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WASHINGTON — The health insurance industry said Wednesday that it will support a national healthcare overhaul that requires them to accept all customers, regardless of pre-existing medical conditions — but in return it wants lawmakers to mandate that everyone buy coverage.

Lawmakers have signaled their intent to craft healthcare legislation early next year, and the insurance industry’s support would make passage easier.

That legislation is expected to closely track the proposals of President-elect Barack Obama.

However, Obama separated himself from his Democratic challengers by opposing an individual mandate for adults to buy health insurance.

More lawmakers may agree to a mandate if it means the insurance industry will back those efforts. They’ll remember it was the industry’s opposition 15 years ago that helped scuttle President Bill Clinton’s health plan.

The board of directors for America’s Health Insurance Plans agreed to the trade-off Monday night. The board endorsed the proposal after a series of hearings in various states.

"We hope this will be a contribution to help members of Congress fashion their proposal," said Karen Ignagni, president and chief executive of the trade group. "We’re going to provide all the technical background that we have assembled, all the experience we’ve assembled at the state level, and we’re going to work very hard with members of Congress on both sides of the aisle. We want to make sure that whatever reforms are advanced, no one falls through the cracks."

Obama’s health plan calls for a health insurance exchange, a sort of government-run shopping center where customers could go to select from private plans or a plan administered by the federal government. Any insurer that wants to participate in that exchange must accept all customers regardless of pre-existing health conditions, such as diabetes or heart disease.

Insurers will want to participate in the exchange because government subsidies will make it easier for millions of people to buy coverage from them. But the insurers say experience in the states shows that the coverage guarantee often makes it harder for people to find coverage. That’s because insurers raised premiums to meet the expense of covering all applicants with chronic health conditions.

"They ended up making the problem much worse," Ignagni said of the state efforts. "The data is clear about the need to have everyone part of the system."

Analysts say Massachusetts is an example where the coverage guarantee has worked well, but it’s also a state that requires everyone to buy health coverage or suffer a tax penalty.

Some key Democratic lawmakers have already expressed support for an individual mandate. The concept was a centerpiece of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s healthcare plan. It was also part of the blueprint offered last week by Sen. Max Baucus, Senate Finance Committee chairman.

In his blueprint for changing the $2.2 trillion healthcare system, Baucus would create government-run insurance exchanges where small businesses and people without workplace benefits could buy coverage.

Baucus and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., held a closed-door meeting at the Capitol on Wednesday to discuss strategy for healthcare legislation. Among Republican senators participating were Charles Grassley of Iowa and Orrin Hatch of Utah.

Chris Jennings, senior healthcare adviser in the White House during the Clinton years, said it remains to be seen whether the industry will support other key components of healthcare reform. Nevertheless, he called it an important contribution to the coming debate.

"It sends the signal that broad health reform can happen," Jennings said. "There are so many in Washington who are the gloom-and-doom prophesiers who believe it’s impossible."

However, Consumer Watchdog, a consumer advocacy group, called the insurers’ position self-serving.

This report includes material from Bloomberg News.

BEIJING — Amid recurring Chinese product-safety scares, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration opened an inspection office Wednesday in Beijing that officials said will help China export safer products to America and the world.

The new FDA field office, one of three to be opened across China, is the first outside the U.S.

It comes during a low point in U.S. consumer confidence in Chinese-made products after reports of counterfeit drugs, melamine-laced milk and toys covered in potentially lethal lead paint.

The U.S. hopes to work with China as part of a global product-safety strategy that would eventually involve opening similar inspection offices in India, South America, Europe and the Middle East, Mike Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, told a gathering of Chinese manufacturers.

"This is not about China and the U.S.," Leavitt said. "This is about a response to a large shift in global trading patterns. We have to invent solutions to problems that didn’t exist 15 years ago."

Some food-safety experts, however, questioned the scope of foreign oversight in China, doubting whether factory owners would allow outsiders into their plants.

China’s public response to the new product-inspection strategy was generally positive.

Food experts say access to the 450,000 food-production facilities in China could prove harder than U.S. officials realize. U.S. staffing in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou will be between nine and 12 people, U.S. officials say.

During a news conference, Leavitt and FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach stressed China’s role as a major exporter of products to the U.S.

Last year, the U.S. imported $321.5 billion in Chinese products, establishing China as America’s second-largest trading partner after Canada.

Researchers have long blamed childhood obesity and diabetes, especially in poor neighborhoods, on too much food and too little exercise.

But new findings from a San Antonio study point to another explanation: Children living in poverty are obese in part because they don’t eat enough to meet the daily nutritional requirements needed for cell function and metabolism.

A 9-year-old should consume 1,400 to 2,200 calories daily to sustain growth, said Dr. Roberto Trevino, director of the nonprofit Social and Health Research Center. But in the study of 1,400 inner-city children, 44 percent were consuming less than 1,400 calories, and 33 percent were obese.

"They were not overeating," Trevino said. "This study shows these kids were not eating enough, and when they did eat it was all the wrong things."

Missing from the children’s diets were four key nutrients: calcium, magnesium, potassium and phosphorus. All play important roles, but magnesium is involved in more than 300 enzymatic reactions in the body that help to spur metabolism and cell function.

When magnesium — found in cooked spinach, black beans, bran cereal and other foods — is missing from the diet, it can predispose an individual to diabetes, Trevino said.

Nearly 7 percent of children in the study screened positive for type II diabetes, typically an adult disease, Trevino said.

Without early intervention, these children could be facing open-heart surgery at age 25 and will be on dialysis by age 35, he said.

The research, published in the November issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, raises concerns in Texas, which ranks seventh in the nation for the percentage of children living in poverty.

The study brings to the forefront the urgency with which the state needs to address childhood obesity, which is a critical factor in early-onset diabetes and heart disease, said Elena Bastida, associate dean for research at the University of North Texas Health Science Center.

Some Fort Worth neighborhoods have large numbers of children who share many of the same socio-economic conditions found in the San Antonio study and are at high risk for diabetes, she said.

Last week, a 19-year-old Arlington woman died from complications of morbid obesity, according to the Tarrant County medical examiner.

An estimated 35 percent of school-age children in Texas are overweight or obese, according to the Statewide Obesity Task Force.

In the United States, 12 percent of children are overweight.

Researchers also found that a sedentary lifestyle contributed to the problem. In the study, nearly 90 percent of children scored marginal or unacceptable on physical fitness tests. On average they were watching 3.5 hours of television daily.

To address the problem in Tarrant County, the United Way, YMCA and other organizations have created programs aimed at educating families about diet and exercise.

The American Heart Association and the YMCA of Metropolitan Fort Worth recently partnered to offer the Go Healthy curriculum to 1,300 kids a week in 56 after-school facilities. The program encourages children to exercise more and eat healthy foods, but it also gets the whole family involved, said Tony Shuman, YMCA president.

"A kid can spend an hour on the treadmill, but if Mom and Dad stop to get a bucket of fried chicken on the way home, everything has just gone out the window," he said.

Also addressing the health issue is the Childhood Obesity Project at Mitchell Boulevard Elementary in southeast Fort Worth, developed by FitFuture, a Tarrant County initiative created by the United Way. The program teaches children how to live healthier lives and monitors their progress.

Addressing childhood obesity takes an ongoing commitment from people throughout the community, Shuman said.

Unhappy people watch more TV and vote less than happier people, study finds

A 30-year study of television habits published in the December issue of the scientific journal Social Indicators Research suggests that unhappy people watch considerably more TV, vote less, read fewer newspapers and are generally less socially active than happier people. The University of Maryland researchers noted that TV is more popular than many other free-time activities, considering that viewers don’t have to leave the comfort of their homes, dress up, plan or expend much energy. Perhaps it’s not surprising that TV takes up more than half of Americans’ free time. The study indicated that unhappy people watch about 20 percent more television than very happy people. — Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO — The dietary supplement ginkgo, long promoted as an aid to memory, didn’t help prevent dementia and Alzheimer’s disease in the longest and largest test of the extract in older Americans.

"We don’t think it has a future as a powerful anti-dementia drug," said Dr. Steven DeKosky of the University of Virginia School of Medicine, who led the federally funded study.

Extracts from ginkgo tree leaves have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects, but earlier research on ginkgo and memory showed mixed results. Annual U.S. sales of the supplement reached $107 million in 2007, according to Nutrition Business Journal estimates.

For the new study, appearing in today’s Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers recruited more than 3,000 people, ages 75 and older, from voter and mailing lists in Maryland, Pennsylvania, California and North Carolina.

Half were randomly assigned to take 120 milligrams of ginkgo biloba twice a day, a typical dose taken by people who think it may help memory. The others took identical dummy pills.

Participants were screened for dementia every six months. After six years, dementia had been diagnosed at a similar rate in both groups; 277 in the ginkgo group and 246 in the group taking the dummy tablets. When the researchers looked only at Alzheimer’s disease, that rate too was similar.

At the start, some people showed mild difficulties with thinking; ginkgo didn’t work to prevent dementia in those people, either.

Ginkgo appears relatively safe, DeKosky said. Proponents say it protects the brain by preventing the buildup of an Alzheimer’s-related protein or by preventing cell-damaging oxidative stress.

LONDON — Doctors have given a woman a new windpipe with tissue grown from her own stem cells, eliminating the need for anti-rejection drugs.

"This technique has great promise," said Dr. Eric Genden, who did a similar transplant in 2005 at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. That operation used both donor and recipient tissue. Only a handful of windpipe, or trachea, transplants have ever been done.

If successful, the procedure could become a new standard of treatment, said Genden, who was not involved in the research.

The results were published online today in the medical journal, The Lancet.

The transplant was given to Claudia Castillo, a 30-year-old Colombian mother of two living in Barcelona who suffered from tuberculosis for years. After a severe collapse of her left lung in March, Castillo needed regular hospital visits to clear her airways and was unable to take care of her children.

Doctors initially thought the only solution was to remove her entire left lung. But Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, head of thoracic surgery at Barcelona’s Hospital Clinic, proposed a windpipe transplant instead.

Scientists at Italy’s University of Padua acquired a donor windpipe and stripped off all its cells, leaving only a tube of connective tissue.

Meanwhile, doctors at the University of Bristol took a sample of Castillo’s bone marrow from her hip. They used the bone marrow’s stem cells to create millions of cartilage and tissue cells to cover and line the windpipe.

Experts at the University of Milan then put the new cartilage and tissue onto the windpipe. The new windpipe was transplanted into Castillo in June.

"They have created a functional, biological structure that can’t be rejected," said Dr. Allan Kirk of the American Society of Transplantation. "It’s an important advance, but constructing an entire organ is still a long way off."

Castillo has shown no signs of rejection and is not taking immune-suppressing drugs, which can cause side effects such as high blood pressure, kidney failure and cancer.

"I was scared at the beginning," Castillo said in a statement. "I am now enjoying life and am very happy that my illness has been cured."

Her doctors say she is now able to take care of her children and can walk reasonable distances without becoming winded. Castillo even reported dancing at a club in Barcelona recently.

Genden said that Castillo’s progress needs to be closely monitored. "Time will tell if this lasts," he said. Genden added that it can take up to three years to know whether the windpipe’s cartilage structure is solid and won’t fall apart.

People who might benefit include children born with defective airways, people with scars or tumors in their windpipes, and those with collapsed windpipes.

The technique might even be adapted to other organs like the bowel, bladder or reproductive tract, said Martin Birchall of the University of Bristol.

Online: www.lancet.com

Researchers have long blamed childhood obesity and diabetes, especially in poor neighborhoods, on too much food and too little exercise.

But new findings from a San Antonio study point to another explanation: children living in poverty are obese in part because they don’t eat enough to meet the daily nutritional requirements needed for cell function and metabolism.

A 9-year-old should consume 1,400 to 2,200 calories daily to sustain their growth, said Dr. Roberto Trevino, director of the Social and Health Research Center, a nonprofit organization. But in the study of 1,400 inner-city children, 44 percent were consuming less than 1,400 calories, and 33 percent were obese.

"They were not overeating," Trevino said. "This study shows these kids were not eating enough, and when they did eat it was all the wrong things."

Missing from the children’s diets were four key nutrients: calcium, magnesium, potassium and phosphorus. All play important roles, but magnesium is involved in more than 300 enzymatic reactions in the body that help to spur metabolism and cell function.

When magnesium — found in cooked spinach, black beans, bran cereal and other foods — is missing from the diet, it can predispose an individual to diabetes, Trevino said.

Nearly 7 percent of children in the study screened positive for type 2 diabetes, typically an adult disease, Trevino said.

Without early-age intervention, these children could be facing open-heart surgery at age 25 and will be on dialysis by age 35, he said.

The research, published in the November issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, raises concerns in Texas, which ranks seventh in the nation for the percentage of children living in poverty.

The study brings to the foreground the urgency with which the state needs to address the critical problem of childhood obesity, which is a critical factor in early onset of diabetes and heart disease, said Elena Bastida, associate dean for research at the University of North Texas Health Science Center.

There are neighborhoods in Fort Worth with large numbers of children who share many of the same socio-economic conditions found in the San Antonio study and are at high risk for diabetes, she said.

Last week, a 19-year-old Arlington female died from complications of morbid obesity, according to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner.

An estimated 35 percent of school-age children in Texas are overweight or obese, according to the Statewide Obesity Task Force.

In the United States, 12 percent of children are overweight, compared with 33 percent in the San Antonio study.

Researchers also found a sedentary lifestyle contributed to the problem. In the study, nearly 90 percent of children scored marginal or unacceptable on physical fitness tests. On average they were watching 3.5 hours of television daily.

To address the problem in Tarrant County, the United Way, YMCA and other organizations have created programs aimed at educating families about diet and exercise.

The American Heart Association and the YMCA of Metropolitan Fort Worth recently joined together to offer the Go Healthy curriculum to 1,300 kids a week, in 56 after-school facilities. The program encourages children to exercise more and eat healthy foods, but it also gets the whole family involved, said Tony Shuman, president of the YMCA of Metropolitan Fort Worth.

"A kid can spend an hour on the treadmill, but if mom and dad stop to get a bucket of fried chicken on the way home, everything has just gone out the window," he said.

Also addressing the health issue is the Childhood Obesity Project at Mitchell Boulevard Elementary in southeast Fort Worth, developed by FitFuture, a Tarrant County initiative created by the United Way. The program, which teaches children how to live healthier lives, also monitors their progress.

Addressing the childhood obesity issue takes an ongoing commitment from people throughout the community, Shuman said.

Had JPS been equipped to serve critically ill patients in Arlington, Barbara Perkins may have lived to see her next birthday, her daughter believes.

On April 3, Perkins went to JPS Diagnostic & Surgery Hospital in Arlington after having a fever and cough for several days. Doctors diagnosed pneumonia, although a chest X-ray did not confirm it. What it did show was atherosclerosis of the aorta, a hardening of the heart’s arteries.

The 54-year-old Arlington woman was sent home with a prescription for antibiotics, said her daughter, Regina Thompson.

She died just hours later.

"If they diagnosed pneumonia and suspected it," Thompson said, "they should have admitted her."

JPS officials say patients wouldn’t typically be admitted with the symptoms that Perkins had, and they don’t believe that she died of pneumonia.

But the officials agree that the facility doesn’t have the equipment or personnel to handle seriously ill patients.

A committee of nine Arlington physicians and JPS officials says it wants to change that. The committee, appointed by County Judge B. Glen Whitley, is recommending to county commissioners that the facility be expanded into a full-service hospital.

"That was something we all had in mind," JPS Board President Steve Montgomery said. "The direction is, let’s grow this into a full-sized hospital."

County commissioners are expected to hear the committee’s report this month. At issue will be whether tax dollars should be used to expand the Arlington facility and whether John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth is at capacity. Officials have not yet estimated the cost of such an expansion or what the facility would look like.

"Nobody should think this is going to be quick and easy," committee Chairman Wes Jurey said. "It’s going to take some time and some commitment."

The JPS facility has been a longstanding point of contention in the Arlington medical community.

The 30 beds at the hospital, part of the taxpayer-financed Tarrant County Health District, have been mostly empty since JPS acquired it. That’s because the hospital doesn’t have an intensive care unit, won’t accept transfers of critically ill patients and can’t admit women in labor.

Signs at its entrance urged patients to go to an "emergency room" in the back of the building; however, patients who went there were told to go to other Arlington hospitals. As their emergency rooms overflowed, physicians at those hospitals began to wonder why the public hospital wasn’t treating needy patients.

"Really, what’s happening at local hospitals in Arlington is that we are providing a tremendous amount of care for JPS-eligible patients" who qualify for discounts, said Dr. Cynthia Simmons, medical director for Arlington EMS. "We think JPS Hospital has a responsibility to provide that care themselves, and the local hospitals should not be taxed with providing that care."

Arlington has fewer doctors and hospital beds per capita than the North Texas average, studies show. Yet the load of its needy patients is growing. Census reports show that 41 percent of Arlington families would qualify for the county’s discount program.

Montgomery said that JPS had not expected such demand when it purchased the hospital on New York Avenue three years ago. Officials believed that the hospital would draw privately insured patients, he said, and JPS had aimed a marketing campaign at such patients.

"What took us by surprise was how big a need [for indigent care] there was out there," he said. "It took us a couple of years to figure that out."

The hospital has largely provided outpatient services, such as scheduled radiological procedures. From November 2007 to January 2008, a total of 10 inpatients were admitted. It now is averaging about 19 patients a month, JPS said.

To ease pressure on other Arlington hospitals, Montgomery said that JPS is trying to expand care at its Arlington clinics. An urgent-care clinic opened next to the hospital in March, and officials planned to expand it. However, urgent-care clinics are not required to treat every patient who arrives, regardless of ability to pay. Federal law requires emergency rooms to do so.

WASHINGTON — Scientists are baffled by one of humankind’s most annoying problems — itching — an almost universal misery for which there is, as yet, no adequate explanation or treatment.

"Why we can’t stop scratching remains a big puzzle for researchers," said Zhou-Feng Chen, a neuroscientist at Washington University in St. Louis.

Matthias Ringkamp, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said: "Itch can be devastating to patients and lead to extensive loss of quality of life. Unfortunately, the treatment of itch is often unsatisfactory."

The recent discovery of an "itchy gene," however, may offer hope for better treatments, Chen said. A drug to block that gene might relieve the distress of itching.

Specialists on pruritus — the scientific term for itching — described their work Monday at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Washington.

They distinguished between two major types of itch: a mild form that can be treated with common antihistamines such as Benadryl and a severe form that cannot.

"The second type is often severe and very common, since more than 50 diseases and conditions can cause it," said Glenn Giesler, a neuroscientist at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. "There are no treatments currently available for this latter type of itch."

As many as 10 percent of people in the world endure chronic itching, said Ben Maddison, a researcher at Unilever, a multinational consumer-product corporation.

The itch-related gene identified by Chen is labeled GRPR for gastrin-releasing peptide receptor. When he injected it under the skin of laboratory mice, they "scratched like crazy," he said.

"The discovery of the first itchy gene in the spinal cord raises the hope that it may be possible to relieve itchiness in patients by blocking the GRPR function," Chen said.

WASHINGTON — As more people live longer, scientists are stepping up their efforts to understand the biological process of aging.

Recent research is changing their views on how and why we age.

For half a century, much of the deterioration that comes over time has been blamed on free radicals, unstable molecules of oxygen running amok in the cells of your body.

A free-radical molecule consists of two linked atoms of oxygen with an odd number of electrons in its system, not the even number that the laws of chemistry require.

That chemical oddity drives a free radical to steal an electron from a neighboring oxygen molecule. Now the next molecule has the same problem, setting off a chain reaction that can damage DNA and other cell structures.

As the damage piles up over the years, it leads to increasing disability and is ultimately a common cause of death.

Natural "antioxidants" in vitamins, fruits and vegetables get rid of most of these harmful molecules, but a few are left to carry on their rampages.

Views on the central role of free radicals are changing as new research reveals a more complex picture. Genes, environment, nutrition and lifestyle are also recognized as parts of a complex web of factors that cause aging.

Ultraviolet radiation from the sun, toxic chemicals, tobacco smoke or chance accidents that happen when cells divide can create free radicals. The result is oxidative stress, a major cause of cancer, Alzheimer’s and heart disease.

Oxidative Stress and Disease, a conference of world experts in Italy in March, will review whether the free-radical theory needs updating.

In the 1970s, isolation tanks became a trendy way to go beyond the conscious mind to another dimension in time and space. There was just one problem: The coffinlike chambers made people feel claustrophobic. Instead of floating into a world of enlightenment, many were clawing their way out.

Over the decades, the flotation fad drifted in and out of consumers’ consciousness. Sensory deprivation got some notoriety from the 1980 sci-fi flick Altered States, but isolation tanks never gained widespread acceptance.

Then flotation got a facelift. Instead of being enclosed, some were designed to be open, with less emphasis on total sensory deprivation and more on relaxation. Flotation therapy spread across Europe, and more than 50 facilities popped up across the United States.

In Colleyville, former Texas Rangers first baseman Pete O’Brien had long been intrigued by flotation as a way to relieve stress and improve well-being. After investigating the psychological and physiological benefits, Pete and Donna O’Brien opened At Peace Floatation Spa this summer.

Pete O’Brien found that floating in a zero-gravity environment left him feeling relaxed and that the anti-inflammatory effects of Epsom salts eased the pain of past sports injuries.

"You come out much more at ease and at peace," he said.

Dr. Jeff Connors, a Colleyville chiropractor, said floating can speed healing and "reset the body’s circuit breaker." He recommends flotation to athletes and does it himself. "To me, I felt like I was walking on clouds," Connors said.

Dr. Scott Stoll, a professor at the University of North Texas Health Science Center, remembers using his father’s isolation tank when he was growing up. Anything that helps people relax is beneficial, he said.

"You can sit at home in your easy chair, you can get a massage, you can learn to meditate or you can lie in one of these isolation chambers," Stoll said.

For Type A personalities who have a tough time unwinding, floating is a way to shut down the brain, Pete O’Brien said. Some people experience a heightened awareness of color, sound and clarity of mind.

Without the distractions of light or sound, the body naturally relaxes, he said.

"When you are in that restful place, you don’t move; you don’t even know you’re in water," Donna O’Brien said. "You lose all concept of time."

Here are the flotation facts:

The environment: Temperature-controlled suites contain a spa about the size of a twin bed with 10 inches of Epsom salt water warmed to body temperature. Spa users must shower before and after use. Many choose to float wearing bathing suits or swim trunks. Buttons in the spa control music and lighting. The user can float in silence or can select from meditation music or guided imagery — a gentle voice from the sound system that guides you through relaxation techniques. There’s an intercom that can be used if needed.

The experience: The salt water is so dense that any body, regardless of size, floats effortlessly. Some people feel as if their body is drifting away into a dreamlike state. It is common to fall asleep. A one-hour session is said to have the restorative effect of four hours of sleep.

The hygiene: The idea of soaking in someone else’s water might turn some people off, but a filtering and sterilization process is used to keep the spa as clean as possible. Epsom salts also kill bacteria.

The benefits: Floating is said to boost immunity, reduce high blood pressure, diminish depression, speed the healing process and promote circulation. It also is said to reduce symptoms associated with asthma, insomnia, fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis. It has been used to improve concentration and creativity.

The proof: Since the 1950s, when sensory deprivation isolation tanks were introduced, more than 100 universities have studied flotation. Numerous athletic teams, including the Dallas Cowboys, have used tanks. Carl Lewis used it to prepare for the 1988 Olympics. At the 2000 Olympics, more than 200 flotation tanks were available for athletes.

The downside: Epsom salt water leaves the skin feeling soft, but it can also sting where there are minor cuts. To eliminate this problem, shave at least four hours in advance. A gel is provided to cover any cuts.

What it costs: A one-hour introductory session at At Peace Floatation Spa costs $60. A package of three sessions costs $120.

Read it

The weight-loss industry and even some medical professionals are selling us a bill of goods when it equates slimness to health and happiness.

That’s according to an ample body of obesity research and Linda Bacon, a nutrition professor at the City College of San Francisco and author of Health at Every Size (Benbella, $14.95).

Several recent studies have concluded that each of us has a genetically determined weight set point that can fall within a 20-30 pound range, depending upon our nutritional and exercise habits. If you attempt to diet your way below that range, your body will fight the condition through hunger and slower metabolism. Bacon urges readers to stop ruining their health by attempting to strive for impossibly skinny images. Her point, supported by hundreds of footnoted citations, is that proper nutrition and sensible exercise will produce health at your biologically preordained weight. Ironically, it is a more effective approach to weight loss. Bacon’s own study showed that this approach beat conventional diets every time.

In many ways, this is a paradigm-changing book that exhorts its readers to stop trying to defy biology and to not allow the scale to determine self-esteem. The message may not be well accepted by many who want to hold onto impossible dreams, or those who make a living selling those dreams.

— Steve Jacob

Shopping bag

Travel wellness kit

Here’s a great gift for the traveler who wants to stay healthy and rested while on the go.

What it is: This wanderer’s wellness kit is one you custom design with new products. Favorites include the MyChelle All in One travel kit with skin-care goodies for oily, normal or dry skin; Happy Camper, a supplement containing natural feel-good nutrients such as passion flower, kava kava, gotu kola, kola nut, lavender and wood betony; Rescue Remedy, spray or drops made from flower essences to chill you out; single Emergen-C Lite, to provide the vitamins your body craves; Jarro-Dophilus EPS, to help the digestive and immune systems; Sound Sleep, an all-natural relaxation enhancer for a good night’s sleep; plus natural hand sanitizer, peppermint oil, lip balm and 365 brand shower gels.

The details: 39 cents (single Emergen-C) to $19.99 (MyChelle skin care), Whole Foods Market, 801 E. Lamar Blvd., Arlington. 817-461-9362; www.wholefoodsmarket.com. Recycled canvas zipper bags, $5.99, Target.

— June Naylor, Special to the Star-Telegram

FORT WORTH — When John Peter Smith Hospital’s new patient pavilion opened this summer, administrators did away with the so-called short-stay unit, where dozens of patients stacked up waiting for a hospital room to be available.

That unit was essentially a corridor where patients stayed an average of 23 hours — though some as long as 10 days. Beds were side by side, separated by curtains. All the patients shared a single bathroom with no shower and had to depend on the overburdened emergency room staff.

JPS officials expected that they wouldn’t need the short-stay unit once they had the new 108-bed pavilion, which included a larger emergency room and intensive-care unit and high-tech surgical suites.

In recent weeks, though, JPS has had to replicate the holding area. That’s because, at times, as many as 45 patients who had been admitted to the hospital were stuck in the emergency department waiting for a room, said Glenn Raup, senior executive director of JPS’ emergency department and trauma services.

Interim Chief Executive Robert Earley, who recently spent a 12-hour shift in the ER, recognizes a growing backlog of patients, rising wait times and an increasing number of patients leaving before being seen by a physician.

"If you have a backup of patients who need to be admitted, it is not the fault of the emergency department staff," he said. "When you look at the issue of admissions, 10 percent of the beds in the ER are being occupied by admissions."

Now JPS is trying to find out why patients are still backing up and what needs to change throughout the county hospital system. On Monday, a JPS board-appointed emergency department committee will begin studying causes of overcrowding and why it takes so long to get patients into rooms.

Earley said JPS may consider one strategy that has succeeded at other hospitals with busy emergency rooms, including nearby Harris Methodist Fort Worth, the only other trauma center in Tarrant County.

Rather than piling patients in the emergency department or in beds crammed in a single hallway, Harris and others are dispersing admitted patients one or two at a time among hospital departments where they will eventually have rooms. The patients are initially kept in hallways in those departments.

That has unclogged emergency rooms and put patients into rooms faster. About 28 percent of patients sent to hallways were immediately moved into rooms, according to a four-year study of more than 2,000 patients at Stony Brook University Medical Center at Stony Brook, N.Y. And 25 percent were moved out of hallways within an hour.

The strategy works because otherwise open beds go unreported, rooms are slow to be cleaned and physicians lag in discharging patients, the study found.

Some resistance

Some JPS officials are reluctant to try that strategy. They are worried that moving patients upstairs into wards could lead to an inappropriate ratio of patients to staff in those units. Nurses in those departments may oppose the move as well, because it adds to their responsibilities, administrators say. JPS officials are also concerned about how regulatory agencies would respond if patients were put in hallways.

Raup believes that other systemic changes could reduce emergency room crowding.

For example, he said, "Our ER physician manpower is contractually dictated. As a result, their manpower plan is designed to the ergonomics of the old hospital ER, and there is time lost in the old staffing model. We’ve ramped up the nursing staff; now we are negotiating to ramp up the physician part."

Administrators at Harris Methodist persuaded their admission units to use the new protocol if the emergency department becomes overcrowded or if the emergency room has multiple trauma patients.

The key, says emergency nurse manager Barbara VanWart, was bringing nurses and support staff to the emergency room to see firsthand the patients waiting.

"Until they actually see the problem, they don’t get it," VanWart said. "They realize the best care for the patient likely is not to be waiting in the emergency department where the staff there has to tend to new patients presenting at the front door and in ambulances. They say, 'I don’t want my mother boarding in the ER overnight.’ "

Harris uses other tools as well, such as an express admission unit where inpatient care is started and monitored by nurses. There’s also a discharge unit that holds patients who have been discharged from the hospital and need rides home or prescriptions filled.

The benefits

FORT WORTH -- The minute he walked into the Amon Carter Museum gallery, Bill Smith recognized the lithograph hanging directly in front of him.

"That one’s called Stag at Sharkey’s," he said with confidence as he pointed to the image of a boxer knocking his opponent out of the ring.

The retired Texas Christian University chemistry professor had the right artist, George Bellows, but the wrong lithograph. The one hanging in the Amon, called Dempsey and Firpo, is very similar to the one that Smith remembered.

But more importantly, the art kindled something inside him, jostling Smith out of the fog of Alzheimer’s disease.

He spent the next 10 minutes talking about everything from the rules of boxing to the laws of gravity.

When Stacy Fuller, the museum’s head of education, developed the Sharing the Past Through Art program, she hoped to help people who have Alzheimer’s disease connect with the artwork and ultimately their community.

"These are people who often don’t communicate much at all, but when they come here, there’s something about the experience that encourages them to share," she said. "Some truly open up when they come to this space."

The museum’s program is one of a handful around the country that makes art accessible to people with Alzheimer’s disease. Two years ago, the Museum of Modern Art in New York launched one of the first such projects in the country. It and others have revealed that despite short-term memory problems, people with Alzheimer’s can do more than expected.

There are memories inside the person that are trying to find a way out, said Dr. Janice Knebl, who holds the Dallas Southwest Osteopathic Physician Endowed Chair for Clinical Geriatrics at the University of North Texas Health Science Center.

"It’s really all about the moment and bringing out of the person what still may be there," she said. "This program looks for those opportunities."

Second Thursday

On the second Thursday of each month, Fuller introduces the mostly white-haired group to a small sampling of art.

Some days it’s Frederic Remington’s American Western art. Other days, it’s Georgia O’Keeffe’s abstract images. By limiting the number of paintings participants view, Fuller is able to engage them in a lively conversation.

"They see things we often don’t take time to see or we just haven’t observed," she said. "They really surprise me by the depth of their observations."

When residents from the James L. West Alzheimer Center toured the Bellows exhibit Thursday, Fuller asked them about the colors he used in his lithographs.

The group responded enthusiastically, lecturing Fuller about the absence of color in the black and white lithograph.

Then retired principal Loraine McMillon revealed what the lithograph meant to her.

"Total action," she said. "You can almost hear him fall with a great big thump."

Smith immediately joined in with his opinion: "The crowd is going wild."

'A comfort level’

SOUTHLAKE -- A granite-countertop manufacturer dumped waste products into a local creek, an apparent violation of federal clean-water standards, a city environmental inspector reported.

The city hasn’t fined the company, Century Granite & Marble, but it was given a deadline to develop a plan to reconfigure its drainage system. The waste material is a fine dust, known as "stone silt," produced when granite is ground down, Christi Upton, Southlake’s environmental coordinator, said Tuesday. The material can cause the water to become cloudy and change the ecological composition of the creek, she said.

"This is unacceptable, as the city must take action to prevent such discharges," Upton wrote in an Oct. 20 letter to Bryan Sircely of Century Granite & Marble. "No wastewater discharges can be allowed to drain to the ground."

The creek on Texas 114 and Highland Street sits on a ridge and flows into a large local body of water. The creek is part of the Trinity River Watershed, portions of which are used as a drinking-water source for many in the Metroplex, Upton said.

In an e-mail in response to questions from the Star-Telegram, Sircely wrote that it was the first time the city has raised the issue. The company has been in business for five years, according to its Web site.

"We were completely unaware that changes were required with our water system," Sircely wrote Wednesday. "Past inspections did not raise any concerns with our water system. We are taking steps to immediately conform with the city of Southlake’s requests. We are completely committed to operating our business in accordance with the city and state requirements."

By year’s end, the company must have a discharge system in place that allows waste material to go directly into the city sewer system, records show.

Upton was alerted to the problem by city code inspectors who were drawn to the site several weeks ago. The site is littered with large pieces of granite.

The city is required to make such inspections, but not on a regular schedule, she said.

Clean-water standards prohibit any storm-water discharges or any discharge of pollutants or hazardous materials into rivers and other waterways. The city is expected to develop an ordinance next year that specifically prohibits illicit discharges, Upton said.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which regulates environmental hazards, did not get involved with the Century Granite case because the city was addressing it, officials said.

YAMIL BERARD, 817-685-3818

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BROCK -- Two weeks ago, Ralph Walker noticed that oak trees growing near his family-owned nursery were dying, but other nearby plants were still green.

"I thought it was odd," said Walker, who helps run Cole’s Plants, which has operated in the area for more than 50 years. "There were green trees and then trees with no leaves. I thought worms had started in on them."

Then he drove into standing salt water at about the same time he saw dead fish near a dry stock tank.

Walker immediately suspected that a nearby pipeline, owned by a subsidiary of XTO Energy that connects its gas wells to saltwater injection wells, had sprung a leak.

Walker and his relatives blame the leaking pipeline for killing about 300 trees and endangering at least 200 more. They also worry that the entire water table could be contaminated, though XTO has told them that tests on some water wells are negative.

On Friday, the Coles filed a lawsuit in Parker County against XTO and Barnett Gathering, the owner of the pipeline, alleging that a saltwater spill from a steel pipe had damaged their property, killing vegetation and contaminating soil and a stock tank.

Texas Railroad Commission reports from Oct. 31 and Nov. 5 indicate that there were several leaks in a 6-inch steel pipe and that the pollution is in an area 800 by 400 feet. The area has been partially excavated, and the operator is still searching for the "perimeters and depth" of the pollution, according to the report.

An attorney representing the Cole family, Jim Eggleston, questioned why the pipeline corroded after being underground for about three years.

"If there were five holes within 200 feet, what else has leaked out? That water is highly corrosive," Eggleston said.

Robert Wood, an attorney for XTO Energy, said he could not comment on the spill or how the company was handling cleanup efforts.

"I’m not authorized to comment on behalf of the company," he said.

Gary Simpson, a spokesman for XTO, did not return calls seeking comment.

Dirt removal

Eggleston estimated that since Oct. 30, the Cole family has lost 300-500 trees that grew on approximately 10 acres. There are 200 trees marked with orange ribbons, meaning they will be removed, he said.

Since the leak was discovered, bulldozers and semi trucks are a common sight, with XTO removing piles of dirt the size of houses to determine how far the contamination spread, Eggleston said.

According to the lawsuit, approximately 3,000 cubic yards of soil have been removed.

Now, the Coles and their neighbors worry that the water table, which is around 100 feet underground, could be contaminated, despite assurances from XTO that the water wells have not been affected.

Eggleston said if the water table is contaminated, the nursery business will be lost.

Rows of greenhouses filled with pansies and other bedding plants are about 150 feet from the area where soil is being removed. Sprinklers irrigate the plants with well water.

Eggleston said there is no guarantee that the water table isn’t contaminated.

BEIJING — China faces a new problem with the tainted milk that has sickened babies and battered public confidence: How to get rid of the toxic stuff.

It has been burned, buried and mixed into coal. One trash-hauling company dumped a load into a river, turning the waters a frothy white and raising fears about the safety of the drinking water.

Tens of thousands of tons of milk laced with melamine, a chemical used in making fertilizer and plastics, have been pulled from shelves and warehouses since September, and local governments now face the huge and costly problem of safely disposing of it.

The Health Ministry has not said what quantity of impure dairy products was recalled or how much has been destroyed.

But last month alone, more than 32,000 tons — enough to fill about 23 Olympic-size pools — were disposed of in a single province, Hebei, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

At a factory in Guangzhou, tons of contaminated milk powder were incinerated in 3,000-degree heat.

"All the remaining substance will be put into cement," said Wang Fan, director of Guangzhou’s food safety office. "I can guarantee that our disposal process meets the national environmental protection requirements. It will not harm people’s health."

China has gotten generally good marks so far from scientists and environmentalists in its efforts to dispose of the adulterated milk. It has issued new guidelines on how to destroy the tainted products. They recommend burning the milk in large-capacity incinerators or, if such facilities aren’t available, burying small amounts in landfills, as long as local environmental bureaus approve.

Burning or burying breaks down melamine and neutralizes its toxicity, said Peter Ben Embarek, a Geneva-based scientist at the World Health Organization’s food safety department.

At the Jinniu Energy Co. in Hebei’s Xingtai city, some 1,200 tons of milk powder were incinerated in fiery blasts of over 1,800-degree heat over the past month.

"The furnace is totally sealed and there is no smoke or smell at all," said Wang Jian, a company administrator.

There have been violations. In Guangzhou, the local government took over responsibility for disposal after one garbage company poured milk into a city river, said Wang, the food safety official. He declined to name the company but said it was fined $29,000.

"We could see white foam on the water’s surface," the local Yangcheng Evening News reported. "If you stood close by, you could smell the sweet fragrance of the milk."

BROCK — Two weeks ago, Ralph Walker noticed that oak trees growing near his family-owned nursery were dying, but other nearby plants were still green.

"I thought it was odd," said Walker, who helps run Cole’s Plants, which has operated in the area for more than 50 years. "There were green trees and then trees with no leaves. I thought worms had started in on them."

Then he drove into standing saltwater at about the same time he saw dead fish near a dry stock tank.

Walker immediately suspected that a nearby pipeline, owned by a subsidiary of XTO Energy that connects its gas wells to saltwater injection wells, had sprung a leak.

Walker and his relatives blame the leaking pipeline for killing about 300 trees and endangering at least 200 more. They also worry that the entire water table could be contaminated, though XTO has told them that tests on some water wells are negative.

On Friday, the Coles filed a lawsuit in Parker County against XTO and Barnett Gathering, the owner of the pipeline, alleging that a saltwater spill from a steel pipe had damaged their property, killing vegetation and contaminating soil and a stock tank.

Texas Railroad Commission reports from Oct. 31 and Nov. 5 indicate that there were several leaks in a 6-inch steel pipe and that the pollution is in an area 800 by 400 feet. The area has been partially excavated, and the operator is still searching for the "perimeters and depth" of the pollution, according to the report.

An attorney representing the Cole family, Jim Eggleston, questioned why the pipeline corroded after being underground for about three years.

"If there were five holes within 200 feet, what else has leaked out? That water is highly corrosive," Eggleston said.

Robert Wood, an attorney for XTO Energy, said he could not comment on the spill or how the company was handling cleanup efforts.

"I’m not authorized to comment on behalf of the company," he said.

Gary Simpson, a spokesman for XTO, did not return calls seeking comment.

Dirt removal

Eggleston estimated that since Oct. 30, the Cole family has lost 300 to 500 trees on about 10 acres. There are 200 trees marked with ribbons to be removed, he said.

Since the leak was discovered, bulldozers and semi trucks are a common sight, with XTO removing piles of dirt the size of houses to determine how far the contamination spread, Eggleston said.

According to the lawsuit, approximately 3,000 cubic yards of soil have been removed.

Now, the Coles and their neighbors worry that the water table, which is around 100 feet underground, could be contaminated, despite assurances from XTO that the water wells have not been affected.

Eggleston said that if the water table is contaminated, the nursery business will be lost.

Rows of greenhouses filled with pansies and other bedding plants are about 150 feet from the area where soil is being removed. Sprinklers irrigate the plants with well water.

Eggleston said there is no guarantee that the water table isn’t contaminated.

WASHINGTON — Should preschool be more about ABCs or learning to play with others? Scientists have found that youngsters do better if they do both, according to a new study.

The study looked at Head Start programs in Pennsylvania and has research implications for preschools and parents.

Four-year-olds are lovable but self-centered, impulsive and prone to meltdowns. Teaching them not to hit a classmate who snatches a toy is a big part of preschool socialization.

But growing awareness that early learning is important to future school achievement has put more pressure on preschool’s academic side, especially efforts to eliminate achievement gaps between low-income and wealthier students.

Both skills are intertwined, said Penn State University psychology professor Karen Bierman, who led the study.

"If preschools focus just on the facts — let’s just get the letter knowledge in, let’s just get the number knowledge in — they’re really missing the engine that’s going to drive the desire and motivation for learning," she said.

To prove the relationship, Penn State researchers turned to Head Start, the federal preschool program for poor children. With funding from the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies, they divided 44 Head Start classrooms with about 350 4-year-olds. Half taught a traditional Head Start curriculum.

The other half added to their traditional teaching a program called REDI Head Start that included weekly special social lessons.

By year’s end, preschoolers given enriched instruction scored higher on tests of social and academic school readiness, Bierman reported Friday in the journal Child Development.

Seventy percent of kids in the enriched classes showed little or no disruptive behavior, compared with 56 percent in the regular classes. Twelve percent of the enriched students struggled to focus on academic tasks, compared with 21 percent in regular classes.

If preschools focus just on the facts . . . they’re really missing the engine that’s going to drive the desire and motivation for learning."

Karen Bierman
of Penn State University