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Title: FDA Panel to Consider Brain Stimulator for Epilepsy
Category: Health News
Created: 2/21/2013 10:35:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 2/21/2013 12:00:00 AM
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Review: Let It Be
Let It Be is a vibrant, exhausting and tuneful celebration of The Beatles’ back catalogue.Continue reading...
We Made A Film With French Connection
Hear This: 3-D Printing Creates Lifelike Artificial Ears
Title: Hear This: 3-D Printing Creates Lifelike Artificial Ears
Category: Health News
Created: 2/20/2013 6:36:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 2/21/2013 12:00:00 AM
Category: Health News
Created: 2/20/2013 6:36:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 2/21/2013 12:00:00 AM
High-Antioxidant Diet May Not Prevent Stroke, Dementia, Study Finds
By Carina Storrs
HealthDay ReporterWEDNESDAY, Feb. 20 (HealthDay News) -- Antioxidants are celebrated as "brain foods" and "super foods," but a new study suggests that not all diets high in antioxidants reduce the risk of dementia and stroke.
The study involved more than 5,000 people in the Netherlands who were 55 years and older. Researchers determined each participant's antioxidant score, based on questionnaires about the foods they typically ate, and kept track of whether they developed dementia or had a stroke over the next 14 years.
"We asked, 'Is the [measure] of total antioxidant levels the important predictor for dementia and stroke, irrespective of what foods are contributing?'" said Elizabeth Devore, an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston and lead author of the study.
Although the study did not find lower rates of dementia and stroke among people with antioxidant-rich diets, similar research in other populations has come to different conclusions. For example, a study of older Italian adults found that higher antioxidant levels were linked to lower stroke risk.
The difference between the Dutch and Italian groups could lie in the types of antioxidants they eat, Devore said.
Almost 90 percent of the variability in antioxidant levels among the Dutch participants was due to coffee and tea consumption, whereas the antioxidants in the Italian cohort came largely from eating fruits and vegetables.
"There's a lot of [studies] to suggest that higher fruit and vegetable intake is associated with lower risk of stroke," Devore said. "It is possible that, though the Italian study did report diet antioxidant score, that is really being driven by those specific foods."
"It is not about total antioxidant level, it is about specific antioxidant-rich foods," Devore added.
The research in the Dutch population was published Feb. 20 in the online issue of the journal Neurology.
"It's a little bit hard to interpret the finding that total antioxidant capacity of the diet does not have a role, because of the abundance of evidence showing that oxidative stress [on cells] has a role in these diseases," said Gene Bowman, a nutritional epidemiologist at Oregon Health and Science University, in Portland.
However, "it may be that the antioxidants that they're capturing aren't the ones that are the big players," Bowman said.
Still, the idea of looking at total antioxidant capacity instead of individual antioxidant-rich foods is a new and important approach, he said.
"We've already had large observational studies showing us that certain antioxidants are linked to less stroke and dementia risk, but when giving these antioxidants in clinical trials to reduce risk for less stroke and dementia, the results have been disappointing," Bowman said.
The current study included almost 5,400 people who did not show signs of dementia and almost 5,300 people who had never had a stroke.
#Trending Today: Unashamedly lady-loving on Beyoncé
What’s that? Beyoncé in the top UK trends list? (Don’t be bummed, we didn’t get tickets either.) What better excuse for a little bit of unashamed girl-crushing on the megastar…Continue reading...
Allison Williams at a Tom Ford cocktail event
Allison Williams wears a black shift with white embroidery at a Tom Ford cocktail event - vote on celebrity fashion, style and red carpet looks in GLAMOUR.COM’s Dos and Don’tsContinue reading...
Fetal Heart May Develop Later in Pregnancy Than Thought
Title: Fetal Heart May Develop Later in Pregnancy Than Thought
Category: Health News
Created: 2/21/2013 10:35:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 2/21/2013 12:00:00 AM
Category: Health News
Created: 2/21/2013 10:35:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 2/21/2013 12:00:00 AM
Medical Marijuana: Voodoo or Legitimate Therapeutic Choice?
By Barbara Bronson Gray
HealthDay ReporterWEDNESDAY, Feb. 20 (HealthDay News) -- Imagine a 68-year-old woman with advanced breast cancer, looking for a better way to ease her chronic pain, low appetite, fatigue and nausea. Should she or shouldn't she be prescribed marijuana?
That's the question physicians debate in the "Clinical Decisions" section of the New England Journal of Medicine released online Feb. 20.
According to the hypothetical case study in the journal, a woman named Marilyn has metastatic breast cancer that has spread to her lungs and spine. She's taking chemotherapy and two anti-nausea drugs that just aren't working. Despite taking 1,000 milligrams (mg) of acetaminophen, such as Tylenol, every eight hours, she's in pain. At night, she sometimes takes 5 to 10 mg of oxycodone, a narcotic pain reliever similar to morphine, to help relieve the pain so she can sleep.
Marilyn lives in a state where marijuana is legal for personal medicinal use, and her family stands ready to grow it for her.
Why not let Marilyn try it?
One reason not to, in the view of one of the "con" argument's authors, Dr. Robert DuPont, is that it probably wouldn't help her. "Although marijuana probably involves little risk in this context, it is also unlikely to provide much benefit," said DuPont, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown Medical School in Washington, D.C., and the first director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse under Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter.
Marijuana is a dry, shredded mix of flowers, stems, seeds and leaves of the hemp plant Cannabis sativa. People usually smoke it as a cigarette or in a pipe. It's the most commonly abused illegal drug in the United States, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
In an interview, DuPont said that because smoked marijuana has not been reviewed and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for safety, effectiveness and purity, it would be inappropriate for a physician to prescribe it. "It would divert the attention away from an effective medical treatment and get her into something that's at best voodoo," he said.
The cannabis (marijuana) plant contains hundreds of pharmacologically active compounds that could interact with the medications Marilyn's now taking, DuPont said. It's impossible to know the chemical make-up or potency of a given dose, he noted, adding, "Medical marijuana has no dose. There is nothing else in medicine like that."
DuPont said it's also uncertain how Marilyn might react to the experience of smoking marijuana. He said the drug could affect her ability to think effectively. And just the act of smoking, coupled with the impact of the cancer on her lungs, could reduce her ability to get oxygen to her brain, he added.
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