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Moscow bans night-time vodka sales in health drive
Moscow banned night-time sales of vodka and other spirits on Wednesday, part of a nationwide drive to curb crime and disease linked with Russia’s national drink. The ban is among a series of tough measures to reduce alcohol abuse ordered last year by President Dmitry Medvedev as part of a fight to slow Russia’s persistent population decline. He called alcoholism a “national disaster” that undermines public health and hampers the economy. A ban on retail sales of drinks with alcohol content of more than 15 percent between 10 p.m. and 10 a.m. came into force on Wednesday, a spokeswoman for Moscow City Hall’s retail department said. Bars and restaurants are not affected.

Babies Born Past Term Associated With Increased Risk of Cerebral Palsy
While preterm birth is a known risk factor for cerebral palsy, an examination of data for infants born at term or later finds that compared with delivery at 40 weeks, birth at 37 or 38 weeks or at 42 weeks or later was associated with an increased risk of cerebral palsy, according to a study in the September 1 issue of JAMA. Cerebral palsy (CP), the most common cause of physical disability in childhood, with limitations that persist throughout life, is characterized by nonprogressive disorders of movement and posture. “One of the strongest predictors of CP is preterm birth, with the risk of CP increasing steadily with earlier delivery. Although risk is lower among term births, about three-fourths of all infants with CP are born after 36 weeks. Within this range of term births, there are few data on the possible association of CP with gestational age,” the authors write. Dag Moster, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Bergen, Norway, and colleagues examined the relation of CP risk with gestational age among term and postterm births using the Medical Birth Registry of Norway, which identified 1,682,441 children born in the years 1967-2001 with a gestational age of 37 through 44 weeks and no congenital anomalies. 

Action Needed to Eliminate Food Insecurity in the U.S
The American Dietetic Association has published an updated position paper on food insecurity in the United States, calling for funding for food and nutrition assistance programs, increased nutrition education and efforts to promote economic self-sufficiency for all households and individuals. The paper calls access to food “a basic human need and fundamental right,” defining food insecurity as “limited or intermittent access to nutritionally adequate, safe and acceptable foods accessed in socially acceptable ways.” According to ADA’s position paper, food insecurity is prevalent throughout the country: More than 49 million people living in the United States experienced food insecurity in 2008. In addition, 5.7 percent of all households representing 17.3 million people including 1.1 million children, had “very low food security,” defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as “multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake.”

10 minutes could prevent one-third of road deaths
Spanish researchers have calculated the probability of dying in road accidents on the basis of the time taken for the emergency services to arrive. Their conclusions are clear – reducing the time between an accident taking place and the arrival of the emergency services from 25 to 15 minutes would cut the risk of death by one-third. “The average wait after an accident until the emergency medical services arrive is 25 minutes in Spain”, Rocío Sánchez-Mangas, co-author of the study and a researcher at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM), tells SINC. Her research, which has been published in the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention, is based on information taken from the database records of the Directorate General for Traffic (DGT), which contains exhaustive information on accidents, and another DGT study from May 2004, containing information about the time at which accidents take place, the calls made to the emergency services and their arrival at the accident site. Combining these two databases provided a sample of 1,463 accidents that took place on Spanish roads.

What Causes Childhood Strokes, and Is Stenting an Effective Treatment?
University at Buffalo neurosurgeon Elad Levy, MD, implanted a stent in an artery inside the skull of a 14-year-old boy to prevent a stroke, a procedure thought to be the first conducted in an adolescent. The boy was home within one day and remains well at his nine-month evaluation. The boy’s injury, an “intracranial arterial dissection,” a tear along the inside wall of an artery located inside the skull but outside the brain, is an important cause of stroke in young patients. To date, patients typically receive anti-platelet medication or anticoagulation therapy for this condition. However, neurosurgeons now can treat the dissection more effectively with the advent of self-expanding intracranial stents.