased amounts of certain bacteria that may improve intestinal health,” study co-researcher Andrea Wilcks said in a news release from the journal’s publisher.

“It seems that when apples are eaten regularly and over a prolonged period of time, these bacteria help produce short-chain fatty acids that provide ideal pH conditions for ensuring a beneficial balance of microorganisms. They also produce a chemical called butyrate, which is an important fuel for the cells of the intestinal wall,” Wilcks added.

The study authors noted that more research is needed to determine whether the findings in rats apply to humans.

Women who drink five or more servings of sugar-sweetened cola per week before they conceive increase their risk of developing diabetes during pregnancy, a new study indicates.

“Previous studies have shown an association with other chronic metabolic problems,” said study author Dr. Liwei Chen, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, in New Orleans. “This is the first to show an increased risk among pregnant women.”

Gestational diabetes, known as glucose intolerance during pregnancy, is one of the most common complications of pregnancy. It increases the chances of lifelong diabetes for the woman and also can have permanent effects on the unborn child, Chen said. The report appears in the December issue of Diabetes Care.

“Other studies suggest that babies born to women who are diabetic during pregnancy have higher weight at birth and also higher rates of obesity and diabetes early in life,” she added.

Chen, working with researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, studied 10 years of medical records on a group of 13,475 women from the Nurses’ Health Study II. After adjusting for known risk factors for gestational diabetes, such as age, family history and smoking, the researchers found that women who had more than five servings per week of sugar-sweetened cola beverages had a 22 percent higher risk of gestational diabetes than women who had less than one serving per month.

No such association was found for consumption of other sugar-sweetened beverages or artificially sweetened drinks.

It’s not clear why only cola drinks are associated with the increased risk, Chen said. One explanation could be “the tremendous popularity of cola in the United States,” she said.

The results are not conclusive, and “we need other studies to confirm our findings,” Chen said. “We plan to study other populations, and we hope that other investigators start such studies.”

But meanwhile, “I suggest that women reduce their intake of sugary beverages,” she said. “Women need to be aware of the possible risk not only for their pregnancy but also of the long-term consequences for their babies.”

Maureen Storey, senior vice president of science policy for the American Beverage Association, which represents soft drink companies, said she was skeptical about the findings.

“As with all epidemiological studies, the data do not show a cause-and-effect relationship,” Storey said in a statement.

Sugar-sweetened beverage consumption has not been among the risk factors for gestational diabetes identified by “leading scientific bodies,” Storey added.

“The key to a healthy pregnancy is seeking good medical care and having a healthy lifestyle before and during pregnancy,” the statement said. “This includes eating a variety of foods and beverages in moderation along with getting regular physical activity.”

According to the journal report, there are several potential explanations for the association. For example, sugar-rich foods or beverages can overload the body with glucose, which can impair the function of the beta cells of the pancreas, which make insulin that metabolizes glucose.

Sugar-sweetened beverages are the leading source of added sugar in the American diet, Chen said. The U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found that soft drink intake more than doubled between 1977 and 2001 among 19- to 39-year-old Americans, going from 4.1 percent to 9.8 percent, and that those in this age group had the highest rate of soft drink consumption.