Vital Signs: Risks: Fewer Heart Problems Among Moderate Drinkers

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A new study suggests that what matters to your health is not how much alcohol you drink, but how and when you drink it.

For the study, which appears online in the journal BMJ, French scientists gathered data on the drinking habits of 2,405 men in Ireland, and 7,373 in France, and found that the French drank more — an average of 1.2 ounces a day, compared with about three-quarters of an ounce for the Irish. Moreover, only 12 percent of the Irish subjects drank every day, compared with 75 percent of the French.

But the rate of binge drinking among the Irish men was sharply higher: 9 percent, compared with just 0.5 percent of those in France. (“Binge” was defined as five drinks or more at least one day a week.)

The scientists followed the men for 10 years. After controlling for smoking, cholesterol levels, blood pressure and other risks, they found that compared with regular drinkers, both binge drinkers and teetotalers were almost twice as likely to have had a cardiac problem.

There are cultural differences in drinking habits, said the study’s lead author, Dr. Jean Ferrieres, a professor of medicine at Toulouse University.

“In France, fruits, vegetables and wine are consumed at the same meal,” he said. “We think you can protect your heart by drinking daily with a complete meal. But we don’t know how to disentangle the effect of wine from the other things that go along with it.”

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Vital Signs: Childhood: A Caffeine Buzz From Soft Drinks

milligrams — about the same amount as cup of drip coffee.

Caffeine is a diuretic, and the study was designed to see whether the consumption was associated with bed-wetting. It was not — children who drank caffeine were no more likely to be bed-wetters than those who did not.

Sleep was another matter. Average sleep times for the caffeine drinkers were slightly less than the amount recommended for these ages by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The authors emphasized that the study (published online Dec. 16 in The Journal of Pediatrics) did not prove that caffeine consumption caused sleep problems, and they acknowledged that the data were subject to recall and reporting bias.

Still, the lead author, William J. Warzak, a professor psychology at the University of Nebraska, says that children certainly do not need caffeine, and avoiding it is a good idea.

“But,” he added, “you’re not a terrible parent if a kid has a Coke away from home.”

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Vital Signs: Awareness: Of Medicines and Mismeasurements

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Giving the correct dose of an over-the-counter pediatric medicine is critical, but the package labeling and dosing information can be virtually incomprehensible. And an overdose can be deadly.

Over the year ending Nov. 1, 2009, researchers examined the directions and measuring devices in 200 nonprescription pediatric liquid medicines — drugs for allergy, cough and cold, pain, gastrointestinal problems, and medicines in combination products.

Writing online Nov. 30 in The Journal of the American Medical Association, the researchers report that 52 of the medicines had no measuring device in the package, and that 146 of the other 148 had inconsistencies between the dosing directions and the devices, including missing or superfluous markings, unfamiliar units of measurement (for example, drams or cubic centimeters), or undefined or nonstandard abbreviations.

In November 2009, the Food and Drug Administration published voluntary guidelines for the labeling of dosing directions and measuring devices for over-the-counter liquid medicines. “The plan is that we can expect to see changes by next winter,” said Dr. H. Shonna Yin, the lead author.

But Dr. Yin, an assistant professor of pediatrics at New York University, is not finished. “When we do the study again,” she said, “we’ll see if voluntary guidelines work or if we need something stronger.” In the meantime, she said, parents should pay careful attention to both directions on packages and the labeling on measuring devices. “A tablespoon,” she warned, “is three times as large as a teaspoon.”

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