Releases Saturday 18 October 2003
No 7420 Volume 327
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(1) BREAST FEEDING MAY NOT PROTECT
AGAINST OBESITY
(2) DAYCARE
WILL NOT REDUCE CHILD
POVERTY
(3) DO
OVERSEAS RECRUITMENT SCHEMES FUEL
HEALTH INEQUALITIES?
(1) BREAST FEEDING
MAY NOT PROTECT
AGAINST OBESITY
(Anthropometry and body composition
of 18 year old
men according to duration of breast
feeding: birth cohort
study from Brazil)
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/327/7420/901
(Breast feeding and obesity in childhood:
cross sectional
study)
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/327/7420/904
Breast feeding does not protect against
overweight and
obesity, according to two studies in this
week's BMJ.
The first study followed 2,250 male Brazilians
for 18
years, for whom detailed breast feeding
information was
collected in early childhood.
The results were mostly negative. Duration
of breast
feeding showed no association with several
measures
including weight and body composition.
After adjusting
for factors such as physical activity,
diet, and smoking,
two significant associations remained,
but these should
be interpreted with caution, say the authors.
Regardless of the role of breast feeding
may have in
preventing obesity, the continued protection,
promotion,
and support of breast feeding remains
a major public
health priority, they conclude.
The second study involved 2,631 British
children, for
whom data on duration of breast feeding,
body mass
index, and confounding factors (such as
birth weight,
mother's smoking during pregnancy, parental
body mass
index, and social class) were available.
The researchers found no evidence that
breast feeding
influenced body mass index or obesity,
and adjustment
for confounding factors did not alter
these findings.
Promoting breast feeding is important,
but evidence for
an important beneficial effect on obesity
is still equivocal,
they conclude.
Contacts:
Cesar Victora, Professor, Universidade
Federal de
Pelotas, Pelotas, Brazil
Email: cvictora{at}terra.com.br
Leah Li, Statistical Research Fellow, Institute
of Child
Health, London, UK
Email: L.Li{at}ich.ucl.ac.uk
(2) DAYCARE WILL
NOT REDUCE CHILD
POVERTY
(Effectiveness of out-of-home day
care for
disadvantaged families: randomised
controlled trial)
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/327/7420/906
Providing daycare facilities for poor families
may not
reduce child poverty - a key government
objective, say
researchers in this week's BMJ.
Daycare provision is considered essential
to reducing
family poverty because it allows mothers
with young
children to enter paid employment.
The study involved 120 mothers and 143
children (aged
between 6 months and 3.5 years) living
in Hackney,
London. Children were randomly allocated
to receive a
daycare place (intervention group) or
not (control
group).
After 18 months, 23% more women who used
the
centre were in paid work compared to the
control
group, but they were no more likely to
have a weekly
income of above £200.
This trial provides some support for government
initiatives based on the belief that daycare
provision can
increase maternal employment, say the
authors.
However, the results question the assumption
that paid
employment provides an immediate route
out of poverty
by increasing household income.
Tackling low pay, changing the benefit
structure, and
reducing the costs of day care to poor
families may be
equally important components of an anti-poverty
strategy, they conclude.
Contacts:
Tami Toroyan, Research Fellow, London School
of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London,
UK T
Email: tami.toroyan{at}lshtm.ac.uk
or
Ian Roberts, Professor of Epidemiology
and Public
Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical
Medicine, London, UK
(3) DO OVERSEAS
RECRUITMENT SCHEMES FUEL
HEALTH INEQUALITIES?
(Recruiting doctors from poor countries:
the great brain
robbery?)
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/327/7420/926
Schemes to recruit doctors from developing
countries
risk damaging their fragile health systems,
warns a senior
doctor in this week's BMJ.
Overseas recruitment schemes are marketed
primarily as
an opportunity for doctors to experience
one of the
world's best healthcare systems. Yet a
new NHS
scheme is taking highly experienced specialists,
reflecting
the changing requirements of the NHS.
Such schemes are likely to worsen the brain
drain and
further inequalities in global health
unless they are
explicitly linked with measures to enable
doctors to
return, argues Vikram Patel. Apart from
the immediate
effects of such schemes on human resources
in
developing countries, he believes that
they may
perpetuate global health inequalities
for generations.
The NHS operate an ethical recruitment
policy, and it is
wrong to suggest that the service is targeting
health staff
from struggling countries, argues Debbie
Mellor, Head of
NHS Employment Policy, in an accompanying
commentary.
The NHS is working with several developing
countries
to support them in programmes to retain
their staff, and
is providing services in mental health,
leprosy prevention,
women's health, sexually transmitted infections,
and HIV,
she concludes.
Contacts:
Dr Vikram Patel, Sangath Centre, Goa, India
Email: vikpat_goa{at}sancharnet.in
Victoria MacCallum, Press officer, Department
of
Health, London, UK
FOR ACCREDITED JOURNALISTS
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Advancement of Science
(http://www.eurekalert.org)
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