Here are some recent tidbits and factoids that might be of interest.

• Women who live in polluted areas with poor air quality have babies with lower birthweights. This finding, according to researchers at Yale University should make it clear that air quality improvements are critical in protecting new born babies. Low birthweight equals poor health so it would behove us to work to make our cities healthier.
• According to a study done in the U.K., researchers found that women who had an early start to puberty were more likely to have obese children. While it is obvious to some of us that hormone disrupting chemicals in the environment are partly to blame, we also have to ensure that these high risk women are educated in the field of proper nutrition so that their children don’t become obese,
• When it comes to air quality, ethanol and gasoline are pretty much the same.  To this date, I can’t seem to wrap my brain around the whole ethanol is good for America mantra. It isn’t that efficient, takes a lot of fuel to make, and will cause food prices to go up as ethanol producing corn gets planted over a greater area. Bad politics following bad science is a sure fire way to a big mistake.
• In 2005, industrial and federal facilities in the United States released 4 billion pounds of chemicals into the environment, up 3 percent from the previous year or 117 million pounds more. This number explains why the present administration is so hell bent on not making some companies report their toxic releases. Not for business sake, but to hide the frightening numbers. Lead, a known neurotoxin, was added to our environment to the tune of 469 million pounds. Mercury, one of the deadliest poisons known, had 4.4 million pounds injected into our world by industry. Just think that only a few milligrams can spell disaster for a person and we are talking in the millions of pounds.
• Polyphenols found in green tea, may have negative side effects when taken in large quantities. Taking 10 cups or the equivalent as a supplement form of green tea is the limit. Too much of a good thing can be bad for you in this case.
• Every mother knows them and dreads them, the infamous baby growth chart. Ub a review published by the New Scientist, those charts may have been flawed, causing mothers to overfeed their children thereby leading to an increased risk of obesity.  Oops. According to Laurence Grummer-Strawn of the Center for Disease Control, “rapid growth in infancy has been shown to be associated with increased obesity.” My tip to mothers, dump the charts and watch your baby, if they look healthy and not emaciated, they are probably fine. To pediatricians, do the same.