THIS ISSUE AVAILABLE ONLINE WITH EXPANDED INFORMATION AND PHOTOS AT:
http://www.hhs.gov/news/newsletter/weekly

IN THIS ISSUE:
1) President Signs Medicare Modernization Bill
2) 2003 Innovation in Prevention Awards
3) Science in the News
4) Physical Activity and Health
5) Secretary Thompson's Public Schedule:

President Signs Medicare Modernization Bill

President Bush signed the historic Medicare Modernization bill Dec. 8 that will grant Medicare beneficiaries more preventive health benefits and prescription drug coverage by 2006.

"We finally delivered for seniors," Secretary Thompson said. "Thanks to President Bush's bold leadership and an historic, bipartisan vote in Congress, we delivered the most significant improvement in health care for seniors in nearly 40 years. Seniors will now have access to modern medicine delivered in a modern way."

Some of the new benefits include the "welcome to Medicare" physical for all new beneficiaries beginning in 2005, and screening tests such as the cardiovascular and diabetes screening blood tests to diagnose patients early and educate them so they may take better care of themselves.

The prescription drug card will be available in late spring 2004 for all Medicare beneficiaries and will give immediate assistance to seniors for the cost of their medicines, a savings of 10 - 25 percent.

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2003 Innovation in Prevention Awards

Secretary Thompson is hosting the Innovation in Prevention Awards on December 10 in Washington, D.C. The awards are part of a broader initiative Steps to a HealthierUS that aims to decrease the rate of chronic disease and encourage Americans to live longer, healthier lives. The awardees will be announced at a press conference at the National Press Club, and will be celebrated at the Prevention Gala that evening.

The 2003 Secretary's Innovation in Prevention Awards will identify and celebrate outstanding organizations that have implemented innovative health promotion programs. To be considered, the organization must have developed a program that works to decrease risk factors that are proven to cause the following:

• Asthma
• Cancer
• Diabetes
• Heart Disease and Stroke
• Obesity
• Physical Inactivity
• Poor nutrition
• Tobacco use

The awardees were chosen by an independent expert panel and will be selected according to their program's creativity and innovation, leadership, sustainability, replicability and effectiveness. The eligibility is open to all non-profit, faith based and private organizations.

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Science in the News

Scientists who developed the first yeast model of Parkinson's disease (PD) have been able to describe the mechanisms of an important gene's role in the disease. Tiago Fleming Outeiro, Ph.D., and Susan Lindquist, Ph.D., of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, MA, studied the gene's actions under normal conditions and under abnormal conditions to learn how and when the gene's product, alpha-synuclein, becomes harmful to surrounding cells. The scientists created a yeast model that expresses the alpha-synuclein gene, which has been implicated in Parkinson's disease (PD). Yeast models are often used in the study of genetic diseases because they offer researchers a simple system that allows them to clarify how genes work.

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, part of the National Institutes of Health, funded the study, which appears in the December 5, 2003, issue of Science.

The alpha-synuclein protein, which is found broadly in the brain, has been implicated in several neurodegenerative disorders. Sometimes a mutation or a misfolding of the protein causes the problems; other times there are too many copies of the normal gene. A study earlier this year reported that patients with a rare familial form of PD had too many normal copies of the alpha-synuclein gene, which resulted in a buildup of protein inside brain cells, causing the symptoms of PD.

Drs. Outeiro and Lindquist conducted their study by creating one yeast that expresses wild type synuclein, using the normal gene, and another yeast that expresses two mutant forms, using a mutated version of the gene found in patients with PD.

One theory for the cause of PD is that an aging brain no longer has the capacity to cope with accumulating or misfolding proteins. A normal healthy brain has the ability to clear out excess or mutant proteins through a process known as the quality control system. In the yeast model of PD, when the scientists doubled the expression of the alpha-synuclein gene it "profoundly changed" the fate of the yeast's quality control system, and alpha-synuclein appeared in large clumps of cells (inclusion bodies). This did not happen when they studied the actions of a single copy of the wild type synuclein. These inclusion bodies have a toxic effect that causes cell death and neurodegeneration.

"Just a twofold difference in expression was sufficient to cause a catastrophic change in behavior," the scientists report in their paper.

"These changes may give insight into important changes that happen when alpha-synuclein is overexpressed in Parkinson's patients," said Diane Murphy, Ph.D., a program director at the NINDS. "Dr. Lindquist is well known for her studies of yeast models of prion disease, and we are delighted she has extended her research to the important field of Parkinson's disease."

PD is the second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer's disease and is thought to affect 500,000 Americans.

The NIH's National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke leads Federal efforts to conduct and support basic and clinical research on diseases of the brain and central nervous system. The agencies are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

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Personal Health

Physical Activity and Health

FACT SHEET

• Physical inactivity contributes to 300,000 preventable deaths a year in the United States. Some 40% of deaths in the United States are caused by behavior patterns that could be modified. A sedentary lifestyle is a major risk factor across the spectrum of preventable diseases that lower the quality of life and kill Americans.
• Significant health benefits can be obtained by including a moderate amount of physical activity (e.g., 30 minutes of brisk walking or raking leaves, 15 minutes of running, 45 minutes of playing volley- ball). Additional health benefits can be gained through greater amounts of physical activity.
• Physical activity has been identified as one of the Leading Health Indicators (LHI) in Healthy People 2010, the government's published health goals and objectives for the next decade.
• Moderate daily physical activity can reduce substantially the risk of developing or dying from cardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes, and certain cancers, such as colon cancer. Daily physical activity helps to lower blood pressure and cholesterol, helps prevent or retard osteoporosis, and helps reduce obesity, symptoms of anxiety and depression, and symptoms of arthritis.
• Cardiovascular disease (heart attacks, strokes) is the number one killer of men and women in the United States. Physically inactive people are twice as likely to develop coronary heart disease as regularly active people. The health risk posed by physical inactivity is almost as high as risk factors such as cigarette smoking, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.
• Nearly half of American adults (4 in 10) report that they are not active at all; 7 in 10 are not moderately active for the recommended 30 minutes a day, 5 or more days a week.
• Poor diet and inactivity can lead to overweight/obesity. Persons who are overweight or obese are at increased risk for high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea, respiratory problems and some types of cancer.
• Poor diet and inactivity can lead to diabetes. Seventeen million Americans have diabetes right now and 16 million more have pre- diabetes. Each year, there are 1 million new cases, and nearly 200,000 people die from diabetes. The cost to the economy is $100 billion annually in direct and indirect medical costs.
• The percentage of adults in the United States who were over- weight or obese (body mass index greater than 25) in 1999 was 61%. Overweight and obesity cuts across all ages, racial and ethnic groups, and both genders.
• Overweight among children and teens has doubled in the past two decades; 13% of children aged 6 to 11 years and 14% of adolescents aged 12 to 19 years were overweight in 1999. This prevalence has nearly tripled for adolescents in the past 2 decades.
• The cost of overweight and obesity to the economy is $117 billion annually in direct and indirect medical costs.
• The major barriers most people face when trying to increase physical activity are time, access to convenient facilities, and safe environments in which to be active.
• School-based and workplace based interventions have been shown to be successful in increasing physical activity levels.
• Childhood and adolescence are pivotal times for preventing sedentary behavior among adults by maintaining the habit of physical activity throughout the school years.
• Type 2 diabetes, once called "adult onset" diabetes, and high blood pressure, once thought to be age-related, are now diagnosed in children and teens.
• Physical activity among children and adolescents is important because of the related health benefits (cardio-respiratory function, blood pressure control, weight management, cognitive and emotional benefits).
• Only about one-half of U.S. young people (ages 12-21 years) regularly participate in vigorous physical activity. One-fourth reported no vigorous physical activity. About 14 percent report no recent vigorous or light-to-moderate activity.
• A physically active lifestyle adopted early in life may continue into adulthood. Even among children aged 3 and 4 years, those who were less active tended to remain less active than most of their peers after age 3 years. According to a study done by the National Association of Sports and Physical Education (NASPE), infants, toddlers, and pre-schoolers should engage in at least 60 minutes of physical activity daily and should not be sedentary for more than 60 minutes at a time except when sleeping.
• One quarter of U.S. children spend 4 hours or more watching television daily.
• Young people are at particular risk for becoming sedentary as they grow older. Encouraging moderate and vigorous physical activity among youth is important. Because children spend most of their time in school, the type and amount of physical activity encouraged in schools are important.
• Only 20 percent of students in grades 9 through 12 engaged in moderate physical activity for at least 30 minutes on 5 or more of the previous 7 days in 1997.
• Only 29 percent of students in grades 9 through 12 participated in daily school physical education in 1999, down from 42 percent in 1991.
• Only 17 percent of middle and junior high school and 2 percent of senior high schools require daily physical activity for all students.

This information is provided by the President's Council for Physical Fitness and Sports.

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Secretary Tommy G. Thompson's public schedule:

• Monday December 8
  Presidential signing of the Medicare bill
• Wednesday December 10
  1:00 Press Conference; National Press Club

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Last updated: December 8, 2003
United States Department of Health and Human Services
Contact the HHS Newsletter Team.