More Families Seek Kidney Donations on Facebook

Researchers unsure if social media is a safe, effective route to finding donorsBy Robert PreidtWednesday, May 30, 2012WEDNESDAY, May 30 (HealthDay News) -- More patients and families are using Facebook to seek kidney donations, but it's not clear if doing do improves the chances of obtaining a donor organ, a new study finds. Researchers from Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Ill., examined 91 Facebook pages that were seeking kidney donations for patients aged 2 to 69 and found that 12 percent of the pages reported receiving a kidney transplant and 30 percent reported that potential donors had come forward to be tested for compatibility. One page reported that more than 600 people had been tested as potential donors for a child, according to the study recently presented at a meeting of the National Kidney Foundation. On kidney solicitation pages where identities could be determined, the researchers found that 37 percent of the pages were created by patients, 31 percent by patient's children, and 32 percent by other family members or friends of patients. There was wide variation in the amount of personal information revealed on the pages. Some pages simply asked people to donate, without providing any other information. Other patients offered extensive details about patients who needed kidneys, including medical history, family photos and emotional stories about hospital stays, emergency room visits, financial problems and the difficulties of living on dialysis. White patients and those with more than 50 posts by other people were most likely to succeed in having people agree to be tested to determine if they were compatible to donate a kidney, said kidney specialist Dr. Alexander Chang, a nephrology fellow at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, and colleagues. They noted a number of ethical concerns. Three percent of the pages received offers to sell kidneys, mostly from people in Third World countries. Would-be donors typically asked for $30,000 to $40,000. Selling organs is illegal. Only 5 percent of the pages seeking donations mentioned the risks of kidney donations, and only 11 percent mentioned the associated costs. "Use of social media could be an effective way to solicit kidney donation, but more study is needed to determine how to do this safely and with enough knowledge to make informed decisions," Chang said in a Loyola news release.

Once-Obese Women Still Face Stigma, Study Finds 'Fat bias' may linger even after weight lossBy Robert PreidtWednesday, May 30, 2012 Women's Health WEDNESDAY, May 30 (HealthDay News) -- Even after they shed their excess pounds, formerly obese women still have to contend with "anti-fat prejudice," according to a new study. Researchers asked young women and men to read about women who had either lost 70 pounds of excess weight or had stayed the same weight (weight-stable), and who were either currently obese or currently thin. The participants were then asked about some of the women's attributes, including their attractiveness. "We were surprised to find that currently thin women were viewed differently depending on their weight history," study leader Janet Latner, of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, said in a news release from the University of Manchester, in England. "Those who had been obese in the past were perceived as less attractive than those who had always been thin, despite having identical height and weight." The participants also showed greater bias against obese people after they had read about women who had lost weight, compared to after reading about weight-stable women -- regardless of whether the weight-stable women were thin or obese. The findings, published May 29 in the journal Obesity, suggest that the stigma of obesity is so powerful that it can continue even after an obese person has lost weight. The researchers said they were particularly troubled by the finding that participants' negative attitudes towards obese people increased when they were falsely told that body weight is easily controlled. "The message we often hear from society is that weight is highly controllable, but the best science in the obesity field at the moment suggests that one's physiology and genetics, as well as the food environment, are the really big players in one's weight status and weight loss," study co-author Kerry O'Brien, from the University of Manchester School of Psychological Sciences and Monash University in Melbourne, in Australia, noted in the news release. "Weight status actually appears rather uncontrollable, regardless of one's willpower, knowledge and dedication. Yet many people who are perceived as 'fat' are struggling in vain to lose weight in order to escape this painful social stigma. We need to rethink our approaches to, and views of, weight and obesity," O'Brien noted.