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PAGE 4B PICKENS COUNTY PROGRESS THURSDAY. MAY 20, 2004
South Georgia Attorney Qualifies for U.S. Senate
Douglas attorney Sid (Notting
ham has qualified with the Secre
tary of State as a candidate for Unit
ed States Senate on the Democratic
ticket. Cottingham has joined seven
other candidates in what will cer
tainly be a hard fought battle in the
July 20 primary.
Current Senator Zell Miller will
not be seeking re-election, and this
has opened up the doors for a slew
of candidates both Democrat and
Republican to enter the race. The
perception around the state and
nation is that the Democratic Party
has lost some of its luster in Geor
gia, but Cottingham does not
believe this to be the case. He feels
like this is an excellent opportunity
for a Democrat to step up to the
plate and win this election.
“It’s a shame we couldn’t run a
high profile candidate. I’m certain
ly not a household name. But I plan
to run an effective campaign,” said
Cottingham from his office last
week after qualifying.
He admitted that he is about a
year behind the Republican candi
dates, but feels like he can make up
ground. He is in the process of
organizing a website and making
contacts around the state. Of
course, there is much fund raising to
do.
“My focus is the primary. I want
to bring the Democratic Party back
together. Zell Miller called it the
party of hope. I call it the party of
hope and dreams. We are and
always have been a party of inclu
sion, and we’ve got a lot of work to
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do,” said Cottingham.
“This campaign will take on a
life of its own. It’s like a train
rolling down the tracks,
and I want everyone to get aboard,”
said Cottingham.
Cottingham’s candidacy has cre
ated a bit of a buzz amongst Geor
gia’s political insiders, most notably
from Bill Shipp, often referred to as
the Dean of Georgia politics, and
Joe Sports, a Democratic operative
for years and former Chairman of
the Democratic Party of Georgia.
Many feel that a moderate Democ
rat such as Cottingham could do
very well in this election.
Following Bill Shipp’s favorable
mention of Cottingham on Geor
gia’s leading political talk show the
Georgia Gang, Joe Sports noted on
his widely read Georgia Beat
newsletter and website: “When we
checked the list of those qualifying,
we had the pleasant surprise to see
the name of a great gentleman from
our hometown, Sid Cottingham,
running for the U.S. Senate. As the
only south Georgia candidate in the
race, he immediately caught the
attention of thousands looking for a
candidate other than a couple from
Atlanta who have announced.”
Continuing, Sports noted: “On
Sunday during the Georgia Gang
program, Bill Shipp, who watches
Georgia politics as close as anyone,
announced ‘Sid Cottingham is my
guy for U.S. Senate.’ While the
Republican host to the program
tried to ignore the comment, they
won't be able to ignore Sid Cotting
ham as he gets around the state
since people are going to like what
they see. I feel better about politics
knowing that someone like Sid Cot
tingham will offer for office in
Georgia.”
Cottingham will face opposition
from candidates around the state:
Leigh Baier (Atlanta), Jim Boyd
(Duluth), James N. Finkelstein
(Albany), Denise Majette (Decatur),
Cliff Oxford (Marietta), Govind
Patel (Lilburn) and Mary Hodges
Squires (Norcross).
Cottingham, 55, was born and
raised in Douglas. He has been in
private practice in Douglas since
1977 with the firm Cottingham &
Porter, P.C., and has been married to
Sally, a second grade teacher in the
Coffee County School System, for
32 years. He and Sally have three
daughters, two being UGA gradu
ates and the third is currently a
freshman at UGA. Sid attended
Davidson College, is a member of
First United Methodist Church in
Douglas, and served as a Captain in
the United States Army.
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Link between caffeine and
high blood pressure found in adolescents
Adolescents, particularly black
adolescents, who drink several soft
drinks each day may increase their
blood pressure and their risk for
hypertension, according to a study
published in the May issue of
Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent
Medicine.
“This paper indicates that the
concern about soda consumption in
children and teens should not be
limited to the fact that soft drinks
add more calories to the diet,” says
Dr. Margaret R. Savoca, nutritionist
and postdoctoral fellow at the Med
ical College of Georgia and lead
author on the study. “Caffeine con
sumption may also impact their
blood pressure.”
She noted that previous studies
have shown caffeine’s impact on
blood pressure in adults but its
impact on adolescent pressures has
not been as extensively explored
despite the fact that caffeine-con
suming adolescents outnumber
those who don’t drink caffeine by
two to one.
While she says the new findings
provide another reason for parents
to keep an eye on the amount of
caffeinated drinks their children
consume, they also point to the need
for further exploration of the impact
of this common stimulant.
“It is important to keep in mind
that caffeine could also be a marker,
an indicator of a lot of other prac
tices that impact blood pressure,”
Dr. Savoca says. “I think probably
our major take-home message is
more research is needed to explore
the relationship between rising rates
of adolescent hypertension and soft
drink consumption.”
Dr. Savoca and her colleagues at
MCG’s Georgia Prevention Institute
looked at the blood pressures and
caffeinated-beverage intake of 159
healthy black and white adolescents
ages 15 to 19.
The adolescents were enrolled in
another MCG study, led by Dr. Gre
gory A. Harshfield, looking at blood
pressure response to competitive
stress such as playing video games.
That study enabled participants to
choose from a wide array of foods
commonly consumed by teens, then
provided them with everything they
ate and drank for three days. The
only control was salt intake. Those
three days were a good time for
researchers to also look at caffeine
consumption. Blood pressure read
ings were taken
when participants were screened for
the study.
They found that those who drank
the most caffeine - more than 100
milligrams a day or the equivalent
of about four 12-ounce sodas - had
the highest pressures. The top or
systolic number, which indicates the
pressure inside blood vessels that
the heart must beat against, was the
most impacted.
They also found that despite the
fact that the highest consumers who
were white consumed even more
caffeine than their black peers, the
blacks’ pressures were most impact
ed. Black adolescents who con
sumed the most caffeine had sys
tolic pressures that averaged 13.9
millimeters higher than blacks who
consumed less than 50 milligrams
of caffeine; in adolescent whites,
the average was only about .2 mil
limeters higher.
The researchers noted that they
adjusted for other factors that might
influence blood pressure such as sex
and weight.
The remaining differences could
be explained by the fact that blacks
and whites have different mecha
nisms for blood pressure regulation,
says Dr. Harshfield, physiological
psychologist and a study author. He
has shown that some black adoles
cents have a reduced ability to
secrete sodium long after the stress
- which prompted the body to retain
more sodium in order to retain more
fluid and maintain a higher blood
pressure - is gone. “Somehow, caf
feine is having an effect on casual
blood pressure. We don’t know how
but it has to affect that system
because it’s the one driving the
blood pressure,” Dr. Harshfield
says.
“The prevalence of hypertension
among youth is rising,” the
researchers write in the Archives of
Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine.
“By adolescence, both African-
American girls and boys have high
er systolic blood pressure than Cau
casians. To reduce the risk of hyper
tension among this vulnerable
group, a better understanding of the
environmental (including diet) and
genetic factors that contribute to
blood pressure differences between
young African-Americans and Cau
casians is needed. One such dietary
factor is caffeine consumption,”
they write, noting that an estimated
68 percent of boys and 62 percent
of girls ages 12 to 17 drink one or
more soft drinks daily and about 20
percent of boys and girls drink tea
or coffee every day.
To pursue that understanding, Dr.
Savoca is tentatively slated to
receive a National Institutes of
Health grant this summer to com
pare study participants who had the
lowest blood pressures and body
weights with those with the highest.
“We are going to take the kids we
already have looked at, identify kids
on the extreme and look at their
lifestyle behaviors, their dietary
behaviors, their understanding of
hypertension. We also are going to
look at their mothers to see if we
can find a family link between
behaviors. The focus will not be
caffeine but really the overall
understanding of what seems to be
contributing lifestyle-wise and atti-
tudinally to differences in risk,” Dr.
Savoca said.
The published study was funded
by the National Institutes of Health.
Other study authors include
research assistants Conner D. Evans
and Martha E. Wilson and biostatis
tician David A. Ludwig.
The Medical College of Georgia
is the state’s health sciences univer
sity and includes the Schools of
Allied Health Sciences, Dentistry,
Graduate Studies, Medicine and
Nursing, the MCG Medical Center
and the Children’s Medical Center.
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