Weight Loss Diet And Exercise: Dec 31, 2012

Monday, December 31, 2012

Coffee May Lower Risk of Dying From Oral Cancers

Dec. 12, 2012 -- Heavy coffee drinkers -- those who drink more than four cups a day -- may cut their risk of dying from cancers of the mouth and throat by nearly half, according to new research.

"We examined coffee drinking habits in nearly 1 million men and women," says Janet Hildebrand, MPH, an epidemiologist with the American Cancer Society.

"Those who reported drinking at least four cups per day of caffeinated coffee incurred about half the risk of dying from mouth and throat cancers compared to people who did not drink caffeinated coffee daily or only drank it occasionally."

That link held even when the researchers took into account smoking habits and alcohol use.

Smoking and alcohol use are among the strongest risk factors for oral cancers.

About 35,000 new cases of oral cancers are expected in the U.S. this year, with 6,800 deaths, according to the American Cancer Society. The new study is published online in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Previous research by others has linked drinking more than four cups of coffee a day to about the same risk reduction in getting a diagnosis of oral cancer.

Hildebrand's team evaluated more than 968,000 men and women enrolled in the Cancer Prevention Study II. It began in 1982 and is overseen by the American Cancer Society.

At the start of the study, all men and women were free of cancer. During the 26-year follow up, 868 deaths from oral or throat cancers occurred.

The researchers evaluated the coffee- and tea-drinking habits of the men and women. They found the link between coffee and a reduced risk of dying from oral cancers.

More than 97% of the men and women drank either coffee or tea. More than 60% said they drank at least a cup a day of caffeinated coffee.

Among those who drank regularly, most had three cups a day.

The risk reduction of nearly half was similar for those who drank four, five, or six cups daily. Beyond seven cups, Hildebrand says, there weren't enough people to gauge the effect on risk accurately.

Hildebrand found only a suggestion of a link between those who drank more than two cups of decaf daily.

No benefit was found for tea drinkers.

"We really don't clearly know the mechanism," Hildebrand says. "But we do know that coffee contains hundreds of biologically active compounds."

Many of them, she says, are now known to have anti-cancer properties.

The researchers can't be sure in this study whether the coffee lowered the risk of getting the cancers or improved the odds of survival once cancer occurred. The study only looked at deaths, not the diagnosis.

"We're not recommending people start to drink coffee or that people increase their coffee [intake] for cancer prevention," Hildebrand says. "Much more epidemiological and scientific and clinical evidence would be needed to support such a recommendation."

The new findings are ''fascinating and remarkable," says Joel Epstein, DMD. He is director of oral medicine at the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center, located outside Los Angeles. He reviewed the study findings.

"It seems like there is a significant theme,'' he says, citing several other studies finding a lower risk of various cancers in coffee drinkers. "They are large studies," he says, usually funded by reputable organizations such as the American Cancer Society.

By and large, the studies are coming up with the same findings, he says, even though the researchers study different populations and different cancers. That's a good sign, he says.

View the original article here

Smoking Doubles Women’s Sudden Death Risk

Dec. 11, 2012 -- Smoking cigarettes may more than double a woman’s risk of sudden cardiac death. But quitting can reduce that risk significantly over time, according to a new study.

Sudden cardiac death is a sudden, unexpected death caused by loss of heart function. It is the leading cause of heart-related deaths in the U.S. and is responsible for up to 400,000 deaths per year.

Researchers found that women who were current smokers were two-and-a-half times more likely to suffer sudden cardiac death than nonsmokers. The risk of sudden cardiac death was even higher among heavy and lifetime smokers.

“We found the more that you smoke, the higher the risk of sudden cardiac death,” says researcher Roopinder Sandhu, MD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Alberta in Alberta, Canada. “But the important thing is that this risk can be eliminated after smoking cessation.”

The study showed that quitting smoking had an almost immediate effect in reducing the risk of sudden cardiac death within five years among women without any symptoms of heart disease.

For women already diagnosed with heart disease, the benefits of quitting smoking took much longer to take effect.

Researchers say for many women, sudden cardiac death is the first sign of heart disease.

Although smoking is a known risk factor for sudden cardiac death, researchers say few studies have looked at the nature of this relationship in a large number of women both with and without heart disease.

This study looked at the impact of smoking and smoking cessation on the risk of sudden cardiac death among 101,018 women who took part in the Nurses’ Health Study. The results appear in Circulation: Arrhythmia & Electrophysiology.

During 30 years of follow-up, 351 cases of sudden cardiac death were reported.

Researchers found the amount and duration of cigarette smoking was strongly associated with the women’s risk of sudden cardiac death.

“Even with a very small amount, one to 14 cigarettes per day, women’s risk of sudden cardiac death was almost two-fold higher compared to women who did not smoke,” says Sandhu, who conducted the study as a visiting scientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Overall, the study showed:

The risk of sudden cardiac death increased by 8% for every five years a woman smoked.Heavy smokers who smoked 25 cigarettes a day or more had more than three times the risk of sudden cardiac death than women who didn’t smoke.Women who smoked for more than 35 years had a 2.5 times higher risk of sudden cardiac death than never smokers.

“This is an important study because it links smoking to sudden cardiac death in those unfortunate women who don’t make it to the hospital,” says Nieca Goldberg, MD, medical director of the women's heart program at New York University’s Langone Medical Center.

“The study shows that even modest levels of smoking can increase the risk of sudden cardiac death,” says Goldberg, a spokesperson for the American Heart Association. “People should know that just one cigarette is too much.”

View the original article here

7 Pregnancy Complications: Bleeding, Preeclampsia, and More

Some symptoms during pregnancy are par for the course, but others are cause for alarm. How do you know the difference?Reviewed by Nivin Todd, MD, FACOG

You may wonder what symptoms during pregnancy warrant immediate medical attention and what symptoms can wait until your next prenatal visit.

Always ask your health care provider at your visits about your concerns. But keep in mind some symptoms do need swift attention.

If you are newly pregnant, or trying to conceive, you have many questions about what to expect. How will your body change? What's happening inside you? Here's what to expect week by week.

Bleeding means different things throughout your pregnancy. “If you are bleeding heavily and have severe abdominal painand menstrual-like cramps or feel like you are going to faint during first trimester, it could be a sign of an ectopic pregnancy,” Peter Bernstein, MD, ob-gyn professor at New York's Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center, says. Ectopic pregnancy, which occurs when the fertilized egg implants somewhere other than the uterus, can be life-threatening.

Heavy bleeding with cramping could also be a sign of miscarriagein first or early second trimester. By contrast, bleeding with abdominal pain in the third trimester may indicate placental abruption, which occurs when the placenta separates from the uterine lining.

“Bleeding is always serious,” women’s health expert Donnica Moore, MD, says. Any bleeding during pregnancy needs immediate attention. Call your doctor or go to the emergency room.

It's very common to have some nausea when you're pregnant. If it gets to be severe, that may be more serious.

“If you can’t eat or drink anything, you run the risk of becoming dehydrated,” Bernstein says. Being malnourished and dehydrated can harm your baby.

If you experience severe nausea, tell your health care provider. Your doctor may prescribe medication or advise changing your diet.

What does it mean if your previously active baby seems to have less energy? It may be normal. But how can you tell?

Some troubleshooting can help determine if there is a problem. Bernstein suggests that you first drink something cold or eat something. Then lie on your side to see if this gets the baby moving.

Counting kicks can also help, Nicole Ruddock, MD, assistant professor of maternal and fetal medicine at University of Texas Medical School at Houston, says. “There is no optimal or critical number of movements,” she says, “but generally you should establish a baseline and have a subjective perception of whether your baby is moving more or less. As a general rule, you should have 10 or more kicks in two hours. Anything less should prompt a phone call to your doctor.”

Bernstein says to call your doctor as soon as possible. Your doctor has monitoring equipment that can be used to determine if the baby is moving and growing appropriately.

Contractions could be a sign of preterm labor. “But a lot of first-time moms may confuse true labor and false labor,” Ruddock says. False labor contractions are called Braxton-Hicks contractions. They’re unpredictable, non-rhythmic, and do not increase in intensity. “They will subside in an hour or with hydration,” Ruddock says. “But regular contractions are about 10 minutes apart or less and increase in intensity.”

If you're in your third trimester and think you're having contractions, call your doctor right away. If it is too early for the baby to be born, your doctor may be able to stop labor.

View the original article here

Vision Problems Rising Rapidly in the U.S.

Dec. 11, 2012 -- The diabetes and obesity epidemics may be fueling a dramatic rise in the number of people with vision problems, a new study suggests.

Rates of vision problems that can’t be treated with glasses or contact lenses, known as nonrefractive vision problems, increased by 21% between two survey periods: 1999 to 2002 and 2005 to 2008. The findings suggest that as many as 700,000 more people developed these types of vision problems in a short amount of time.

Nonrefractive vision problems include glaucoma, macular degeneration, cataracts, and diabetes-related eye disease. They are caused by underlying diseases. Many of these diseases are age-related and would not be expected to increase among young people. Diabetes, however, is occurring in younger and younger people.

“The increasing diabetes prevalence in the U.S. is leading to more vision loss,” says researcher David S. Friedman, MD, PhD, MPH. He is the director of the Dana Center for Preventive Ophthalmology at the Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute and Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. “We have to recognize that this is a large public health problem so we can start developing methods to deal with it.”

The findings appear in the Dec. 12 issue of the Journal of American Medical Association.

Friedman and colleagues analyzed data from a large national database in 1999-2002 and 2005-2008. Participants aged 20 or older answered questions and underwent lab tests and physical exams.

Those most at risk were older, poorer, had less education, and had diabetes for 10 or more years. The only one of these risks that increased between the two surveys was a history of diabetes.

“The number of people who have had diabetes for more than 10 years has more than doubled in the last six or seven years,” Friedman says. The new findings are likely just the tip of the iceberg. If current diabetes rates continue, “we will see more and more people with diabetes and vision impairment.”

Preventing diabetes in the first place is key to preserving vision, he says. This includes losing weight (if necessary), eating a healthier diet, and getting regular exercise. But, he says, “if you have diabetes, make sure get your eyes checked, as this type of vision loss is preventable.”

Alan N. Carlson, MD, says that it is too early to say that the increase in vision problems is driven by diabetes. “Diabetes is on the rise and vision problems are on the rise, and patients with diabetes are more likely to have eye problems, but that is all we can say right now.” He is the chief of the corneal and refractive surgery services at the Duke Eye Center in Durham, N.C.

“Certainly people need to be aware of the risks of getting nonrefractive vision impairment down the road,” he says. “If there is a family history of certain diseases like macular degeneration, glaucoma, or diabetes, you should be seen more regularly by an eye doctor to make sure these diseases are caught earlier when they are much more treatable.”

View the original article here

Generic Drug May Ease Autism in Children

Dec. 11, 2012 -- An inexpensive generic drug may ease autism in children, a small new study shows.

The drug, bumetanide, is a diuretic, or a drug that rids the body of extra water through urine. It’s been FDA-approved since 1983 to reduce fluid buildup in patients with heart failure, kidney disease, or liver disease.

In autism, bumetanide may help to correct a chemical imbalance in the brain, says Jing-Qiong Kang, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of neurology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. Kang studies the biology of autism, but she was not involved in the current research.

Unlike other medications, which are used to quell behavioral problems that are sometimes associated with autism, like hyperactivity, insomnia, and aggression, bumetanide seems to ease some of the core features of the condition, including problems connecting and interacting with other people.

“They were making more eye contact, more spontaneous speech, and more two-way conversation,” says Daniel Coury, MD, a pediatric psychiatrist in Columbus, Ohio, who is medical director for the Autism Speaks Autism Treatment Network.

“At the end of the day parents said, ‘I like this. My child is doing better,’” says Coury, who was not involved in the research.

For the study, French researchers had 60 children with autism take either bumetanide or a look-alike placebo pill for 90 days.

Children in the study ranged from 3 to 11 years old. Their symptoms were scored by clinicians who did not know whether they were taking the drug or the placebo. Parents and teachers were also asked about changes in the children’s behavior over time.

By the end of the study, children in the treatment group shifted from average autism scores in the severe range to the mild or moderate range.

“A third of the placebo group improved, but three-fourths of the treatment group improved. So that suggests that it seems to be a real finding there,” Coury says.

The study is published in the journal Translational Psychiatry.

Despite the hopeful news, Coury and other experts urged caution.

“Is it going to have a sustained improvement, a continued improvement? There’s a lot that we don’t know,” he says.

About 30% of the children in the study developed low potassium levels, which were reversed with supplements. Two children stopped the study because of bedwetting. One of them was taking the placebo.

At the end of the study, researchers say most parents asked to continue on the bumetanide treatment. Researchers report that 87 children are now taking the medication. Some have now been on it for as long as two years.

Researcher Yehezkel Ben-Ari, PhD, director of research at the National Institute of Health and Medical Research in Marseille, France, says the medication seems to help children with milder forms of autism spectrum disorders, like Asperger’s syndrome, the most.

View the original article here

Asperger's and Violence: Experts Weigh In

Dec. 19, 2012 -- Reports that Newtown shooter Adam Lanza had Asperger’s syndrome, a highly functioning form of autism, have led some to wonder whether that diagnosis could have played a role in the mass shooting, which killed 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school last week.

As with many cases such as this, the answer is complex. While experts are clear that Asperger's doesn’t make a person more likely to commit a violent crime, some say it may affect the way a crime is carried out.

Advocates for people with autism are more direct.

“Autism did not cause this crime,” says Peter Bell, MBA, executive vice president for programs and services at the nonprofit group Autism Speaks.

Bell, who also has a son with autism, says it’s important to understand that the condition is a developmental disorder that arises early in life. Children and adults with autism spectrum disorders struggle to communicate with others. They may feel socially isolated and have trouble feeling like part of a group. They may also have repetitive or restrictive behaviors, like rocking or shaking their hands.

“There’s absolutely nothing in that definition that talks about violence or committing aggressive acts,” Bell says.

Indeed, psychologists and psychiatrists agree that people with autism or Asperger’s are not more likely to commit violent crimes than members of the general population, but they say in very rare cases, it can happen.

In those isolated instances, forensic psychiatrists tell WebMD, a diagnosis of Asperger’s or autism may help explain some aspects of seemingly unfathomable acts.

“I think it does matter. I think that’s probably part of making sense of this horrible thing that happened. I think that’s part of the equation,” says Marc Hillbrand, PhD, a clinical psychologist at Yale University in New Haven, Conn.

Hillbrand has studied the psychology of mass shootings, but he had no direct knowledge of Adam Lanza’s medical history.

“What’s so unusual about this individual, if indeed he has Asperger’s, is the use of weapons. There are a few cases of people with high-functioning autism who have committed violent crimes using weapons, but it’s a very small number of people,” he says.

Marianne Kristiansson, PhD, professor of forensic psychiatry at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, has published one of the few studies looking at the characteristics of a small number of violent offenders who also had autism.

She said when she heard about the Connecticut shooting, her first thought was that the shooter might have had Asperger’s.

“That was just my diagnosis,” Kristiansson says. “This offender behavior that he has presented is quite typical of a subject with ... autistic traits.”

View the original article here

A guide to beating nasal allergies, from medication to self-care.

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Allergies Health Center

Help for Sinus Pain Email a FriendPrint Article Help for Sinus Pain and Pressure Next Article: Skip to Article Content Help for Sinus Pain and Pressure Is Your Cold Causing Sinus Problems? What happens to your sinuses when you have a cold, and what to do about it. Sinus Problems From Allergies What's the best way to treat a stuffy nose caused by allergies? Dealing With Sinus Pressure Don't let sinus congestion and pressure get you down. Here's how to cope. Sinus Headache Relief How do you know if it's really a sinus headache? What's Causing Your Sinus Problems? What to do when your sinuses misbehave. Home Remedies for Sinus Problems Creating a sinus-friendly environment at home. Your Sinus Action Plan 6 tips for relieving sinus pain and pressure. Sinus Terms to Know Check out this glossary of sinus terms. Using a Neti Pot for Congestion Can flushing out your nasal passages help? Natural Sinus Relief See 6 things you can do at home in this slideshow. False Allergies and Your Sinuses: Fighting Allergic Rhinitis A guide to the best stuff for stuffy noses, from prescription treatments to self-care. WebMD Feature

By R. Morgan Griffin

Reviewed By Laura J. Martin, MD

One in five adults in the U.S. has nasal allergies, or allergic rhinitis. Yet as common as it is, experts say that allergic rhinitis is terribly underdiagnosed, undertreated, and underestimated.

“Allergic rhinitis is a trivialized disease,” says Jonathan A. Bernstein, MD, an allergist at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. “Obviously, nobody dies from it. But it does cause a tremendous amount of sickness and suffering.”

All that sneezing, congestion, and teary-eyed misery takes a toll. Allergic rhinitis can cause missed workdays, and it can detract from your performance at school or on the job. Because of this, allergic rhinitis costs the country billions of dollars every year.

Nasal allergies can also lead to other conditions such as sinus problems. But they don’t have to.

“Allergic rhinitis is a treatable problem,” Bernstein says, “and when people get diagnosed and treated properly, they do very well.” If you’ve been limping through life with nasal allergies, it’s time to get the best of them.

Nasal Allergies and Sinus Problems

Allergy symptoms are miserable enough on their own. But in many people, allergic rhinitis can cause -- or aggravate -- other complications or conditions.

What’s the connection between allergies and sinus problems?

Sinuses are hollow pockets in the skull that are connected to the nasal passages. When allergies trigger swelling in the mucous membranes, the inflamed tissue can block off the sinuses. The sinuses can’t drain, trapping mucus and air inside. That leads to pain and pressure.

Take Allergy Symptoms Seriously

Despite the misery of allergies and their complications, many people don’t take the symptoms very seriously.

They don’t realize the impact that their allergies are having on their lives, especially when added up over years and decades, says Leonard Bielory, MD, director of the division of Allergy, Immunology and Rheumatology at New Jersey Medical School in Newark.

They get used to the congestion, chronic sinus problems, and mouth breathing. They get used to disturbed sleep and fatigue. After a while, they just don’t remember what life was like before allergies.

When symptoms get bad, they make do. They grab over-the-counter medicines at random at the drugstore. They make guesses at the cause of their allergies and half-hearted attempts to control their exposure, but never get a diagnosis.

That’s not the way to go about it, experts say. Given the impact that nasal allergies can have on your life, you really need to get proper medical evaluation and treatment.

Allergic Rhinitis Treatments: Over-the-Counter Medicine

For mild allergic rhinitis -- or symptoms that only strike for a few weeks a year -- over-the-counter medicines may be enough. OTC treatments for allergic rhinitis include:

Antihistamines. These drugs work by blocking histamine, a chemical that causes many allergy symptoms. They help relieve itching and sneezing. Examples include certirizine (Zyrtec), chlorpheniramine (Ahist, Chlor-Trimeton), diphenhydramine (Benadryl, Genahist), fexofenadine (Allegra), and loratadine (Agistam, Alavert, Claritin).

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Weight Loss Diet And Exercise

DONATIONS ARE ALWAYS WELCOME AND APPRECIATED

Monday, December 31, 2012

Coffee May Lower Risk of Dying From Oral Cancers

Smoking Doubles Women’s Sudden Death Risk

7 Pregnancy Complications: Bleeding, Preeclampsia, and More

Vision Problems Rising Rapidly in the U.S.

Generic Drug May Ease Autism in Children

Asperger's and Violence: Experts Weigh In

A guide to beating nasal allergies, from medication to self-care.

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