Obesity Surpasses Smoking as Top Health Threat: U.S. Study

By Allison Cross, Canwest News Service

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Obesity is now a bigger overall threat to people’s health than smoking, according to results of the longest ongoing health study of adults in the United States.

Obesity causes as much or more disease than tobacco, says the study, conducted by researchers from Columbia University and the City College of New York. It adds that while smoking rates are starting to decline, obesity now shortens as many or even more healthy lifespans than tobacco use.

How to Dodge Germs in the Time of H1N1

By Elizabeth Cohen, CNN Senior Medical Correspondent

CNN) — On a recent flight from San Francisco, California, to Atlanta, Georgia, Dr. Julie Gerberding was thrilled to get bumped up to first class. The thrill, however, quickly disappeared: As she did her victory walk to the front cabin, she noticed that the woman in the seat next to hers was hacking up a lung.

“She was on her cell phone, saying, ‘I feel miserable. I just know I have swine flu,’ ” Gerberding remembered. “I thought to myself, ‘Oh, great.’ “

For the duration of her transcontinental flight, Gerberding played viral roulette as she sat shoulder-to-shoulder next to Ms. Sneezy in a confined space.

Gerberding, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, had a few strategies for avoiding this woman’s germs, some of which you can use on planes, trains, automobiles and anywhere else if you get stuck next to Typhoid Mary — or, in this case, H1N1 Mary.

College Students Encouraged to Get H1N1 Vaccine

By Sally Holland, CNN
December 4, 2009 1:36 a.m. EST

Washington (CNN) — Chris Edwards’ fever spiked at 104 degrees this fall before he was sent home from Frostburg State University in western Maryland to recuperate from the H1N1 flu.

“It scared most of my family more than it scared me,” the freshman information technology major told CNN in a telephone interview Thursday. “For me, it was regular sick.”

He is one of many students at U.S. colleges who have tested positive for H1N1 — also known as swine flu — in recent months. To help cut down on the spread of the disease, the U.S. Department of Education has begun encouraging college students to get vaccinated.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said that officials would like to see college students inoculated before they head home for Christmas break. And if exam schedules make that impossible, students should try to get the vaccine while they are at home, he said.