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Fresh & Easy recalls pumpkin cheesecake pies

November 20th, 2009, 11:49 am by Nancy Luna, Staff Writer

freshandeasyFresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is voluntarily recalling some of its private label “Pumpkin Cheesecake Pies” because they may contain undeclared pecans, the chain announced today.

The pies are being removed from stores in three states because the British retailer discovered that a limited number of them were sold without declaring the presence of pecans.

There’s nothing wrong with the pecans, but individuals who have allergies to pecans run the risk of serious or life-threatening allergic reaction if they consume these products, the chain said.

The mislabeled pies all carry an “Enjoy by” date of NOV 21 and have been removed from all Fresh & Easy stores, the chain said. Fresh & Easy operates 11 markets in Orange County. (Map of O.C. Fresh & Easy stores.)

Looking for a good pumpkin pie? The Fast Food Maven blog recently conducted a blind taste test of four major brands. CLICK HERE to see results.

Posted in: Food • | 5 Comments »

Recession hangs over children’s health report

November 20th, 2009, 10:00 am by Landon Hall

The mood inside the Portola Pavilion inside Cal State Fullerton’s student union was already glum when Susan Caumiant, an executive at Orange County United Way, played a couple of videos on the large screens.

Her goal was to put human faces on an otherwise wonky morning-long presentation of data points, bar graphs and speeches about the well-being 111909-02_blog2of Orange County’s children. Caumiant played a homemade video of the long, long lines of people waiting for food at an outreach center in Orange. Another video followed, this one professionally done — a fundraising video up on the chapter’s homepage that showed a local woman, identified only as Rebecca. Her husband was laid off last year, plunging them into the growing ranks of middle-class families forced to swallow their pride and seek assistance.

“I never thought — ever thought — that I would be sitting there asking someone to help me with rent, to help me put food on my table, to help me not be homeless,” she said. “I felt like a failure, an absolute failure. I have this child who depends on me for everything, and I couldn’t provide the simplest things for him. It hurt me to the bone … it just hurt.”

Her message set the tone for the eighth annual Community Forum, a gathering of representatives from county government relief agencies and nonprofits to discuss the Conditions of Children in Orange County 2009 report. Turns out, kids here are generally better off than their counterparts elsewhere in California. But in the last few years there has been an erosion of progress in several areas, such as:

  • Reports of child abuse rose 12 percent over the last year, to 41,119.
  • The high school dropout rate among Hispanics was a staggering 62.4 percent in 2007-08.
  • The number of known gang members is on the rise, from 1,766 in 2007 to 1,896 in 2008. And their ethnic makeup is changing: There are fewer Asians and whites and more Hispanics, says Dr. Eric Walsh, the county’s Director for Family Health Services.

Caumiant said her agency’s operating budget has been cut “really beyond the bone” because of falling donations. But it will be able to allocate the same funds to its various projects in 2010 as 2009.

“We fund over 80 agencies, and every single one of them says the need has doubled,” she said later.

Bill Steiner, a former county supervisor who founded the Orangewood Children’s Home and now is chairman of the Juvenile Justice Commission, said this economic climate is worse than anything he’s seen in his 40 years in the county. This recession makes the county’s 1994 bankruptcy debacle look like a “picnic,” he said.

“It’s almost like the perfect storm has hit all at once: unemployment, funding problems, social problems getting more exacerbated,” he said. “There were people today in this audience that were reeling from the realities they deal with every day, that are heartbroken to see programs reduced.”

Steiner was quick to add, however, that the culture of helping the needy has growing in the county over the decades, and, armed with the data in the report, philanthropists will work together to get help to the needy.

“I’m very optimistic, because I’m 73 years old, and I’ve been around and seen these phases where the sun always comes up every day,” he said.

(Photo courtesy of Cal State Fullerton)

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Poll: Where do you fall in the mammogram debate?

November 20th, 2009, 6:00 am by Courtney Perkes

mammogramA government health panel’s recommendation this week touched off a big controversy among breast cancer survivors and their doctors. The group of doctors and scientists used statistical analysis of death rates to recommend that women have their first mammogram at 50 rather than 40.

The report mentioned that women experience unnecessary anxiety from  false positives and invasive testing. The doctors and scientists mention radiation exposure as a “minor concern.”

Dr. Susan Love, who runs a nonprofit breast cancer research foundation in Los Angeles, came under fire when she backed  the recommendations on her blog. She noted that in Europe women have screenings usually every other year after age 50, with similar results. Here’s an excerpt of her response after the backlash:

I hear your anger. I’m angry too. But not for the same reason. I’m angry because we’ve oversold the benefits of mammography to the extent that there is no longer room to look objectively at the evidence. I am angry that we still don’t know what causes breast cancer and how to prevent it.

Orange County women and doctors expressed outrage, calling the recommendation a step backward for women. Read their reaction here. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the findings were non-binding and that women should make health decisions in consultation with their doctors.

After the story ran, I received many calls and emails from doctors and breast cancer survivors who disagree with the report.  They say early detection saves lives and they’re worried that sending this message will make women less likely to go in for screening.

But what about the other side? The false-positive results, unnecessary imaging and biopsies.  Have you experienced undue stress from a breast cancer scare or had procedures you believe were unnecessary? Please share your thoughts below.

You can read the panel’s full report here.

Do you plan to have mammograms less frequently because of a new government recommendation?
View Results

Posted in: breast cancer • | 8 Comments »

Secondhand smoke toughest on toddlers, obese kids

November 19th, 2009, 5:00 am by Landon Hall

Toddlers and obese children suffer greater cardiovascular injury from exposure to secondhand smoke than other young people, according to a study presented at the American Heart Association’s science conference in Orlando, Fla.

smokey_blogThe research, led by John Anthony Bauer of Nationwide Children’s Hospital & Research Institute at Ohio State University, found that:

  • There’s a link between the amount of secondhand smoke exposure and “markers” of vascular injury in toddlers (age 2-5). The link was twice as great in obese toddlers.
  • Obese adolescents (age 9-18) exposed to secondhand smoke showed twice as much vascular injury as adolescents who were a normal weight.
  • Toddlers had four times the risk of exposure as adolescents, even though they were around about the same level of secondhand smoke at home.
  • Toddlers with smoke exposure were 30 percent more likely to have fewer circulating “vascular endothelial progenitor cells,” the cells involved in repairing and maintaining healthy blood vessels.

“The changes we detected in these groups of children are similar to changes that are well-recognized risks for heart disease in adults,” Bauer said in a statement. “This suggests that some aspects of adult heart disease may be initiated in early childhood, where prevention strategies may have great long-term impact.”

Mai-Tram Nguyen, a pediatrician who treats many toddlers at three clinics for low-income families in Orange County, says some parents who are smokers think, mistakenly, that if they smoke outside the house their children won’t be exposed to any smoke.

“They think that by smoking outside, it doesn’t affect their children,” sauid Nguyen, who works in San Jan Capistrano, Fullerton and La Habra at clinics that are part of the Coalition of Orange County Community Clinics. “But it’s still in their breath and in their clothes. So it does stick with them.”

Children who are exposed to secondhand smoke not only develop respiratory problems, they tend to have poor health habits in other areas because parents aren’t setting a good example, Nguyen said.

“Parents who are smokers, they lead a very sedentary life. There’s not too much exercise, and they’re not the best at taking care of their own bodies. So that does affect the child: They grow up in the environment of not eating healthy foods and not being a good role model.”

Posted in: Children • • • | Post a Comment »

UCI doc’s research shows mummies had heart disease

November 18th, 2009, 2:27 pm by Landon Hall

High-society Egyptians who lived thousands of years ago had diets rich in meat and salt, which might partially explain why so many of them seem to have suffered from heart disease, according to research led by an Orange County cardiologist.

mummy_blogDr. Gregory Thomas and his colleague Dr. Michael Miyamoto, who both practice at Mission Internal Medical Group in Mission Viejo, joined two other Americans and a team of Egyptian experts in examining 20 mummies from the National Museum of Antiquities in Cairo earlier this year.

After running the remains through the tube of a CT scanning machine, they were able to identify heart or artery tissue in 16 of them (the hearts and other organs were sometimes removed during the “drying” process). Of those, nine showed evidence of hardened arteries, or atherosclerosis, which can lead to heart attack or stroke. The soft portions of the plaques that built up inside the ancient arteries were no longer there, but the researchers found calcium deposits that were left behind.

Thomas, who teaches at UC Irvine, said the research showed that softer portions of the plaque can be removed, but the calcified parts are there to stay. For thousands of years.

“You can slow it down, but you can’t stop it,” he said by phone Wednesday from his hotel in Reykjavik, Iceland, on his way back to the United States after celebrating the announcement of the findings with the team of Egyptian archaeologists in Cairo.

The findings were presented at the American Heart Association’s scientific meeting in Orlando, Fla., and were included in a letter to the editor to the Journal of the American Medical Association for Wednesday’s issue.

Heart disease had historically been considered a relatively recent phenomenon, but the mummy research is turning the conventional wisdom on its head.

The mummies all lived between 1,645 and 3,990 years ago. Evidence of heart disease was found in seven of the eight corpses who were determined to be 45 years or older, and in two of the eight mummies believed to be younger than 45. The oldest among them was Lady Rai, a nursemaid to Queen Nefertiti who lived between 1570 and 1530 B.C. and who likely died in her 30s.

Mummification was a time-consuming process reserved for the upper crust of Egyptian society. Historians know that their diet often included meat and salt, to preserve the food. But Thomas said he and his team were not allowed to scan the remains of pharaohs. The subjects they did examine were lower on the chain — a general, a cabinet minister, someone held in high esteem by the royals — and appeared to be of otherwise normal health.

“These weren’t the kings, they weren’t carried around on litters like Elizabeth Taylor was,” Thomas said. That means there likely is more to study about the way plaques build up.

Egyptian officials selected the first 10 mummies to be examined, but Thomas and his team got to pick the others. They walked through darkened hallways of the museum, lined with stacks of mummies and other artifacts.

“You felt like Indiana Jones, looking for mummies,” Thomas said. “You’re pinching yourself saying, ‘How did you get so lucky in life?’ ”

(Photo by Dr. Michael Miyamoto)

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Grieving mother won’t give up the fight

November 18th, 2009, 6:00 am by Courtney Perkes

01.frances.1118.perFrances Saldaña describes her life as war. She’s battling to save  her children and grandchildren from Huntington’s disease, an inherited and fatal brain disorder.

Two weeks ago, she experienced her first casualty when her 32-year-old daughter, Marie Portillo, died of the disease.

Read her powerful story here.

Posted in: Research • • | Post a Comment »

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