T he P ortland O bserver • S eptember 27, 1995
P age A5
H e a l t h &Sci€riC€
Film Documentary Reveals Tuberculosis History
The People's Plague:
Tuberculosis In America,
premiering Monday, October 2, 1995
at 9 p.m. (ET) on PBS, is an
entertaining and informative two-
hour documentary by Diane Garey
and Lawrence R. Hott that
chronicles the history of
tuberculosis, a disease that has
shaped much of our modem public
health policy, and explores the
implications of the resurgence of the
disease today. The National
Association for the Study and
Prevention of Tuberculosis, (formed
in 1904, later renamed the American
Lung Association) launched the first
full-scale, single-disease crusade
ever. (Far left photo, circa 1930) the
anti-tuberculosis campaign that
spanned decades tested millions of
Americans for TB. (Top right photo,
circa 1920s) Children marched in
parades and pageants to make the
pubhc aware of the disease. In the
absence of a cure for tuberculosis,
prevention and treatment often took
curious and even outrageous forms.
(Bottom right photo, circa 1935) By
far the most remarkable and
pervasive of these was the
sanatorium movement. The “sans”
werq part hospital, part hope -
where thousands of those who could
afford it sought “the cure” in fresh air
and restful surroundings. The
People's Plague: Tuberculosis in
America, a production of Florentine
Films, is a presentation of WMHT
Educational Telecommunications,
Albany, New York. (Photos: top/
American Lung Association; bottom/
The Albuquerque Museum)
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Study Points To
Benefits Of Exercise
Overweight men have to ex er-
cise more than previously thought
to lose weight and women need to
exercise longer than men, accord-
ing to a preliminary study by U.S.
Agriculture Department research-
ers
Men who are portly bum less
fat during exercise then their lean
counterparts, say the findings pub-
lished in the August edition o f Ag-
ricultural Research magazine.
The work is part o f a continu-
ing project to determine the rela-
tionship between amounts o f stored
body fat and fat burning rates dur-
ing and after exercise. Most current
exercise data are based on college
athletes, said nutrition researcher
Nancy Keim.
“We need to develop recom-
mendations suited to overweight
people,” she said.
Keim, with two colleagues,
found women needed to work out
about twice as long as the men to
bum 300 calories, a target recom-
mended by the American College
o f Sports Medicine for weight loss.
But other studies have suggested
that women burn more fat than men
foragiven level ofexerciseso Keim
said more research is needed in this
area.
“ I don’t really think that the
actual truth is known yet.”
C le a rly e x e rc ise in com bi-
n atio n w ith e a tin g less w ill help
p eo p le lose w eight but ex e rc ise
may not p ro d u ce as m uch w eight
loss as a n tic ip a te d . “ W e found
in men th at th e ir body co m p o si-
tion seem to play a role in how
m uch fat they use w hile they
e x e rc ise ,” K eim said,
The study, conducted at the
Western Human Nutrition Research
Center in San Francisco, put 32
male and 32 female volunteers
throughaseriesoffive-minutework-
outs on a stationary bike.
The data was used to calculate
the number o f calories and calories
derived from fat that the subjects
would have burned if the sessions
had extended half an hour,
Elite athletes were excluded
from the tests. Fitness levels ranged
from average to good and included
volunteers who were slightly below
to as much as 40 percent above their
desired weight.
Minorities Face Greater
Health Care Risk
Blacks and Hispanics face greater risk than other population groups
for chronic illness and premature death due to a lack o f access to health
care, a new study said.
The report released by the Joint Center for Political Economic Studies
found that nearly one in four blacks and more than one in three Hispanics
did not have health insurance in 1993, compared with about one ou, o f six
whites.
Low income blacks and Hispanics were also less likely to get routine
medical care than whites in similar income brackets.
The report “underscores the importance o f considering the needs o f
racial and ethnic minority groups as the nation’s health care system
continues to undergo rapid change,” said Eddie Williams, president o f the
center.
“On balance, it is as important to increase access to care as it is to curb
costs,” he added.
The center drew on research by the Commonwealth Fund and Johns
Hopkins School o f Hygiene and Public Health to examine health problems
and access to health care.
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Lavender Makes
For Sweet
Dreams
Lavender, which was used to
perfume the baths and underwear o f
the Romans and employed for at
least 1,000 years in various folk rem
edies, may help older people over
come insomnia, a small study sug
gests.
The researchers, who reported
the findings in the current issue o f
The Lancet, a medical journal, noted
that doctors often prescribed power
ful hypnotic drugs for older patients
with insomnia. They said the drugs
could have serious side effects and
were often prescribed for long peri
ods, even though they were recom Willie E. Gary (center), a Florida attorney, is among 550 major corporations participating in the
mended for only short-term use.
Corporate Agency Network, Inc. “Wings of Justice," which offers cancer patients empty seats on
Dr. David Stretch o f the Green privately-owned aircrafts. In many cases, medical insurance almost never covers travel costs, which
wood Institute ofC hild Health at the can add up quickly when a patient has to seek treatments monthly or even weekly.
University o f Leicester in England
and his colleagues tested whether
lavenderoil could replace drug treat
ment for insomnia in older people.
Previous pharmacological and ani
mal studies showed lavender oil to
have a light sedative effect.
Four geriatric patients in a nurs
ing home, three o f whom had been on
tranquilizers for one to three years
and one who had received no previ
ous medication, were tested by mea
suring their sleep for six weeks.
For the first two weeks, measure-
ments were taken while the patients
used their regular medication. In the
next two weeks, patients were removed
from medication. And in the last two
weeks, the patients’ ward was per
fumed with the scent o f lavender by
using a diffuser and lavender oil.
“To our slight surprise we found
that there might be something after
all to the old wives’ tales,” Stretch
said. The results suggest that although
removing medication significantly
reduced the number o f hours spent
asleep, the use o f the odor o f laven
der returned the time spent asleep to
that obtained through medication. Pa
tients were also found to be less
restless during sleep.
Stretch em phasized that the
study was preliminary and that fur
ther research would be required to
determine the effectiveness o f laven
der The researchers plan a more
formal study using lavender in a va-
riety ofgroups, including youngchil-
dren with sleep problems.