Chicago Woman Loses 135 Pounds to Give Her Brother a Kidney

Digital Vision/Thinkstock(CHICAGO) -- Kari Roberts always wanted to lose weight, but a powerful motivation finally helped her succeed: She needed to be healthy enough to give her brother a kidney.

Roberts, 35, of Crestwood, Ill., a Chicago suburb, weighed 320 pounds three years ago when her brother, Tony Bolda, learned he had a serious kidney disorder. She started trying to lose weight as soon as she heard he needed a transplant because she couldn't even be tested to see if she was a match until she slimmed down.

"You have to be healthy to even be considered as a donor, so there was no question but to get up and do it," Roberts said.

Bolda, 40, has IgA nephropathy, an illness in which an antibody builds up and attacks the kidney, leading to kidney failure. He first realized something was wrong when his father checked his blood pressure with a home machine and it was sky-high.

"I was scared for him, I was real scared for him," Roberts said, adding that she and Bolda are the closest siblings in the family.

Their two other sisters both had medical issues that ruled them out as potential donors. "It felt silly to not be able to help him because I was overweight," she said.

Her brother knew she could do it: "I have faith in her," he said.

Roberts' biggest helpers were her mom Marty Bolda and her MP3 player. "My mom…would get excited every time I lost a few more pounds," she said.

Roberts followed a strict low-fat diet with lots of chicken, chicken tacos and salads. "My mom found the most ways to make chicken taste different," Roberts said, laughing.

Roberts, a working mother of three, loves music and found it helped her keep to an exercise routine. "I would put music into my MP3 player every couple of days to keep myself motivated, to make me want to get out there and work out," she said.

She started out walking a mile a day and worked up to three miles a day.

"I think it's really cool that she was able to do it without all those crazy fad diets and all that....She did it by eating well and hard work," Bolda said.

The weight loss was necessary, according to Dr. R. Michael Hofmann, medical director of the Living Kidney Donor Program at the University of Wisconsin Hospital, because of the potential risk to Roberts, not her brother.

"The more a person is overweight or obese, the greater the chance they have of developing high blood pressure or diabetes," said Hofmann, who is not involved in this specific case. "Having one kidney instead of two, you're at a little more risk" if you develop those conditions, he said.

Most centers would turn down potential living donors who have BMI (body mass index) greater than 35, he said.

In April, Roberts was in good enough shape to be tested to see if she was a match. Waiting for the results, she called every couple of days. "They called me one day and said Kari, 'You're a match and not only are you a match, but you're a perfect match.'"

His surgery is scheduled to take place shortly at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Both brother and sister are keeping fingers crossed that there is no rejection of the transplanted kidney and that both bounce back quickly.

The chance of rejection is low, Hofmann said. About 98 percent of transplanted kidneys will be working a year later if it's a first-time transplant, he said.

But he cautioned that Roberts should be aware that her weight loss needs to be maintained for her lifelong health. "We do have people who have been able to lose weight [to be donors]," he said, "but more than 80 percent will gain weight back."

Roberts is feeling optimistic about her long-term health, and her brother's. "Everybody keeps telling me that they think I'm great for saving him, but in reality I think we saved each other," Roberts said.

As for naming her weight-loss regime, she suggested, "the inspiration diet."

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Affordable Care Act Credited with Reducing Ranks of Young Uninsured

Stockbyte/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- President Obama’s 2010 overhaul of the nation’s health insurance system appears to have helped significantly reduce the number of uninsured American young adults, according to a new Gallup survey and U.S. Census data.

The percentage of 18- to 25-year-olds without health insurance dropped 3.6 points since the third quarter of 2010, when a key provision of the Affordable Care Act allowing many young adults to remain on their parents’ health plans first took effect, Gallup found.

Roughly one quarter -- 24.4 percent -- now report being uninsured, down from 28 percent late last year. The decline represents nearly one million more young adults who now have health insurance, according to official estimates based on the Gallup data.

“Going without coverage puts every young American just a car accident or surprise diagnosis away from a lifetime of medical debt or worse,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “The good news is today one million young adults are no longer living with that fear and uncertainty.”

The Gallup findings were corroborated by a separate U.S. Census analysis released earlier this month that also noted a decline in uninsured young adults and simultaneous increase in those with coverage. Both studies attributed the change to the Affordable Care Act.

Democrats and the White House have hailed the findings as evidence the controversial health care law is having a positive effect, despite popular skepticism of the law and a Republican-led campaign to repeal it.

Half of all Americans oppose the law, fearful of a perceived negative impact on the economy and federal deficit, a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found. Fewer -- just 37 percent -- said they favor repealing all or part of the law.

Some provisions, including the mandate allowing young adults under age 26 to remain on their parents’ health insurance and a ban on restrictions for preexisting conditions, remain popular.

Administration officials said Wednesday that an individual insurance mandate and other measures aimed at expanding insurance options would have the biggest impact on reducing the overall number of Americans without health insurance when they take effect in 2014 -- but they’re also among the most unpopular.

The mandate alone faces constitutional challenges in several ongoing cases that will likely reach the U.S. Supreme Court. Republicans have also vowed to do everything they can to hamstring implementation of that part of the law.

Nearly one in five Americans 25 to 64 years old does not have health insurance, according to Gallup -- that's roughly 30 million Americans.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Fukushima Fallout in California Waters: A Health Threat?

DigitalGlobe via Getty Images(BERKELEY, Calif.) -- The radioactive fallout from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant accident has spread as far as California waters, according to scientists from the University of California, Berkeley.

But although the level of radioactivity in the water was higher than normal, they said, it was still very low and not harmful to humans.

“The levels of fallout we have observed in San Francisco Bay area rain water pose[d] no health risk to the public,” wrote the study authors, led by Eric B. Norman of UC Berkeley’s Department of Nuclear Engineering.

The March earthquake and tsunami that rocked Japan compromised the nuclear plant, causing radioactive material to run into the surrounding waters.  Researchers subsequently found some of that same material in rainwater collected from the San Francisco Bay area.

Samples gathered between March 16 and March 26 showed abnormally high levels of radioactive elements. The levels were highest in samples collected on March 24, but after that the levels returned to normal.

“The levels in the rain water went down very quickly,” said Dr. Nagy Elsayyad, assistant professor of radiation oncology at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine.  “Even the water with the highest levels would be safe. It’s impossible to ingest the amount of water it would take for the radioactivity to be harmful.”

Additionally, he said, people don’t generally drink rainwater.

Scientists also found radioactive material in samples of weeds, vegetables and milk sold in the area, but those levels were also very low.

While people have no reason to fear these findings, Elsayyad understands why people worry when they hear about elevated levels of radiation. The health effects of being exposed to radiation can be very serious, and include organ damage and cancer.

“It’s deeply ingrained in our culture that radiation is harmful,” he said. ”I wouldn’t blame people for being worried, but it’s important to make it clear that these results show the water is safe.”

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Forty-Six Mothers Shave Their Heads for Childhood Cancer Awareness

46 Mommas(WASHINGTON) -- When 10-year-old David Heard succumbed to cancer last winter after a two-year fight, he wrote a list of things he wanted his mother, Susan, to complete for him after he was gone. Wednesday evening, as his mother sits in a barber’s chair on a podium in Washington’s Union Square, she’ll strike from the list one of David’s items: Shave your head for cancer awareness.

“By shaving my head, I’m really fulfilling a promise I made to him,” Heard told ABC.

Susan Heard, along with 45 other mothers of children with cancer, will shed their locks as part of Shave for the Brave, an event run by 46 Mommas, an advocacy group for childhood cancer, and St. Baldrick’s Conquer Kids Cancer.

The group 46 Mommas, which takes its name from the fact that each weekday an average of 46 mothers across the U.S. will hear the diagnosis “Your child has cancer,” meets in D.C this week to bring awareness to childhood cancer and to offer support to the 2nd Annual Childhood Cancer Summit. 

The women are also in Washington on behalf of the Creating Hope Act, which they will present to the Congressional Pediatric Cancer Caucus on Friday.  The act would create incentives for pharmaceutical companies to develop childhood cancer treatments.

“The biggest obstacle with treating childhood cancer is there’s so many different types of cancer that the pool of patients is so small for each. It’s hard to do research when there are so few kids out there to test new therapies on, and the research interest is low because pharmaceutical companies are really not interested in investing in a drug that can’t be mass marketed,” says Heard.

Only 650 children are diagnosed each year with neuroblastoma, the cancer Heard’s son David had.  Even though each type of cancer may have a relatively small pool when compared with some adult cancers, the overall number of children with cancer is much higher.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Can Fish Oil Lower Suicide Rates?

Design Pics / Michael Interisano/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- Could a component in fish oil help lower the high rates of suicide in soldiers? While it’s still too early to tell, the Army seems interested in finding out.

As detailed in an article in USA Today, researchers from the National Institutes of Health measured the blood levels of the omega-3 fatty acid known as docosahexaenoic acid (DHA for short) in two groups of military personnel: those who had committed suicide, and those who had not.

What they found was that, among men in the service, those who had low DHA levels were 62 percent more likely to have committed suicide. The findings were published last month in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

The authors stopped short of suggesting that using fish oil supplements would necessarily cut military suicide rates, and they emphasize that more research is needed before passing out omega-3s can be considered an effective approach.

Last year, 159 active duty military servicemembers killed themselves — a downtick from the record high of 162 such suicides in 2009. But more National Guardsmen and Army reservists are committing suicide too, with 145 killing themselves last year.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

STD Testing Hits L.A. Streets, Free for Women

L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas(LOS ANGELES) -- Sexual health clinics are hitting the streets in South Los Angeles, where women can now pick up home tests for chlamydia and gonorrhea from kiosks and a mobile health van.

The program, launched by L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, aims to curb the city’s troubling rise in sexually transmitted diseases. L.A. leads the nation in the number of chlamydia cases, and has the second-highest number of gonorrhea cases, most of them centered in the city’s south end.

“Unfortunately, these infectious diseases are at unacceptable levels and are increasing, particularly among young African-American women,” Ridley-Thomas said in a statement. “These are our mothers, our sisters, our daughters who are suffering from the health consequences of these STDs, and we cannot let them go untreated. Families depend upon them, communities depend upon them, but you can’t treat what you don’t know exists.”

The kiosks and van are an extension of the ongoing “I Know” initiative to raise STD awareness and increase testing. Until now, “I Know” provided free testing kits that could be ordered via mobile phones and the Web. In its first year, 2,927 kits were ordered and 1,543 testable swabs were returned, 131 came back positive for chlamydia or gonorrhea.

Chlamydia and gonorrhea are the most common infectious diseases in the U.S., affecting more than 1.5 million people — mostly women. When detected, the diseases are curable. But they can cause serious health complications, including sterility, if left untreated.

“Easy diagnostic testing and effective single-dose treatments mean there is no reason for anyone now to suffer infertility, tubal pregnancy, complications for newborns, or other serious long-term consequences of these unnecessarily common STDs,” L.A. County health officer Dr. Jonathan Fielding said in a statement.

Fielding added that most cases of chlamydia and gonorrhea are symptomless, and that regular screening is the only effective way to stop their spread.

The “I Know” kit and subsequent lab tests cost $26. But L.A. women will get it for free.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Health Canada Panel Takes Aim at Energy Drinks

PRNewsFoto/Red Bull GmbH(OTTAWA, Ontario) --  An expert panel for Health Canada has targeted energy drinks in a report saying that drinks such as Red Bull, Rockstar and Monster should actually be renamed “stimulant drug containing drinks” and should only be sold under the direct supervision of a pharmacist.

According to Postmedia News the panel’s report makes the argument that these energy drinks should be under stricter control, especially when taking into consideration the ease with which young people can purchase the caffeinated beverages.

The panel aims to make give a clear signal to the general public that these drinks are in fact “drug products,” and not “foods.”

The panel’s recommendations were presented to the government almost a year ago, but have been running into opposition from the beverage industry. If these recommendations were be enacted, this would set an international precedent for energy drink regulation, something that the Health Minister, Leona Aglukkaq, would be expected to defend on the world stage.

The panel proposes that energy drinks be classified under the National Association of Pharmay Regulatory Authorities as a “Schedule III.” This label is attributed to drugs without prescription, but that are sold on pharmacy shelves and purchased under “direct supervision of the pharmacist.” The panel urges that energy drinks be distributed as drugs are, but in a beverage format.

In addition to the change in distribution protocol and naming specifics, the panel also suggests that the drinks carry labels stating that serious adverse effects, including death, can occur.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Report Urges FDA to Ban BPA in Food, Beverage Containers

Hemera Technologies/Thinkstock(SAN FRANCISCO) -- An advocacy group committed to exposing and eliminating environmental risks for breast cancer has taken aim at canned foods popular among kids, reheating the debate on bisphenol A.

A new report from the Breast Cancer Fund reveals 12 canned soups and pastas found to contain BPA -- an estrogen-like chemical -- raising concern among experts for its potential health effects in children, infants and fetuses.

Topping the list was Campbell's Disney Princess Cool Shapes with 148 parts per billion.  The average level across all 12 cans was 49 parts per billion.

"The findings of this report outline the urgent need to remove BPA from food packaging -- a major source of exposure to this toxic hormone disruptor -- especially in foods marketed to children," the report states.

BPA, a key ingredient in hard plastics and resins used to coat metal cans, made headlines in 2008 when it was shown to leach out of plastic when heated.  The Canadian government responded by banning the chemical from baby bottles.  In the United States, the federal government has not followed suit, but several local governments have and leading U.S. baby bottle manufacturers went BPA-free voluntarily.  But the chemical continues to line the country's cans.

"I think they're definitely right in trying to get this chemical out of canned foods," said Dr. John Spangler, professor of family and community medicine at Wake Forest School of Medicine.  "We can't do anything about past exposures but we can do something about current exposures."

When it comes to the health effects of BPA, the jury's still out, according to the World Health Organization.  Laboratory studies in cells and animals have linked the chemical to cancer, infertility, diabetes and obesity.  But the consequences of chronic exposure in humans remain unclear.  Nevertheless, many experts and parents err on the side of caution.

"There are things we can do to minimize our exposure to BPA," Spangler said.  "We can use fresh or dried pasta and sauce in jars.  We can eat more fresh fruits and vegetables and fewer canned foods."

Spangler said he hopes the Breast Cancer Fund report persuades canned food manufacturers to look for alternatives to BPA.

But Campbell Soup Company spokesman Anthony Sanzio said the company is confident in the safety of its products.

"The overwhelming weight of scientific evidence shows that the use of BPA in can lining poses no threat to human health," he said.  "That being said, we understand that consumers may have concerns about it.  We're very aware of the debate and we're watching it intently."

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Anderson Cooper on Brother's Suicide: Grief Never Ends

Jordan Strauss/WireImage(NEW YORK) -- Anderson Cooper, whose 23-year-old brother Carter, a promising Princeton graduate, jumped from the family's penthouse balcony to his death nearly two decades ago, knows well the word that so disturbs grieving families -- "closure."

That, he said this week on his new syndicated daytime talk show, Anderson, is a "TV word."

For the first time publicly, Cooper, 44, openly talked with his 87-year-old mother, former fashion designer Gloria Vanderbilt, about the day in 1988 his troubled brother threw himself off the balcony of the family's 14th floor New York City penthouse.  At the time, Cooper was 21.

"There is this word 'closure' that they talk so much about today, but there's never closure on something that happens like that," said Vanderbilt.  "You never get over it, but you learn to live with it."

Cooper agreed as his eyes welled with tears as he interviewed his mother.

Suicide experts hailed the discussion as important for both survivors of suicide and its victims.

Lawrence Calhoun, a suicide expert and professor of psychology at University of North Carolina, Charlotte, said the public discussion of such a private death, "shows a combination of strength and the desire to have this difficult set of circumstances be helpful to others facing similar kinds of valleys of the shadow."

"When you think you have the loss of a beloved child -- he chose to end his life and I saw him do it," said Calhoun.  "And I was there and I did not have the superhuman capacity to prevent it.  That is a combination of poisons [that] I think would take down just about anybody.

"The fact that Miss Vanderbilt has resilience and courage to still keep living and to talk about it is remarkable," he said.

John Draper, executive director of The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline agreed that it was "brave" for mother and son to open old wounds.

"A lot of people don't want to talk about their pain," he said.  "There is a lot of stigma talking about it.  It took courage and strength to bare their souls in front of others and, in fact, help others."

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Fresno's Illegal Needle Exchange Program Booms Despite Law

Jupiterimages/Thinkstock(FRESNO, Calif.) -- For 15 years, Dr. Marc Lasher has been hitting the streets of Fresno, Calif., on Saturday mornings in a school bus-turned-medical clinic, collecting used syringes and handing out sterile ones to addicts who need them.

And that's only a piece of it.  Lasher and his volunteer staff also provide basic medical care to addicts who visit the bus, and give out referral information for detox and treatment centers in the area.

"Addicts have a very unique set of problems, and need a lot of medical care," said Lasher, who is an addiction specialist and medical director of Aegis methadone clinic.  "We act as a portal to the health care system for a population that has fallen off the edge of the world."

Prejudice and shame dissuade many addicts from receiving standard care, Lasher said, and his belief in providing compassionate and respectful care while attempting to curb the transmission of deadly bloodborne illnesses, including HIV and hepatitis C, is enough to keep his mission going, despite the roadblocks that he has experienced in recent days.

While the program is technically illegal because it provides drug paraphernalia to the public, three years ago, Lasher and his crew struck a deal with Fresno government officials that allowed the needle exchange program to receive immunity from drug paraphernalia laws and provide care to addicts who needed it.

They have been able to provide care to addicts largely unbothered by police or government, but two weeks ago, the city officials withdrew their support of the traveling medical clinic.

"It's a philosophical question whether to give someone the tools to continue an illegal behavior," board supervisor Judy Case told the Fresno Bee.  "I just think providing needles to addicts is enabling."

Fresno has one of the largest injection drug user populations in the country, Lasher said, and the moral dilemma should not have a place in a decision to prevent HIV and hepatitis C.

"People are dying of HIV and hep C all the time," said Lasher.  "We can prevent that from happening.  We need to get the morals out of the way and present real health solutions and care about what's happening to these people."

Lasher is now seeking to override city government entirely.  Two new bills were presented to California Gov. Jerry Brown's office, and Brown has until Oct. 9 to sign or veto the bills, one of which would allow pharmacists and other medical personnel to hand out a limited amount of syringes without prescription.  The other would allow the California Department of Health to administer needle exchange programs when there is a potential public health risk, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio