Is Childhood Intelligence Linked to Pain Problems in Adulthood?

Title: Is Childhood Intelligence Linked to Pain Problems in Adulthood?
Category: Health News
Created: 12/4/2012 6:37:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 12/5/2012 12:00:00 AM

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10 Years of Tamoxifen Better Than 5: Study

Title: 10 Years of Tamoxifen Better Than 5: Study
Category: Health News
Created: 12/5/2012 10:35:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 12/5/2012 12:00:00 AM

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Social Media May Help Fight Childhood Obesity

Title: Social Media May Help Fight Childhood Obesity
Category: Health News
Created: 12/4/2012 5:19:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 12/5/2012 12:00:00 AM

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Zac Efron and Imogen Poots filming Are We Officially Dating? in New York

Is it just us, or would Zac Efron & Imogen Poots make a really cute couple?

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Brown Fat Transplants May Spur Weight Loss

Dec. 10, 2012 -- Mice given brown fat transplants lose weight and avoid the kinds of metabolic changes that lead to type 2 diabetes, even on high-fat diets, a new study shows.

Scientists hope the same approach may one day lead to treatments for obesity and diabetes in people.

Unlike white fat, which stores calories, brown fat burns calories like a furnace. Its main job seems to be to keep the body warm.

People have deposits of brown fat between the shoulder blades and along the spine, around the heart, on the side of the neck, and near the collarbones. But those stores are tiny compared to the pounds of white fat most people carry. Researchers have wondered if adding more brown fat might jump-start a body’s sluggish metabolism.

To test that theory, researchers took a tenth of a gram of brown fat from the backs of male mice and injected it into other mice that were the same sex and age.

Scientists have tried brown fat transplants before but they haven’t worked very well, says researcher Laurie J. Goodyear, PhD, head of the Section on Integrative Physiology and Metabolism at Harvard’s Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston.

Goodyear thinks that was partly because of where the brown fat was placed in the body and how long researchers waited to see results.

This time, Goodyear and her team placed the brown fat in the gut, a place it’s not normally found. Studies have shown that fat in the abdomen, especially fat around the liver, influences insulin resistance and also the release of blood fats called triglycerides. 

After eight weeks, mice that got injections of brown fat processed blood sugar more normally, had less insulin resistance, and were leaner than mice given placebo procedures.

“These effects were really very pronounced and very dramatic,” Goodyear says.

Encouraged by their results, the team next gave brown fat transplants to mice on high-fat diets. In both people and mice, high-fat diets reliably lead to weight gain and drive up blood sugar, setting the stage for type 2 diabetes.

Brown fat appeared to blunt some of the effects of the high-fat diet. Transplanted mice maintained their weight and blood sugar better than those who didn’t get transplants. And the more brown fat they got, the stronger the benefits seemed to be.

How is brown fat working? Further testing on transplanted mice showed they had higher levels of proteins and molecules that control how the body handles blood sugar.

The study is published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

How soon could the technique be tried in humans?

“I think it’s a ways off,” Goodyear says, “but I think that the studies that we’ve done here really support the idea that it could work.”

Other researchers say the study is interesting, but they aren’t yet convinced that brown fat will someday become a treatment for obesity or diabetes.

“Its purpose is to produce heat and fight cold exposure. It’s certainly not there to combat obesity. It has no purpose in evolution to do that,” says Andre Carpentier, MD, a professor of diabetes and physiology at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec, Canada.

Carpentier studies brown fat in people, but he was not involved in the current research.

Carpentier says if more studies show that brown fat can safely be increased in the body, it could one day become a tool to fight weight gain and diabetes.

But he says it’s important to keep in mind that even under the best circumstances, the effects of brown fat are likely to be modest.

“You may end up burning a little bit more calories at the end of your day, but it’s not going to be anything close to what you can achieve by doing exercise and diet,” Carpentier says.

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Recreational Marijuana: Are There Health Effects?

Dec. 11, 2012 -- On Monday, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper signed an order legalizing recreational marijuana use for adults.

Last week, Washington was the first state to OK adult recreational use of the drug. Several other states are considering similar laws.

While much research has focused on the value of medical marijuana to help chronic pain and other problems, what about the health effects of purely recreational marijuana?

WebMD turned to two experts, recently published studies, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse to draw up a scorecard of possible major health effects.

"Putting smoke in your lungs is not good for the lungs," says Roland Lamarine, HSD, professor of public health at California State University, Chico. He reviewed published studies on the health effects of marijuana earlier this year for the Journal of Drug Education.

Smoking marijuana produces a nearly threefold increase of inhaled tar compared with tobacco, according to some studies. Other research suggests that marijuana smokers, compared to cigarette smokers, inhale more deeply and hold their breath longer.

"There are still questions that aren't answered about lung damage," Lamarine says. For cigarette smokers who also smoke marijuana, there may be an additive effect, he says.

Combining the two appears to be a trend, he says. "Some of the [college] kids tell me they buy cigars and put in some marijuana, so there is both marijuana and tobacco," Lamarine says.

Marijuana smoke contains cancer-causing substances, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Some research shows that marijuana smoke has up to 70% more cancer-causing substances than tobacco smoke, it says.

"Nobody is advocating that routinely inhaling carcinogenic smoke is healthy," says Paul Armentano, the deputy director of NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws).

However, he says, many marijuana users these days have turned to alternate delivery methods, such as oral, tinctures, and vapor forms. In research, he says, the vaporized forms have fewer adverse chemicals than the inhaled form.

Those who keep marijuana use light do not appear to lose lung function, according to a 2012 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers compared tobacco and marijuana users. Tobacco use was associated with lower lung function, and the function got worse as smoking levels increased.

For the study, low levels of lifetime exposure to marijuana, defined as one joint a day for seven years, did not show evidence of adverse effects on lung function. The study does not confirm these findings with heavy users.

Long-term, heavy use of marijuana can lead to impaired thinking skills and memory problems, Lamarine says, citing published studies.

The impairments can be especially hazardous when trying to do everyday activities such as driving.

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Beet Juice Lowers Blood Pressure

Dec. 14, 2012 -- Drinking a glass of beet juice may have an immediate impact on lowering blood pressure, according to a new study.

The study shows that within hours of drinking it, beet juice lowered systolic blood pressure (the top number in a blood pressure reading) by an average of 4-5 points among a small group of healthy men.

Researchers say that drop may seem small, but on a public health level a reduction like that would equate to a 10% reduction in deaths due to heart disease.

“It’s promising that we can see an effect from a single dose,” says researcher Leah Coles, PhD, a research fellow at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia. “That effect might be even greater over the long term if they are drinking it day upon day.”

Previous studies have shown that beet juice, also known as beetroot juice, can lower blood pressure in a laboratory setting. But researchers say this is the first study to look at the effects of adding beet juice to a heathy person’s diet without making any other diet or lifestyle changes.

The results appear in Nutrition Journal.

In the study, 15 men and 15 women drank either 17.6 ounces of a beet juice beverage consisting of about three-fourths beet juice and one-fourth apple juice, or a placebo juice. They were then monitored for 24 hours. The same procedure was repeated two weeks later, with those who drank the placebo on the first round receiving beetroot juice on the second.

Among both men and women, the results showed a trend to lower systolic blood pressure six hours after drinking the beet juice.

But when researchers limited their analysis to men only, they found a significant reduction of about 4.7 points among those who drank the beetroot juice.

Previous studies have also suggested that beetroot’s blood-pressure-lowering effects may not be as strong in women.

In this case, Coles says it may be partially explained by the fact that the women in the study tended to be older, and many were on prescription medications, such as oral contraceptives.

Experts say it’s the high concentration of nitrates in beets that are responsible for the benefits.

In a lengthy biological process, nitrates from dietary sources like beets and leafy green vegetables are converted to nitric oxide within the body. The nitric oxide then relaxes blood vessels and dilates them, which helps the blood flow more easily and lowers blood pressure.

“Whether from foods or from juice, you are seeing a consistent effect of nitrates in lowering blood pressure,” says registered dietitian Norman Hord, PhD, MPH, an associate professor at College of Public Health and Human Sciences at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Ore. “It’s probably the most potent blood-pressure-lowering component of the diet.”

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Dog Sniffs Out Deadly C. diff Infection

Dec. 13, 2012 -- A 2-year-old beagle named Cliff may hold the key to preventing an infection that kills thousands of Americans each year.

Researchers in the Netherlands taught Cliff to sniff out the intestinal bacteria Clostridium difficile(C. difficile or C. diff) in stool samples from infected patients and even from the patients themselves.

C diff is commonly spread in hospitals and long-term care centers, causing diarrhea that can be mild to life-threatening. It is responsible for as many as 14,000 deaths in the U.S. each year, the CDC says.

The hope is that other dogs can be trained to identify the infection far faster than it is found through current tests, preventing potentially deadly outbreaks in these settings.

“This study proves the concept, but we have to confirm that this approach will be useful in the real-world setting,” says researcher Marije K. Bomers, MD, of the VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Hospitalized older adults who have recently had a course of antibiotics are most at risk for C. diff infections.

Early detection can prevent the spread in hospitals and other care facilities, but current tests can take anywhere from two days to up to a week to confirm infection, Bomers says.

She says the idea for the study came from the observation that the diarrhea of patients with C. diff infections has a particular smell that she and her colleagues could sometimes detect.

It occurred to them that if humans could smell the infection some of the time, then dogs, with their superior sense of smell, should be able to smell it all the time.

To test the theory, they enlisted psychologist and dog trainer Hotsche Luik, who was also Cliff’s owner.

Over two months, the beagle was taught to identify the C. diff toxin in smaller and smaller quantities and in different samples, including human stool.

During one test, he correctly identified 50 of 50 C. diff positive stool samples and 47 of 50 negative samples.

In a separate test, he was taken to two hospital wards to examine his ability to sniff out the infection in patients.

He correctly identified C. diff in 25 of 30 infected patients. He also identified no infection in 265 of 270 non-infected patients.

He completed this task in one of the wards in less than 10 minutes.

The researchers write that highly trained dogs like Cliff may one day patrol hospital wards to seek out C. diff infection.

“I love dogs. I think they are amazing,” says infection disease specialist Bruce Hirsch, MD, of North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y. “But I’m not sure I see this being deployed in an efficient way in a large hospital setting where there are many distractions.”

Despite his skepticism, Hirsch says the research is definitely worth pursuing even though confirmation of the infection has already been shortened from a few days to a few hours in many hospitals, including his.

“One big question for me is, ‘What else can a dog’s amazing sensory apparatus be utilized to detect?'" he says. “There are already studies suggesting that they can smell some cancers. There is no telling what else they may be trained to sniff out.”

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Single Parents: Top 6 Tips

When you're raising a child as a single parent, you're handling a lot of tasks and decisions on your own. You need effective ways to find support and make life easier and more fun for you and your child.

Start with these six tips.

Keep mealtimes, bedtimes, and the time the family wakes up in the morning fairly consistent. A predictable routine structures your day and helps give your child a sense of security. 

You may miss your kids during the workday and feel guilty that your job requires you to spend so much time away from them. But don't make up for it at night.

"Trying to squeeze in more time together by letting them stay up late is not the best approach," says Leah Klungness, PhD, a psychologist in Long Island, N.Y., and coauthor of The Complete Single Mother.

"Kids need more sleep than we schedule into our jam-packed lives," she says. "Also, parents need and deserve some kid-free time to get things accomplished and decompress a bit."

No matter how busy life gets, devote time on a regular basis to relaxing and having fun with your kids. Focus your attention on enjoying each other's company and tune out other distractions.  

"I often recommend to families that they schedule a play time -- perhaps once a week -- when they turn off the television and phone and spend a half hour playing a game, taking a walk, or throwing a ball around," says Barry G. Ginsberg, PhD, a child and family psychologist in Doylestown, Pa., and author of 50 Wonderful Ways to Be a Single-Parent Family.  "It helps reinforce your emotional connection."

Build a network of people you trust that can help with childcare, carpooling, and even projects around the house.

"The challenges facing single parents are not that different from those of all parents. But it may be more difficult for them to create the community of support we all need to function as parents. They need to be more creative and active in cultivating that supportive community," Klungness says.

Your support team could include, for example, relatives, neighbors, and other parents you meet at your child's daycare center or school.     

"You need ‘middle-of-the-night friends' -- people you can call at a moment's notice who can help you in person in case of an emergency," Klungness says. "But you also need people you and your kids can meet up with for fun activities. They may or may not wind up being the same people."

To save money on babysitters and get to know other local families, consider joining or forming a babysitting co-op.

"You can form a co-op with other parents you trust who have kids around the same age as yours," says Jim Anastasi, LMFT, a marriage and family therapist in Mason City, Iowa. "They can watch your kids one night a week and you can watch their kids the next night." 

To keep the system fair, members of the co-op "earn" a specific number of points in exchange for each hour they spend babysitting. They can then "spend" these points when they ask another member to babysit for them.

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