HEALTH

BOCA RATON, Fla. — BSN Supplement on Friday announced the company has extended its endorsement deal and contract with fitness model Jennifer Nicole Lee through June 2013.

“BSN is proud to have Jennifer Nicole Lee on [its] roster of iconic living fitness legends, and is looking forward to two more years of having Jennifer Nicole Lee promote and endorse [its] amazing line of top-notch supplements,” the company stated.


It’s not often a niche brand manufacturer attempts to resuscitate what has been for years a commoditized category. But that’s exactly what Meda Consumer Healthcare will be attempting to do with iron — establish a good/better/best proposition to a supplemented category best defined as mediocre. For the 52 weeks ended April 16, mineral supplement sales were down 3.3% to $534 million across food, drug and mass (including Walmart), according to Nielsen Group data.


ABBOTT PARK, Ill. — Abbott on Friday introduced a new line of ZonePerfect Sweet & Salty nutrition bars. The new ZonePerfect cashew pretzel and trail mix bars combine sweet and salty flavor varieties while providing nutrition. ZonePerfect Sweet & Salty bars have 10 g of protein and 19 vitamins and minerals.

ATLANTA — Swimmer’s ear accounts for as many as 2.4 million doctor visits and nearly $500 million in healthcare costs annually, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report published Thursday in its "Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report" found.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Researchers at the University of Alabama in Birmingham found that controlling fat intake could help cut one's risk of developing diabetes.

To examine this, researchers divided 69 overweight nondiabetics, who were at risk for the disease, into two groups, placing the subjects on a diet with modest reductions in either fat or carbohydrate for eight weeks. The lower fat group received a diet comprised of 27% fat and 55% carbohydrate; the lower carbohydrate group's diet was 39% fat and 43% carbohydrate.

WASHINGTON — The Council for Responsible Nutrition on Thursday issued a statement regarding the growing controversy surrounding Lazy Cakes — a brownie containing melatonin, an ingredient that helps establish more normal sleeping patterns — that has been cited in a New York Times article as having “flagrantly mimic[ked] the soothing effects of hash brownies.”

Other published reports suggested the Arizona Department of Health issued a mandatory recall of Lazy Cakes following the report of an adverse event.

NEW YORK — Such mood disorders as anxiety and depression may be a precursor to diabetes in Latinos, according to a study by University of California at San Diego researchers scheduled for presentation at the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting in Honolulu.

As reported in the Los Angeles Times, the researchers found that while Latinos have higher-than-average rates of diabetes, they also seem to have higher-than-average risk of having both diabetes and a mood disorder.

CHICAGO — Theodore Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, allegedly is a suspect in the 1982 Tylenol poisonings in the Chicago area that killed seven people, according to published reports.

The Tylenol poisonings, in which someone placed potassium cyanide in with the pain relievers on store shelves, prompted the introduction of tamper-proof packaging for many over-the-counter medicines.