Health Information

L-Ergothioneine

2010-07-01T23:31:00.000-07:00

L-Ergothioneine (LE) is an antioxidant amino acid that occurs naturally in the body and is found in high concentrations around cells that are subjected to free radical damage. However, we can’t synthesize it, so we need to obtain it from our diet.

Ergothioneine has been found in bacteria, plants and animals, sometimes at mill molar levels. Foods rich in ergothioneine include liver, kidney, black beans, red beans and oat bran, with the highest levels in bolete and oyster mushrooms.

OXIS International, Inc. (OXIS) was the first company to develop a patented, synthetic process for the manufacture of pure L-Ergothioneine (LE). This company develops technologies and products to research, diagnose, treat and prevent diseases of oxidative stress/inflammation associated with damage from free radical and reactive oxygen species (ROS). The company holds the rights to several therapeutic classes of compounds in the area of oxidative stress, and has focused commercialization programs that include SOD (superoxide dismutase), MPO (myeloperoxidase), GPx (glutathione peroxidase). Over the years, LE research has been limited by the lack of availability of a commercial source of pure synthetic material, but finally researchers from OXIS have made amazing breakthrough by developing the first patented, synthetic process for the industrial preparation of pure LE and providing us this amazing super antioxidant.

Some of the potential benefit of L-Ergothioneine (LE) are :

Dietary supplement

Oxis believes that the use of LE as an old dietary supplement is because it has been documented to have been in the food supply in significant quantities for at least a century prior to 1994.

Specialized Unique Natural Antioxidant

LE is a highly protective, nontoxic, naturally occurring antioxidant that is not easily auto-oxidizable in aqueous solutions. It means it is water soluble and can reach near millimolar concentrations in selected tissues, and stimulates the natural antioxidant defenses within cells. The benefits of natural antioxidants such as vitamin C and vitamin E in cancer, aging and general health are well known. And now we have new choice. LE is unique among antioxidants in that it chelates heavy metal, while protecting cells (principally erythrocytes) from ROS damage.

Dermal Protectant/Anti aging

Free radicals in ultraviolet light has role in inducing skin damage and UVB radiation has part in skin cancer. LE has ability to minimize the formation of various ROS and to protect cells from radiation induced damage.

Ophthalmic benefit

LE plays a critical role in the protection of the eye. An early study has shown that the eye contains extremely high concentrations of LE that decrease during cataract development. Also it protects eyes from UV Radiation.

Energy enhancer

LE has effect in increasing the availability of cellular energy sources

Organ Preservation

The availability of viable organs for transplantation is currently limiting the number of organ transplants that can be conducted. Preservation of the available tissues and prolongation of their viability is an important determinant in both the ultimate success of the procedure and the number of patients that can receive transplants. Specifically, liver viability is limited to 8 hours,which severely limits the transport of these organs. Although, current preservation solutions are formulated to include antioxidants such as glutathione, the instability of these compounds (significant degradation begins to occur immediately after manufacture) limits their usefulness in protecting organs from oxidative damage. Glutathione even in refrigerated preservation solutions is readily oxidized, to its disulfide form. The later form is cytotoxic and also facilitates inflammation-induced proteolysis. LE, a stable water-soluble thiol-containing antioxidant that also chelates metal ions, could be an ideal to replace glutathione in this mixture.

http://www.oxis.com
Oxis on Twitter
Oxis on facebook

wheat can cause diabetes

2009-08-29T09:02:00.001-07:00

An abnormal immune response to wheat proteins may contribute to type 1 diabetes, Canadian researchers say.

Their study of 42 people with type 1 diabetes found that nearly half had immune system T-cells that overreacted to wheat. The researchers also identified genes associated with this abnormal immune response.

“The immune system has to find the perfect balance to defend the body against foreign invaders without hurting itself or overreacting to the environment, and this can be particularly challenging in the gut, where there is an abundance of food and bacteria,” study author Dr. Fraser Scott, a senior scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and professor of medicine at the University of Ottawa, said in a hospital news release.

“Our research suggests that people with certain genes may be more likely to develop an overreaction to wheat and possibly other foods in the gut, and this may tip the balance with the immune system and make the body more likely to develop other immune problems, such as type 1 diabetes,” he explained.

The study appears in the August issue of Diabetes.

“These observations add to the accumulating evidence that the gut is an active player in the diabetes disease process,” Dr. Mikael Knip of Finland wrote in an accompanying editorial.

Michael Jackson’s Death: Cardiac Arrest Is Deadlier Than Heart Attack

2009-06-28T07:03:00.000-07:00

Iconic pop star Michael Jackson suffered a cardiac arrest and died on Thursday at the age of 50. Details of his death are still emerging, but friends and relatives say they have been concerned about Jackson’s use of prescription painkillers.

Brian Oxman, the Jackson family spokesman and attorney, told CNN that people surrounding Jackson were “enabling” him in his use of medications. Jackson had suffered a number of injuries, including a broken vertebra and a broken leg sustained in a fall on stage, Oxman said.
“If you think the case of Anna Nicole Smith was an abuse, it is nothing in comparison to what we have seen taking place in Michael Jackson’s life,” Oxman told CNN.

“I do not know the extent of the medications that he was taking, but the reports that we have been receiving in the family is that it was extensive,” he said. “This is something which I feared and it is something that I warned about.”

Douglas Zipes, MD, a distinguished professor at the Indiana University Medical Center and past president of the American College of Cardiology, says that drug abuse can contribute to a cardiac arrest.

“Certainly drugs, in someone like Michael Jackson, have to considered,” he says. “We know that drugs like cocaine and amphetamines can trigger a cardiac arrest by themselves, and the summation of multiple drugs could ultimately result in a cardiac arrest.”

Jackson may have been underweight as well. He reportedly weighed 120 pounds in 2003. At 5’10” or 5’11” (reports vary), he would have had a body mass index of 16 or 17, and anything below 18.5 is considered underweight.

In recent months, friends and relatives had described Jackson as even more frail. Filmmaker Bryan Michael Stoller, who visited Jackson in April, told People, “I hugged him and it was like hugging bones.” And a fan who recently met Michael Jackson at a tour rehearsal reportedly wrote in an email this week, “He is a skeleton.”

Extreme weight loss can cause electrolyte abnormalities, according to Dr. Zipes. “Two very important electrolytes, potassium and magnesium, are critically important in maintaining normal electrical activity of the heart,” he says. “[If] one or both electrolytes were very low, they can trigger cardiac arrest.”

Another factor that may have played a role is stress, says Dr. Zipes, who has not treated Jackson.

“He’s been under incredible emotional stress—the legal issues with the accusations of child molestation, the financial debt that he’s incurred, the prospect of a world tour after not performing for years; it would seem to be daunting,” he says. “All of these things would seem to be extremely stressful and stress certainly can play a role in the development of coronary disease and sudden death.”

In general, a cardiac arrest is much more dangerous than a heart attack.
During cardiac arrest, the heart actually stops beating and quivers with uncoordinated contractions. Unless a defibrillator is used to shock the heart back into a normal rhythm, death is inevitable. Someone experiencing a cardiac arrest generally collapses, loses consciousness, and stops breathing.

“[The heart] stops contracting effectively but it’s actually beating—if you take the word beating as an electrical event. The heart rate of the bottom chambers, the ventricles, is 400 to 600 times a minute—that’s ventricular fibrillation,” says Dr. Zipes. (The normal adult heart rate is 70 beats per minute.) “When it increases so dramatically it actually looks like a bag of squiggly worms—there’s no effective contraction.”

Despite dramatic TV portrayals of patients being revived from cardiac arrest, the chances of survival in real life are slim. If a bystander performs cardiopulmonary resuscitation until the heart can be shocked back into a normal rhythm, the chances of survival are much better.
About 95% of people who experience a cardiac arrest die before reaching the hospital. Overall, about 1,000 cardiac arrests occur each day in the United States; that’s roughly 350,000 per year.

A heart attack, on the other hand, is a reduction in blood flow to the heart, which can cause a crushing chest pain known as angina, along with sweating, nausea, a sense of impending doom, and tissue death in part of the heart muscle. In contrast to cardiac arrest, heart attack patients may not lose consciousness. If they get rapid medical treatment, the prognosis is generally better. Heart attacks are about twice as common as cardiac arrests, but a heart attack can progress to a cardiac arrest if not treated.

Heart attacks are more common in those with heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes. (Read more about heart attacks.) Cardiac arrest, on the other hand, can be caused by a wide variety of factors, including heart disease, drowning, electrocution, choking, and traumatic injury.

The American Heart Association recommends that people know the warning signs of cardiac arrest (loss of consciousness, lack of pulse), call 911, and perform CPR until help arrives. Bystanders can even administer chest compressions alone and skip mouth-to-mouth breathing while waiting for emergency help or defibrillation, according to recent guidelines from the American Heart Association.

“I think it’s tragic whenever anybody has a sudden cardiac death, particularly somebody whom you would consider to be relatively young. I don’t think society considers that people in their 50s can die suddenly—I think that adds to the tragedy of the situation,” says Stephen Nicholls, MD, a cardiologist and assistant professor of molecular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, in Ohio.

“The other thing it highlights is the importance of CPR and the importance of using defibrillators,” he says. There’s been a push in recent years to make sure automated defibrillators are in airports, shopping malls, and sports stadiums.

“The most prompt action to try to restore heart rhythm in that situation gives you the best chance of survival,” Dr. Nicholls says.

The 5 Kinds of Headaches

2009-06-11T00:21:00.000-07:00

It's critical to identify which type of headache you suffer from—tension, cluster, sinus, rebound, or migraine—so that the correct treatment can be prescribed. In one 2004 study, 80% of patients with a recent history of self-described or doctor-diagnosed sinus headache—but none of the signs of sinus infection—actually met the criteria for migraine. And two-thirds of those patients expressed dissatisfaction with the medications they were using to treat their headaches. Here's a cheat sheet to help you put a name to your pain.

Tension headaches

Tension headaches, the most common type, feel like a constant ache or pressure around the head, especially at the temples or back of the head and neck. Not as severe as migraines, they are not usually accompanied by nausea and vomiting, and they rarely stop someone from continuing their regular activities.

Over-the-counter treatments, such as aspirin, ibuprofen, or acetaminophen (Tylenol), are usually sufficient to treat tension headaches, which experts believe may be caused by contraction of neck and scalp muscles (including in response to stress), and possibly changes in brain chemicals.

Cluster headaches

Cluster headaches, which affect men more often than women, are recurring headaches that occur in groups or cycles. The headaches appear suddenly and are characterized by severe, debilitating pain on one side of the head often accompanied by a watery eye and nasal congestion or a runny nose on the same side of the face. During an attack, sufferers are often restless and unable to get comfortable and not likely to lay down the way someone with a migraine usually does.

The cause of cluster headaches is unknown, but they may have some genetic component. There is no cure, but medications can reduce the frequency and duration of attacks.

Sinus headaches

When a sinus becomes inflamed, usually through an infection, it can cause pain. It usually comes with a fever, and can—if necessary—be diagnosed by MRI or CT scan (which can both detect changes in fluid levels), or by the presence of pus viewed through a fiber-optic scope. Headaches due to sinus infection can be treated with antibiotics, as well as antihistamines or decongestants.

Rebound headaches
Overuse of painkillers for headaches can, ironically, lead to rebound headaches. Culprits include over-the-counter medications like aspirin, acetaminophen (Tylenol), or ibuprofen (Motrin, Advil), as well as prescription drugs.

"Most of the patients we see in a headache center with daily headache have medication-overuse, or rebound, headaches," says Stewart Tepper, MD, director of research at the Center for Headache and Pain at the Cleveland Clinic Neurological Institute.

"They are on a merry-go-round and they can't get off," says Dr. Tepper. "They keep taking more medicine, they keep having more headaches, and so the patient becomes more and more desperate. That's when they end up coming to headache specialists to kind of reset the whole system.

"One theory is that too much medication can cause the brain to shift into an excited state, triggering more headaches. Another is that the headaches are a symptom of withdrawal as the level of medicine drops in the bloodstream.

Migraine headaches

Migraine headaches come from a neurological disorder that can run in families and are defined by certain criteria:
- At least five previous episodes of headaches
- Lasting between four hours and 72 hours
- Having at least two out of four of these features: one-sided pain, throbbing pain, moderate-to-severe pain, and pain that interferes with, is worsened by, or prohibits routine activity
- Having at least one associated feature: nausea and/or vomiting, or, if those are not present, then sensitivity to light and sound

An oncoming migraine attack may, for some, be foreshadowed by an aura, which can include visual distortions (such as wavy lines or blind spots) or numbness of a hand. It's estimated, though, that only 15% to 20% of migraineurs experience this.

new pain cure for woman

2009-06-04T19:56:00.000-07:00

You’ve got achy shoulders from carrying the kids, the groceries, or your incredibly heavy handbag. You look for the right pill to pop, but what should you take? Aspirin? Ibuprofen? Or, you’re about to get your period. You know you’ll get killer cramps or that nasty headache any minute now, but nothing you take seems to help once the pain hits.

You’re not alone: Many women have a tough time finding the right kind of relief for their pain—and for good reason: Until recently, experts hadn’t actually studied women’s pain specifically, and most research wasn’t conducted with a woman’s hormones and physique in mind. All that’s changing, though. Docs now know that to banish our aches, they must develop treatments formulated for women’s bodies. What’s more, researchers are also looking for—and finding—ways to head pain off at the pass, so those of us with chronic troubles like migraine, fibromyalgia, or backache don’t have to be hobbled by pain on a daily basis. Here, how the new research will help you live an (almost) pain-free life.

The old way of dealing with pain was to ‘wait until it hurts enough to treat it,’” says Carol A. Foster, MD, director of Valley Neurological Headache and Research Center in Phoenix and author of Migraine: Your Questions Answered. “But in the last few years, there has been a complete turnaround. Now we know that prevention and early intervention are absolutely critical.”

The new thinking has made all the difference for Carolyn Robbins of Petaluma, California, who suffers from chronic back and neck pain, the result of a spinal-disk injury combined with nerve damage from Guillain-Barre syndrome. “If you’ve ever had an exposed nerve in your tooth, you know what it feels like,” says Robbins, who describes her pain as “electrical shocks” in her upper and lower back.

The 45-year-old mother of two doesn’t wait until pain hits her full force before treating it. She now relies on a daily prevention regimen, starting with a hot shower and a double dose of ibuprofen. She swims two to three times a week for strength and mobility, and gets weekly massage and chiropractic treatments. And during those times when things get really bad, she pulls out the stronger painkillers prescribed by her doctor. “I’ve found that it’s not a good idea to try to power through the pain, because other things start to go wrong,” Robbins says. “Pain depletes your system as much as exposure to germs.”

Just five years ago, a “kitchen sink” approach like Robbins’ might have been pooh-poohed by pain-management types, who would have been quick to prescribe hard-core, addictive drugs like oxycontin for such a serious condition. But now the focus has switched. “It used to be, people treated the pain and didn’t always treat the underlying disease,” Foster says.

The problem with such an approach, though, is that it sets up a vicious cycle of dependence. “Giving narcotic pain pills to headache patients is like giving cookies to diabetics,” she adds.
So how do you break the habit of heading straight for the medicine cabinet? No matter what your source of pain, the first step is to get an accurate diagnosis and then set up an early intervention strategy with your doctor, says Neil Kirschen, MD, president of the American Association of Orthopedic Medicine and chief of pain management at South Nassau Community Hospital in New York. “The whole goal of pain management today is to keep pain from becoming chronic,” he says.

The reason? Pain actually causes the brain to fire off a stress response that, over time, makes nerves more and more sensitive—and thus better able to telegraph intense pain to you. In other words, pain actually begets pain.

Nan Weiner, executive editor at San Francisco magazine, is a case in point. When she broke her ankle eight years ago, it never completely healed, and the pain became chronic. What should have been a relatively simple injury became an odyssey that had Weiner visiting specialists all over San Francisco. She finally found a podiatrist who “took a detective-like approach to the problem,” Weiner says, by exploring and treating each joint and tendon in a methodical search for the pain’s source. Thanks to this care, which includes regular pain-preventing cortisone shots, the 55-year-old mother of one has been able to resume her hobby of salsa dancing.

We know that men don’t suffer menstrual pain, but that’s not the only fun they’re missing. “Research is uncovering very dramatic differences in how the genders experience pain,” says Mark Allen Young, a professor at New York College of Podiatric Medicine and author of Women and Pain: Why It Hurts and What You Can Do.

It all starts with hormones. There is no getting around how profoundly hormones like estrogen and testosterone affect the central nervous system, which is responsible for perceiving and transmitting the sensation of pain.

According to experts, this is one reason why conditions such as osteoarthritis, headaches, and irritable bowel syndrome strike women at much higher rates than men.

Our physical differences really matter, too. “We’ve only recently begun to grasp that women’s body architecture is completely different from men’s,” Young says. Because women walk differently, for instance, they put pressure on joints, muscles, and bones in very different ways than men do. “Starting with the knees and hips and working up to the shoulders, spine, and neck, how a person walks can have a huge impact on how pain develops later in life,” Young says. Just last year, one medical-implant maker finally recognized this fact by creating a knee implant just for women.

Women are also more prone to conditions involving the immune system, says Deborah Metzger, MD, an OB-GYN and specialist in integrative pain management in Los Altos, California. Scientists have long known that women have stronger immune systems than men, she says. That strength can backfire, though, leading women to suffer from far more autoimmune disorders—in which the immune system attacks itself—and the host of mysterious diseases thought to sometimes result from an overreactive immune system, such as celiac disease, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), and many types of pelvic pain.

“Women tend to have hyperalert immune systems, which is good,” Metzger says. “But once the immune system gets stirred up, it can turn into a feeding frenzy.” The fired-up immune activity produces inflammatory chemicals that fuel all types of muscle and joint pain; it can also activate nerves in vulnerable spots like the lower back (sciatica), the head (migraines), and the pelvis (endometriosis and pelvic pain).

gastroesophageal reflux disease - Heartburn Triggers

2009-06-03T04:10:00.000-07:00

Why am I in pain?

Heartburn is as American as apple pie—more than 60 million people experience it at least once a month. For some people—those with gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD—heartburn can be a constant companion.

Some heartburn triggers are obvious: chili dogs, chocolate cake, Thanksgiving. But heartburn doesn’t stop and start with food alone. If you have constant heartburn, it's time to track down the real culprit.

Smoking
As if anyone needed another reason to quit: Smoking makes GERD worse.

Smoking can weaken the valve between the stomach and esophagus (so stomach acid flows back into the esophagus); cause fat-digesting bile salts to migrate from the small intestine to the stomach; and cut down on saliva, which normally flushes stomach acid out of the esophagus and contains a natural acid-fighter, bicarbonate.

How do you spell heartburn relief? Q-U-I-T.

Pills
Prone to frequent headaches and heartburn? Think twice about reaching for the ibuprofen. When used regularly, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen or naproxen can trigger heartburn.

Some prescription drugs can too, including antibiotics, calcium channel blockers (for high blood pressure), bronchodilators such as albuterol (for asthma and COPD), osteoporosis drugs, and some sedatives.

Consult your doctor if you think your Rx is causing heartburn—don't just decide to stop taking a drug on your own.

Fish oil supplements

Fish oil contains omega-3 fatty acids and has been hailed as a natural way to manage heart disease, depression, and countless other health conditions. However, it can also cause heartburn.

The oil—not the fish—appears to be responsible for gastrointestinal side effects. Fish itself is low in fat and high in protein and is an excellent food for heartburn sufferers when used in a healthy, heartburn-soothing recipe.

Stress

Stress does seem to trigger heartburn, but the relationship is trickier than you might think. Stress does not cause an off-the-charts surge in stomach acid production.

However, a study in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research suggests that a heartburn patient's perception of his symptoms—and not the actual levels of stomach acid—are associated with stress.

In other words, stressed people may be more aware of heartburn symptoms or the neurological effects of stress might ratchet up pain receptors in the esopagus.

Peppermint

Peppermint, like fish oil, is a double-edged sword when it comes to the stomach. Peppermint tea, peppermint-oil capsules, and even peppermint candies are often used to settle upset stomachs—but these remedies can backfire on people with GERD.

The soothing and numbing effect of menthol tends to relax the valve that separates the stomach and esophagus (known as the lower esophageal sphincter), which can cause stomach acids to drift up the esophagus more easily, aggravating heartburn.

Being overweight

The more you weigh, the more likely you are to have heartburn. A 2003 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the risk of acid reflux symptoms increases along with body-mass index (BMI).

The association seems to be stronger in women than men (especially premenopausal women).Explanations vary. Poor diet, excess body fat in the abdomen, and chemicals released by body fat have all been cited as possible culprits.

Your genes

Wondering what’s causing your heartburn? Take a look across the dinner table; your parents, not your plate, may be partly to blame.

In recent years, twin studies have suggested that 30% to 45% of your risk for GERD is dependent on genetic factors. (The rest is up to you: what you eat, whether you smoke, whether you exercise.)

Experts aren’t entirely sure what explains the hereditary nature of GERD. It could be due to inherited physical traits, such as abnormalities in stomach function or a hypersensitivity to stomach acids.

Tea Benefits

2009-05-29T00:40:00.000-07:00

Steamy or iced, chai or green, bottled or not:
Tea is hot, and ge tting hotter. Tea drinkers can be as passionate and picky about their drink of choice as the most snobby oenophile is about her wine. There are more and more choices. And annual tea sales in the United States have jumped from nearly $2 billion in 1990 to $5.5 billion last year, says Joseph Simrany, president of Tea Association of the USA Inc.

What you’ll see in restaurants
Chefs across the country are weaving tea into signature dishes and specialty drinks. Munch on tea-smoked chicken at New York City’s Yumcha (“drink tea” in Cantonese), or sip green-tea martinis infused with pear at Jack Falstaff in San Francisco. And the first green-tea liqueur—Zen—hit the U.S. market this summer and is being served up in hot spots like New York’s Sushi Samba.

Even rock stars are getting in on it
After electronic-music king Moby opened his own New York teahouse, Teany, he decided to get even more creative. “He was a mad professor behind the counter,” says partner Kelly Tisdale, experimenting with different flavors and launching the Teany line of chilled bottled teas, like the new white tea with pomegranate, carried in New York and the U.K.

Tea as wine
At the chic tea boutique Le Palais des Thés in Beverly Hills, sections of the store are devoted to teas from different regions, similar to the way most wine shops are organized. Increasing numbers of tea snobs are seeking out teas sourced from a single place, like Darjeeling Puttabong, the first tea estate in the Himalaya and the mother of the Darjeeling tea industry.

The coffee comparison
While many people still want their Starbucks coffee fix, a growing crowd is looking for a leafier sip. “The difference between people who drink coffee and those who drink tea is similar to the difference between beer and wine drinkers,” says Le Palais des Thés’ David Barenholtz. Tea drinkers are looking for a relaxing experience, while coffee drinkers tend to slug coffee for a jolt of energy.

The payoff
Beyond its pure enjoyment, tea is packed with health perks. The heart-health and cancer-preventive benefits of black and green teas are well-publicized. And more research is under way; some studies suggest tea may also increase bone-mineral density, boost immunity, fight cavities, combat diabetes, and reduce body fat.

What makes it so healthy?
Scientists point to a group of natural antioxidants called catechins present in all teas, but not in coffee. Certain antioxidants can protect against exposure to ultraviolet light and its consequences, such as sun damage and skin cancer. And while coffee’s caffeine is known to sharpen concentration, tea has caffeine too, sometimes as much as or more than coffee.

Reiki Healing

2009-05-27T19:01:00.000-07:00

The notion that a therapist can pass her hands over your clothed, supine body for an hour or so and successfully coax every iota of stress out of you has a too-good-to-be-true ring about it. But that’s been my experience with Reiki, a Japanese technique said to promote healing.

Nothing sounds odder: According to reiki.org, the official website for the practice, Reiki heals by “flowing through the affected parts of the energy field and charging them with positive energy. It raises the vibratory level of the energy field in and around the physical body where the negative thoughts and feelings are attached. This causes the negative energy to break apart and fall away. In so doing, Reiki clears, straightens, and heals the energy pathways, thus allowing the life force to flow in a healthy and natural way.”

That sounds totally out there in weirdville—even to me. Making it even weirder is the fact that anyone can learn Reiki basics by taking a weekend’s worth of classes; advanced training can be accomplished in a weekend too.

A less woo-woo explanation: Reiki practitioners believe they can transmit healing energy to you through their hands, an ability they learn during Reiki training.

Reiki is on the menu at top hospitalsReiki isn’t considered weird at all by at least 60 hospitals across the country who offer treatments to their patients, often free of charge. Among them are highly respected mainstream establishments, including Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, Children’s Hospital of Boston, Cleveland Clinic Center for Integrative Medicine, Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, and Yale-New Haven Hospital.

Two federally funded clinical trials are currently underway at the Cleveland Clinic. One will look at Reiki’s effects on the physical consequences of acute stress; another will determine whether treatments can lessen anxiety, affect cancer progression, or affect post-surgical pain and urinary symptoms for men with prostate cancer. Both studies will be completed in August.

In a study published last year, however, researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle concluded that Reiki didn’t have any effect on fibromyalgia pain

.
My Reiki experience: deep relaxationI first tried Reiki back in the awful fall of 2001. I was traumatized and fearful after Sept. 11, and decided to see if what I’d heard about Reiki was true—that it could soothe even very disturbed emotional states.

I was ushered into the basement rec room of the Reiki practitioner’s utterly ordinary suburban home—I remember that she was a golfing enthusiast, which I thought was an odd fit for an esoteric healer. There was a standard-issue massage table onto which I climbed, fully clothed except for my shoes.

As I lay there, her hands glided over my body, skimming, sometimes gently touching, sometimes just hovering over a particular spot. I felt—or at least, I think I did—a warmth emanating from her hands, and I know I felt a deep sense of relaxation. So deep, in fact, that I remember thinking I might be in a trance-like state. It was extremely pleasurable, and when the session ended, I remember feeling aglow with energy, as if I’d just recharged my body’s battery. I went back to her time after time, and after each treatment, I experienced the same wonderful feelings.

A Reiki treatment generally costs about as much as a typical day-spa massage, and a large day spa will often have a Reiki practitioner. To learn more about Reiki, visit reiki.org.

Low your stress to reverse aging

2009-05-17T21:50:00.000-07:00

Stress can do a real number on your skin and make you look older. It decreases blood flow and nourishment to the skin, sometimes causing a sallow appearance, hair loss, or brittle nails, says dermatologist and clinical psychologist Richard Fried, MD, PhD, a fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology.

Stress also leads to the release of inflammatory chemicals that can worsen acne. The good news: Stress-management techniques (like guided imagery, deep breathing, or progressive muscle relaxation) can help your skin look younger.

Fried recommends square-box breathing: Inhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds, exhale for four seconds, then rest for four seconds; repeat four times.

Make your home pest free with natural remedies

2009-05-11T19:41:00.000-07:00

Want to rid pests out of your house?
Are you trying to get rid of insects (or worse) without harmful chemicals? Here are a few ways to vanish those pesky problems with a some easy and natural remedies.

All-natural repellent
Who says you need harmful pesticides to get rid of bugs?
Repellex Bug-A-Tak ($13.50) relies on natural mint, clove leaf, and rosemary essential oils to deter and kill beetles, mites, whiteflies, and other insects.

Gotcha!
Unless you’re the Karate Kid, you’ll need more than chopsticks to catch pesky flies.
Try the Fred Flare Black Fly Swatter ($10), which has an extra-large square head.

Human Best Friend
The mere smell of a cat (or dog) sends mice packing.
Furry pals are great to have around—and they’re good for you, too.
So why not adopt a pet?
Go to www.aspca.org to find an animal shelter near you;
fees typically are $75 for an adult cat or dog.

Patio protection
Reclaim your yard from yellow jackets and wasps with the Oak Stump Yellow Jacket and Wasp Trap ($15.99).
Put the lure (included) and water in this glass trap, hang it in a tree, and you can barbecue without having to bat away stinging insects.

Closet Case

The amazing-smelling blend of lavender, cedar chips, and citronella in Purple Ranch Pest Away Sachets ($3 each) keeps moths at bay without the harmful chemicals found in mothballs.

Storage for your food

One way to get rid of bugs: starve them. Keep cookies, cereal, and other munchies in sealed containers, like The Conran Shop Varon Jars ($12 and up). Made of recycled glass with snug-fitting cork lids, they’re good-looking enough to go right on the counter.

Do It Yourself Repellents

Keep persistent household pests away with these natural, do-it-yourself remedies from Annie B. Bond, green-living expert and author of Better Basics for the Home.

Ants.

They hate the smell of citrus, so mix 1/4 cup citrus solvent (like Citra Solv) with 2 cups water; spray mixture in ant-traffic areas.

Roaches.

Tea tree oil, garlic, peppermint, bay leaves, and hot peppers all work against roaches. Choose one oil or herb, mix 2 teaspoons oil or fresh, crushed herbs (2 tablespoons dry, ground herbs) into 2 cups water; spray infested areas.

Fleas.

“The limonene and linalool in citrus-peel extract kill all stages of the flea’s life cycle,” Bond says. Try this dog rub (cats don’t like the smell): Cut up 4 lemons and simmer for 1 hour in 1 quart water, adding water as needed; cool, strain, and massage mixture into Fido’s coat.

Healthy Diet to help Psoriasis

2009-05-05T22:29:00.000-07:00

Losing weight may help
Though many patients find that certain diets help clear their skin, or that certain foods aggravate it, no studies have established a definitive link between nutrition and psoriasis, says Neil Korman, MD, clinical director of the Murdough Family Center for Psoriasis in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. “There’s no ‘Psoriasis Diet,’ but people with psoriasis should try to eat a healthy diet,” he says. “We do know that people who are obese are at increased risk for psoriasis, and that losing weight may help improve your psoriasis.”

“Achieving a healthy weight and eating more healthfully in general” are the goals when working with psoriasis patients, says Brenda Walsh, RD, an outpatient clinical dietitian at the Murdough center. Psoriasis is an inflammatory disease, she says, and “we know that weight loss can decrease levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), which is produced by the body in response to inflammation.” Increasing activity levels and dropping pounds can help lower CRP levels.

What should you eat?

Emphasizing foods that contain antioxidants, such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and beans, which can reduce inflammation, may also help, says Deirdre Earls, RD, a dietitian in private practice in Austin, Texas.

A chronic psoriasis sufferer herself, Earls says she has had minimal outbreaks since she started following a diet based on the University of Michigan Integrative Medicine Clinic’s Healing Foods Pyramid six and a half years ago.

The diet has also helped her patients, Earls reports.Even if you can’t make all the changes, small tweaks (eating more vegetables, trading white bread and rice for whole grains, eliminating processed food) can improve your health. “Proceed at your own pace and focus on the positive choices you make,” advises Earls.

Fruits and vegetables
How much:
Two to four servings of fruits and a minimum of five servings of vegetables (or more if you want) every day.

Why:
Fruits and vegetables are loaded with antioxidants that help control inflammation naturally, says Earls.

“I recommend my patients select a variety of deeply pigmented fruits and vegetables when choosing antioxidant-rich foods,” says Walsh. “Some examples are red bell peppers, pineapple, spinach, raspberries, blueberries, and carrots. I always recommend obtaining antioxidants from food, rather than in supplement form. This allows you to obtain all the benefits available in that food, not simply what happens to be extracted and packaged into a pill.”

What's a serving:
One apple, orange, or medium banana; 3/4 cup of berries; 1/2 cup of raw or cooked vegetables.

Grains
How much:
Four to 11 daily servings of grains, preferably whole grains (whole-grain bread, cereal and pasta, oatmeal, and brown rice).

Why:
Whole grains contain a variety of inflammation-fighting antioxidants, says Earls. They are also high in fiber, which is associated with decreased inflammation levels.

What’s a serving:
One slice whole-grain bread, 1/3 cup pasta, 3/4 cup cereal, 1/3 cup rice.

Beans and lentils
How much:
One to three servings a day of beans, peas, lentils, or peanuts.

Why:
They are all great sources of protein, and also contain tons of antioxidants and have high levels of fiber.

What’s a serving:
1/2 cup cooked beans or lentils.

Soy
How much:
One to two servings a day of edamame, soy milk, soy nuts, and tofu.

Why:
A number of studies have linked decreased inflammation with eating soy, says Earls. In addition, soy is an excellent source of protein and contains isoflavones, which are thought to help reduce inflammation.

What’s a serving:
1/2 cup edamame, 1 cup soy milk, 1 ounce soy nuts, 1/2 cup tofu.

Fats
How much:
Three to nine daily servings of olive oil, peanut oil, canola oil, nuts, avocado, seeds, or nut butters.

Why:
Good fats can help the body fight inflammation. But avoid margarine and shortening that contain trans fats, which can have the reverse effect.

What’s a serving:
1 teaspoon of oil, 1/2 tablespoon nut butter, 2 walnuts.

Fish and seafood
How much:
Two to four servings per week, with an emphasis on fish with a high omega-3 fatty acid content (salmon, anchovies, mackerel, tuna, and sardines, especially wild varieties).

Why:
There is strong evidence that omega-3s help reduce inflammation, says Earls. If you’re not a fish eater, you may want to consider an omega-3 supplement. She recommends two high-quality brands: Pharmax and Nordic Naturals.

What’s a serving:
4 to 6 ounces of fish.

What should you limit?

Foods that may contribute to inflammation should be eaten in more limited quantities or eliminated. These include processed and fast food, foods that are high in saturated and trans fats, and refined starches and sugar.

“When you have an inflammatory condition, it's especially important to avoid fatty meats and fried foods, which promote inflammation,” says Michael Traub, a naturopathic physician in Kailua Kona, Hawaii. “If you’re eating them once a month, that's probably OK. But once a week is not.”

Meats
How much:
Eat up to three 2- to 3-ounce servings per week, choosing lean cuts such as white-meat chicken or turkey, flank steak, sirloin, or pork loin. Higher-fat cuts contain more saturated fat, which may contribute to inflammation.

Sugar
How much:
Try to avoid sweets as much as possible. “Sugar promotes inflammation in the body,” says Traub.

Alcohol
How much:
Limit your intake as much as possible, at least until symptoms clear. Although the exact mechanism remains unknown (inflammation is one possibility), alcohol is believed by some to trigger psoriasis outbreaks.

The gluten connection
Some researchers believe that there may be an increased frequency of celiac disease among people with psoriasis, explains Earls. People who have celiac disease cannot properly digest a protein called gluten that’s found in wheat, rye, and barley. Eating these foods can damage the lining of the small intestine, often resulting in chronic diarrhea as well as malnutrition. (Some people with celiac disease have no symptoms, though.)

If you believe that gluten intolerance may be an issue for you, ask your doctor if you should be screened for celiac disease. If you are gluten intolerant, your psoriasis may improve if you follow a super-strict gluten-free diet (avoiding anything containing wheat, rye, or barley). “It does take real commitment,” says Earls. “But what was disabling psoriasis [for me] has been in remission for six years without any negative side effects."

The Myths about Cholesterol

2009-05-01T07:05:00.000-07:00

Even if you think you know everything there is to know about cholesterol, there may be a few more surprises in store. Check out these common myths about high cholesterol; find out who’s most likely to have it, what types of food can cause it, and why—sometimes—cholesterol isn’t a bad word.

Myth 1: Americans have the highest cholesterol in the world

One of the world's enduring stereotypes is the fat American with cholesterol-clogged arteries who is a Big Mac or two away from a heart attack. As a nation, we could certainly use some slimming down, but when it comes to cholesterol levels we are solidly middle-of-the-road.

According to 2005 World Health Organization statistics, American men rank 83rd in the world in average total cholesterol, and American women rank 81st; in both cases, the average number is 197 mg/dL, just below the Borderline-High Risk category. That is very respectable compared to the top-ranked countries: In Colombia the average cholesterol among men is a dangerous 244, while the women in Israel, Libya, Norway, and Uruguay are locked in a four-way tie at 232.

Myth 2: Eggs are evil

It's true that eggs have a lot of dietary cholesterol—upwards of 200 mg, which is more than two-thirds of the American Heart Association's recommended limit of 300 mg a day. But dietary cholesterol isn't nearly as dangerous as was once thought. Only some of the cholesterol in food ends up as cholesterol in your bloodstream, and if your dietary cholesterol intake rises, your body compensates by producing less cholesterol of its own.While you don't want to overdo it, eating an egg or two a few times a week isn't dangerous. In fact, eggs are an excellent source of protein and contain unsaturated fat, a so-called good fat.

Most people think high cholesterol is a problem that's strictly for the middle-aged. But guess what? Research has shown that atherosclerosis—the narrowing of the arteries that leads to heart attacks—can start as early as age eight. In July 2008, the American Academy of Pediatrics released guidelines on kids and cholesterol that recommended that children who are overweight, have hypertension, or have a family history of heart disease have their cholesterol tested as young as two years of age.

Children with high cholesterol should be on a diet that restricts saturated fat to 7% of calories and no more than 200 mg per day of dietary cholesterol, according to the guidelines. Fiber supplements and more exercise are also recommended.

While the guidelines prompted a bit of an outcry from parents worried that doctors would be pushing cholesterol-lowering drugs for kids, a new study suggests that less than 1% of adolescents aged 12 to 17 would be considered candidates for medication.

Myth 4: Food is heart-healthy if it says "0 mg cholesterol"

The Cholesterol portion of the nutritional label refers to dietary cholesterol, which is only one of the things found in food that can cause your cholesterol to go sky-high. (A bigger contributor to elevated cholesterol? A high-fat diet.) It's also believed to be the least important. Saturated fat (found in animal foods and dairy products) and trans fats (found in packaged foods) appear to have a far greater impact on low-density lipoprotein (LDL), the so-called bad cholesterol that causes atherosclerosis, than dietary cholesterol.

Myth 5: Cholesterol is always a bad thing

When most people hear "cholesterol" they think "bad." Like most things in life, the reality is more complex. High cholesterol can be dangerous, but cholesterol itself is essential to various bodily processes, from insulating nerve cells in the brain to providing structure for cell membranes. That's why your body makes the white, waxy substance (about 75% of the cholesterol in your blood is made by the liver and cells elsewhere in your body).

The role of cholesterol in heart disease is often misunderstood. Cholesterol is carried through the bloodstream by low-density and high-density lipoproteins (LDL and HDL). LDL, known as bad cholesterol, and not the cholesterol it carries per se, is responsible for atherosclerosis.

Botox - Warnings from FDA

2009-05-01T06:55:00.000-07:00

Reports of deaths among people using popular anti-wrinkle injections such as Botox to treat muscle spasms have prompted a change in labeling.

Botox and similar products will now be required to carry boxed warnings, the most serious type of label warning, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Thursday.

Most cases involved children given the drug to control muscle spasticity associated with cerebral palsy and adults using it to treat muscle spasticity, migraines and cervical dystonia.

“The hospitalizations are very few, deaths are very rare, but they have been reported,” said Dr. Ellis F. Unger, acting deputy director of the FDA’s Office of Drug Evaluation, said during a teleconference.

“We don’t want to discourage use of these drugs as patients taking them have significant disability and the drugs are effective to relieve important problems,” he said. “But people just need to understand the risks that are involved so they can make informed, risk-benefit decisions.”

Other side effects include muscle weakness, difficulty breathing, loss of bladder control and pneumonia. Some people have required feeding tubes.

Unger said the deaths have not been clearly attributable to injection of the drugs, as everyone who died also suffered from other conditions.

None of the cases so far reported have been associated with use of botulinum products in cosmetic or dermatological procedures, such as clearing furrows between the eyebrows, according to the FDA. Botulinum toxins are not approved by the FDA to treat severe arm and leg muscle spasms, although they are approved for dermatological indications as well as cervical dystonia.

Officials believe that most of the problems occurred when one product was substituted for another without corresponding dose adjustments.

“There are now three products approved in the U.S., each with different units, and the units cannot be interchanged,” Unger said. “Switching patients from one to another runs the risk of underdosing or, more important, overdosing.”

The three approved products are Botox, Myobloc and Dysport, which was approved this week. Officials said there have been no post-marketing reports of similar problems with the newest drug.

The injections, which temporarily “paralyze” muscles, are intended to have a localized effect but can pose problems if the compound spreads to other parts of the body.

“When given in a particular place, they spread locally, meaning they move into adjacent structures,” Unger explained. “We have known that for years, and it can be annoying and somewhat of a significant problem for given patients but does not result in disability or harm.”

“The real concern is when there is distant spread,” he said. “It is injected at one point and spreads to areas not adjacent.”

The FDA issued an “early communication” in February 2008, warning of these adverse reactions. The month before, the watchdog group Public Citizen petitioned the agency to add a black-box warning to the two drugs then on the market in the United States, describing 180 “adverse event cases” related to the drugs, including 16 deaths, four in people younger than 18.

Between early 2008 and now, the FDA became “more certain about the cases,” Unger said. “We felt we really needed to nail down the scope of the problem before we placed a boxed warning, which is something we take very seriously.”

The FDA will also require manufacturers to put in place what it calls a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy — in essence, a comprehensive patient safety guide.

“Updating labeling will help patients and health-care professionals better understand the risks and benefits,” Unger said. “These drugs have benefits, but they also can cause serious problems.”

More information

Swine Flu - Questions & Answers

2009-04-27T21:24:00.000-07:00

Will swine flu end up sweeping the globe in a flu pandemic? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that it’s taking some aggressive precautions—just in case.The federal agency reported Monday that there were 40 confirmed U.S. cases of swine flu, which were mostly mild infections seen in New York, Ohio, Kansas, Texas, and California. There are 26 confirmed cases in Mexico, but there are thought to be hundreds more not yet confirmed (including reports of 149 deaths). There have also been six cases in Canada and one in Spain.

It sounds scary. But it doesn’t mean it’s time to panic. Experts have long been searching for new flu viruses because they are known to periodically appear and sweep the globe; for example, there were at least three pandemics in the 20th century and as many “pandemic threats.” The last pandemic was the 1968 Hong Kong flu, so researchers say we’re overdue for one and are on high alert for potential candidates.

All this preparation is a good thing. Better surveillance most likely picked up the swine flu cases early. And one reason the government declared a public health emergency is to free up huge stockpiles of antiviral medication. (About 11 million courses of antiviral medication were shipped to affected states). “There’s been tremendous planning that’s been going on around the country over the past number of years,” said Richard Besser, MD, the acting director of the CDC, at a press briefing.

While it’s not time to panic, it is a good time to become more informed about swine flu and to contemplate “what if?” scenarios, including what you plan to do if your child’s school is closed or you can’t go to work, according to the CDC.

“It’s time for businesses to review their plans and think about ‘What would I do if some of my workers couldn’t come to work? How would my business function?’” said Dr. Besser. “Think about that.”

The good news is that there is a wealth of information about swine flu online, and it’s constantly being updated. For example, you can follow current cases on Google maps and get CDC updates via Twitter, as well as find information on the CDC’s and the World Health Organization’s Web sites.

Health.com talked with Brian Currie, MD, vice president and medical director for research at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y., to get the facts about swine flu. Dr. Currie is an expert in disaster and bioterrorism preparedness. Here are his responses to some frequently asked questions.

Are we in the midst of a global flu pandemic?

I wouldn’t exactly call it a pandemic yet. A pandemic implies a huge spread across the world. Experts have been anticipating something like this would happen and we are somewhat prepared for it, but probably not ideally at the moment. This is a new strain that’s just been discovered, so there’s no vaccine for it—which is usually the most effective way to control dissemination. However, we do have a surveillance system and it looks like it was picked up very early, and we do have stockpiles of antiviral medications that are available if we need them.

Where did the virus come from, and why are experts concerned?

What you have is a swine flu virus that has picked up parts of human flu and mutated to incorporate them so that it can infect humans and it can cause human-to-human transmission as well. It’s made a lot of the changes it would need to become a pandemic. Unlike what’s happening in Mexico, where there’s been a lot of mortality, all of the cases that have occurred in the United States have been relatively mild disease. So it looks like as it spreads, it’s attenuating or become less virulent, so that would the saving grace here.

Isn’t avian flu supposed to be the big risk in terms of a global pandemic?

We knew it was going to be avian flu or swine flu that made the jump into humans and we’ve always been concerned about flu viruses that infect swine, birds, and humans; there are 30 or so in total. Some of the strains that can infect other species cannot typically infect humans. Human strains can infect pigs, so what happens is that pigs get infected with swine flu and human flu at the same time. They recombine the genetic material, so when they produce new viruses it’s got part of the human and part of the pig; you worry that if it gets enough of the human virus, it will be able to bind to human receptors.

Can I get swine flu from eating pork?

Absolutely not. It can’t be transmitted though the food chain. You’re not going to get it from eating pork.

Some of the swine flu cases have included symptoms like diarrhea or vomiting. What symptoms should I look for?

Typically what you are looking for is a sore throat, runny nose, high fever, and aching all over your body—a real good case of flu knocks people right on their backs.

I was sick a week ago—could I have had swine flu?

Unless you had contact with pigs or people from Mexico, it’s probably unlikely, although anything is possible.

Should I wear a mask in public? What’s the best way to avoid swine flu?

At the moment [wearing a mask in public] is a bit much. Basically you should practice good hand hygiene, and try to avoid contact with people coming from areas where there are known cases.
Read CDC recommendations regarding the use of respirators and face masks and the best ways to avoid the flu.

Should I keep my children home from school?

There’s only one school [in the New York area] where they have found cases and it’s limited to that school so far, so there is really no reason not to send your children to school at this point.

Should I cancel travel plans?

[The United States is] one of the sites people are worried about coming to now; Europe is telling people no unnecessary travel to Mexico and United States, so we’re being targeted rather than targeting other people. The caution would be, if you really don’t have to go, then put [trips] off and wait until we have more information.
Read the travel advisory issued by the CDC, which recommends delaying any non-essential travel to Mexico.

Should I get a flu shot?

No. In fact, it’s pretty unlikely that a flu shot will protect you against this strain.

I think I’m getting sick. Should I take an antiviral drug?

Currently what they are suggesting is if you are young and healthy, just go home and wait it out. That way we can keep the Tamiflu for people who have other chronic illnesses that put them at high risk, for example, those who are pregnant or the elderly. Those are people we are likely to test; then if they are positive, we’ll treat them.

Read CDC recommendations on what to do if you get sick.

I have to fly. Should I take any special precautions when traveling in a plane?

No, just stay away from people who look overtly ill. (And airports are generally screening people for symptoms.)

Should I go to the grocery store and stockpile food in the case of a quarantine?

No, just stay calm. The story is unfolding very rapidly and we’ll have more information shortly. But signs are encouraging so far, at least for what’s here in New York. If what’s happening in Mexico occurs someplace else, it could be another issue. Every U.S. case has been mild, so that’s in our favor. At the same token, there have been almost 200 [reported] deaths in Mexico.

Technorati Profile

Swine Flu

2009-04-27T20:32:00.000-07:00

The number of confirmed cases of swine flu in the United States has doubled to 40, with all the new cases coming from a New York City high school that had previously reported eight cases of the infectious disease, U.S. health officials said Monday.

The officials also said they were tightening their travel advisory to Mexico — believed to be the source of the outbreak that continues to reach around the world — recommending that all nonessential travel to that country be avoided.

“This situation is evolving very quickly, it is changing quickly,” Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during an afternoon teleconference. “We are officially reporting 40 confirmed cases in the United States. The only change from yesterday is 20 confirmed cases in New York City. These are associated with the same school outbreak and really represent additional testing in that group and not an ongoing spread.”

All 40 U.S. patients — 28 in New York, seven in California, two in Texas, two in Kansas and one in Ohio — have either recovered or had mild infections, Besser said.
“Later today, we will be releasing a new travel advisory for Mexico,” he added. “This is out of an abundance of caution, and we will be recommending that nonessential travel to Mexico be avoided.”

Mexico is reporting as many as 1,900 possible swine flu infections and as many as 149 deaths.
Earlier Monday, President Barack Obama said the threat posed by the swine flu outbreak was a cause for concern but “not a cause for alarm.”

“The Department of Health and Human Services has declared a public health emergency as a precautionary tool to ensure that we have the resources we need at our disposal to respond quickly and effectively,” Obama told a gathering of scientists at the National Academy of Sciences, amid increasing worries worldwide about a possible pandemic, the Associated Press reported.

Besser said that he “expects that we will see [swine flu] cases in other parts of the country, and I would fully expect that we will see a broader range in terms of the severity of infection. Thankfully, so far we have not seen severe disease in this country as has been reported in Mexico.

Besser said the United States will step up checks of people entering the country by air, land and sea, looking for signs of infection, and the CDC will begin distributing “yellow cards at ports of entry.”

“These will provide information on swine flu, so that people coming into the United States will have information about this outbreak — what to do if they become sick, what things they can do to prevent the likelihood that they will become sick,” he said.

He also said U.S. officials were questioning border visitors about their health, looking for signs of possible infection.

The fast-unfolding events in the United States — where all 40 cases have been relatively mild and there have been no deaths — came in response to some 1,900 swine flu infections and as many as 149 deaths in neighboring Mexico.

Officials in other nations around the globe responded to the threat of a possible pandemic. China, Taiwan and Russia considered quarantines, and several Asian countries scrutinized visitors arriving at their airports, the AP reported.

The European Union on Monday advised against nonessential travel to the United States and Mexico. Early Monday, Spain confirmed that a man hospitalized in the eastern part of the country had tested positive for swine flu, in what’s believed to be Europe’s first case of the disease. Health authorities were also testing 17 other possible cases in Spain, a major travel link between Mexico and Europe, The New York Times reported.

Responding Monday to the EU’s travel advisory, the CDC’s Besser said, “Based on the situation in the United States right now, I think it is premature to put travel restrictions on people coming to the United States. As the situation changes, that needs to be evaluated by different countries.”

On Sunday, U.S. health officials declared a public health emergency in response to the swine flu outbreak.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the declaration was a precautionary measure and did not mean that the threat posed by the outbreak was worsening. But, the move allows federal and state governments easier access to flu tests and medications, she said.

Napolitano said the federal government had 50 million doses of the antiviral flu medication Tamiflu, and a quarter of those doses were being released to states, if needed, “particularly prioritizing the states where we already have confirmed incidence of the flu.”

Napolitano also said Sunday that the Department of Homeland Security had started “passive surveillance protocols to screen people coming into the country.”

“All persons entering the United States from a location of human infection of swine flu will be processed by appropriate CDC protocols,” she said. “Right now, these are passive. They are looking for people and asking about: ‘Are you sick? Have you been sick?’ and the like. And if so, they can be referred over for further examination. Travelers who do present with symptoms will be isolated.”

Speaking at a Sunday press conference, Dr. Anne Schuchat, the CDC’s Interim Deputy Director for Science and Public Health Program, said that U.S. health officials had numerous tools to fight the illness’ spread and protect the health of Americans. The swine flu viruses found in the United States are resistant to two antiviral medications — amantadine and rimantadine — but are susceptible to the antivirals oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza), Schuchat said.

Schuchat said steps were already being taken to devise a vaccine against this strain of swine flu, although the process takes time. “We are taking the initial steps in terms of preparing the seed virus to hand off to the industry partners, to produce large quantities. But you know it takes months to produce a vaccine,” she said.

Besser said there are steps people can take to help prevent catching and spreading the flu, including frequent hand-washing. “If you are sick, it is very important that people stay at home. If your children are sick, have a fever and flu-like illness, they shouldn’t go to school. And if you are ill, you shouldn’t get on an airplane or another public transport. Those things are part of personal responsibility in trying to reduce the impact,” he said.

Meanwhile, in Mexico, authorities continued to take dramatic steps — including suspending school and public gatherings — to try to contain the outbreak that officials say has killed as many as 149 people, and sickened more than 1,900 others in that country.

Some of the U.S. cases involved people who had recently returned from trips to Mexico, Schuchat said Sunday. The two cases reported in Kansas involved a husband and wife who had recently been to that country, she said. And The New York Times reported that some of the students at St. Francis Preparatory School, in Queens, had recently come back from Mexico as well.

Also on Sunday, Canadian officials confirmed four “very mild” cases of swine flu at a school in Nova Scotia, and two other cases in British Columbia. According to the AP, a provincial health official said that the infection that sickened the students in Nova Scotia “was acquired in Mexico, brought home and spread.”

Swine flu is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza. Swine flu does not normally infect humans. However, human infections do occur, usually after exposure to pigs. Symptoms resemble those of the regular flu, including sore throat, coughing and fever.

8 Causes of Chronic Cough

2009-04-22T03:41:00.000-07:00

You've been coughing for weeks.
How do you know if it's just a hard-to-shake cold or something more serious?

A chronic cough, defined as lasting more than eight weeks, is not uncommon. Up to 40% of nonsmokers in the United States and Europe have reported a chronic cough at some point, and coughing is one of the five most common reasons for a doctor's visit.Only a doctor can tell for sure what's behind your endless hacking.

However, in a 2006 study of women with an average age of 48 who had a cough lasting for six months, 39% were found to have asthma, 9% had chronic upper airway cough syndrome (commonly known as postnasal drip), and 9% had gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).In addition, another 11% had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a serious, progressive disease that includes both emphysema and bronchitis.

While not all people who develop COPD are smokers, people who smoke are at higher risk. Overall, 24 million Americans—about 1 in 12 people—have COPD, although half don't know they have the disease.Read more about COPD and some common (and relatively uncommon) culprits in chronic cough.

1. Asthma and allergies

Asthma is a chronic lung disease in which the airways in the lungs are prone to inflammation and swelling. Along with chest tightness, shortness of breath, and wheezing, coughing is a characteristic symptom of asthma, one which tends to intensify at night or in the early morning.

When the symptoms of asthma flare up suddenly, it’s known as an asthma attack.Although it can begin at any age, asthma usually develops in childhood. Asthma triggers are different for everyone, and they can include exercise, colds, cigarette smoke and other airborne irritants, and certain foods.

Asthmatics usually also have allergies.Even in people without asthma, inhaling pollen, dust, pet dander, and other airborne irritants can trigger allergic rhinitis, an allergic reaction that can cause coughing, along with symptoms such as stuffy nose and sneezing.

You may be able to determine whether your cough is caused by allergies by keeping track of whether it comes and goes in certain situations.

If your coughing magically stops when you step into an air-conditioned room on a dry, pollen-heavy day, or if gets worse every time you pet Mittens, you probably have allergies.

If you’re not sure what’s triggering your allergic cough, your doctor can give you a skin test or blood test to pinpoint the allergy.

2. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (CPOD)
One condition that can cause a nagging cough is COPD, a lung condition that includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema.

COPD occurs when the airways and air sacs in the lungs become inflamed or damaged, most often due to smoking, and is more common after age 45. In COPD, the lungs produce excess mucus, which the body reflexively tries to clear by coughing.

COPD-related tissue damage can also make it particularly difficult to expel air from the lungs, which can make you feel short of breath.Your doctor may check you for COPD (particularly if you have risk factors, such as smoking), after ruling out other common causes of cough. To determine if you have COPD, your doctor is likely to conduct some tests, including spirometry, which involves inhaling as deeply as you can and then exhaling into a tube.

3. Gastroesophageal reflux disease
GERD is an ailment of the stomach and esophagus that occurs when stomach acid backs up into the esophagus due to a weak valve. The main symptoms? Killer heartburn. But coughing is another common symptom of GERD, along with chest pain and wheezing. In fact, GERD is a fairly common, and unrecognized, cause of a chronic cough.

4. Respiratory tract infection
Coughing is one of the most common symptoms of colds and flu and other respiratory tract infections. The other symptoms that accompany colds and flu, such as stuffy nose and a fever, are telltale signs that a viral infection is causing your cough.

However, a cough can outlast all those other symptoms, perhaps because the air passages in your lungs remain sensitive and inflamed.When this occurs, it's called chronic upper airway cough syndrome (or postnasal drip).

A more serious respiratory tract infection is pneumonia, which can be caused by bacteria or viruses. A cough, often producing a greenish or rust-colored mucus, is one of the characteristic symptoms of the illness, along with fever, chills, chest pain, weakness, fatigue, and nausea.

These symptoms may present differently depending on your age; older adults may not experience a fever, for instance, or they may have a cough but no mucus.Pneumonia is treated with antibiotics and generally clears up within two or three weeks. As with the cold and flu, however, the cough can linger for much longer.A form of pneumonia known as mycoplasma, or walking pneumonia, shares the symptoms of pneumonia (including cough) and is more common in people under the age of 40.

People who have COPD can be more susceptible to such respiratory tract infections, and may experience exacerbations—episodes of potentially life-threatening shortness of breath—when they catch a cold or breath in air pollution or other irritants.

5. Air pollution
Various pollutants and irritants in the air can cause a persistent cough. Even short-term exposure to fumes (such as diesel exhaust) can result in cough, phlegm, and lung irritation, for instance. Fumes can also exacerbate the symptoms of allergies or asthma.

Similarly, mold spores found in and around homes can cause wheezing and coughing when inhaled.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans reported a sudden spike in persistent cough complaints among returning residents. This so-called Katrina cough was believed to stem from the mold caused by the flooding, as well as by dry weather and the construction dust that was then ubiquitous in the city.

6. Acute bronchitis
If you’re on the verge of recovering from a cold and suddenly develop a hacking, mucus-y cough, you probably have acute bronchitis, a condition in which the passageways in your lungs become infected and inflamed.

In addition to coughing and chest congestion, bronchitis can produce fever, chills, aches, sore throat, and other flu-like symptoms. These symptoms usually disappear within a few days, but the cough can persist for weeks.

If your cough doesn’t go away, or if you develop acute bronchitis frequently, it may be a sign of a more serious condition.

Acute bronchitis—acute means short-term—is different from chronic bronchitis. Chronic bronchitis is a condition in which the lungs produce excess mucus due to ongoing irritation, and is considered a form of COPD.

7. ACE inhibitors
ACE inhibitors are a type of medication used to treat high blood pressure and heart failure. (Check out this list of common brand-name and generic drugs that are ACE inhibitors.) About 42 million prescriptions for ACE inhibitors are written each year, and about 1 in 5 people who take the drugs develop a dry cough.

In some people, the cough can persist for weeks after they stop taking the medication; women, African Americans, and Asians may be at greater risk of developing an ACE inhibitor cough than other people.

You should never stop taking a prescribed medication without consulting with your doctor, and ACE inhibitors are important medications for lowering blood pressure (a more serious condition than a cough.) Consult your doctor if you think your cough is related to a medication.

8. Pertussis
Also known as whooping cough, pertussis is a bacterial disease with symptoms that include a slight fever, a runny nose, and, most notably, a violent cough that can make breathing difficult.

Attempting to inhale air into the lungs between coughs can produce a distinctive, high-pitched whooping sound. After the initial stage, many people do not have a fever, but the chronic cough that accompanies pertussis can last for many weeks.

Most infants receive a pertussis vaccine, but its effectiveness subsides after about 10 years. Inadequate vaccination for pertussis (which is the “P” in the DPT shot) is one reason why the bacteria are making a comeback. Once a very rare cause of chronic cough, the number of pertussis cases in the United States has risen alarmingly in recent years, especially among adolescents and adults. However, pertussis is still a relatively uncommon cause of chronic cough.

3 kind of drugs that kill sex drive

2009-04-19T21:02:00.000-07:00

If you're having sex drive issues, check your medicine cabinet. Several varieties of prescription medication can dampen desire.

Birth control
Some hormonal birth control methods such as pills and patches can increase women's levels of sex-hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), which drops the amount of testosterone that's floating around freely in the bloodstream.

A small but alarming 2006 Boston University study, authored by Irwin Goldstein, MD, director of San Diego Sexual Medicine and editor in chief of The Journal of Sexual Medicine, found the Pill to have a long-term effect on libido in some women. The level of SHBG was twice as high in women who had taken the Pill—four months after they'd stopped taking the medication—as those who never had.

That kind of long-term effect is pretty rare, however, according to Hilda Hutcherson, MD, an ob-gyn professor at Columbia University. She finds that birth-control-related sex drive problems usually go away when her patients switch pill formulations. "It's the progestin that seems to affect libido," Dr. Hutcherson says. "Some progestins have an androgen [male hormone] effect, and those tend to have less effect on libido."

Or try another form of birth control completely. With most women Dr. Hutcherson has seen in practice, she says she's found that "if you take them off the Pill, their sex drive comes back."

Antidepressants
Selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as Prozac are supposed to cheer you up, but they can interfere with one potential source of happiness: sexual pleasure. Some doctors will keep the SSRI but add Wellbutrin, which increases dopamine and acts as an "antidote to the SSRIs," according to Dr. Goldstein. For others, a doctor might switch the patient to Wellbutrin and cut the SSRI.

Everyone's body reacts differently to drugs, however, and for some, depression itself is more of a sex drive dampener than the SSRIs are. For still another set of patients, notes Marjorie Green, MD, director of the Mount Auburn Female Sexual Medicine Center in Cambridge, Mass., and a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School, "When you give them SSRIs, they get a libido and can be sexually functional when they weren't able to be before."

Diabetes drugs
Both diabetes and the medicine used to treat it can diminish desire, arousal, and orgasm. And those changes, in turn, can affect sexual interest. As Dr. Hutcherson puts it, "Who wants it if it's not fun?"

What if you need the medicine?
Sometimes simply switching to another type of medicine, or even a different formulation of the same medicine, can solve the sex drive side effect. But if it does not, and you need the medication, and your regular provider isn't coming up with any new ideas, don't despair. "Go see a sexual medicine expert who can work with the physician prescribing the medicine to figure out other strategies," advises Alan M. Altman, MD, an assistant clinical professor at Harvard Medical School and a specialist in menopausal issues and midlife sexuality.

how to detox your body

2009-04-17T23:47:00.000-07:00

Every day we put potential toxins into our mouths, breathe them into our lungs, and track them into our homes without ever really knowing where they’ll end up—or how much damage they’ll do when they get there. In fact, if you could peek inside your body you’d find fire-retardant chemicals, heavy metals, pesticides, plastic particles, and dozens of other residues of modern life.

The time has come to fight back! Our 12 simple steps will help you detoxify everything from your food to your feet, from your bedroom to your breasts. Purifying your life won’t happen overnight, despite what those detox foot-pad makers promise on late-night television. (PS: They don’t work!) But if you begin today you’ll definitely be a little healthier by the time you get into bed. Here’s how to get started:

1. Protect against pesticides
Washing fruit and veggies is a must-do every time you bring them home. Why? An overload of pesticides in air, food, or water may set the stage for Parkinson’s disease and possibly Alzheimer’s disease decades down the road, according to research. Apparently the chemicals in pesticides—which find a home on the surface of produce—can damage the energy-producing parts of brain cells. There’s also a pesticide-and-arthritis link. Protect your brain and body by washing fruits and vegetables thoroughly, especially if you aren’t eating organic. (You don’t need to use fancy detergent; plain water should do the trick.)

Also watch out for pesticides in your own yard and garden, because anything you spray outside will likely end up in your home. Defend your greenery, instead, with insects (such as ladybugs) or a natural, safe repellent like neem oil (1 quart, $22.50).

2. It’s curtains for plastic
You know that strong odor emanating from some new plastic shower curtains and mattress covers? Blame the polyvinyl chloride (PVC) used to manufacture them—which releases toxic chemicals that can make you dizzy and drowsy with just a few deep whiffs. Retailers like Target sell curtains made with materials like cotton, polyester, or hemp, which are safer to use and easier to clean.

3. Look out for lead
Thanks to the widespread use of leaded gasoline in past decades, women 40 and up have high amounts of lead in their bones, says Ellen Silbergeld, PhD, a toxicology expert at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Why that’s bad: As your bones greedily soak up calcium, they can easily be fooled by lead, a dangerous metalliclook-alike. Lead-laden bones may be weak and prone to breaks. And as bones start to thin after menopause, the toxic metal could be released into the bloodstream, where it can increase blood pressure and possibly lead to neurological and kidney trouble.

How to fight back? Calcium, vitamin D, and regular exercise all can slow bone loss and reduce the amount of lead that moves from the bones into the blood, Silbergeld says. To keep more lead from climbing aboard, reduce dust in your home with either frequent wet-mopping or good vacuuming with a HEPA-filtered cleaner. (HEPA vacuums trap even those tiny dust particles you can’t see.)

The lead-paint issue is a toughie. If you live in an old home or apartment with chipping paint, talk to a knowledgeable inspector about testing before you do any renovating. Call the National Lead Information Center at 800-424-5323. Keep in mind: The Environmental Protection Agency says home test kits aren’t very reliable. Ask your doctor whether you need a blood-lead test, which usually isn’t necessary unless you’ve gotten acute exposure, say, during a home renovation.

4. Be smart down there
Do tampons have dangerous levels of dioxins or asbestos? Nah, it’s a myth. But don’t ignore the small-but-real risk of toxic shock syndrome (several dozen women get it each year), a potentially fatal condition caused by poison-producing staph or strep bacteria. Lower your odds by changing your tampon every four to eight hours and avoiding highly absorbent types (often labeled “ultra”).

Protect your ovaries while you’re at it by limiting exposure to perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs)—often in the coatings of nonstick pans and many other items like clothing, furniture, and packaged-food containers—which may double the risk of infertility, according to a study in Human Reproduction.

5. Don’t party hard
There’s some concern that chemicals found in plastic bottles and food containers have estrogen-like effects and can slightly raise the risks of breast cancer. But so far there is no real proof. What do we know that really does boost breast cancer risk? Alcohol. A new, massive study from England suggests that just one drink a day is linked to 11 additional cases of breast cancer per 1,000 women, and each drink after that increases the dangers. Even then, the risks remain small—your overall lifetime risk is about 12%. But if you think of alcohol as a toxin, maybe you’ll think twice before getting a frequent buzz.

6. Soap yourself silly
It’s tempting to try those gadgets or elixirs (or even foot pads) that claim to help you shed toxins through pores or sweat glands, but they’re a waste, experts say. The one skin product every toxin-conscious person should have? Soap. Sudsing up your skin every day (with extra washes for your hands) will help clear away toxin-producing germs, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), that can cause nasty skin infections. Use alcohol-based hand gels when soap and water aren’t convenient. If you’re worried about soap’s drying effects, try a natural moisturizer like Dr. Hauschka Skin Care Rose Body Moisturizer ($39.95).

7. Use pain pills sparingly
Your liver is a toxin-clearing machine, but it’s not perfect. Many medications, including common drugs such as the pain-reliever acetaminophen, can damage the organ. According to the American Liver Foundation, you shouldn’t take more than 3 grams of acetaminophen a day—the equivalent of six extra-strength pills—for more than a few days in a row. Take as small a dose as you need to feel better.

8. Don’t fool with fire retardants
Flame-retardant chemicals common in foam products and electronics, such as mattresses and televisions, have found their way into virtually every human body. No one is sure if that’s a problem for humans, but animal studies show that these chemicals, known as polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs), may interfere with the functioning of the thyroid gland and immune system. To be safe, seal up any rips in old foam cushions or mattresses (which may have been treated with the retardants) or get new ones, since many companies are phasing out PBDEs.

9. Stay smoke-free
You know regular smoking is a killer but think the occasional smoke can’t hurt? Not true. University of Arizona researchers found that just one cigarette impairs blood flow in the heart. And a Norwegian study showed that women who smoked one to four cigarettes a day tripled their risk of dying from heart disease and saw a fivefold jump in the risk of dying from lung cancer.

The threat of secondhand smoke is no less scary: Exposure kills nearly 50,000 adult nonsmokers every year. There are even new worries that thirdhand smoke (what’s left in your hair or your clothes after being in a smoke-filled room) is harmful, especially to babies. Sadly, you can’t stop other people from smoking. But you can help your body rebound by eating a lot of broccoli and cauliflower. These cruciferous vegetables (which also include Brussels sprouts, cabbage, and watercress) contain sulfouraphane and other compounds linked to lower disease risks. Studies suggest that people who regularly eat these vegetables enjoy protection from lung cancer. Three to five servings a week should do the trick, but don’t boil or microwave them to mush; overcooking may destroy the toxin-fighting compounds.

10. Freshen in friendlier ways
That sweet-smelling air freshener? It may be polluting your home with chemicals that can irritate your eyes and lead to headaches and nausea. Aerosol cleaners are equally guilty. Instead of covering up unpleasant smells, open the windows when weather permits. Get some fresh air in your home office, too, where ultrafine particles from laser printers can escape into the air. And green up with Areca palms, Boston ferns, and English ivy; they help purify your air. When you’re cleaning, try natural solutions like baking soda or vinegar.

11. Eat safer fish
Heavy metals can be hard on the heart. Mercury, for example, may raise your risk of atherosclerosis or a heart attack. Ironically, we get the vast majority of our mercury from fish, a supposedly heart-healthy food because of its high omega-3-fat content.

The Food and Drug Administration urges women who are pregnant or nursing to avoid mercury-rich fish including shark, swordfish, and king mackerel. It’s probably wise to go easy on slightly less-tainted types such as tuna, too. Such advice actually makes good sense for every adult, Silbergeld says. To cut down on mercury, stick with cod, flounder, and wild Alaskan or Pacific salmon, as well as shellfish like clams and shrimp. If you love sushi (with its healthy combo of resistant starch and omega-3s), limit yourself to one to two meals a month, and don’t always choose tuna.

12. Wipe your feet
Your shoes can play a vital role in detoxifying your home. Pesticides and lead-contaminated dust—not to mention annoying pollen during allergy season—tend to settle on the ground and can stick to footwear. Wiping your feet on an abrasive, high-quality door mat before walking inside can keep toxins from invading your space. Better yet, make a habit of taking off your shoes at the door.

Drug-Resistant "Super Acne" Is On the Rise

2009-04-15T19:09:00.000-07:00

First superbug (MRSA), then super yeast infections and now health experts are warning that certain types of bacteria that cause acne are mutating and becoming more drug resistant. Great. OK, so is it a pimple, or is it super acne?

****I tell you, it's a pretty good time to be a fungus or bacteria. The latest mutant strain that's becoming more bold and brash, resisting the traditional antibiotics, is showing up in the form of acne--and dermatologists are concerned. According to the latest estimates, as many of 30 percent of people with acne may harbor some resistant bacteria.

In a nutshell, the traditional prescribed antibiotic treatments for acne are becoming less and less effective, according to some experts. The problem? Sadly, some people are dealing with acne breakouts that are much more difficult to treat. Think: perma-acne (shudder). But even worse, experts warn, the drug-resistant acne--while not life threatening--can post a health risk for other staph infections. Nope, you're not going to die from acne, but drug-resistant bacteria like this can lead to more serious infections.

What can you do to protect yourself? Talk to your doc if you have persistent acne problems--especially if the medicine you've been prescribed stops working. And, never share towels that you use to wash your face with others. One Swedish study found that drug-resistant acne could be contagious and spread from family member to family member.

Do you have acne problems? Have you ever seen a dermatologist? Ever heard of these drug-resistant acne strains?

Aspirin linked to Brain Microbleeds

2009-04-15T18:53:00.000-07:00

A Dutch study finds an increased incidence of tiny bleeding episodes in the brains of people who regularly take aspirin.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examinations of 1,062 people found a 70 percent higher incidence of “microbleeds” among those taking aspirin or carbasalate calcium, a close chemical relative of aspirin, than among those not taking such anti-clotting drugs, according to an April 13 online report in the Archives of Neurology from physicians at Erasmus MC University Medical Center in Rotterdam. The research was expected to be published in the June print issue of the journal.

No increased incidence of microbleeds was seen in people taking clot-preventing drugs that act in different ways, such as heparin, the researchers noted.

Both aspirin and carbasalate calcium are taken to reduce the risk of cardiovascular problems such as heart attack and stroke. Both prevent formation of clots by acting against platelets, the blood cells that form clots.

The report adds information to a still unfolding medical story about the causes and effects of microbleeds, said Dr. Steven M. Greenberg, a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and director of the Hemorrhagic Stroke Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital.

“They found an association between taking antiplatelet medications and having microbleeds,” Greenberg said. “That is not proof that the antiplatelet medications are causing the microbleeds. People typically are given antiplatelet medication because they have more cardiovascular risk factors, which are associated with microbleeds. They tried to adjust for those risk factors, but that doesn’t prove that taking the medications causes the microbleeds.”

And then, “it is not clear at this point what significance we can attach to seeing microbleeds,” Greenberg said. Some studies have shown an association between microbleeds and an increased risk of major bleeding events in the brain, but those studies have included only small numbers of people, he added.

There also is some data indicating that microbleeds are associated with reduced brain function, but their role is unclear, because “they tend to travel together with other kinds of small-vessel brain disease,” Greenberg said.

“It’s not clear at this point whether microbleeds are doing any substantial harm to the brain, but we do know that antiplatelet drugs help prevent heart attacks and strokes,” Greenberg said.

The most that can be said is that the study “is a little bit of a warning for us to think about antiplatelet drug therapy as a risk for hemorrhagic damage to the brain,” he said.

Therefore, there is no message to physicians yet about who should or should not be prescribed antiplatelet drugs such as aspirin, Greenberg said.

“It’s important not to overreact until we are sure of what gives people the best combination of benefit without much risk,” he said.

Beat Allergies and keep running

2009-04-15T18:43:00.000-07:00

Running is no fun when you’re plagued by these common health complaints. Talk to your doctor about the best treatment options (and to get the all clear to exercise), then try these do-it-yourself strategies.

Allergies
Run between 5 and 9 a.m., when allergens are at their lowest, and choose the route with the fewest trees. Slowing your pace and breathing in through just your nose can help, too. Post-run, shower and wash your hair. If this move doesn’t help, hit the treadmill on high-pollen days. Check pollen counts in your area.

Asthma
Add an extended warm-up: Walk slowly for 10 minutes, then gradually increase your speed. Breathe in through your nose, not your mouth. If you’re new to running, start slowly, mixing walking with running at a moderate pace (one that allows you to hold a conversation). Also, relax your shoulders and arms as you run—you’ll open your lungs and breathe more easily.

Tummy troubles
You can thank the up-and-down motion and the fact that blood is being diverted away from digestion to your heart and muscles. The remedy: Don’t eat foods high in fat or fiber several hours before running, and give yourself two to four hours to digest a meal before you head out. Running at a different time of day may also help.

The Reason that we tired

2009-04-13T20:22:00.000-07:00

Even if you manage to get to bed at a decent hour most nights, we’re willing to wager that you’re exhausted. Women complain about feeling tired nearly four times as often as men. But if your fatigue is so crippling that it makes it hard to care for your family, do your job, or enjoy your social life—and lasts for several weeks—don’t just blame the draining demands of modern life.

Fatigue can be a symptom of everything from the mundane to the life-threatening, says Neil Shulman, MD, associate professor in the department of medicine at Emory University Medical School and co-author of Your Body’s Red Light Warning Signals. And, while figuring out what’s wrong can be challenging, experts insist that many of the reasons for exhaustion are easy to fix. Talk to your doctor about the following possibilities.

No-need-for-alarm reasons you’re tired:You’re low on Vitamin B12 The nutrient is an energy booster that maintains healthy nerve cells and oxygen-transporting red blood cells. If you’re low, you may feel draggy. You might also suffer from constipation or diarrhea, says women’s-health expert Sandra Fryhofer, MD, past president of the American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine. If left unchecked, a deficit can lead to numbness and tingling in the hands and feet, difficulty with balance, poor memory, and confusion.

What to do: A B12 blood test (your doc can do the test in the office by taking blood from your arm) will reveal your level. B12 comes mainly from animal sources, so make sure your diet includes dairy, eggs, meat, or fish. Vegans can opt for fortified veggie burgers or soy milk. B12 does come in supplement form, but it’s not easily absorbed. Your doc might recommend an injection.

Drugs are sapping your energySide effects from prescription and over-the-counter medicines like antihistamines can secretly sap your energy. Each person reacts to allergy meds differently, and some might make you drowsy even if they’re touted as non-drowsy formulas. Many beta-blockers for hypertension are also known for causing fatigue, and certain antidepressants have the same effect.

What to do: Medicine fatigue isn’t something you always have to live with. New or different formulations may not have the same effects, so check with your doctor about switching brands, dosages, or treatments. Keep an eye on labels, too: If insomnia is listed as a side effect, don’t ignore that warning.

You have a vitamin D deficitToday’s healthy desire to avoid sun damage has created an epidemic of D deficiency, says Annabelle Volgman, MD, a cardiologist and medical director of the Heart Center for Women at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. In fact, many of her female patients complaining of fatigue and chest pain are low in D, which the body makes from exposure to sunshine. The cause of the D-deficiency-and-fatigue connection isn’t clear, but low levels of this vitamin are associated with increased risks of heart disease, high blood pressure, some cancers, and neurological disorders.

What to do: A “25-hydroxy vitamin D” test of your blood (taken from a vein at the doc’s office) can check your levels; normal is about 16 to 74 nanograms per milliliter. Although you can find vitamin D in fish, eggs, and cod liver oil, Dr. Volgman says, most women who are deficient can benefit from supplements. To beat fatigue, she recommends 10 minutes of sunshine per day. A multivitamin can deliver 800 IU, twice the recommended daily amount.

Surprising disorders that can cause fatigueYour thyroid’s out of whackIf you can’t lose weight or have unexplained weight gain, drier skin than usual, a slowed heart rate, a change in your periods, or a feeling of being cold—along with fatigue—you may have hypothyroidism, says Francine Kaufman, MD, head of the Center for Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. Hypothyroidism occurs when the thyroid gland, located in your neck, doesn’t produce enough metabolism-regulating hormones. If it progresses without treatment, the disorder can cause constipation, infertility, joint pain, and heart disease. Eight out of 10 thyroid disease patients are women, and about 5% of women in their child-bearing years are thought to suffer from hypothyroidism, although some experts think the numbers are much higher.

What to do: Check into your family history, an important risk factor, to find out if anyone else has a thyroid imbalance. Your physician will order a thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) blood test. If it’s positive, you’ll probably need thyroid-hormone-replacement therapy for the rest of your life. Good news: It usually works great.

You’re depressed“Fatigue is one of the most common signs of major depression,” says David Mischoulon, MD, PhD, a staff psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. About 12 million adults (more women than men) suffer from depression—and the lifetime risk for women is about 20%.

What to do: You may think everything’s fine, but coming clean about feeling stressed, anxious, or sad can reveal a problem. Therapy and antidepressants (despite the possible fatigue side effects) are proven solutions, and getting more exercise may help, too.

You have celiac diseaseRoughly 1 in 133 Americans suffers from this digestive condition, a destructive reaction in the small intestine to gluten, a protein in wheat, rye, and barley. When you eat regular pizza or cookies, for instance, you may experience bloating, pain, diarrhea, joint discomfort—and extreme fatigue—because the disease starves the body of basic nutrients, says Marianne Frieri, MD, PhD, Chief of Allergy Immunology at Nassau University Medical Center in New York.

What to do: If wheat-based foods seem to make you sick and tired, you’ll need a series of blood tests. Depending on the results, the doc will do an endoscopy (a small intestinal biopsy). If celiac is confirmed, you’ll need to overhaul your diet. The good news: Gluten-free eating—making creative substitutions for wheat flour—is getting easier. By some estimates the number of gluten-free foods on grocery shelves is growing annually by nearly 25%. For help, read The G-Free Diet: A Gluten-Free Survival Guide ($24.99; Center Street, 2009) by Elisabeth Hasselbeck, co-host of The View.

Scary problems you can’t ignore:You have heart diseaseWomen having heart attacks often feel fatigued. “According to a recent study, 70% of women say they had a sudden unusual sense of tiredness beforehand,” Dr. Volgman says. Doctors typically chalk up women’s heart symptoms to unrelated causes (like stress) and may miss the diagnosis of the three most common problems: heart attack, congestive heart failure, and diseased valves. Yet, in the past 25 years more women than men have died of heart disease each year.

What to do: Brush up on the lesser-known heart attack warning signs, like heartburn and loss of appetite. Your doctor may do an electrocardiogram (EKG). If that’s normal, she may do an echocardiogram, or ultrasound test of the heart’s muscle walls. Diet and exercise changes can lower your risks—and energize you.

You’re diabeticThis debilitating disease can tire you out in two ways. When blood sugar is high, glucose (i.e., energy) is literally being flushed out of the body and into the toilet, says Sue McLaughlin, RD, president of health care and education for the American Diabetes Association. The body’s cells are being starved of the energy they need to keep running. And the other problem is increased thirst, as your body (in its attempt to dilute the high sugar in the blood) prompts you to drink more. The result is many nighttime trips to the bathroom and interrupted sleep.

Nearly 12 million American women have diabetes, and another 29 million are thought to have prediabetes, or high blood sugar that isn’t quite high enough to qualify as diabetes but is plenty high enough to cause fatigue. Diabetes can quadruple heart disease risks, which explains why more than 65% of people with diabetes die of heart disease or stroke.

What to do: Your doctor will likely do a fasting-blood-glucose test. If you have diabetes, you’ll probably need to check your glucose regularly and control it with diet and exercise, oral medications, and possibly insulin. If you have prediabetes, studies show that losing weight and getting more exercise can prevent or delay the full-blown disease.

How to get express flawless skin

2009-04-08T01:14:00.000-07:00

Just when you thought you’d escaped your teens and 20s unblemished, you find yourself battling adult acne and pimples in your 30s—and beyond. Hormones can fluctuate like mad in our 30s, 40s, and 50s, as we go on and off the pill, get pregnant, enter perimenopause and, eventually, menopause.

Pimples aren’t the only resulting problem, either. “There are quite a few conditions that mimic acne, which can make it hard for women to know what they truly have and how to treat it,” says Howard Murad, MD, associate clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. But diagnosing those red bumps can be easy if you know what to look for. Consider this your clear-skin cheat sheet.

If you notice…red bumps or deep-seated, persistent lumps concentrated around the chin and jawline, or blackheads and whiteheads spread across the skin you might have adult acne

The acne you get in your early adult years erupts for the same reasons it did in high school—primarily due to genetics and hormones. But it’s not always that estrogen levels are falling and male hormones are increasing, as many people assume. “Women may have normal hormone levels, yet still suffer from acne. The body simply develops a new sensitivity to hormones, which can result in breakouts,” explains Doris Day, MD, clinical assistant professor of dermatology at New York University Medical Center. And in those who are prone, androgens—or male hormones—can overstimulate oil production and interfere with the normal shedding of skin cells, causing pores to clog and bumps, blackheads, and whiteheads to pop up.

Treat it with: Over-the-counter acne products, to start. Go for cleansers, oil-free moisturizers, and spot treatments with pore-clearing salicylic acid or sulfur, both of which are far less drying than benzoyl peroxide. Dr. Murad advises his patients to choose formulas that double as anti-agers, fighting lines with products that contain peptides and antioxidants.

Homemade solutions also exist. “You can create a pimple-fighting paste by mixing a little bit of honey, an antiseptic, a dab of 1 percent cortisone cream, and some aloe gel, which soothes the skin,” Dr. Day says. “Simply apply it to the breakout. You’ll get all of the anti-inflammatory effect of cortisone, and it’ll take some of the angriness out of the pimple.” If your skin doesn’t clear after two to three weeks of at-home treatment, see your dermatologist. She can shrink those buried cysts with a shot of cortisone or prescribe a short course of antibiotics—creams and pills—for severe cases of adult acne.

If you notice…redness on your cheeks, nose, chin, or forehead, plus visible blood vessels you might have Rosacea

The exact cause of this chronic inflammatory condition is unknown. Some experts blame it on bacteria; others attribute it to inflammation or a microorganism residing in the oil glands. Without treatment, bothersome blushing can lead to unrelenting redness, bumps, and swelling. Unlike adult acne, “rosacea bumps lack plugs—the sticky clumps that come out when you squeeze a pimple,” says Dr. Murad, who is also the creator of Murad Skincare.

Treat it with: Antioxidant-rich sunscreens, anti-inflammatory moisturizers (with caffeine or soothing botanicals, like licorice extract and feverfew), and gentle cleansers. And cover it using makeup with a green tint, which counteracts crimson. Avoiding things that cause you to blush—caffeine, alcohol, spices, the sun—is a crucial part of treatment, too. If these remedies don’t do the trick, see your dermatologist. She’ll likely prescribe oral antibiotics or recommend intense pulsed light (IPL) therapy to knock out background redness and laser treatments to target broken blood vessels. One to three treatments, at $400 to $600 a pop, are usually needed for both IPL and laser.

If you notice…small red or white pimples surrounding the hair follicles, usually on your chin you might have Folliculitis

“After age 30, women often experience an increase in facial hair and become more prone to folliculitis, an infection of the facial hair follicles,” Dr. Murad explains. Plucking unwanted chin hairs can damage the follicles, leading to inflammation and redness.

Treat it with: Remedies that slow hair growth and target inflammation that comes from forcibly removing hairs. If your ovaries are producing too much androgen—and thus contributing to excess fuzz—birth control pills can address the problem and minimize hair, Dr. Murad says. If you’re prone to facial hair, talk to your doctor about Vaniqa, an Rx cream that reduces facial hair growth over time.

The Healing Power of Tea

2009-04-08T00:51:00.000-07:00

This old-fashioned “it” drink fights cavities, eases anxiety, and soothes irritated skin.

Face brightener
Try this skin saver from Skinsational Skin and Body Spa in Carlsbad, California. Soak a washcloth in warm chamomile tea with three drops of lavender oil; wring dry, and press onto face. Chamomile tea contains azulene, an anti-inflammatory that calms skin.

Cavity fighter
Want healthy teeth? Sip some antioxidant-rich white tea. “Polyphenol antioxidants in tea inhibit the growth of oral bacteria, like those that cause tooth decay,” says Milton Schiffenbauer, PhD, a microbiologist New York City’s Pace University, who has led research on the subject.

First-aid fix
Treat minor scrapes, bug bites, and sunburn with green tea, which contains tannins that act as a natural antiseptic and relieve itching and swelling. Just apply cooled tea with a cotton ball, says Leah Sherman, a naturopathic physician in Portland, Oregon.

Tension buster
In a British study, people who drank black tea four times a day for six weeks calmed down more quickly in stressful situations than those who didn’t drink tea. Black, green, and oolong teas all contain theanine, an amino acid that helps the brain and body relax.

Seven Top weight loss tools

2009-03-31T00:49:00.000-07:00

We’ve picked the gadgets that give you a head start on the healthy habits proven to help shed pounds.

1. Count those calories

Studies show that keeping track of daily calories helps dieters lose weight. But keeping a tally isn’t easy. This CalorieSmart Mini Nutrition Calculator ($40) takes away the guesswork with information on more than 50,000 foods.

2. Lunch the bento way

BYO lunches from home help dieters stay on track. That’s why we like this colorful Bento Box ($38), which helps keep portions in check. Even better: Pack the traditional bento mix—three whole grains, two veggies, and one protein—so you’ll feel full and satisfied all afternoon long.

3. Keep a diary

People who kept food diaries doubled their weight loss, according to research. We like the Day-Timer Weight Management Pocket Planner ($42.99) because it has everything you need to track servings, calories, exercise, even hunger level and mood.

If you’re more of a techie, consider phone diary apps such as iPhone apps WeightDate Weight Tracker (free!) or MyNetDiary Food and Exercise Log ($42 for a six-month subscription).

4.Torch calories
You know you have to burn 3,500 extra calories to lose a pound. But do you really know what your daily calorie burn is? Wearing the BodyBugg ($249 for the unit and one phone-coaching session) can help you keep track. It downloads to an online application that shows how much you’ve burned (or need to burn) to meet your daily, weekly, or overall weight-loss goal. You can create a custom food-and-exercise plan, too.

Sleep more. Too little sleep triggers a hormone that causes cravings and decreases one that tells you to stop eating. To hike your chances of a good snooze, try a Dream Essence Lavender Scented Aromatherapy Eye Mask ($24.95).

5.Patrol your portions

Anything that helps you visualize proper portion sizes will help you diet. That’s why we like Lunch Buddies ($18) plastic cutting mats that outline healthy sandwich sizes. Eat fresh. It’s hard to eat more healthy, filling veggies if the good stuff goes bad in the fridge. Try Evri Fresh ($3.99), a sachet disk that neutralizes ethylene, the gas released as food ripens.

Drinkers’ Red Face May Signal Cancer Risk

2009-03-23T19:01:00.000-07:00

People whose faces turn red when they drink alcohol may be facing more than embarrassment. The flushing may indicate an increased risk for a deadly throat cancer, researchers report.

The flushing response, which may be accompanied by nausea and a rapid heartbeat, is caused mainly by an inherited deficiency in an enzyme called ALDH2, a trait shared by more than a third of people of East Asian ancestry — Japanese, Chinese or Koreans. As little as half a bottle of beer can trigger the reaction.

The deficiency results in problems in metabolizing alcohol, leading to an accumulation in the body of a toxin called acetaldehyde. People with two copies of the gene responsible have such unpleasant reactions that they are unable to consume large amounts of alcohol. This aversion actually protects them against the increased risk for cancer.

But those with only one copy can develop a tolerance to acetaldehyde and become heavy drinkers.

“What we’re trying to do here is raise awareness of this risk factor among doctors and their ALDH2-deficient patients," said Dr. Philip J. Brooks, an investigator with the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and an author of the report published on Monday in the journal PLoS Medicine. “It’s a pretty serious risk."

The malignancy, called squamous cell esophageal cancer, is also caused by smoking and can be treated with surgery, but survival rates are very low. Even moderate drinking increases the risk, but it rises sharply with heavier consumption. An ALDH2-deficient person who has two beers a day has six to 10 times the risk of developing esophageal cancer as a person not deficient in the enzyme.

Reducing drinking can significantly reduce the incidence of this cancer among Asian adults. The researchers calculate that if moderate- or heavy-drinking ALDH2-deficient Japanese men reduced their consumption to under 16 drinks a week, 53 percent of esophageal squamous cell cancers in that group could be prevented.

There is some anecdotal evidence that young people treat the flushing as a cosmetic response to be countered with antihistamines while continuing to drink. Ignoring the symptom and continuing to drink is likely to increase the incidence of esophageal cancer, researchers said. To determine risk, doctors can ask their patients two simple questions. First, do you flush after drinking a glass of beer? Second, in the first one or two years after you began drinking, did you flush after having a beer?

The second question covers the possibility that a person has become tolerant to the effect. Dr. Brooks said that the two questions give doctors an easy way to find out if the patient is ALDH2-deficient. There is also a patch test in which an ethanol-soaked pad is applied to the skin. If it causes reddening after 10 or 15 minutes, there is a high likelihood that the person is ALDH2-deficient.

Diabetes: Is More Than Just Sugar Overload?

2009-03-17T23:11:00.000-07:00

We eat 150 pounds of sugar a year, but it’s not just sweets that have created a diabetes epidemic. You can also blame too-large portions, unhealthy carbs, not enough exercise, and processed foods: Sugar is hidden in unexpected places like ketchup, spaghetti sauce, salad dressing, bread, gravy, soups, and fat-free products. But it’s not too late to beat the blood sugar blues. Here’s how.

I walk every day, eat a healthful diet, and have no diabetes in my immediate family. I’m not model skinny (truth be told, I’ve been known to pack on a few extra pounds), but I’m certainly not a couch potato or junk food addict. So, imagine my surprise when a routine blood test showed that my blood sugar was elevated and I was officially prediabetic.

Prediabetic, meaning I have higher-than-normal blood sugar levels that put me at risk of developing diabetes, the seventh-leading cause of death in the United States. Yikes!
The fact that I’m not alone doesn’t make me feel any better—57 million Americans have prediabetes and another 24 million have diabetes (90% to 95% of all diabetes diagnosed is type 2, which typically appears in adults and is associated with obesity, physical inactivity, family history, and other factors). Being part of what’s shaping up to be a diabetes epidemic in America isn’t a club I want to join.

Another wake-up callIt turns out that prediabetes isn’t really “pre” anything, according to Mark Hyman, MD, author of UltraMetabolism and The UltraMind Solution: Fix Your Broken Brain by Healing Your Body First. “It’s a danger in and of itself that sets off a whole cascade of problems,” he says. In fact, there’s now evidence that a prediabetic patient’s risks for eye, kidney, and nerve damage, as well as heart disease, are nearly as great as a diabetic’s, says Alan J. Garber, MD, chairman of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) task force that’s currently writing new guidelines for managing prediabetes.

What’s more, diabetes can be especially dangerous for mothers and their unborn children, potentially leading to miscarriage or birth defects. Women with diabetes are also at higher risk of having a heart attack at a younger age. And elevated insulin levels have been shown to put postmenopausal women at increased risk of developing breast cancer.

The more I learned about diabetes, the more determined I was to lower my blood sugar levels. But how? What was I doing wrong in my so-called healthy life? Here’s what I found out that can help you, too.

I’m not alone in my surprise at having blood sugar troubles. Virginia Shreve was in the same boat when she went to a walk-in clinic with a bad backache and found out she had full-blown diabetes. “I had no clue,” says the 52-year-old from Lynchburg, Virginia. During her exam, the doctor tested her blood sugar and found that it was 280. (A normal, nonfasting blood glucose level is less than 140 mg/dl.)

“I felt like a deer in the headlights,” Shreve remembers. “I’d always been healthy. I knew thirst was a symptom, but I thought it was healthy that I was drinking so much water. And I’d been a good walker for years, so it wasn’t like I never got any exercise.”

When she returned to the doctor the following week, Shreve was given the results of her hemoglobin A1c test, which shows how blood glucose is controlled over two to three months. Normal for nondiabetics is 6% or lower—but Shreve tested at 9.6, enough to require medication.

Diabetes symptoms include being hungrier than usual, urinating frequently, and losing weight without trying, as well as fatigue, irritability, blurred vision, tingling or numbness in hands or feet, persistent infections, and slow-healing cuts or bruises. But some people have no symptoms or don’t equate the symptoms they do experience with diabetes.

“A lot of people feel fine with prediabetes or even when they’re diagnosed with type 2 diabetes,” says Sue Kirkman, MD, of the American Diabetes Association (ADA). “It’s not a painful disease early on, so people don’t realize how serious diabetes is and what kind of bad complications it can cause.”

Weather Change Can Trigger Throbbing Headaches

2009-03-17T22:54:00.000-07:00

Most people who are prone to headaches or migraines suspect that certain things, such as red wine or strong perfume, can trigger their head pain. Now a new study suggests that rising temperatures could trigger headaches, too.

According to a study published Monday in the journal Neurology, a spike in temperature may be enough to land some headache-prone people in the emergency room. The researchers found that for every 5-degrees-Celsius increase in temperature, the risk of a hospital-related headache visit went up 7.5 percent in the next 24-hour period. And a drop in barometric air pressure, which tends to happen before it rains, was also linked to a greater risk of headaches in the next 48 to 72 hours.

While people may think they’ve got a handle on their migraine triggers, in truth, weather changes may be to blame for at least some of those headaches, says Kenneth J. Mukamal, MD, the study’s lead author and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston. “In the summer, you may think that ice cream set off your migraine,” he says. “But it wasn’t the ice cream—it was the temperature increase on that very hot day that led you to eat the ice cream.”

Dr. Mukamal’s team looked at 7,054 patients diagnosed with headaches in the emergency room of Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center over a span of seven years; they compared factors like temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, and pollution for the period immediately preceding and following each patient’s hospital visit. While temperature and barometric pressure were linked to headaches, pollution—which is linked to a greater risk of heart attack and stroke—was not associated with migraines.

But Dr. Mukamal isn’t ruling out the possibility. “Our city was not big enough to say for sure that air pollution is off the hook,” he says, adding that a similar study performed in Los Angeles (where air pollution levels are considerably higher) might yield different results.

The study isn’t without limitations, though:

It excluded migraines that did not result in a trip to the hospital, says Ellen Drexler, MD, associate professor of neurology at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.
Migraines affect up to 18 percent of women and 6 percent of men in the United States.

So do the headache-prone need to stay indoors when the temperature starts to climb? Not necessarily, experts say.

Instead of holing up in an air-conditioned home, a migraineur may be able to take medication to prevent head pain. For example, taking beta-blockers is one way to prevent a migraine. But many people don’t like taking routinely taking prescription drugs to prevent migraines, says Dr. Mukamal. “Migraines often happen to younger people, who have a particular reticence to daily medication,” he adds.

Not all experts would recommend using medication to prevent temperature-change-related migraines. “I certainly would not suggest that a patient take symptomatic medication such as a triptan just because of a weather prediction—especially considering the track record of our weathermen,” says Dr. Drexler. “Although a dose of a simple analgesic in the morning might be helpful for some people.”

Overall, the weather probably is not as a big a migraine trigger as, say, a glass of Cabernet, explains Dr. Drexler. She recommends that patients keep pain diaries and log in weather conditions as well. If a patient finds that weather is, in fact, a trigger, he or she can potentially avoid a migraine by taking extra precautions to avoid other triggers (such as caffeine) on those days.

Red Wine & White Wine had same risk in term of Breast Cancer

2009-03-11T19:32:00.000-07:00

Attention red wine drinkers:
Drinking moderate amounts of any kind of alcohol (including wine, beer, and liquor) is associated with a slightly increased breast cancer risk—and the rosy-hued beverage is no exception.

That’s the conclusion of a new study that dashes any hope that red wine is less likely than other alcohol-containing drinks to increase breast cancer risk, or that it might even protect against the disease.

“If a woman chooses red wine, she should do so because she likes the flavor, not because she thinks doing so will reduce her breast cancer risk,” said Polly A. Newcomb, PhD, of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, who led the research. “It might be good for other things, but it definitely is not conferring any protection against breast cancer.”

There’s good evidence showing that women who consume alcohol have a slightly greater risk of breast cancer than teetotalers, and the risk is higher with heavier drinking. But research in animals and some human studies had suggested that red wine might not carry the same risks as other forms of alcohol or could even be protective. This is certainly possible, Newcomb and her team noted in their report in the journal Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention, because red wine contains more potentially beneficial plant chemicals, such as resveratrol, than white wine does.

To find out if this was true, the researchers looked at 6,327 women with breast cancer and 7,558 women who had never been diagnosed with the disease. Risk rose with the amount of alcohol consumed, no matter whether it was wine, beer or liquor. The heaviest drinkers—women who reported having 14 or more drinks a week—were 24 percent more likely to develop breast cancer than nondrinkers. In comparison, smoking may increase the risk of breast cancer by 32 percent, and having a close relative (mother, sister, or daughter) with the disease is associated with a 200 percent higher risk.

Cancer - all about cancer

2009-03-10T03:39:00.000-07:00

Cancer is the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells in the body. Cancerous cells are also called malignant cells.

Alternative Names
Carcinoma; Malignant tumor

Causes
Cells are the building blocks of living things. Cancer grows out of normal cells in the body. Normal cells multiply when the body needs them, and die when the body doesn't need them. Cancer appears to occur when the growth of cells in the body is out of control and cells divide too quickly. It can also occur when cells “forget” how to die.

There are many different kinds of cancers. Cancer can develop in almost any organ or tissue, such as the lung, colon, breast, skin, bones, or nerve tissue.

There are many causes of cancers, including:
Benzene and other chemicals
Certain poisonous mushrooms and a type of poison that can grow on peanut plants (aflatoxins)
Certain viruses
Radiation
Sunlight
Tobacco

However, the cause of many cancers remains unknown.
The most common cause of cancer-related death is lung cancer.

The three most common cancers in men in the United States are:
Prostate cancer
Lung cancer
Colon cancer

In women in the U.S., the three most common cancers are:
Breast cancer
Colon cancer
Lung cancer

Some cancers are more common in certain parts of the world. For example, in Japan, there are many cases of gastric cancer, but in the U.S. this type of cancer is pretty rare. Differences in diet may play a role.

Some other types of cancers include:
Brain cancer
Cervical cancer
Hodgkin's lymphoma
Kidney cancer
Leukemia
Liver cancer
Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma
Ovarian cancer
Skin cancer
Testicular cancer
Thyroid cancer
Uterine cancer

Symptoms
Symptoms of cancer depend on the type and location of the tumor. For example, lung cancer can cause coughing, shortness of breath, or chest pain. Colon cancer often causes diarrhea, constipation, and blood in the stool.

Some cancers may not have any symptoms at all. In certain cancers, such as gallbladder cancer, symptoms often do not start until the disease has reached an advanced stage.

The following symptoms can occur with most cancers:
Chills
Fatigue
Fever
Loss of appetite
Malaise
Night sweats
Weight loss

Exams and Tests
Like symptoms, the signs of cancer vary based on the type and location of the tumor. Common tests include the following:
Biopsy of the tumor
Blood chemistries
Bone marrow biopsy (for lymphoma or leukemia)
Chest x-ray
Complete blood count (CBC)
CT scan

Most cancers are diagnosed by biopsy. Depending on the location of the tumor, the biopsy may be a simple procedure or a serious operation. Most patients with cancer have CT scans to determine the exact location and size of the tumor or tumors.

A cancer diagnosis is difficult to cope with. It is important, however, that you discuss the type, size, and location of the cancer with your doctor when you are diagnosed. You also will want to ask about treatment options, along with their benefits and risks.

It's a good idea to have someone with you at the doctor's office to help you get through the diagnosis. If you have trouble asking questions after hearing about your diagnosis, the person you bring with you can ask them for you.

Treatment
Treatment also varies based on the type of cancer and its stage. The stage of a cancer refers to how much it has grown and whether the tumor has spread from its original location.

If the cancer is confined to one location and has not spread, the most common goals for treatment are surgery and cure. This is often the case with skin cancers, as well as cancers of the lung, breast, and colon.

If the tumor has spread to local lymph nodes only, sometimes these can also be removed.
If surgery cannot remove all of the cancer, the options for treatment include radiation, chemotherapy, or both. Some cancers require a combination of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.

Although treatment for cancer can be difficult, there are many ways to keep up your strength.

If you have radiation treatment, know that:
Radiation treatment is painless.
Treatment is usually scheduled every weekday.
You should allow 30 minutes for each treatment session, although the treatment itself usually takes only a few minutes.
You should get plenty of rest and eat a well-balanced diet during the course of your radiation therapy.
Skin in the treated area may become sensitive and easily irritated.
Side effects of radiation treatment are usually temporary. They vary depending on the area of the body that is being treated.

If you are going through chemotherapy, you should eat right. Chemotherapy causes your immune system to weaken, so you should avoid people with colds or the flu. You should also get plenty of rest, and don't feel as though you have to accomplish tasks all at once.

It will help you to talk with family, friends, or a support group about your feelings. Work with your health care providers throughout your treatment. Helping yourself can make you feel more in control.

Taming That Overwhelming Urge to Smoke

2009-03-06T20:45:00.000-08:00

In Brief:
The brain of an addicted smoker treats nicotine as if it is essential for survival.
Genetic traits may predispose some smokers to stronger addiction.

Most smokers try to quit unaided, resulting in a high failure rate.
If you smoke, no one needs to tell you how bad it is. So why haven’t you quit? Why hasn’t everyone?

Because smoking feels good. It stimulates and focuses the mind at the same time that it soothes and satisfies. The concentrated dose of nicotine in a drag off a cigarette triggers an immediate flood of dopamine and other neurochemicals that wash over the brain’s pleasure centers.
Inhaling tobacco smoke is the quickest, most efficient way to get nicotine to the brain.

“I completely understand why you wouldn’t want to give it up,” said Dr. David Abrams, an addiction researcher at the National Institute of Health. “It’s more difficult to get off nicotine than heroin or cocaine.”

Smoking “hijacks” the reward systems in the brain that drive you to seek food, water and sex, Dr. Abrams explained, driving you to seek nicotine with the same urgency. “Your brain thinks that this has to do with survival of the species,” he said.

Nicotine isn’t equally addictive for everyone. A lot of people do not smoke because they never liked it to begin with. Then there are “chippers,” who smoke occasionally but never seem to get hooked. But most people who smoke will eventually do it all day, every day.

New discoveries in genetics may explain why certain people take to smoking with such gusto and end up so addicted. Some people, for instance, produce a gene-encoded enzyme that clears nicotine from their bloodstreams rapidly, so they tend to smoke more and develop stronger addictions. Others possess special receptors in the brain that bond extra tightly with nicotine, giving them an especially intense high that makes it harder to quit.

Drug makers are exploiting the science of addiction to create novel treatments to help smokers quit. The newest stop-smoking medication, the first to be approved in 10 years, is called Chantix. Available by prescription, Chantix masquerades as nicotine well enough to occupy the brain’s nicotine receptors, where it may lessen cravings. Real nicotine, when it comes along, cannot find enough free receptors to do its thing.

Chantix seems to have a higher success rate than Zyban, an antidepressant that helps to balance dopamine levels. And recently released federal guidelines to doctors for helping smokers quit reported that the drug, combined with the nicotine replacement patch and use of nicotine nasal spray or gum as needed, produced higher long-term abstinence than the patch alone.

Doctors have written millions of precription for Chantix, though enthusiasm for the drug was tempered by reports of suiside and bizarre behaviors in people taking it. The reports prompted the Food and Drug Administration to issue a safety warning about Chantix early in 2008.

“That’s something that needs to be taken very seriously, but it needs to be put in the context of what happens if you don’t quit smoking,” said Dr. Michael Fiore, a smoking cessation specialist at the University of Wisconsin and chairman of the government panel that issued the new guidelines. Dr. Fiore used to consult for Pfizer, the maker of Chantix, but said he cut those ties in 2005. He still prescribes the drug but now takes care to discuss the safety warning with patients.

Dr. Nancy Rigotti was involved in Chantix studies conducted at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where she directs the Tobacco Research and Treatment Unit. “Those trials mostly enrolled people who were pretty healthy,” she said. “They did not include people with depression or much of a history of depression.”

Dr. Rigotti said it was possible that varenicline, the generic name for Chantix, “might have more psychiatric side effects in certain groups of people.”

Continued research should help to resolve lingering concerns about the safety of Chantix. Meanwhile, experts continue to recommend the old standbys: nicotine replacement gums, patches, nasal sprays, inhalers and lozenges, which have been proved to be safe.

Nicotine by itself does not cause cancer, heart disease or other major health problems linked to smoking; other chemicals in tobacco smoke are to blame. Nicotine replacement can be used alone or with prescription medications or, for best results, combined with counseling. Recent evidence suggests that using two forms simultaneously, like the patch and gum together, works better than either alone.

Although nicotine replacement products do not require a prescription, the F.D.A. limits where and how they are sold. They are also expensive.
“It’s so much easier to go down to the corner store and get a pack of cigarettes than it is to get access to evidence-based treatment,” Dr. Fiore said.

This year, the New York State health commission petitioned the F.D.A. to revise its rules so that nicotine gum, patches and lozenges could be sold anyplace that sells cigarettes, and at prices comparable to a cigarette pack. The agency is currently reviewing the petition.

Still, no treatment works for everyone. And even with the most successful treatments, only about 30 percent of attempts to quit last more than six months. Compared with willpower alone, however, that’s a huge improvement. Fewer than one in 10 smokers who go it alone manages to go six months without a cigarette. Most do not make it past a week.

When longtime smokers finally do quit, they soon realize that not smoking doesn’t necessarily make them nonsmokers. That’s what counseling is for — learning to function without nicotine and to cope with the cues that trigger smoking urges.

Most important, former smokers have to rediscover that it is possible to enjoy life without cigarettes, although the yearning may never die completely.
“I’m an ex-smoker,” Dr. Abrams said, “and I still miss it.” said.

Kale the winter green

2009-03-06T20:08:00.000-08:00

If you live in a northern climate and buy your produce at farmers’ markets or through a community supported farm,

February and March make for dreary offerings, with one notable exception.

Kale is a versatile green that serves as a fine inspiration for a soup or a stew, a pasta or a gratin. Because the leaves of this Brassica family vegetable are so sturdy, kale stands up to longer cooking than do chard and beet greens. And while greens like spinach and chard readily suffer from overcooking, stewed kale has a sweet flavor.

Kale is in the same family of vegetables as cabbage. (Italians call black kale cavolo nero, or black cabbage.) Like its cousins, kale is packed with health-promoting sulfur compounds, and it has been found to have the greatest antioxidant capacity of all fruits and vegetables.

It’s an excellent source of vitamins K, A and C, as well as manganese, and a very good source of dietary fiber, calcium, iron and potassium. All of this nutritional value comes in a low-calorie package.

Supermarkets generally stock curly kale, the variety with the sturdy, silvery green, ruffled leaves. At farmers’ markets you’ll find several other varieties, including the dark green cavolo nero, plum-red Redbor kale and red Russian kale, which has purplish leaves and red veins. They can be used interchangeably unless otherwise specified.

Kale can be simmered for long periods, or it can be blanched and then quickly pan-cooked in olive oil. Long-simmered kale yields a sweet, nourishing “pot liquor” that you will want to sop up with bread or even sip with a spoon. Kale loses its bright color as it simmers and the flavor of the leaves is strong, but the overall effect is sweet and comforting. The pan-cooked kale is brighter, both in color and flavor, but it will yield much less to serve, because kale loses volume when it’s blanched. Simmered kale, on the other hand, first collapses in the pan, then swells as it cooks.

some of the recipes for Kale are:

Pan-Cooked Kale With Garlic and Olive Oil

2 large bunches kale (about 1 1/4 pounds total)
Salt, preferably kosher salt
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
Freshly ground pepper

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil while you stem the kale and wash the leaves in two rinses of water. Fill a bowl with ice water. When the water comes to a boil, add a generous amount of salt and the kale. Blanch for four minutes, until the kale is tender. Transfer immediately to the ice water, then drain and squeeze the water from the leaves. Chop coarsely or cut in strips.

2. Heat the oil over medium heat in a large, heavy nonstick skillet. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, until the garlic is fragrant, 30 to 60 seconds. Stir in the kale. Stir for a couple of minutes, until the kale is nicely seasoned with garlic and oil. Add salt and pepper to taste. Remove from the heat and serve.

Yield: Serves four
Advance preparation: The blanched greens will keep in the refrigerator for about three days.

Simmered Kale
This recipe is a version of Judy Rogers’ Boiled Kale, Four Ways (from The Zuni Café Cookbook). Many vitamins leach into the pot liquor, so be sure to use it with the kale. Serve it on thick slices of toasted bread rubbed with garlic or topped with a poached egg.

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, sliced
10 to 12 ounces kale, stemmed, washed thoroughly and cut crosswise in 1/4-inch wide ribbons
3 to 4 cups water
Salt and freshly ground pepper

1. Heat the oil in a large, heavy soup pot or Dutch oven over medium-low heat, and add the onion. Cook, stirring, until the onion begins to soften, about three minutes, and add the garlic and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Cook, stirring, until fragrant, 30 seconds to a minute. Add the kale a handful at a time. Stir until the kale wilts, then add another handful until all of it has been used. Add water to cover the kale by about 1/2 inch, and salt to taste. Bring to a simmer and cover for 30 minutes, stirring from time to time. The kale should be tender but not mushy, and the liquid in the pan should be sweet. Taste and adjust salt. Add freshly ground pepper.

Yield: Serves four
Advance preparation: This can be made a day ahead and reheated. The flavor will be stronger the second day.

Colesterol

2009-03-06T20:06:00.000-08:00

Cholesterol is a soft, waxy substance found in all parts of the body.
Your body makes some cholesterol, and some cholesterol comes from the food you eat.
Your body needs a little bit of cholesterol to work properly.
But too much cholesterol can clog your arteries and lead to heart disease.
This article focuses on cholesterol and your diet.

Function
Cholesterol helps the body produce hormones, bile acid, and vitamin D. Cholesterol moves through the bloodstream to be used by all parts of the body.

Food Sources
Cholesterol is found in eggs, dairy products, meat, and poultry.
Egg yolks and organ meats (liver, kidney, sweetbread, and brain) are high in cholesterol.
Fish generally contains less cholesterol than other meats, but some shellfish are high in cholesterol.
Foods of plant origin (vegetables, fruits, grains, cereals, nuts, and seeds) contain no cholesterol.
Fat content is not a good measure of cholesterol content. For example, liver and other organ meats are low in fat, but very high in cholesterol.

Side Effects
In general, your risk of developing heart disease or atherosclerosis goes up as your level of blood cholesterol increases.

Recommendations
More than half of the adult population has blood cholesterol levels higher than the desirable range. High cholesterol levels often begin in childhood. Some children may be at higher risk due to a family history of high cholesterol.

To lower high cholesterol levels:
Limit total fat intake to 25 - 35% of total daily calories. Less than 7% of daily calories should be from saturated fat, no more than 10% should be from polyunsaturated fat, and no more than 20% from monounsaturated fat.
Eat less than 200 mg of dietary cholesterol per day.
Get more fiber in your diet.
Lose weight.
Increase physical activity.

The recommendations for children's diets are similar to those of adults. I
t is very important that children get enough calories to support their growth and activity level, and that the child achieve and maintain a desirable body weight

In Brief:
Cholesterol can rise suddenly for unknown reasons, as it did for one Times reporter.
Dozens of measures, individually or together, can help to lower cholesterol, including exercise, weight loss, yoga and diet.
Cutting LDL, so-called bad cholesterol, by 60 milligrams can reduce heart attacks and sudden death by 50 percent after only two years.
Drugs, such as statins, should be a last resort but can be very effective.

Vitamins for protecting eyes

2009-03-06T20:04:00.001-08:00

Vitamin B supplements may reduce the risk for age-related macular degeneration,
at least in women with cardiovascular disease or at risk for it.
Macular degeneration, a disease that destroys the central area of the retina,
is the leading cause of severe vision loss in people over 50.

In a study published Feb. 23 in The Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers followed 5,205 female health care professionals with cardiovascular disease or three or more risk factors for it.

They were randomly assigned to take either a placebo or a combination of folic acid and vitamins B6 and B12. After an average of 7.3 years of follow-up, there were 55 cases of macular degeneration in the treatment group and 82 among those who took a placebo.

The groups were similar in a broad range of health characteristics, but the researchers found that those who took the vitamins had a 41 percent reduced risk for significant degeneration. That may be because the vitamins reduce blood levels of the amino acid homocysteine, which has been implicated in vision loss.

But the study’s lead author, Dr. William G. Christen, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, declined to recommend vitamin use. “These are the first randomized trial data indicating a possible benefit,” he said. “The next step is to corroborate these findings in other populations.”

Cure for common Cold?

2009-03-06T03:58:00.000-08:00

the structure of human rhinovirus

Researcher had decoded the genomes of the 99 strains of common cold virus and developed a catalog of its vulnerabilities.

“We are now quite certain that we see the Achilles’ heel, and that a very effective treatment for the common cold is at hand,” said Stephen B. Liggett, an asthma expert at the University of Maryland and co-author of the finding.

Besides alleviating the achy, sniffly misery familiar to everyone, a true cold-fighting drug could be a godsend for the 20 million people who suffer from asthma and the millions of others with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The common cold virus, a rhinovirus, is thought to set off half of all asthma attacks.

Even so, it might be difficult to kindle the interest of pharmaceutical companies. While the new findings are “an interesting piece of science,” said Dr. Glenn Tillotson, an expert on antiviral drugs at Viropharma in Exton, Pa., he noted that the typical cost of developing a new drug was now $700 million, “with interminable fights with financiers and regulators.”

Because colds are mostly a minor nuisance, drug developers say, people would not be likely to pay for expensive drugs. And it would be hard to get the Food and Drug Administration to approve a drug with any serious downside for so mild a disease.

Carl Seiden, president of Seiden Pharmaceutical Strategies and a longtime industry analyst and consultant, said industry might be loath to wade in because Relenza and Tamiflu — two drugs that ameliorated flu but did not cure it — were huge commercial disappointments.

The industry has also learned in recent years that turning a genetic discovery into a marketable drug is far harder than once thought.
Still, if the discovery could lead to an effective drug to treat the common cold, “that’s a big deal,” Mr. Seiden said.

Industry hurdles aside, perhaps the biggest reason the common cold has long defied treatment is that the rhinovirus has so many strains and presents a moving target for any drug or vaccine.
This scientific link in this chain of problems may now have been broken by a research team headed by Dr. Liggett and Dr. Ann C. Palmenberg, a cold virologist at the University of Wisconsin.

The researchers, who conducted the genetic decoding with the aid of Dr. Claire Fraser-Liggett at the University of Maryland, published their insights into the rhinovirus on Thursday in the online edition of Science.

Dr. Fernando Martinez, an asthma expert at the University of Arizona, said the new rhinovirus family tree should make it possible for the first time to identify which particular branch of the tree held the viruses most provocative to asthma patients.

If antiviral agents could be developed against this group of viruses, Dr. Martinez said, “it would be an extraordinary advance.”

Another asthma expert, Dr. E. Kathryn Miller at the Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital in Nashville, said the new finding was “a groundbreaking study of major significance.”

People at high risk from rhinoviruses, like children with asthma or adults with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, would benefit greatly from new drugs, Dr. Miller said, and should therefore be populations of interest to the drug industry.

Dr. Liggett said the new data might even provide an opportunity to consider new vaccine approaches.

Dr. Palmenberg is less optimistic. “There’s not going to be a vaccine for the common cold,” she said, given that vaccines do not protect the linings of the nose where the virus attacks.

The rhinovirus has a genome of about 7,000 chemical units, which encode the information to make the 10 proteins that do everything the virus needs to infect cells and make more viruses.
By comparing the 99 genomes with one another, the researchers were able to arrange them in a family tree based on similarities in their genomes.

That family tree shows that some regions of the rhinovirus genome are changing all the time but that others never change.

The fact that the unchanging regions are so conserved over the course of evolutionary time means that they perform vital roles and that the virus cannot let them change without perishing. They are therefore ideal targets for drugs because, in principle, any of the 99 strains would succumb to the same drug.

Dr. Liggett said he believed that one such target lies at the very beginning of the rhinovirus genome, where its genetic material is folded into a clover-leaf shape. The sequence of units in the clover leaf is designed to be read quickly by the infected cell’s protein-making machinery. All strains of rhinovirus have much the same sequence of units at this region and all could be vulnerable to the same drug.

The data will also help analyze a new family of rhinoviruses that is causing concern. Instead of attacking the cells lining the nose, these attack those lining the deep lungs, causing viral pneumonia.

This family of virus cannot at present be grown for study in the laboratory, Dr. Palmenberg said, but can now be researched genetically through the common elements they share with other rhinoviruses.

Researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute, where the rhinovirus genomes were decoded, say another important feature of the viruses lies in a highly variable region at one of the genomes.
The equivalent region in polio virus determines pathogenicity, and the same may be true with rhinoviruses.

There are at present no effective treatments for the common cold. Frequent hand-washing is the best preventive, Dr. Miller said. Once a cold has started, she recommended washing out the nasal passages, warm drinks and rest.

Gardiner Harris contributed reporting from Washington.

E-cigarettes

2009-03-06T03:54:00.000-08:00

Some health officials blast device marketed as safe alternative to smoking

BEIJING - With its slim white body and glowing amber tip, it can easily pass as a regular cigarette. It even emits what look like curlicues of white smoke.

The Ruyan V8, which produces a nicotine-infused mist absorbed directly into the lungs, is just one of a rapidly growing array of electronic cigarettes attracting attention in China, the U.S. and elsewhere — and the scrutiny of world health officials.

Marketed as a healthier alternative to smoking and a potential way to kick the habit, the smokeless smokes have been distributed in swag bags at the British film awards and hawked at an international trade show.

Because no burning is involved, makers say there's no hazardous cocktail of cancer-causing chemicals and gases like those produced by a regular cigarette. There's no secondhand smoke, so they can be used in places where cigarettes are banned, the makers say.

Health authorities are questioning those claims.
Words of warningThe World Health Organization issued a statement in September warning there was no evidence to back up contentions that e-cigarettes are a safe substitute for smoking or a way to help smokers quit.

It also said companies should stop marketing them that way, especially since the product may undermine smoking prevention efforts because they look like the real thing and may lure nonsmokers, including children.

"There is not sufficient evidence that (they) are safe products for human consumption," Timothy O'Leary, a communications officer at the WHO's Tobacco Free Initiative in Geneva, said this week.

The laundry list of WHO's concerns includes the lack of conclusive studies and information about e-cigarette contents and their long-term health effects, he said.

Unlike other nicotine-replacement therapies such as patches for slow delivery through the skin, gum or candy for absorption in the mouth, or inhalers and nasal sprays, e-cigarettes have not gone through rigorous testing, O'Leary said.

Nicotine is highly addictive and causes the release of the "feel good" chemical dopamine when it goes to the brain. It also increases heart rate and blood pressure and restricts blood to the heart muscle.

Ruyan — which means "like smoking" — introduced the world's first electronic cigarette in 2004. It has patented its ultrasonic atomizing technology, in which nicotine is dissolved in a cartridge containing propylene glycol, the liquid that is vaporized in smoke machines in nightclubs or theaters and is commonly used as a solvent in food.

When a person takes a drag on the battery-powered cigarette, the solution is pumped through the atomizer and comes out as an ultrafine spray that resembles smoke.

Hong Kong-based Ruyan contends the technology has been illegally copied by Chinese and foreign companies and is embroiled in several lawsuits. It's also battling questions about the safety of its products.

Most sales take place over the Internet, where hundreds of retailers tout their products. Their easy availability, O'Leary warns, "has elevated this to a pressing issue given its unknown safety and efficacy."

Prices range from about $60 to $240. Kits include battery chargers and cartridges that range in flavors (from fruit to menthol) and nicotine levels (from zero — basically a flavored mist — to 16 milligrams, higher than a regular cigarette.) The National Institutes of Health says regular cigarettes contain about 10 milligrams of nicotine.

Promoted as 'healthier'On its Web site, Gamucci, a London-based manufacturer, features a woman provocatively displaying one of its e-cigs. "They look like, feel like and taste like traditional tobacco, yet they aren't," the blurb reads. "They are a truly healthier and satisfying alternative. Join the revolution today!"

Smoking Everywhere, a Florida-based company, proclaims it "a much better way to smoke!" while a clip on YouTube features an employee of the NJoy brand promoting its e-cigarettes at CES, the international consumer technology trade show.
Online sales make it even more difficult to regulate the industry, which still falls in a gray area in many countries.

In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration has "detained and refused" several brands of electronic cigarettes because they were considered unapproved new drugs and could not be legally marketed in the country, said press officer Christopher Kelly.

He did not give more details, but said the determination of whether an e-cig is a drug is made on a case-by-case basis after the agency considers its intended use, labeling and advertising.
In Australia, the sale of electronic cigarettes containing nicotine is banned. In Britain, the products appear to be unregulated and are sold in pubs.

Smoking is tightly woven into the fabric of daily life in Ruyan's home turf of China, the world's largest tobacco market where about 2 trillion cigarettes are sold every year.
Tobacco sales, the biggest source of government revenue, brought in $61 billion in the first 11 months of last year, up 18 percent from 2007, the Communist Party's People's Daily newspaper said.

Pricier optionIn a country where the cheapest brands of cigarettes cost about 20 cents a pack, the e-cig is far pricier. Ruyan's V8 costs $240 and includes batteries and 20 cartridges of nicotine solution, roughly the same number of puffs as 20 packs of tobacco cigarettes. The line has expanded to include cigars and pipes crafted from agate and rosewood.

Ruyan is suing a Beijing newspaper for questioning its safety and for claiming in 2006 that its products have more nicotine than regular cigarettes.
Miu Nam, Ruyan's executive director, blames the newspaper for a hit in sales and profits but declined to give details.

"We have to restore consumers' confidence, we have to clean up people's doubts," Miu said.
An operator at the Beijing Times refused to transfer calls seeking comment Friday to managers at the newspaper. A reporter said she had heard of the case but would not give any details.
Some international experts back Ruyan's claims its product is safe.

David Sweanor, an adjunct law professor at Ottawa University and former legal counsel of the Non Smokers Rights Association in Canada, said e-cigs have the potential to save lives.
With smoking, "it's the delivery system that's killing people," Sweanor said. "Anytime you suck smoke into your lungs you're going to do yourself a great deal of damage. Nicotine has some slight risks but they are minor compared to the risk of smoke in cigarettes."

Dr. Murray Laugesen, a New Zealand physician involved in tobacco control for 25 years who was commissioned by Ruyan to test its e-cigs, said he found "very little wrong" with them.
"It looks more like a cigarette and feels more like a cigarette than any other device so far and yet it does not cause the harm," he said. "It's the best substitute so far invented for tobacco cigarettes."

In the U.S, both Philip Morris USA and RJ Reynolds have introduced cigarettes that did not burn tobacco, but the technologies were very different from the e-cigarette. Neither has been successful.

In 2006, Philip Morris USA, test-marketed the Accord, which used a heating unit activated by puffing. RJ Reynolds introduced its cigarette, the Premier, in 1987 and still sells the Eclipse, which heats the tobacco rather than burning it. Sales are "not great," said spokesman David Howard.

Li Honglei, a fast-talking 28-year-old public relations manager in Beijing, has been smoking since he was in his teens and desperately wants to quit. He thinks he may have found his answer in Ruyan.

"I was intrigued by this new technology," said the pudgy, bespectacled Li as he surveyed products displayed in glass cases at Ruyan's brightly-lit shop in the capital. "I heard acupuncture is effective as well, but this method sounds more painless."

Smoke Less to Quit Smoking

2009-03-06T03:52:00.000-08:00

Smoke Less to Quit Smoking

In the study funded by the US National Cancer Institute,

20 healthy adult smokers smoked their usual brand for a week then followed six weeks of smoking cigarettes with gradually decreased nicotine content.

Five smokers quit smoking completely while the study was in progress.
The rest return to their usual commercial cigarette brand at the end of period.

However one month later after that test, they were smoking about 40% fewer cigarettes a day, with a comparable reduction in nicotine intake.
So, this research on reduced-nicotine content cigarettes strongly counters the idea that reducing the nicotine content of cigarettes would lead to smoking more cigarettes.

Tobacco products with reduction of the nicotine yields make cigarettes less harmful.
But other study revealed that low tar, low nicotine cigarettes damage blood flow through the heart as severely as regular cigarettes.

Scientists say cigarettes marketed as low-nicotine do not work because they have high nicotine content and are "engineered" - made with highly porous paper and have ventilation holes above the filter - to deliver more nicotine when the smoker takes more frequent and bigger puffs.

There is easy way to reduce smoker's nicotine intake.
If you are thinking about quitting smoking, try to smoke lesser quantity of cigarettes until your final one and you will be rewarded for your efforts.

This reduction will reduce cigarette cravings and withdrawal symptoms during smoking ending process. It is safe to say that smoking ending process starts, when you initiate changes like decreasing amount of smoked cigarettes in your everyday smoking routine.

Honey Bee Facts - Healthy Sustenance

2009-03-06T03:42:00.000-08:00

Honey Bee Facts - Healthy Sustenance

Bee are Unique insect coz they are naturally industrious and efficient and they could accomplish amazing feats.

Human have reaped the practically countless benefits of substances obtained from beehives.
The substances are used in many different ways, particularly in the realm of health and beauty. Products that contain elements like propolis, royal jelly and honey offer excellent benefits for the body.

Honey Facts: Healthy Sustenance

We already know that honey offers many healthy benefits.
People can ward off allergies by purchasing fresh honey from their local area.
The honey provides natural defence against allergens since it is made of pollens that can trigger allergies.
Consuming honey is much like getting an all-natural vaccine against allergens.
Bee pollen also offers great benefits. Royal jelly and Bee Propolis are two helpful elements that derived from the beehive.

Royal Jelly And Bee Propolis
Royal jelly and bee propolis have many health-enhancing benefits such as immune system enhancement, weight control, and beauty aids.

Supplements that contain bee products are effective in improving the condition of skin, hair and nails.

Immune System EnhancementBee products help maintain and improve immunity against infection and illnesses. People take these products to protect against viruses while enjoying more energy and vivaciousness.

Weight ControlBee products also have a significant impact on the appetite as natural appetite suppressants. smaller quantity cravings lead to more success for dieters. Lecithin is an important component that helps increase the metabolic rate, helping the body burn fat faster.

Beauty ProductsCream that containing bee product is particularly effective in improving the look and texture of the surface of the skin and enchance natural beauty.The beehive has many things to offer consumers. Consider some of the bee facts as you explore the benefits of adopting these products into your daily routine.

Aloe Vera - Miracle Plant

2009-03-06T03:39:00.001-08:00

Aloe vera is said to be a miracle plant? Why?
Well, it has great healing and curative properties that are natural and safe.
If you have a cut, abrasion, sore, sting or skin irritation, aloe vera will heal the area and soothe it as well.

Enough cannot be said about aloe vera. It heals, moisturizes, soothes, optimizes health, cures acne, diabetes, constipation, cleanses the colon, corrects the digestive system and gets rid of heartburn and other health issues.

Aloe Vera regenerates the cells, provides anti-bacterial and anti-fungal outcome on the body. This primary reason is enough to consider Aloe as one of the most naturally healthy plant. It contains many essential minerals and vitamins that also aid the internal organs to operate more efficiently. Aloe can also be considered as a irreplaceable dietary compliment to those who are trying to lose weight.

Weight loss can be quite a daunting task and anything that will enhance the prospect of successful weight loss is always welcomed and that is what Aloe does for those who are in that process.

When taken internally as a juice, Aloe drink acts as a laxative and helps to get rid of bad bacteria and unwanted parasite inside the intestine. Bacteria and parasites in the body are an unwelcomed addition because it breeds health problems, decreases energy and contributes to the ill health of those who are affected.

There are claims, which are unsubstantiated, that aloe heals ulcers and aids in indigestion. The fact that aloe has so many uses attributes it to the fact that many scientists are including it in their alternative medical practice and that says a lot. Find out how you can get help from Aloe Vera at Aloe Vera Benefits.

Water or Coke?

2009-03-06T03:19:00.000-08:00

WATER

1. We all know that water is important but I’ve never seen it written down like this before.
2. 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. (Likely applies to half world population)
3. In 37% of Americans, the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is often mistaken for hunger.
4. Even MILD dehydration will slow down one’s metabolism as much as 3%.
5. One glass of water will shut down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied in a U- Washington study.
6. Lack of water is the #1 trigger of daytime fatigue.
7. Preliminary research indicates that 8-10 glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers.
8. A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen or on a printed page.
9. Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45%, plus it can slash the risk of breast cancer by 79%, and one is 50% less likely to develop bladder cancer.
Are you drinking the amount of water you should every day?

COKE

1. In many states (in the USA) the highway patrol carries two gallons of Coke in the truck to remove blood from the highway after a car accident.
2. You can put a T-bone steak in a bowl of coke and it will be gone in two days.
3. To clean a toilet: Pour a can of Coca-Cola into the toilet bowl and let the “real thing” sit for one hour, then flush clean The citric acid in Coke removes stains from vitreous china.
4. To remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers: Rub the bumper with a crumpled-up piece of Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil dipped in Coca-Cola.
5. To clean corrosion from car battery terminals: Pour a can of
Coca-Cola over the terminals to bubble away the corrosion.
6. To loosen a rusted bolt: Applying a cloth soaked in Coca-Cola to the rusted bolt for several minutes.
7. To bake a moist ham: Empty a can of Coca-Cola into the baking pan, wrap the ham in aluminum foil, and bake. Thirty minutes before the ham is finished, Remove the foil, allowing the drippings to mix with the Coke for a sumptuous brown gravy.
8. To remove grease from clothes: Empty a can of coke into a load of greasy clothes, add detergent, and run through a regular cycle. The Coca-Cola will help loosen grease stains. It will also clean road haze from your windshield.

For Your Info:
1. The active ingredient in Coke is phosphoric acid. Its Ph is 2.8. It will dissolve a nail in about 4 days. Phosphoric acid also leaches calcium from bones and is a major contributor to the rising increase in osteoporosis.
2. To carry Coca-Cola syrup (the concentrate) the commercial truck must use the Hazardous material place cards reserved for highly corrosive materials.
3. The distributors of coke have been using it to clean the engines of their trucks for about 20 years!

Now the question is, would you like a glass of WATER or COKE ?

Yoga - Conscious Relaxation for Stress Release

2009-03-06T03:11:00.000-08:00

Prana is the energy permeating the universe at all levels.
It is physical, mental, intellectual, sexual, spiritual and cosmic energy.

All vibrating energies are prana...prana is the breath of life of all beings in the universe." - Yogacharya B.K.S Iyengar

A simple way to relax all the muscles of the body systematically is the tense-relax method. Practise the following asana if you need to unwind or have trouble sleeping.

As your body temperature will drop, have a light blanket handy.
You can also use a small pillow, a rolled blanket or even a yoga block to place under your knees if you feel any lower back tension.

Remember that in Yoga we breathe in through the nose and out through the nose most of the time. This is extremely effective in relieving stress as it encourages deeper, fuller breaths in the body, thus intoxicating the subtle energies of the nervous system. I promise that you will find this asana intensely relaxing.

Savasana (also known as Corpse or Relaxation Pose)
1. Lie down on your back with legs extended, ankles hip-bone distance apart, feet relaxed and falling to the side.

2. Relax the arms at your sides, slightly away from the body, palms facing upwards, shoulders away from the ears.

3. Now close your eyes, tuck the chin in slightly and notice the sensation as you release any tension in the jaw and mouth area.

4. Consciously relax your mind and body. As you inhale, you will feel the belly rise...exhale slowly through the nose, aware of your belly relaxing...visualize a rolling wave, a blue sea, feel your body relax...continue for ten reps or as long as it feels good.

5. Now focus on your feet, tensing them as you inhale, hold for just a few seconds, then exhale as you feel the tension release. Moving up to the legs, do the same thing...next, on the inhale tense the lower back and your pelvic muscles - on the exhale, relax completely. Inhale and tense your solar plexus, chest and mid-back. Exhale and release...move on to the hands, the arms - tense, relax. Next the shoulders - tense and relax. Inhale and tense the neck, head and face...exhale, let it go.

6. Inhale and tense the entire body...hold it, hold it...and exhale.

7. Stay where you are and just relax for a few more moments...think of nothing else, just the here and now...only this moment, only this breath.... Namaste

2009-03-06T03:04:00.000-08:00

One of related disease if smoking is COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases).

What is COPD?
COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases) is a disease characterized by airway inflammation and airflow limitation that is not fully reversible and progressive.
Symptom of COPD can be dyspneu, cough with sputum depends of the kind.
Range of age COPD patient usually more than 40 years old.

Kinds of COPD
There are two kinds of COPD :
1. Chronic bronchitis :
when chronic expiratory airflow obstruction is associated with a chronic caugh of three months in each of two successive years. The chronic cough must produce sputum.
2. Emphysema :
When chronic expiratory airflow obstruction is associated with damage to the air sacs in the lung.

How to Know exacerbation of COPD?
EXACERBATION OF CHRONIC BRONCHITIS — are characterized by an acute increase in usual symptoms of COPD including cough, sputum production and/or dyspnea.
The clinical features of exacerbations of chronic bronchitis are:
Increased volume or change in the character of sputum Increased frequency and severity of cough Increased dyspnea Variable constitutional symptoms.

EXACERBATION OF EMPHYSEMA – same of chronic bronchitis but cough and sputum production is not dominant.

How to Avoid COPD?
1. Avoid risk factors of COPD since young age - active and passive smoking
Smoking is one of risk factor of COPD, although not all of smokers are not suffering from COPD. Degree of COPD risk is influenced by age of onset of smoking, degree inhalation, tar and nicotine content of cigar, use of unfilterred cigar, amount of cigar/day However, not all of smokers are not suffering from COPD, and risk of COPD can be from other risk factors and genetic kinds - its better for us for avoiding smoking. - Occupational exposure to environmental dust A series of reports derived from multiple cohorts of workers have found a statistically significant association between loss of lung function and cumulative respirable dust exposure. Gold miners and coal miners appeared to be at particular risk. - Deficiencies of antioxidant vitamins, such as vitamin C and E Oxidizing radicals derive from exogenous sources, such as cigarette smoke, or may be released by phagocytes within the lung. Deficiencies of antioxidant vitamins may impair host defenses against oxidative radicals and permit tissue destruction which leads to COPD.

2. Avoid precipitants This only useful for patients who have diagnosed with COPD and avoid exarcebation.
PRECIPITANTS — Acute exacerbations of COPD are most commonly precipitated by infection (bacterial or viral) or environmental factors such as air pollution or temperature. It is estimated that 50 to 60 percent of exacerbations are due to respiratory infections (including bacteria and viruses), ten percent are due to environmental pollution, and 30 percent are of unknown etiology.

Article Reference :
1. Weiss M.T, 2007, Risk Factors of COPD 2. Snider G.L, 2007,
2. Diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Mediterranean diet

2009-03-06T02:58:00.001-08:00

Mediterranean diet

A diet traditionally followed in Greece, Crete, southern France, and parts of Italy that emphasizes fruits and vegetables, nuts, grains, olive oil (as opposed to butter) and grilled or steamed chicken and seafood (as opposed to red meat). Plus a glass or two of red wine.

To be exact, there is not merely one Mediterranean diet. What is eaten varies significantly from one Mediterranean country to another. There also are major differences in diet between some regions within a country, as in Italy.

However, the shared features of what is usually spoken of as the Mediterranean-style diet are as follows:

High consumption of fruits, vegetables, bread and other cereals, potatoes, beans, nuts and seeds;
Olive oil is the key monounsaturated fat source;
Dairy products, fish and poultry are consumed in low to moderate amounts;
Little red meat is eaten;
Eggs are eaten zero to four times a week; and
Wine is drunk in moderate (or low) amounts.

Many studies indicate that a Mediterranean diet may play an important role in the prevention of coronary artery disease. A Mediterranean-style diet also appears to help avoid the metabolic syndrome (prediabetes) and reduce the chances that a person will die sooner rather than later.

Coffee Cuts Stroke Risk For Women

2009-03-06T02:30:00.001-08:00

Biggest Benefit Seen in Women Drinking 4 or More Cups of Coffee a Day
By Caroline WilbertWebMD Health News

Coffee addicts: Your habit may actually be good for you.
Regular coffee consumption reduces the risk of stroke in women, according to a new study.

The study, published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, shows that women who drank four or more cups of coffee a day had a 20% reduced risk of stroke compared to women who had less than one cup per month. Drinking two to three cups per day reduced risk by 19%. Drinking a cup five to seven times a week reduced risk by 12%.

Researchers analyzed data on 83,076 women who participated in the Nurses' Health Study. Participants began the study in 1980 with no history of stroke, heart disease, diabetes, or cancer. Every two to four years, the women filled out food frequency questionnaires about their diets. During the study, which lasted 24 years, 2,280 strokes were documented.

The benefits of coffee are much more significant for nonsmokers. For women who had never smoked or quit the habit, drinking four cups or more of coffee a day was associated with a 43% reduction in stroke risk. For women who smoked, drinking four cups or more was associated with only a 3% reduction in risk.

“The potential benefits of coffee cannot counterbalance the detrimental effects smoking has on health,” Esther Lopez-Garcia, lead author of the study and assistant professor of preventive medicine at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain, says in a news release.
In addition to smoking, having high blood pressure, diabetes, or high cholesterol also neutralized the coffee effect.

The benefits do not appear to come from caffeine. Participants who drank tea and caffeinated soft drinks did not experience the same reduction in stroke risk. “This finding supports the hypothesis that components in coffee other than caffeine may be responsible for the potential beneficial effect of coffee on stroke risk,” Lopez-Garcia says. “Antioxidants in coffee lower inflammation and improve blood vessel function.

“The beneficial effects of coffee can only be applied to healthy people," she says. "Anyone with health problems that can be worsened by coffee (insomnia, anxiety, hypertension, or heart problems) should talk to their doctor about their specific risk.”

And the data suggest that women still need to pay attention to any stroke risk factors they may have. Drinking coffee will not make those risk factors go away.
SOURCES: Lopez-Garcia, E., Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, Feb. 17, 2009; vol 119. News release, American Heart Association.

The Workout to drop Dress Size

2009-02-28T20:38:00.000-08:00

Time-crunch workout solutions

Crunched for time but still want to tighten and tone? Try this full-body strength workout from New York City–based trainer Pete Cerqua, author of The 90-Second Fitness Solution. Instead of countless sets and reps, you’ll do each exercise just once (or once per side), stretching the movements out over a full 90 seconds. Follow this routine 3–4 times a week (with 1 day of rest in between) and you’ll shrink a size in a month.

Hindu squat

Stand with feet shoulder-width apart and arms raised to shoulder height for balance. Bend knees and slowly descend, keeping hips over heels and back straight. One-third of the way down, pause and hold for 10 seconds. Lower 2 inches more, raising heels, as needed; hold for 10 seconds. Continue to lower your body in this pattern 3 more times, ending in a deep squat. To complete the move, slowly straighten legs in 4 (10-second) increments.

Trainer tip:

Keep your legs engaged, belly drawn in, and shoulders drawn back throughout the move.

Single leg squat reverse fly with ball

A. (top) Start with a 5- to 8-pound dumbbell in each hand and right leg lifted so top of right foot rests on exercise ball behind you. Bend left knee to 45 degrees, rolling ball backward and hinging forward until back is parallel to floor and arms are hanging down.

B. (bottom) With elbows slightly bent, raise each arm a few inches and hold for 10 seconds. Raise arms 2 inches more, and hold for 10 seconds; repeat pattern 3 more times, ending with arms at shoulder height. Slowly lower arms in 4 (10-second) increments. Repeat with opposite leg.

Trainer tip:

Trouble balancing? Draw abs in and up and square your hips, imagining your inner thighs are drawing toward one another.

Ball bridge fly

A. (top) Lie on back with feet on top of exercise ball and legs straight. (Don’t lock your knees.) Hold a 5- to 8-pound dumbbell in each hand, arms raised over chest. Press heels into ball, and lift hips so body forms a straight line. (Don’t let your hips sag.)

B. (bottom) Bend elbows slightly, open arms a few inches to the side; hold 10 seconds. Open 2 inches more, and hold 10 seconds; repeat 3 more times. Close arms in 4 (10-second) increments.
Trainer tip:

It’s OK to take a quick break partway through if you need to.