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Taxing junk food could alleviate obesity
Researchers say an 18 percent tax on junk food would result in a loss of 5 pounds of weight per person per year. Sounds like a no-brainer, but researchers say they now have long-term proof that price and pounds go together like Ben & Jerry’s. Not that everyone believes that extra taxes - like the 2-cents per ounce tax on sugary drinks Philadelphia’s mayor has proposed - would solve America’s fast-growing weight problem.

Obesity Linked with Worse Colon Cancer Outcomes
Compared with healthy-weight patients, obese colon cancer patients have a higher risk of cancer recurrence and death. These results were published in Clinical Cancer Research. Obesity is increasingly being recognized as a risk factor not only for cancer development but also for worse outcomes after cancer treatment. Links between obesity and endometrial cancer, postmenopausal breast cancer, and colorectal cancer are well established, but the effects of obesity appear to extend to several other types of cancer as well. Body mass index (BMI) is a commonly used (though imperfect) measure of body size. It involves a comparison of weight to height (weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared). A BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 is generally considered healthy, a BMI between 25 and 29.9 is considered overweight, and a BMI of 30 or higher is considered obese.

Analysis: U.S. politicians may unite in obesity battle
One way to achieve bipartisanship in Washington may be to tackle an issue everyone can agree on - the childhood obesity epidemic. The Obama administration and members of Congress from both parties agree action is needed. Obesity-related diseases cost the United States an estimated $147 billion each year, nearly 10 percent of all medical spending, according to U.S. federal agencies.

Medication fears lead to worse side effects
It may not be surprising, but a new study offers some proof that patients who are worried about their medications are more likely to have side effects from them. The study involved patients with a particular kind of arthritis. While more research has to be done in patients with other illnesses to know for sure, “my guess would be that this is happening across a wide range of drugs,” Dr. Yvonne Nestoriuc of Philipps-University Marburg in Germany, the study’s lead author, told Reuters Health. “This is really something that happens in a lot of patient populations.” While most medication side effects are not life threatening or seriously harmful, she and her colleagues note in the journal Arthritis Care & Research, they can still be “frightening and distressing” to patients, and can also lead to patients not taking drugs as recommended.

Adding gluten early may cause constipation in babies
Giving gluten-containing foods to infants too soon may trigger long-lasting tummy troubles but more study is needed before changing recommendations for parents, Dutch researchers conclude. Writing in the American Journal of Gastroenterology, J. C. Kiefte-de Jong and colleagues at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam report that 2-year-olds introduced to gluten before 6 months of age had a “significantly higher” rate of “functional” constipation—defined as fewer than 3 bowel movements per week and/or hard stools for 2 or more weeks—than children who were introduced to gluten later. At the same time, introducing other allergy-inducing foods in the first year of life such as peanuts, cow’s milk, or hen’s eggs was not linked to constipation.