Alison Sweeney on Making Healthier Choices: ‘Your Mindset Is 90% of the Battle’

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Between hosting The Biggest Loser , starring in new movies for the Hallmark Channel, and directing episodes of General Hospital, it may not seem like Alison Sweeney has a ton of free time. But since leaving Days of Our Lives (and her character, Sami Brady) behind after 21 years, Sweeney is happily embracing the extra space in her schedule. Her time on The Biggest Loser also means she’s a wealth of knowledge on living a healthy lifestyle.

Here are three things she’s learned.

Commit to wellness

Sweeney’s been open about struggling to lose weight and keep it off, so she’s very aware of the challenges of making a lifestyle change. “It’s an evolving process,” she told Health. “You have to constantly recommit to wanting to be healthy and to make healthy choices for yourself. I think your psychology and mindset are 90% of this battle.”

Sweeney says that even if you have an army of people trying to help, you won’t see results if you yourself aren’t invested. “If you are not committed to being healthy, no matter how many tips people give you it’s never going to work,” she said. “You have to make that choice, it’s like having a good marriage. You have to choose every day, ‘I want this. I want this to succeed and I’m going to work for it.’ You have to want that for yourself, no one can want your health for you more than you do.”

RELATED: 8 Workout Moves With Alison Sweeney

Expand your definition of a workout

Good news for people who can’t stand a sweaty spin studio—Sweeney says more things than hardcore cardio sessions can count as workouts. “I think fitness should be all of the above,” she said. “You should find all kinds of things you want to do, whether it’s taking yourself really seriously and gunning for a prize or a ribbon or hiking a mountain you want to climb or just trying something new and being silly.”

With her new schedule, Sweeney is taking her own advice to heart. “I’m really allowing my fitness to be a way to enjoy life and just be really outdoorsy and athletic,” she said. “And I love that I can be strong enough to hold up my daughter when we go ice skating together, that I can have the confidence and the strength in my own body to support her.

“So she’s two years old and she can throw herself around the ice and I’m like, ‘I got you!’ And that makes me feel really good and proud, and in some ways I feel like it’s all for that. All the workouts paid off in that moment.”

RELATED: Alison Sweeney’s 30-Day Body Makeover

Trust your instincts

As a former soap star, Sweeney certainly understands hectic schedules. So if you’re feeling burned out from your workouts, know when to take a break. “Sometimes the healthy choice for you is to actually sit down, relax, take a nap. And certainly, when I was working both jobs there were some days that the better choice for me was to get more sleep—which is such an important part of health anyway—and not work out that day.”

But beware of swapping too many bootcamp classes for Gilmore Girls marathons. “You have to be honest with yourself about how many days in a row have you done that, but it’s trusting your instinct. If you’re committed to your own health and you know that in your gut, then you can really take your instincts and follow them.”

RELATED: 10 Ways to Lead a More Balanced Life

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More Evidence That Boxing Can Lead to Brain Damage

THURSDAY, Jan. 29, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Another study supports the notion that repeated blows to the head in boxing or the martial arts can damage the brain.

The study, led by Dr. Charles Bernick of the Cleveland Clinic, included professional fighters — 93 boxers and 131 mixed martial arts experts. They ranged in age from 18 to 44, and were compared against 22 people of similar age with no history of head injuries.

The amount of time the boxers and martial arts combatants had spent as professional fighters ranged from zero to 24 years, with an average of four years, Bernick’s team said. The number of professional matches they’d had ranged from zero to 101, with an average of 10 a year.

MRI brain scans and tests of memory, reaction time and other intellectual abilities showed that the fighters who had suffered repeated blows to the head had smaller brain volume and slower processing speeds, compared to non-fighters.

While the study couldn’t prove cause-and-effect, the effects were evident at a relatively young age and tied to a higher risk of thinking and memory problems, the Cleveland researchers said.

The more fights, the worse the outcomes for the brain, the study found. Gauging the number of fights a boxer or martial arts expert had engaged in, Bernick’s team came up with a “Fight Exposure Score.” They found that the higher the score, the lower the volume of certain brain structures, and the poorer the person’s performance in “brain processing speed.”

The boxers tended to fare worst: They had smaller brain volume and tested as mentally slower compared martial arts fighters, according to the study published online Jan. 29 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

“Perhaps the most obvious explanation is that boxers get hit in the head more,” the researchers wrote. “In addition to trying to concuss (i.e. knock out) their opponent, martial arts fighters can utilize other combat skills such as wrestling and jiu jitsu to win their match by submission without causing a concussion,” they added.

More information

The American Academy of Family Physicians has more about concussion.

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Tamiflu Cuts 1 Day Off Average Flu Bout, Study Finds

THURSDAY, Jan. 29, 2015 (HealthDay News) — A review of the data suggests that the antiviral drug Tamiflu shortens the length of flu symptoms by about a day, and reduces the risk of flu-related complications such as pneumonia.

The findings come from an analysis of nine published and unpublished randomized clinical trials of Tamiflu (oseltamivir) in adults. The data was provided to the researchers by Tamiflu’s maker, Roche.

The studies compared the effectiveness of the licensed 75-milligram dose of Tamiflu against a placebo in more than 4,300 adults who had the flu between 1997 and 2001.

In patients with laboratory-confirmed flu, Tamiflu shorted the length of flu symptoms by 21 percent compared with the placebo, shortening the average flu bout from about five days to four.

Compared to flu sufferers who took the placebo, patients who took Tamiflu also had a 44 percent lower risk of lower respiratory infections requiring antibiotics and a 63 percent lower risk of hospitalization for any cause.

One expert said the study was important.

“This type of confirmatory data is great to see,” said Victoria Richards, associate professor of medical sciences at the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn.

“It has often been stated that Tamiflu reduces the length of the flu, but to have more data, especially independent data, to back up the statement is critical for appropriate prescribing and usage,” she said. “Moreover, reducing the risk of bacterial infections is encouraging.”

Still, every medicine has its risks and that was true for Tamiflu, as well. The study found that patients who took Tamiflu were 3.7 percent more likely to experience nausea and 4.7 percent more likely to have vomiting than those who took a placebo.

The study, published online Jan. 29 in The Lancet, was funded by the Multiparty Group for Advice on Science foundation, an independent panel of experts.

Tamiflu’s safety and effectiveness “has been hotly debated, with some researchers claiming there is little evidence that [Tamiflu] works,” study co-leader Arnold Monto, professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, noted in a journal news release.

But the new data review gives “compelling evidence” the drug does reduce flu duration while preventing complications, he said. However, “whether the magnitude of these benefits outweigh the harms of nausea and vomiting needs careful consideration,” Monto added.

Dr. Ambreen Khalil is an infectious disease specialist at Staten Island University Hospital in New York City. She said that any drug that can ease a bout of flu is welcome because “symptoms associated with influenza can be severe, and influenza infection predisposes some people to develop secondary infections such as pneumonia.”

Khalil said that testing patients to quickly confirm influenza is also key and can “help limit the use of Tamiflu to those who have confirmed diagnosis.”

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about flu antiviral drugs.

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More Measles Cases Seen in January Than in Typical Year: CDC

By Dennis Thompson

HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Jan. 29, 2015 (HealthDay News) — The United States has seen more cases of measles in January than it usually does in an entire year, federal health officials said Thursday.

A total of 84 cases in 14 states were reported between Jan. 1 and Jan. 28, Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during an afternoon news conference.

That’s more in one month than the average 60 measles cases each year that the United States saw between 2001 and 2010, said Schuchat, who is also Assistant Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health Service.

“It’s only January, and we’ve already had a very large number of measles cases — as many cases as we have all year in typical years,” she said. “This worries me, and I want to do everything possible to prevent measles from getting a foothold in the United States and becoming endemic again.”

January’s numbers have been driven largely by the multi-state measles outbreak that originated in two Disney theme parks in California in December, Schuchat said.

There have been 67 cases of Disney-related measles reported since late December, occurring in California and six other states, she said. Of those, 56 are included in the January count. About 15 percent of those infected have been hospitalized, she added.

Schuchat pointed the finger directly at a lack of vaccination for the Disney cases.

“The majority of the adults and children that are reported to us for which we have information did not get vaccinated, or don’t know whether they have been vaccinated,” she said. “This is not a problem of the measles vaccine not working. This is a problem of the measles vaccine not being used.”

Public health officials are particularly concerned because the Disney outbreak comes on the heels of the worst year for measles in the United States in two decades, Schuchat said.

In 2014, there were more than 600 cases of measles, the most reported in 20 years. Many were people who contracted measles from travelers to the Philippines, where a massive outbreak of 50,000 cases had occurred, Schuchat explained.

The United States declared measles eliminated in 2000, meaning that the virus is no longer native to this country.

But measles still rages abroad, and can re-enter the United States to infect vulnerable people through travelers, Schuchat noted.

“Although we aren’t sure how exactly this year’s outbreak began, we assume that someone got infected with measles overseas, visited the Disneyland parks and spread the disease to others,” she said.

The CDC estimates there are about 20 million cases of measles worldwide each year, and in 2013 almost 146,000 people died from the highly infectious disease, Schuchat said. For every 1,000 children who get measles, two to three die, she added.

Parents whose children are not vaccinated against measles should get them immunized, she said, and adults who aren’t sure about their vaccination history should get a booster dose as well.

“For adults out there, if you’re not sure if you’ve had measles vaccine or not, we’d urge you to contact your doctor or nurse and get vaccinated,” Schuchat said. “There’s no harm in getting another MMR vaccine if you’ve already been vaccinated.”

A trickle of measles cases have always flowed into the United States as a result of travel between countries. In January, doctors have seen cases here linked to travel to Indonesia, Azerbaijan, India and Dubai, Schuchat said.

Measles is incredibly infectious, even more so than Ebola, officials explained.

“It’s so contagious that if one person has it, 90 percent of the people close to that person who aren’t immune will also become infected,” Schuchat said. “You can become infected by being in the same room as a person who has measles, even if that person already left the room, because the virus can hang around for a couple of hours.”

Unfortunately, many parents are not getting their children vaccinated against measles.

“These outbreaks the past couple of years have been much harder to control when the virus reaches communities where numbers of people have not been vaccinated,” Schuchat said.

More information

Visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for more on measles.

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People Think Expensive Drugs Work Better, Study Shows

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We’ve all heard of the placebo effect: just believing in the healing power of a pill is sometimes enough to make a person feel better, even when there’s not medicine inside. Now, a new study shows that when people take a drug believing it’s more expensive than it actually is, they tend to think the drug is working—even when it’s just a placebo.

In a study published in the journal Neurology , researchers told 12 people with Parkinson’s disease that they were receiving two variations of the same drug, but one was more expensive than the other. They were told that the study was meant to assess whether the two drugs were in fact similar in efficacy, and that one drug was $100 while the other was $1,500. Instead, the researchers gave them all saline solution, with no effect at all.

Before getting the drugs, everyone completed tests of their motor skills and had brain imaging performed. When given the saline injection, the patients were told that they were either getting the cheap or expensive shot first.

Interestingly, those who were told they were getting the expensive shot first improved their motor skills by 28%. In one of the exams, their motor skills shot up seven points with the expensive drug, but only three points on the cheap drug. Afterward, when everyone was told what actually happened in the study, eight people told the researchers that they had greater expectations for the expensive drug and were surprised by the the improvements they felt just by believing it would work better.

It’s possible that the people in the study experienced so a great placebo effect because receiving a placebo has been shown to increase the release of dopamine in the brain, and dopamine also impacts movement.

Though the authors acknowledge that they had to deceive the people in their study to get the results, they say that findings like theirs could one day help improve the quality of life for people with Parkinson’s. “The potentially large benefit of placebo, with or without price manipulations, is waiting to be untapped for patients with Parkinson’s disease as well as those with other neurologic and medical diseases,” they write.

This article originally appeared on Time.com.

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Early Birds May Catch the Worm, but Night Owls May Snatch the Win

By Amy Norton

HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Jan. 29, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Who’s going to win Sunday’s Super Bowl? It may depend, in part, on which team has the most “night owls,” a new study suggests.

The study found that athletes’ performance throughout a given day can range widely depending on whether they’re naturally early or late risers.

The night owls — who typically woke up around 10 a.m. — reached their athletic peak at night, while earlier risers were at their best in the early- to mid-afternoon, the researchers said.

The findings, published Jan. 29 in the journal Current Biology, might sound logical. But past studies, in various sports, have suggested that athletes usually perform best in the evening. What those studies didn’t account for, according to the researchers behind the new study, was athletes’ “circadian phenotype” — a fancy term for distinguishing morning larks from night owls.

These new findings could have “many practical implications,” said study co-author Roland Brandstaetter, a senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham, in England.

For one, athletes might be able to maximize their competitiveness by changing their sleep habits to fit their training or play schedules, he suggested.

“What athlete would say no, if they were given a way to increase their performance without the need for any pharmaceuticals?” Brandstaetter said. “All athletes have to follow specific regimes for their fitness, health, diet and psychology.”

Paying attention to the “body clock,” he added, just adds another layer to those regimens.

The study began with 121 young adults involved in competitive-level sports who all kept detailed diaries on their sleep/wake schedules, meals, training times and other daily habits.

From that group, the researchers picked 20 athletes — average age 20 — with comparable fitness levels, all in the same sport: field hockey. One-quarter of the study participants were naturally early birds, getting to bed by 11 p.m. and rising at 7 a.m.; one-quarter were more owlish, getting to bed later and rising around 10 a.m.; and half were somewhere in between — typically waking around 8 a.m.

The athletes then took a series of fitness tests, at six different points over the course of the day. Overall, the researchers found, early risers typically hit their peak around noon. The 8 a.m. crowd, meanwhile, peaked a bit later, in mid-afternoon.

The late risers took the longest to reach their top performance — not getting there till about 8 p.m. They also had the biggest variation in how well they performed across the day.

“Their whole physiology seems to be ‘phase shifted’ to a later time, as compared to the other two groups,” Brandstaetter said.

That includes a difference in the late risers’ cortisol fluctuations, he said. Cortisol is a hormone that, among other things, plays a role in muscle function.

But while the study showed clear differences in the three groups’ peak-performance times, it didn’t prove that trying to change an athlete’s natural sleep/wake tendencies will boost performance.

“You can’t infer that from this study,” said Dr. Safwan Badr, immediate past president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

To prove that would work, he said, researchers would have to do an “intervention” study where they recruited night owls or early birds and changed their sleep/wake cycles.

Plus, altering one’s body clock would be easier said than done, according to Badr. It could also get complicated, he noted, for athletes who have to travel to different time zones to compete.

“If you’re an East Coast team playing on the West Coast at night, you’re really at a disadvantage,” Badr said.

In fact, a 2013 study of National Football League teams found that since 1970, West Coast teams have had a major advantage over East Coast teams during night games.

Sunday’s Super Bowl will be played at 6:30 p.m. EST in Glendale, Arizona — which would seem to put the New England Patriots at a disadvantage against the Seattle Seahawks. Still, based on the new findings, the outcome might partly depend on the proportion of night owls on each team.

Brandstaetter acknowledged that this study does not prove that changing athletes’ body clocks improves their performance. But it’s a question his team is actively investigating.

For an elite athlete, any change that could enhance performance even a little could make a big difference, since seconds can separate medal winners from losers, Brandstaetter noted.

“The most important thing to consider here,” he said, “is that just getting up at a certain time on the day of the competition will not help if this time is different from internal biological time.”

Most people, of course, aren’t elite athletes. But Badr said it could be worthwhile for everyday exercisers to consider the time of day when they feel they’re at their best.

“That might help you enjoy physical activity more,” he said.

But when it comes to sleep, Badr said the most important thing — for all of us — is to get enough of it.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of General Medical Sciences has more on biological clocks and health.

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Too Much Alcohol at Midlife Raises Stroke Risk, Study Finds

By Dennis Thompson

HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Jan. 29, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Too much alcohol in middle age can increase your stroke risk as much as high blood pressure or diabetes, a new study suggests.

People who average more than two drinks a day have a 34 percent higher risk of stroke compared to those whose daily average amounts to less than half a drink, according to findings published Jan. 29 in the journal Stroke.

Researchers also found that people who drink heavily in their 50s and 60s tend to suffer strokes earlier in life than light drinkers or non-imbibers.

“Our study showed that drinking more than two drinks per day can shorten time to stroke by about five years,” said lead author Pavla Kadlecova, a statistician at St. Anne’s University Hospital International Clinical Research Center in the Czech Republic.

The enhanced stroke risk created by heavy drinking rivals the risk posed by high blood pressure or diabetes, the researchers concluded. By age 75, however, blood pressure and diabetes became better predictors of stroke.

The study involved 11,644 middle-aged Swedish twins who were followed in an attempt to examine the effect of genetics and lifestyle factors on risk of stroke.

Researchers analyzed results from a Swedish registry of same-sex twins who answered questionnaires between 1967 and 1970. By 2010, the registry yielded 43 years of follow-up, including hospital records and cause-of-death data.

Almost 30 percent of participants had a stroke. They were categorized as light, moderate, heavy or nondrinkers based on the questionnaires, and researchers compared the risk from alcohol and health risks such as high blood pressure, diabetes and smoking.

The researchers found that for heavy drinkers, alcohol produced a high risk of stroke in late middle age, starting at age 50. By comparison, light drinkers’ or nondrinkers’ stroke risk increased gradually with age.

Among identical twins, siblings who had a stroke drank more than their siblings who hadn’t had a stroke, suggesting that midlife drinking raises stroke risks regardless of genetics and early lifestyle, the researchers said.

Midlife heavy drinkers — those in their 50s and 60s — were likely to have a stroke five years earlier in life, irrespective of genetic and lifestyle factors, the study found.

The findings are consistent with national guidelines that recommend a maximum of two drinks a day for men and one for women, said Dr. Irene Katzan, a staff neurologist and director of the Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation at the Cleveland Clinic. That translates to a daily maximum of about 8 ounces of wine for a man and 4 ounces for a woman.

“It’s a nice study that corroborates what we’ve known about alcohol and stroke, and it corroborates the recommendations that are in the national guidelines,” Katzan said.

It’s not clear exactly how alcohol affects stroke risk, but some theories center on the fact that alcohol thins your blood. This could increase your risk of hemorrhagic stroke, in which a blood vessel breaks inside the brain, Katzan said.

“The more you drink, the more risk you have of bleeding in the brain,” she said.

At the same time, it’s also well-known that alcohol contributes to high blood pressure and can increase the chances of atrial fibrillation, two other health-related risk factors for stroke, she added.

“Who knows what combination of factors are at play in any particular person?” Katzan concluded.

People who imbibe should consider cutting back their intake if they are having two or more drinks a day on average, Katzan and Kadlecova said.

“It is okay to drink in moderation,” Katzan said. “The ideal is consuming less than two drinks per day for men, and for non-pregnant women the maximum should be no more than one drink per day.”

More information

For more on stroke risk factors, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Good Sleep Habits, Enforced Rules Help Kids Sleep: Study

THURSDAY, Jan. 29, 2015 (HealthDay News) — A regular bedtime and other sleep-related rules help children and teens get a good night’s sleep, a new study suggests.

“Good quality and sufficient sleep are vital for children,” study leader Orfeu Buxton, an associate professor of biobehavioral health at Penn State in College Park, Pa., said in a university news release.

“Just like a healthy diet and exercise, sleep is critical for children to stay healthy, grow, learn, do well in school, and function at their best,” Buxton added.

Researchers analyzed survey responses from more than 1,100 American parents or guardians of youngsters aged 6 to 17.

Even though most of the parents believed sleep was important, only 10 percent of the children and teens in the study got the recommended amount of sleep for their age group. For ages 6 to 11, the amount of recommended sleep is at least nine hours a night. It’s at least eight hours nightly for ages 12 to 17, according to the study.

Youngsters were more likely to get better and more sleep if they had a regular bedtime and rules such as limited caffeine consumption and no electronic devices on in the bedroom after bedtime, the researchers found.

“An important consequence of our modern-day, 24/7 society is that it is difficult for families — children and caregivers both — to get adequate sleep,” Buxton noted.

The findings were published in the Jan. 26 issue of the journal Sleep Health.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about sleep.

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Acne Gel Linked to Rare Side Effect, Doctors Warn

By Alan Mozes

HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Jan. 29, 2015 (HealthDay News) — For certain people, the acne treatment Aczone may be linked to a rare blood disorder, a new case study contends.

A 19-year-old woman who had used Aczone — the skin gel version of the drug dapsone — for a week developed a serious condition called methemoglobinemia.

The patient showed up at a Pittsburgh emergency room with a headache, shortness of breath, and blue lips and fingers. Her symptoms initially confounded her doctors.

Although she had applied a “pea-sized” amount of Aczone to her skin twice daily for seven days before seeking care, she never mentioned that when asked if was using any medications.

“We went over all her meds and herbal supplements,” said Dr. Greg Swartzentruber, a medical toxicology fellow at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. “And we couldn’t come up with a cause, even after interviewing her and her family. Aczone was just never mentioned.”

The young woman didn’t realize that “topical medicines can have systemic adverse effects, and she didn’t realize the importance of telling your doctor about everything you might be taking, including topicals,” he added.

The study authors noted that prior research has shown that dapsone pills, in very rare instances, can trigger methemoglobinemia, the abnormal production of a red blood cell protein that delivers oxygen throughout the body.

But the current case appears to be the first time that this condition has been associated with Aczone, the skin gel version of dapsone, they said.

Swartzentruber and his colleagues described the case in a letter in the Jan. 29 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dapsone pills, which were also used to treat leprosy, have been available for decades. The topical 5 percent gel version known as Aczone was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2005.

“It’s a very effective first- or second-line treatment for acne,” said Dr. Darrell Rigel, a clinical professor of dermatology with New York University Medical Center in New York City. “The medicine has actually been around since before World War II. It works, and anything you can apply topically to the skin is going to, by definition, be more locally targeted than an ingestible. So that’s good.”

The problem with this drug “is that whether taken orally or topically it can cause a serious reaction among certain people with a rare genetic defect that makes it impossible to metabolize properly,” he explained.

“The blood cells blow up, basically,” Rigel added. “The prevalence of this deficiency is very low. Maybe it affects less than 1 percent of the population, but those that have it can end up with serious problems.”

Rigel said the dermatologist who prescribes Aczone has a responsibility to always screen patients for this issue. “And patients have to know that when they’re asked to give their drug history they can’t forget their topicals,” he said.

On both points, Swartzentruber agreed. It wasn’t until the results of a urine test came back that doctors saw indications of dapsone, he said.

This case shows that even a skin product is absorbed, “and can still produce a serious reaction,” he added.

The young woman was successfully treated and released from the hospital after two days, he said.

Allergan, the maker of Aczone, commented on the findings in the same journal issue.

“Acquired methemoglobinemia is a rare complication after exposure to certain topical anesthetic agents and oral antibiotic agents, including oral dapsone, but was not seen in clinical trials of topical dapsone,” the company said.

“Although methemoglobinemia appears to be rarely associated with Aczone 5 percent gel, it has been listed as an adverse drug reaction in the Allergan reference safety materials in order to create awareness among patients and prescribers,” the drug maker continued.

A company spokeswoman declined further comment.

More information

There’s more on acne at the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

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Flu’s Grip on U.S. Starting to Weaken: CDC

By Steven Reinberg

HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Jan. 29, 2014 (HealthDay News) — After a rough start to the flu season, the number of infections seems to have peaked and is even starting to decline in many parts of the nation, federal health officials reported Thursday.

“We likely reached our highest level of activity and in many parts of the country we are starting to see flu activity decline,” said Dr. Michael Jhung, a medical officer in U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Influenza Division.

Jhung added, however, that flu remains widespread in much of the country.

As has been the case since the flu season began, the predominant type of flu continues to be an H3N2 strain, which is not a good match to this year’s vaccine. The majority of H3N2-related infections diagnosed so far — 65 percent — are “different from the strain in the vaccine,” he said.

The reason: the circulating H3N2 strain mutated after scientists settled last year on the makeup of this season’s flu shot.

This year’s flu season continues to hit children and the elderly hardest. And some children continue to die from flu. “That’s not surprising,” Jhung said, adding that 56 children have died from complications of flu.

In an average year, children’s deaths vary from as few as 30 to as many as 170 or more, CDC officials said.

Jhung thinks that over the next few weeks, as in other flu seasons, different flu strains — such as H1N1 — will likely become more common. “I expect to see some other strains circulating, but I don’t know how much,” he said.

That could be good news on the vaccine front. Right now, the flu vaccine is only about 23 percent effective, due to the mutated H3N2 strain. But, as other strains become more widespread, the vaccine’s effectiveness should increase, Jhung said.

Most years, flu vaccine effectiveness ranges from 10 percent to 60 percent, according to the CDC.

Twenty-three percent effectiveness means there’s some benefit — a little less flu among vaccinated people. Typically, flu is more common among the unvaccinated, but this year there’s been a lot of flu both in people who are vaccinated and in those who aren’t, CDC officials said.

Vaccine effectiveness is also related to the health of those getting the shot. Flu vaccine usually works best in young, healthy people, and is less effective in those 65 and older, the CDC said.

So far, this year’s shot has been most effective — 26 percent — for children 6 months old through 17 years. Older people have been getting less benefit — 12 percent effectiveness for those 18 to 49 years and 14 percent effectiveness for those 50 and older, according to the CDC.

Jhung said that all the data right now suggest that this flu season will be like the last H3N2 season — in 2012-13. “At the end of that season, we called it a ‘moderately severe’ season,” he said.

And even though it’s well into the flu season, Jhung said it’s not too late to get a flu shot. “It’s the first line of protection,” he said.

The CDC recommends that everyone 6 months and older get vaccinated. Vaccination can prevent some infections and reduce severe disease that can lead to hospitalization and death, the agency says.

Other ways to treat and prevent flu from spreading include early treatment with antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu and Relenza, and washing hands frequently and covering your mouth when coughing or sneezing.

As of the middle of January, all areas of the country reported flu activity at or above baseline levels. Twenty-three states and Puerto Rico experienced high activity. Ten states and New York City experienced moderate activity. Another 10 states reported low flu activity and seven states reported minimal activity, the CDC reported.

More information

For more on flu, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Diabetes Patients Lax With Meds If Diagnosed With Cancer, Study Finds

THURSDAY, Jan. 29, 2015 (HealthDay News) — People with diabetes are less likely to take their diabetes medications if they’ve been diagnosed with cancer, researchers report.

The new study included more than 16,000 diabetes patients, average age 68, taking drugs to lower their blood sugar. Of those patients, more than 3,200 were diagnosed with cancer.

“This study revealed that the medication adherence among users of [blood sugar-lowering drugs] was influenced by cancer diagnosis,” the researchers wrote.

“Although the impact of cancer was more pronounced among cancers with a worse prognosis and among those with more advanced cancer stages, the difference in prognosis associated with these cancers seemed to only partly explain the impact of cancer on medication adherence,” they added.

To determine the impact, the Dutch and Canadian researchers analyzed the patients’ medication possession ratio (MPR), which represents the amount of medication patients had in their possession over a certain period of time.

In this study, a 10 percent decline in MPR translated into three days a month where patients did not take their diabetes medications.

At the time of cancer diagnosis, there was an overall 6.3 percent drop in MPR, followed by a 0.20 percent monthly decline following a cancer diagnosis.

The researchers also found that MPR rose about 2 percent after a prostate cancer diagnosis and fell only 0.5 percent after a breast cancer diagnosis. Large drops in MPR occurred among patients with liver (35 percent), esophageal (19 percent), lung (15.2 percent), stomach and pancreatic cancers, as well as those with late-stage cancer (10.7 percent).

For each extra month after cancer diagnosis, the largest declines in MPR were seen in patients with pancreatic cancer (0.97 percent) and in those with late-stage cancer (0.64 percent).

The research was led by Marjolein Zanders, of the Netherlands Comprehensive Cancer Organization in Eindhoven, and Jeffrey Johnson, of the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. The findings were published Jan. 28 in the journal Diabetologia.

Cancer patients with diabetes are also much more likely to die than those without diabetes, and part of that might be explained by the decline in medication adherence, the researchers noted in a journal news release.

“In future studies, the reason for the decline in MPR needs to be further elucidated among the different cancer types — is it the patient who prioritizes the fight against cancer or the advice of the physician to stop the treatment?” they wrote.

More information

The American Academy of Family Physicians has more about diabetes.

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