Monday, February 28, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

I know for sure there is no real meaning to life without a spiritual component.

Eat Fat to Lose Weight

Fat has been given a bad rap over the years, but not all fat is bad for you. In fact, some fats are essential for weight loss! My all-time favorite source of healthy fat is flaxseed oil. It’s the richest source of omega-3 fats, which are often deficient in the typical American diet. Your body uses omega-3s to maintain the integrity and function of your body’s 75 trillion cell membranes, which in turn support healthy joints, shiny hair and strong nails, radiant skin, and your muscles' membranes. And because it’s so widely used throughout your body, it almost never gets stored as body fat!

And that’s not all the good news: Flaxseed oil activates leptin, a hormone that helps suppress appetite and leaves you feeling full longer. If that weren’t enough, flaxseed oil also activates a type of fat, called brown fat, that lies deep within your body and surrounds your vital organs. Leftover from the days when we needed to brave the elements with little clothing, brown fat burns calories for heat. When you activate your brown fat, you burn extra calories and boost your overall metabolism.

Fresh flaxseed oil tastes great, so don’t be afraid to sip a spoonful daily. Or, make homemade vinaigrette out of it and drizzle liberally on your salads. Yum!

Your coach,
Jorge Cruise
For information on Jorge's fitness program and to get a free copy of his Belly Fat Cure Report, visit jorgecruise.com.

Doctor-Recommended Back Pain Remedies

Bending over your desk, twisting in the car seat, walking down stairs – all make you feel like gnomes are beating tiny hammers on your back. Whatever its source, backaches are bad news, putting you out of sorts – and out of sync. Find out what’s behind your pain and how to conquer it…

With all those years of toting tots, groceries, laundry, computer bags – even oversized purses with everything but the kitchen sink – it’s no wonder that women are no strangers to back pain.

But heavy loads aren’t the only culprits. Posture, arthritis and pregnancy are other triggers.

Women are particularly vulnerable “because they may develop osteoporosis, which is a weakening of the vertebrae,” says Reza Ghorbani, M.D., a pain management specialist at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Md. “And then they don’t have stability in their spines.”

But that doesn’t mean you have to live with the misery. Here’s a guide to 7 common culprits of back pain, plus doctor-recommended remedies to banish the ache:

1. Back strain
Many activities women do daily – hoisting shopping bags, climbing in and out of cars, bending to pick up dirty clothes or kids – strain muscles and ligaments around the spine.

“The muscles start stretching and that can irritate the nerve ending in the muscles,” Ghorbani says.

What you can do: For starters, lift things correctly.

“Many people bend straight down to pick something up instead of squatting before lifting,” Ghorbani says.

The right way? Lift from the knees, using muscles in your legs and arms – not your back (see right).

Doctor’s fix: For minor, occasional back pain, “the first line of treatment is over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs, such as Advil or Motrin,” Ghorbani says. “Use as directed on the package.”

He also recommends topical pain relief creams because they act only where it hurts, not on your whole body.

Also, treat a sore back with a warm bath, he advises. “Heat increases the blood flow to the muscles, which helps ease the pain.”

To make a heating pad, fill a sock with rice, tie off the end and heat it in a microwave for a minute. Wrap this – or any heating pad – in a cloth to prevent burns and hold against your back for 15-20 minutes.

2. Slouching
Poor posture hurts your back, says rheumatologist Harris McIlwain, M.D., author of The Pain-Free Back (Henry Holt & Co). Sitting or standing with shoulders slouched forward strains muscles.
“If you sit leaning forward, the pressure on the spine is much greater than if you're sitting straight,” McIlwain says.

Normally, your lower back has a slight inward curve, adds Sheeraz Qureshi, M.D., assistant professor of orthopedic surgery at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.

“Poor posture causes your back to come out of that curve, which puts more pressure on your spinal discs and back muscles,” he says.

What you can do: “Get a comfortable desk chair that has arms and allows you to put your feet on the floor,” McIlwain says (see right).

Then elevate your feet with a stool or something similar, which relieves pressure on your back, Qureshi says.

Don’t have an aerodynamic office chair? Then you’ll need lumbar, or lower back, support. So tuck a pillow behind your lower back and keep your shoulders back, with head aligned over your shoulders.

Also, don’t sit in the same position all day, McIlwain says: Get up and walk around the desk or do a few stretches every half-hour.

When standing, lift your breastbone, straighten your shoulders, keep your chin level and spine neutral, with buttocks neither too far out (a swayback) nor too tucked under.

And try the following exercise in your chair several times a day, McIlwain advises:

Tighten your buttocks' muscles and count to 10, then relax them. Do two more times. This strengthens the gluteus muscles, the large muscles in the buttocks that help support the hips.

When they aren’t strong, back muscles jump in to do their work. The result? Lower-back pain.

Doctor’s fix: “One of the first lines of treatment is physical therapy,” Qureshi says. “The therapist can focus on strengthening the muscles around the spine.”

Many physical therapists can evaluate your work station, checking where the computer and keyboard location and the type and height of your chair.

“Then they can put you in the best position for your back,” Qureshi says.

In some cases, the doctor may recommend wearing a back brace, which will help correct your posture and relieve pain – but only temporarily.

“Don’t wear one indefinitely,” Qureshi warns. “Braces do the job of the muscles, so in the long run the muscles can weaken.”

When you have acute pain, use a brace, such as a support belt, for around three days, allowing the back “to calm down,” he says.

3. Too much couch time
Out-of-shape muscles are the enemy here.

“You can’t stop aging,” Ghorbani says. “But by strengthening your lower back muscles with exercise and stretching, you can avoid back pain.”

What you can do: Try a low-impact aerobic exercise that gets your heart pumping – such as walking or swimming – every day, building to at least 20 minutes at a time, Qureshi says.

“Stretching and range of motion exercises, like Pilates and yoga, are also very good,” he says. (Check out our easy yoga exercises slideshow.)

Don’t have time? “Even simple things like stretching for 10 minutes a day can protect your back by improving your posture and muscle [strength].”

Doctor’s fix: Ask your doc to recommend exercises that strengthen back and abdominal muscles (which support the back). You may also be referred to a physical therapist to learn proper form for exercises and help you set up a back-boosting fitness routine.

4. Pregnancy
At least half of pregnant women have some back pain, from general lower aches to sciatica – a searing pain from the buttocks that shoots down the leg.

Why? Blame the bundle of joy you’re carrying.

During pregnancy, “the uterus enlarges and that shifts the center of gravity forward,” says Robert Goldfarb, M.D., an obstetrician/gynecologist at Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital in West Bloomfield, Mich. “So you’re tilted a little backward to maintain posture and your back muscles have to work harder.”

Plus, in the third trimester, hormones relax your pelvic ligaments, loosening joints and intensifying back pain, Goldfarb says.

What you can do: The better shape you’re in physically, the less likely you are to have back pain, Goldfarb says.

“It’s hard to do sit-ups when you’re pregnant,” he says. “But get regular exercise, like walking or water aerobics.”

He also recommends stretching and flexibility exercises, like yoga.

“And make sure you have a solid mattress,” Goldfarb says. Soft mattresses don’t support the natural position of the spine, throwing it out of alignment, he says. In turn, that places stress on back muscles, ligaments and joints.

“If it’s more than 5 years old, stick a piece of plywood beneath it to make it firmer,” he suggests.

That’s a helpful tip for any back pain – pregnancy or not.
Doctor’s fix: Don’t take non-steroidal anti-inflammatories drugs (NSAID), such as Advil and Motrin. They aren’t safe for pregnant women because they can affect the baby’s circulatory system, Goldfarb says.

But Tylenol gets the doctor’s nod, and for extreme pain, you may be prescribed a narcotic pain reliever such as Vicodyn or Tylenol with codeine – both are safe during pregnancy, he says.

5. Excess weight
The more you weigh, the harder it is for the spine to support your body. Add weak muscles to excess weight and you’ll soon be reaching for Advil.

What you can do: “You want to be as close to your ideal weight as [possible],” Qureshi says. Find out what it is by using our BMI calculator – or ask your doctor.

Even a loss of few pounds’ can help with back pain, doctors agree.

“If calories in are less than calories out, you’re going to lose weight,” he says.

Eating more lean meats, fruits, veggies and whole grains instead of high-fat, sugar-laden fast foods will also help you feel full on fewer calories.

And, of course, exercise more.

Doctor’s fix: If you need help to lose weight, see a nutritionist, McIlwain says.

“A nutritionist can give you personal instruction in basic diet choices,” and develop a weight-loss plan for you, he says.

But even if weight loss is difficult, you can still get relief for back pain by doing exercises for the back and hamstrings to strengthen those weight-bearing muscles.

Weak hamstrings – the muscles at the back of the legs that connect to the pelvis – can make it tilt forward, which then causes muscle tightness in your lower back.

Here’s McIlwain’s exercise to strengthen hamstrings: Sitting in a desk chair, push one foot down into the floor (using your muscles) until you feel the hamstring tighten. Hold for 10 seconds, then release. Repeat with the other side. To start, perform 1-2 reps of the exercise twice a day, building up to 20 reps twice a day.

6. Stress
The refrigerator’s broken, the babysitter didn’t show up and you were late to work. Now you’re feeling an angry twinge in your back. Why today?

Blame stress. It triggers the release of cortisol, adrenaline and other hormones that rev up your body to fight or flee whatever’s agitating you. That makes muscles tighten, irritating the nerves and increasing inflammation, which causes back pain, Qureshi says.
What you can do: Simply realizing when you’re experiencing stress and trying to control its triggers can help relieve back pain, he says.

Then take steps to de-stress: Cut out unnecessary events in your schedule. Instead, go for a walk (which both relaxes you and improves fitness) or take a warm bath mixed with a couple cups of Epsom salts. The magnesium in the salts helps relax aching muscles.

Also try deep breathing exercises, which can help relieve pain and stress, says Loren Gelberg-Goff, a clinical social worker in River Edge, N.J.

“Pain generally makes people tense up, causing more pain and tension,” Gelberg-Goff says. “Deep breathing changes that pattern.”

Breathe in through your nose to the count of four, feeling your stomach push out, then release slowly through your mouth to the count of four.

“Do it for at least a full minute every hour,” Gelberg-Goff recommends.

Doctor’s fix: If anxiety lies behind your back aches, you may be referred to a psychotherapist, who can help identify stressors, work to eliminate them and teach you to react less strongly to those you can’t avoid.

7. Degenerative disc disease
Around age 30, we begin to lose some of the cushioning from the discs between the bones in our spines, due to aging, wear and tear or trauma.

“Degeneration can be a normal part of the aging process,” says Scott L. Blumenthal, M.D., an orthopedic spine surgeon at the Texas Back Institute in Plano, Texas.

The joints between vertebrae – facet joints – also begin to deteriorate, adding to the ache. Both conditions can cause a bulging (herniated) disc, Ghorbani says, which occurs when the discs shift, touching the nerves in the spine. The result is shooting pains from your back to toes.

What you can do: “Some of the pain comes from inflammation,” Qureshi says, “so you can take over-the-counter anti-inflammatories like Advil or Aleve.”

Also apply ice for about 10 minutes every 1-1/2 hours, he says. Make sure the ice is wrapped in a cloth so you don’t get ice burn.

If you smoke, stop.

“Smoking shrinks blood vessels and without blood flow, discs become dehydrated and don’t get the nutrients they need,” Ghorbani says.

And avoid standing for long periods, he says. “When you stand, it compresses the discs further,” which is why we’re taller in the morning than in the evening. When the discs compress, “that causes pain.”
Doctor’s fix: Your doctor may prescribe anti-inflammatories, physical therapy or cortisone injections – the latter relieves inflammation at the site for many.

“But if the bulging disc is causing a lot of nerve pressure and you have numbness or tingling going down the leg, you need to see a back specialist to remove the disc,” Qureshi says.

That could involve spinal fusion surgery, in which the damaged disc is removed and the vertebrae above and below are fused together.

“It’s the tried-and-true method,” Qureshi says.

The downside is that you lose some spinal mobility in the area, which places more stress on the parts of the spine that still move.

“But once you have disc and arthritic changes, you’ve already lost movement,” Qureshi says. “So the amount of movement you lose with fusion is small.”

Another option: replacing the damaged disc with an artificial one. Disc replacement, a procedure available only in the last decade, “can treat the disc problem and preserve motion,” Blumenthal says. “It’s the greatest advance in spinal surgery in 20 years.”

Still, the life span of artificial discs isn’t clear. And, says Qureshi, if you have pain and arthritis in other areas of the spine, your pain may not diminish as much as you hoped.

Hawthorn and Hypertension

One of the most frequently discussed problems in medicine is patient non-compliance — when patients won’t take their medications. This is a very common problem with blood pressure medications because of their frequent side effects including:

• Severe fatigue

• Flu-like symptoms

• Muscle pains

• Erectile dysfunction

• Loss of sexual desire by both men and women

Anti-hypertensive medications also frequently cause a severe loss of vital nutrients, such as coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) and magnesium, which can increase one’s risk of fatal heart attack, heart failure, and stroke.

The good news is that there are ways to lower blood pressure safely. For example, an extract from the hawthorn plant is effective in lowering mild to moderate hypertension, as well as relieving mild and moderate heart failure.

Hawthorn leaves and flowers contain abundant, powerful antioxidants such as oligomeric proanthocyanidins, which are also known to profoundly strengthen blood vessels. This helps prevent blood-vessel rupture, which occurs with hypertensive brain hemorrhages, as well as hemorrhages in the skin, eyes, and other organs. For more information on how supplements can extend your life, read my newsletter “Extend Your Life: 4 Supplements That Will Help You Live Longer.”

One study of hawthorn (at a dose of 900 mg/day) found that the extract was as effective as the conventional heart drug captopril in relieving symptoms of heart failure. It has also been shown to improve exercise tolerance in heart failure patients and improve shortness of breath.

Another study involving 952 patients with heart failure compared treating the patients with either hawthorn alone, conventional drugs alone, or hawthorn plus conventional drugs. Researchers found that after two years, heart failure symptoms such as palpitations, breathing problems, and fatigue decreased significantly in patients taking hawthorn supplement alone. People taking hawthorn were also able to significantly reduce their dosage of prescription drugs.

Yet another study examined 60 people with history of angina — a pain or tightness in the chest that occurs when an area of the heart muscle receives decreased blood supply. This study found that even in doses as low as 180 mg per day, hawthorn extract, as compared to placebo, increased blood flow to the heart, allowing patients to exercise longer without experiencing chest pain. In a recent review of 29 important clinical studies involving 5,500 patients, it was shown that hawthorn extract was safe in a dose range of 160 mg to 1,800 mg per day.

The advantage of hawthorn is that it not only lowers blood pressure (by dilating the vessels), but at the same time it makes the heart muscle stronger. In addition, its powerful antioxidants help protect the walls of the major blood vessels from lipid peroxidation damage, which occurs when fats oxidize and cause inflammation to tissues. For more information on how to protect your heart, see my report "Can Sudden Cardiac Death Be Prevented?"

High blood pressure damages arteries by causing the generation of high levels of free radicals and lipid peroxidation products in the inner lining and muscle layer of arteries. Anti-hypertensive drugs do nothing to reduce free-radical damage directly.

However, one should be careful about mixing hawthorn extract with certain drugs. The most common interaction is an increase in the effect of the medication, meaning it could even make the medication toxic. This reaction has been seen with these medications:

• Digoxin

• Beta-blockers (Tenormin, Lopressor, and Inderal)

• Calcium channel blockers (Norvasc, Cardizem, and Procardia)

In most studies involving patients with difficult-to-control blood pressure, the dosages of conventional drugs were significantly lowered when patients were given hawthorn extract.

This is something I recommend in my own practice. I remember one gentleman coming to me for something to control his very high blood pressure, which remained uncontrolled even after his doctors put him on a mixture of anti-hypertensive medications. I suggested hawthorn extract along with reduced doses of his medications. He returned in two weeks and told me that for the first time in 10 years his blood pressure was normal.

Like all other natural treatments, hawthorn extract only should be taken with the help and consultation of a trained nutritional physician or certified clinical nutritionist.

U.S. may pay for sex disease tests for elderly

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. health officials are considering including tests for sexually transmitted diseases like syphilis and hepatitis B for the elderly and disabled covered under Medicare.

The national health insurance program, which already pays for HIV tests, said on Thursday that it was considering adding the additional STD exams as part of an initiative to cover more preventive care.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) officials are expected to announce a draft decision by Aug. 24.

Americans are living longer, and Medicare's review comes as researchers find more older Americans remaining sexually active.

Most sexually transmitted infection tests under consideration are aimed at people at high risk for such diseases. Most are for women and some specifically for pregnant women, who are included in Medicare's disabled beneficiaries.

Nearly 39 million Americans age 65 and older are covered under the insurance program as well as 7.6 million disabled.

Public health experts say early screening and preventive care can cost less in the long run by avoiding complications that can arise from delayed treatment. In this case, it could also help prevent the spread of infection to others.

CMS has had the power to add coverage for preventive services since 2009, and Medicare already covers pap smears and pelvic exams in addition to screening tests for colorectal cancer and diabetes.

Specifically, Medicare is now considering testing for:

* chlamydial infection for sexually active or pregnant women aged 24 and younger and for older, sexually active or pregnant women at higher risk

* gonorrhea infection in all sexually active or pregnant women if they are at increased risk

* hepatitis B virus infection in pregnant women

* syphilis infection for all those at increased risk

* high-intensity behavioral counseling to prevent infection for sexually active adolescents and for adults at greater risk.

Crowded ERs don't hinder stroke care: study

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Crowded emergency rooms have been linked to delays in various treatments, but does that also apply to stroke care?

A new study suggests the answer is no-provided patients arrive at the hospital within three hours of developing symptoms of a stroke.

"Emergency departments are designed to take care of patients who are critically ill, and patients who are explicitly prioritized (for stroke treatment) are not impacted by the crowding," said Dr. Jesse M. Pines, Director of the Center for Health Care Quality at George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, D.C., who helped conduct the research.

"But those who are not prioritized do experience delays of up to an hour or more at crowded times," Pines told Reuters Health.

The consequences of those delays could be significant, added Pines, whose group published its results online this month in the journal Stroke. As the study found, in some cases crowding may push back the time it takes certain stroke patients to receive a computed tomography (CT) scan of their brain.

Such scans are crucial for determining not only whether someone truly had a stroke but whether the problem involves blocked or leaking blood vessels, a key consideration for deciding what treatment the patient needs.

Strokes affect an estimated 800,000 people in the United States each year, causing 140,000 deaths and many more cases of permanent disability, according to the American Stroke Association.

For their study, Pines and his colleagues reviewed the medical records of more than 500 stroke patients treated at two Philadelphia hospitals. One was a large teaching facility that specialized in stroke. The other was a nearby community hospital with a medium sized emergency room (ER) but no team of stroke experts.

At the stroke center, a team of experts is available to respond within minutes to a new case, according to the researchers. In addition, a CT scanner sits next to the ER-while at the other hospital the machine is three floors up and requires an elevator trip to transport patients.

Half the patients received treatment within three hours of their stroke symptoms being recognized; the other half did not arrive until three hours after symptoms appeared.

For those in the first group, a crowded ER-defined by the number of patients admitted, in the waiting room and other measures of occupancy-did not appear to affect the speed with which they received treatment, the researchers reported. That was true even at the stroke center, whose ER sees nearly twice the number of patients each year than the other hospital, 57,000 versus 30,000.

But when patients arrived at the ER more than 3 hours after their symptoms started, crowding seemed to slow the pace of care somewhat. In particular, these patients were more likely to have to wait more than 25 minutes for a CT scan and to wait more than 45 minutes after arrival to have that scan interpreted.

The three-hour period was the "golden window" for getting clot-busting drugs. About 90 percent of all strokes are due to blood clots. That period recently was pushed to four and a half hours after the onset of stroke symptoms-which include sudden paralysis, loss of vision and difficulty speaking.

Pines said the findings might look better in the context of the extended window. "More people would be prioritized and fewer people's care would be impacted by crowding," he explained.

"There are many treatments that stroke patients who don't get clot-busting drugs still need," such as brain surgery or other procedures, Pines said. "While there is no clear evidence that delaying their care worsens outcomes, in general we want to figure out as early as possible who has particular types of strokes, like ones that involve brain bleeding and ones that don't."

"Right now we can't get away without doing a brain scan of some kind" on patients suspected of having suffered a stroke, said Dr. Larry Goldstein, professor of medicine and director of the Duke Stroke Center at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, and a spokesperson for the American Stroke Association.

"That's always going to be a rate-limiting step," said Goldstein, who was not involved in the research.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/f1PW0Y Stroke, online February 10, 2011.

FUN FACTS

* Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married. *

* It is possible to lead a cow upstairs, but not downstairs. *
*
The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases. *

* The youngest Pope was 11 years old. *

* TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on the one top row of the keyboard. *

Sunday, February 27, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

Study: PSA Rise Poor Cancer Predictor

A rising PSA level isn't such a good predictor of prostate cancer after all and can lead to many unnecessary biopsies, says a large new study.

Most men over 50 get PSA blood tests, but they're hugely problematic. Too much PSA, or prostate-specific antigen, only sometimes signals prostate cancer is brewing — it also can mean a benign enlarged prostate or an infection. And screening often detects small tumors that will prove too slow-growing to be deadly. Yet there's no sure way to tell in advance who needs aggressive therapy.

On the other hand, some men have cancer despite a "normal" PSA count of 4 or below. So for PSAs that are rising, yet still in the normal range, some guidelines urge doctors to consider a biopsy.

How quickly the PSA number rises is something "that patients and doctors worry a lot about," said Dr. Andrew Vickers of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. "Men show up here with a PSA of 2 and we say, 'Why are you here?' And they say, 'Well, I used to be a 1 and my doctor's worried. Am I going to die?'"

So Sloan-Kettering researchers studied whether considering PSA velocity adds value to the biopsy-or-not decision in those otherwise low-risk men — and concluded it doesn't.

"This is a really important study," said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society, who wasn't part of the research. "A lot of doctors are going to stop looking at a PSA rise of 1 and ordering biopsies."

Vickers' team tracked 5,519 men who'd taken part in a large prostate cancer prevention study and who'd received a biopsy at the study's end regardless of their PSA level.

Just having a rising PSA — if nothing else was considered — was associated with a slightly higher risk of having cancer, although not the more worrisome aggressive kind. But the PSA level alone, not its rise, was a much better predictor of a tumor, reported Vickers, a statistician who specializes in prostate cancer.

Focusing on PSA's rise instead triggered many more biopsies, with close to 1 in 7 men who would get one, concluded the study, published Thursday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

That compares with 1 in 20 men who are biopsied for a high PSA level alone, noted Dr. Grace Lu-Yao of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in an accompanying editorial.

"There's an important public health message here, which is for men not to worry about changes in their PSA if their overall PSA level is low," Vickers said.

6 Strategies to Save Your Sight

It’s quite easy to take our eyes for granted, but think of all the things they do. They allow us to work, drive, read, closely examine something that fascinates us, and really appreciate the face of a loved one.

However, by age 65, one in three Americans has some type of eye disease that makes him or her visually impaired, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology. Diabetes, glaucoma, and age-related macular degeneration all can take their toll on our eyesight. Here’s what you can do to help keep your eyes healthy and working well for a long time.

1. Get an eye exam

Health experts recommend regular eye exams to make sure all is well with your baby blues (or browns, or greens). How often you should get one depends on your age and any risk factors or health problems you may have. The American Academy of Ophthalmology recommends that everyone have a baseline eye disease screening at the age of 40, when vision changes and early signs of eye disease may start to occur. Future screenings should be determined based on that exam, risk factors, and family history.

Optometrists and ophthalmologists offer eye care. Ophthalmologists are medical doctors who have received extensive training in diagnosing and treating eye diseases and vision problems, and are licensed to perform eye surgery. Optometrists are also trained to treat vision problems and eye disease but they cannot operate.

2. Eat orange produce

Vegetables rich in vitamin A and beta-carotene help preserve eyesight. As you’ve probably heard since childhood, carrots are a great choice. Other good options include fruits and vegetables the colors of deep yellow and orange. Choose sweet potatoes, apricots, mangoes, cantaloupe, and peaches.

Other good-for-your-eyes choices include those rich in vitamins C and E, zeaxanthin, lutein, zinc, and omega-3 fatty acids DHA and EPA. So choose dark green leafy vegetables, nuts, citrus fruits, whole grains, and cold water fish, the American Academy of Ophthalmology advises.

3. Sun-proof your eyes

Spending a long time in the sun without good eye protection can lead to damage such as cataracts, cornea sunburn, and cancerous growths on eyelids, eye health experts say. To protect your eyes when you are outdoors, especially during the summer when ultraviolet radiation is at least three times higher than in winter, experts recommend you wear:

• Wrap-around or side-shield sunglasses that are 99 percent and higher ultraviolet-radiation absorbent. The best sunglasses offer 100 percent UV absorption and are impact resistant, says the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

• Sunglasses even if your contact lenses offer sun protection. Warm wind can cause drying and sunglasses help prevent that.

• A wide-brimmed hat.

4. Control diabetes

Diabetics are 25 times more likely to become blind than those who don’t have diabetes, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology. Diabetes damages blood vessels which affect the function of the eye’s retina. The vessels swell, leak, and can close completely. Also, new, abnormal vessels can grow on the retina’s surface, but accompanying scar tissue can cause the retina to detach and wrinkle, and the new vessels are unable to supply needed blood flow.

To help prevent Type 2 diabetes, eat a diet low in fat, red meat, and processed sugar, and high in whole grains, fruits, nuts, vegetables, and fish. Exercise regularly to maintain your ideal weight.

5. Sip some tea

People with diabetes also are at an increased risk for glaucoma, a condition in which pressure inside the eye builds up and damages the optic nerve, causing a loss of vision. While the causes of glaucoma are not completely understood, Dr. Russell Blaylock, Newsmax Health contributor, says an inflammatory reaction to excitotoxins from food additives, like monosodium glutamate, soy products, and vegetable protein, plays a role. He advises avoiding all dietary excitotoxins, as well as aspartame and omega-6 oils like peanut, corn, and safflower. Eating lots of fresh vegetables and drinking two to three cups of white tea also will add protection, he says.

Vitamin D may help keep blood sugar under control

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Drinking yogurt with extra vitamin D may help people with diabetes regulate their blood sugar, a study from Iran finds.

In the trial, 90 adults with diabetes were divided into three groups, all given daily yogurt drinks: one group received plain yogurt, one got yogurt with extra vitamin D, and one was given yogurt with extra vitamin D and calcium.

At the end of 12 weeks, "we found a relatively remarkable improvement" in blood sugar levels in the groups that got extra vitamin D, compared to the plain yogurt group, co-author Tirang Neyestani, associate professor at National Nutrition and Food Technology Research Institute in Iran, told Reuters Health in an e-mail.

Past studies on the role of vitamin D in diabetes have not been able to show cause and effect.

It's noteworthy that this study does, and that it suggests vitamin D has a positive effect on people with type 2 diabetes, said Dr. Anastassios Pittas, assistant professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. He was not part of the study.

In type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease, the body has trouble using insulin to process glucose from foods, resulting in excessive levels of the sugar in the bloodstream. Vitamin D is thought to help regulate the body's sensitivity to insulin and possibly insulin production by the pancreas.

Going back to the 1980s, numerous studies have linked vitamin D to a lowered risk of diabetes, however others have found no benefit. A recent report showed no link between women's blood levels of vitamin D and their risk of developing type 2 diabetes, for example. (See Reuters Health story of February 22, 2011.)

Few studies have directly tested the theory by giving people vitamin D and then seeing how they compare over time in diabetes-related measurements with similar subjects who did not consume the vitamin.

In the new study, 55 women and 35 men were divided into groups of 30, and all drank their assigned yogurt twice a day. The plain yogurt contained150 milligrams of calcium, the vitamin D-fortified yogurt had 500 international units (IU) of vitamin D and 150 milligrams of calcium, and the doubly-fortified yogurt contained 500 IU of vitamin D and 250 milligrams of calcium.

After three months, the plain yogurt group's average blood sugar increased from 187 to 203 milligrams per deciliter of blood (mg/dL). In both the fortified-yogurt groups, blood sugar dropped from 184 to about 172 mg/dL. Blood sugar levels above126 mg/dL are considered to be diabetic.

It's odd that the blood sugar of those who didn't receive extra vitamin D got worse, Pittas said. This could make it seem that the improvement in the vitamin D-fortified group was greater than it actually was, overstating the finding.

The plain-yogurt group also had an increase in hemoglobin A1C, a sign of raised blood sugar levels over time, while both vitamin-D groups' A1C numbers decreased.

In addition, people who got the fortified yogurt lost an average of two to five pounds during the study, while the plain-yogurt group stayed about the same.

Although this difference may seem small, it may have affected the participants' blood sugar levels, Pittas said.

"Weight loss by itself, regardless of what causes it, can improve diabetes," he told Reuters Health.

It's also important to note that the vitamin D was given in yogurt, instead of as a supplement, Pittas said, and taking the vitamin alone might produce different results.

Yogurt contains probiotics, the good bugs that help us digest food, and "there is some evidence that these may also be important in diabetes," Pittas explained.

The study, published in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, was funded by the National Nutrition and Food Technology Research Institute in Iran. The yogurt was donated by the Dairy Industries of Iran, and was a substitute for the equivalent amount of dairy in the participants' normal diet.

People with type 2 diabetes should follow the current Institute of Medicine vitamin D recommendation of about 600 IU a day, Pittas said.

The study is "a little bit of a 'too good to be true' observation," he added, but it does "provide additional evidence for more, longer-term studies. I would not say that we should all be eating yogurt with extra vitamin D yet."

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/ebYb02 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, online February 2, 2011.

High good cholesterol linked to long life in men

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Men who reach their 85th birthdays tended to have high levels of good cholesterol while in their 60s, a new study says.

Researchers found that men with the highest good (HDL) cholesterol were 28 percent less likely to die before they reached 85, compared to men in the lowest HDL group.

This paper, published in the American Journal of Cardiology, adds to the evidence that HDL is important for a long life, said Dr. Nir Barzilai, who heads the Institute for Aging Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and was not part of the study.

However, "we always have to remember that it's an association," and it does not mean that having high HDL increases life span, he told Reuters Health.

About 12 million men suffered from heart disease and stroke in 2006, but high levels of HDL cholesterol may reduce the risks, according to the American Heart Association.

Low levels of HDL, less than 40 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL) of blood for men, are known to increase the risk of heart disease, according to the heart association.

The researchers, from the Massachusetts Veterans Epidemiology and Research Information Center in Boston, looked at the medical records of about 650 veterans when they were around 65 years old, then grouped them based on HDL levels.

Starting with low levels of 40 mg/dL, they found that for each ten mg/dL increase of HDL, the men were 14 percent less likely to have died by 85. Overall, 375 survived to that age.

Also, fewer of the men with higher HDL were overweight, and they tended not to have more than 2 drinks a day. And fewer of them had heart disease or smoked, compared to the lowest HDL group.

These other factors might have had an effect on survival, Barzilai said. However, the researchers did account for this, and still showed a link between reaching 85 and high HDL levels, he told Reuters Health.

"It's difficult to change HDL levels," Barzilai said. Exercise might raise it a few points, but it isn't a very efficient way to improve, he said. "We need to get a drug eventually."

Merck and Roche are both working on an HDL raising drug, he told Reuters Health. Pfizer stopped its research into another such drug, torcetrapib, in 2006 because people taking it along with Lipitor in a study had a higher rate of death.

The B-vitamin niacin may raise HDL levels 15 to 35 percent. However, side effects can include liver damage and increased blood sugar, according to the Mayo Clinic.

A three-month supply costs about nine dollars. Niacin is also found in dairy products, lean meats, nuts, eggs and fish.

However, it's unclear how much raising HDL will prevent heart disease, Barzilai said, so whether drugs might improve people's health remains to be seen.

The study authors could not be reached by deadline.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/h8Jty9 The American Journal of Cardiology, online February 4, 2011.

Asthma linked to celiac disease

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People with the digestive disorder known as celiac disease are more likely to develop another disorder involving the immune system: asthma, according to a new study.

Specifically, a group of European researchers found that people with celiac disease were 60 percent more likely to develop asthma, relative to those without celiac.

Indeed, for every 100,000 people with celiac disease, 147 will have asthma that would not have occurred in the absence of the digestive disorder.

Those diagnosed with asthma were also more likely to eventually develop celiac disease, the authors report in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Celiac disease is caused by an abnormal immune response to gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, barley and other foods. The reaction keeps sufferers from eating foods like cereal, pasta, cookies and beer.

It occurs in about 1 percent of the population, and can lead to severe health problems including low blood count, poor bone health, fatigue, and weight loss.

To investigate whether celiac had any association with asthma, Dr. Jonas Ludvigsson of Orebro University Hospital and the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and colleagues compared more than 28,000 Swedes diagnosed with celiac to more than 140,000 similar people without the disease.

Ludvigsson cautioned that the study simply shows an association between the two diseases, not that one causes the other.

It's also unclear, he added, what might explain the association. "Personally, I think the role of vitamin D deficiency should be stressed," he told Reuters Health by email.

People with celiac are more likely to develop osteoporosis and tuberculosis, both diseases in which vitamin D plays a role. If a person with celiac also has low levels of vitamin D, this could in turn affect the immune system, which could increase the risk of developing asthma, Ludvigsson noted.

"Another potential mechanism could be that asthma and celiac disease share some immunological feature," he added. "If you have it, you are at increased risk of both diseases."

People diagnosed with celiac are advised to follow a gluten-free diet, and it's not known whether the 28,000 people included in the study stuck to the diet or not, Ludvigsson added.

"Generally dietary compliance is high in Sweden, so I actually believe that also patients with good adherence are at increased risk of asthma," he said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/ehh542 Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 2011.

FUN FACTS

* The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV was Fred and Wilma Flintstone. *

* Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury. *

* It is impossible to lick your elbow. *

* 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321 *

* In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase "goodnight, sleep tight." *

Saturday, February 26, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Beauty is not generic. Quite often, the thing that makes you memorable is the thing that makes you different.

Hidden dangers in sunscreen

Here's some bitter irony for you: A key ingredient in many sunscreens can actually cause the very cancers they're supposed to prevent.

That's not even the most ironic part. Ready for it? This ingredient only becomes dangerous when exposed to the sun.

Ouch! Sunburn is looking better all the time.

The ingredient is vitamin A, which is usually harmless enough if you get it the right way--from spinach, carrots or a good supplement. You need it for everything from your eyes to your immune system.

But you definitely don't need it in your sunscreen or skin cream, because studies have shown that this stuff can actually give a turbo boost to cancer cells when exposed to UV light.

And as you probably know, our top source of UV light is the sun.

Now, the skincare industry's dirtiest secret has been exposed to the light-- because a key scientific advisory panel has just signed off on the draft assessment from the National Toxicology Program that confirmed the link after a series of animal tests.

And that means it's time to get this stuff out of your home--and definitely out of your beach bag.

Here's what you need to do: Check the labels on any skincare products you have and look for "retinyl palmitate." That's the vitamin A, and it's currently in some 200 sunscreens from major manufacturers--including Coppertone, Banana Boat, and Neutrogena.

But let's make this even easier than searching the fine print for some funny words--because the truth is, you don't need sunscreen in the first place.

Despite what you may have heard, the sun is not your enemy and you don't need to slather on a chemical concoction every time you step outside.

Quite the opposite--because that approach has left us so badly deficient in vitamin D that most people now need a supplement just to get what they need.

But the cheapest "supplement" on the planet is right outside your door: Your body can make its own D with about 15 to 20 minutes of direct sunlight a day.

Getting the D you need will help your bones, brain, heart and immune system--and unlike sunscreen, it may even help you avoid some cancers.

One new study on mice finds that low levels of D can actually stunt the growth of the lungs--leading to decreased volume and function, possibly setting the stage for asthma and other breathing problems.

Trigger Thumb Treatment

Question: How is trigger thumb treated?

Dr. Hibberd's Answer:

Trigger thumb, a painful condition that causes the thumb to bend and lock, is best managed by an orthopedic or hand specialist.

When the injury is recent, extended splinting (for weeks if not one to two months) can prevent the need for surgery to correct this deformity, which is usually caused by inflammed tendons. The splinting should be performed under physician guidance and followed to be sure anticipated results are seen.

Even when delayed several weeks, splinting still has some reasonable success. Delays in management or inappropriate splinting decreases the usual success of non-surgical management. Surgery is usually reserved as a final option for failed conservative care.

Can Drinking Cure My Insomnia?

Question: A friend recommended I deal with my insomnia with a drink each night before bedtime. Is that a good idea?

Dr. Hibberd's Answer:

Many of us have difficulties with sleep from time to time and we often resort to some agent close at hand to get us to sleep. Used on an occasional basis, we generally are not looking at major harm to our health in the long term.

However, most sleep experts now emphasize good sleep habits in order to achieve healthy and restful sleep. Bedtime alcohol use is not regarded as a healthful habit. BEWARE.

Our central nervous system's ability to function, heal, and maintain itself depends upon adequate sleep quality and quantity. Chronic (long-term) alcohol use is not conducive to either. Insomnia (or difficulty sleeping) affects one third of adults on an intermittent basis and 10 percent of adults on a chronic (or long-term) basis.

Alcohol is a central nervous system (brain) depressant, and will adversely affect your quality of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep that we now recognize as associated with healthful and "invigorating" sleep so essential to our overall general health. Sleep disorders have been associated with decreased work productivity, serious job-related and motor vehicle accidents, and serious mental and physical consequences. Remember, by drinking each night you are conditioning your sleep habit to include regular alcohol intake.

Insomnia is divided into acute (sudden) and chronic (long-term) categories based on duration and triggers.

Acute insomnia (such as jet lag, emotional issues, environmental issues such as noise, light, or temperature) is usually caused by an identifiable trigger and lasts less than four weeks. Sleep aids may be appropriate here without the need for further investigation. Generally, you should prefer FDA approved sleep aids since these have been properly tested for safety and effectiveness. This eliminates almost all over the counter sleep aids. Ask your doctor if a prescription agent is appropriate for you.

Chronic insomnia should always be properly evaluated, preferably by a medical professional. Chronic insomnia refers to disturbed sleep for at least three nights per week for more than four weeks. Insomnia caused by no identifiable medical or psychiatric condition is called primary insomnia. Primary insomnia accounts for 12 percent to 15 percent of chronic insomnia and is a diagnosis of exclusion. That means that serious disorders must be first considered.

A full detailing is beyond the scope of this column, but suffice it to say, there are sometimes serious health issues behind the insomnia. Primary sleep disorder such as RLS (restless leg syndrome), circadian rhythm disorders (irregular sleep-wake rhythm, delayed or advanced sleep disorder, free running circadian rhythms), and parasomnias affect 10 percent of people with disturbed sleep.

In some cases, sleep disturbance may reflect an otherwise unrecognized serious underlying condition that may endanger your safety or even your life. Examples such as sleep apnea, congestive heart failure, and cardiac arrhythmias (irregular rhythms) are not uncommon. These conditions have specific treatments and sleep aid use may indeed be harmful.

I recommend you be properly evaluated by a medical professional who is trained to screen for serious causes of insomnia. Start with your primary care medical doctor. Don’t be afraid to ask for multi-specialty (cardiology, pulmonary, neurology, psychiatry, and possibly a sleep lab) referrals if your doctor is complacent with your complaint.

Irregular Heartbeats

Question: For the past 30 years I have experienced an irregular heartbeat a few times a year, but in the last eight months it has been occurring almost constantly. Could this be due to stress?

Dr. Hibberd's Answer:

Irregular heartbeats have many causes. Stress may accelerate and accentuate an irregular heart rate, but it will not cause your heartbeat to be irregular.

Have your EKG checked for irregularity, and if not noted, request a 24-hour Holter monitor or an event monitor to define what the heart rhythm is so your treatment can be fine tuned. Sometimes a stress test also may be recommended.

Some irregular heartbeats, called ventricular arrhythmias, are dangerous, while others are innocent and rarely need treatment, such as premature atrial contractions. Some rapid heartbeats, like atrial fibrillation, increase our risk for stroke and should be carefully managed.

In general, rapid heartbeat episodes may be symptoms of underlying conducting system disease with or without coronary artery disease, or internal electrolyte disorders and should never be ignored. Any change in frequency of irregular heartbeat is always of concern.

The price may be your life if you ignore one of the serious causes, especially if your intrinsic cardiac pacemaker fails or the irregular heartbeat deteriorates into a lethal heart rhythm that interrupts the ability of the heart to pump blood to your brain.

A Spice That Slims You Down

You might have good memories of this spice from childhood, and maybe you even crave it now: It's cinnamon.

Not only is it a great way to add some zing to healthy meals, from chicken to yogurt, but cinnamon may also help keep your blood sugar from dropping. This prevents spikes in your hunger level that can cause you to overeat—which means you'll drop pounds faster!

For a delicious way to enjoy cinnamon, try a healthy cinnamon toast made with whole-grain bread, trans-fat-free margarine and a teaspoon of the hunger-fighter cinnamon. It will satisfy your cravings for something a little sweet while filling you up. Enjoy!

FUN FACTS

* In Tokyo, a bicycle is faster than a car for most trips of less than 50 minutes! *

* There are 18 different animal shapes in the Animal Crackers cookie zoo! *

* There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos! *

* Every day 20 banks are robbed. The average take is $2,500! *

* Tourists visiting Iceland should know that tipping at a restaurant is considered an insult! *

FUN FACTS

Now it's time for the flying fickle finger of fate, this hour it's flown to Washington. A man broke into a home stole 2 computers $400 in cash, and a coat, and got away clean. However one of the kids in the house, left their facebook account open, so this guy decides to take a picture of himself in the dads coat. Well guess where this guy is now, yep jail.

FUN FACTS

* The fingerprints of koala bears are indistinguishable from those of humans, so much so that they could be confused at a crime scene. *

* Snails can sleep for 3 years without eating *

* Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into to shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode. *

* The number of possible ways of playing the first four moves per side in a game of chess is 318,979,564,000. *

* The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable". *

Friday, February 25, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

You have to be determined to make it to the top. Otherwise every slip, stumble and fall will give you an excuse to turn around and head home.

Eat These for a Better Night's Sleep

Did you know that a poor night's sleep can not only make you feel awful, but can also knock 10 years off your life?

To avoid that dire scenario, try eating a high-carb snack before bed, say University of Sydney researchers. Just make sure to keep it healthy, like a bowl of whole-grain cereal with skim milk or a little peanut butter on some whole-grain toast. Then, sleep like a baby!

Fighting Fat? Turn Down the Thermostat

Could we all help rein in the obesity epidemic by turning down our thermostats this winter? Maybe or maybe not — but a new study suggests that environmental factors ranging from diet, to sleep, to home temperature are related to the risk of becoming obese.

Junk food and physical inactivity usually catch most of the blame for the obesity problem weighing down much of the world.

But some recent research has been looking at the roles of the several other features of modern life — like sleep deprivation and indoor climate control.

In the new study, published in the International Journal of Obesity, Dr. Simona Bo and colleagues at the University of Turin in Italy followed nearly 1,300 middle-aged adults over six years. During that time, 103 became obese.

When the researchers looked at a number of environmental factors, they found that sleep habits were related to the risk of becoming obese. For each hour of sleep people typically got each day, the odds of their becoming obese declined by 30 percent — even with other factors like physical activity level and TV watching taken into account.

Then there was home temperature. Compared to people who kept their homes no warmer than 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit) in the fall and winter, those who liked a toastier home were twice as likely to become obese.

Diet, a more obvious factor in obesity, also mattered: The more often people ate at restaurants each week, the greater their likelihood of becoming obese. And those who got little fiber in their diets were at greater risk of developing abnormally high blood-sugar levels, often a sign of Type 2 diabetes.

None of this proves that turning down the heat or sleeping more will make you thin.

"I wouldn't say to anyone that if you turn down your thermostat, you'll lose weight," said Dr. David B. Allison, director of the Nutrition Obesity Research Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

On the other hand, things like home temperature and sleep habits are lifestyle factors that "you can play with" in managing your weight, according to Allison, who was not involved in the current study.

"It is plausible that if you turn down your thermostat in the winter, or use less air conditioning in the summer, you'll lose weight," Allison told Reuters Health. "And you'll almost certainly reduce your energy bills."

Why would indoor temperature matter? According to Allison, it's fairly simple: The body burns more calories when it has to work to maintain a stable temperature. This is true in both hot and cold weather, he notes.

To best of his knowledge, Allison said, this latest study is the first to connect home temperatures with individuals' risk of becoming obese.

As for sleep, a number of past studies have linked excess weight and chronic sleep deprivation — typically defined as less than six hours per night. One theory is that the hormonal effects of sleep loss are to blame. Another is that sleep-deprived people may eat and drink more in an effort to boost their energy levels.

So does any of this mean that you can just forget exercise if you pay more attention to your thermostat? No.

Allison said there is "little doubt" that if you work out regularly — and do not replace those burned calories by eating more — you will lose weight.

The problem has been getting people to actually do that. Programs and public-health efforts to get Americans moving — like more physical education in schools — have so far met with little success when it comes to the nation's obesity problem, according to Allison.

"I think we need to explore alternative ideas," he said.

In a 2006 study of air conditioning and obesity rates, Allison and his colleagues cited a number of modern-life factors they say could be contributing to rising obesity — including widespread use of antidepressants and other medications that can promote weight gain, and industrial chemicals that may alter hormone activity when they get into the body.

Researchers and public-health advocates should be "open-minded" about the possible contributors to obesity, he added, rather than fixating on one thing, like physical education at schools.

"No one factor is going to explain the obesity problem," he said.

Clue to Chronic Lyme, Chronic Fatigue May Yield Better Diagnoses

Scientists have discovered proteins in spinal fluid that can distinguish people with two mysterious illnesses that mimic each other — chronic fatigue syndrome and a kind of chronic Lyme disease.

Wednesday's study is small and needs verification. But specialists called it a promising start at clearing some of the confusion surrounding two illnesses with similar symptoms and no good means of diagnosis.

"It's a very important first step," said Dr. Suzanne Vernon of the Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome Association of America.

Lyme disease usually is cured with antibiotics, but some patients report pain, fatigue, and memory or other neurologic problems that linger for months or years after treatment ends. This post-treatment Lyme disease shares symptoms that characterize chronic fatigue syndrome.

The new study analyzed spinal fluid from 25 of those chronic Lyme patients, 43 people diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, and 11 healthy people. Using a special high-powered technology, researchers detected more than 2,500 proteins in each group.

More important, they found clear sets of proteins — hundreds each — unique to each disease, said Dr. Steven Schutzer of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, who led the work.

The next step is to study more people to see if certain protein abnormalities might serve as a signature, a way to better diagnose patients, Schutzer said. He also plans to see if they could be found in blood, which would be easier to test than spinal fluid.

Much more work is needed, cautioned Dr. Joseph Breen, a Lyme specialist at the National Institutes of Health, which helped fund the work. But this pool of new clues also might eventually help scientists figure out the underlying biology of these diseases and how they harm, he added.

The study was published Wednesday in the journal PLoS One.

Dirty Air Poses High Heart-Attack Risk

Air pollution triggers more heart attacks than using cocaine and poses as high a risk of sparking a heart attack as alcohol, coffee, and physical exertion, scientists said on Thursday.

Sex, anger, marijuana use, and chest or respiratory infections and can also trigger heart attacks to different extents, the researchers said, but air pollution, particularly in heavy traffic, is the major culprit.

The findings, published in The Lancet journal, suggest population-wide factors like polluted air should be taken more seriously when looking at heart risks, and should be put into context beside higher but relatively rarer risks like drug use.

Tim Nawrot of Hasselt University in Belgium, who led the study, said he hoped his findings would also encourage doctors to think more often about population level risks.

"Physicians are always looking at individual patients — and low risk factors might not look important at an individual level, but if they are prevalent in the population then they have a greater public health relevance," he said in a telephone interview.

The World Health Organization (WHO) describes air pollution as "a major environmental risk to health" and estimates that it causes around 2 million premature deaths worldwide every year.

Nawrot's team combined data from 36 separate studies and calculated the relative risk posed by a series of heart attack triggers and their population-attributable fraction (PAF) — in other words the proportion of total heart attacks estimated to have been caused by each trigger.

The highest risk PAF was exposure to traffic, followed by physical exertion, alcohol, coffee, air pollution, and then things like anger, sex, cocaine use, smoking marijuana, and respiratory infections.

"Of the triggers for heart attack studied, cocaine is the most likely to trigger an event in an individual, but traffic has the greatest population effect as more people are exposed to (it)," the researchers wrote. "PAFs give a measure of how much disease would be avoided if the risk was no longer present."

A report published late last year found that air pollution in many major cities in Asia exceeds the WHO's air quality guidelines and that toxic cocktails of pollutants results in more than 530,000 premature deaths a year.

While passive smoking was not included in this study, Nawrot said the effects of second-hand smoke were likely to be similar to that of outdoor air pollution, and noted previous research which found that bans on smoking in public places have significantly reduced heart attack rates.

British researchers said last year that a ban on smoking in public places in England led to a swift and significant drop in the number of heart attacks, saving the health service 8.4 million pounds ($13 million) in the first year.

Tim Chico, a heart specialist at the University of Sheffield who was not involved in this research, said it would help health authorities focus on which are the most important triggers.

"However, what triggers the heart attack should be considered the "last straw." The foundations of heart disease that lead to a heart attack are laid down over many years," he said in an e-mailed comment. "If someone wants to avoid a heart attack they should focus on not smoking, exercising, eating a healthy diet, and maintaining their ideal weight."

Rise Seen in Surgeries, Surgery Centers more uneeded surgeries

As the number of outpatient surgery centers has increased, so has the number of potentially unnecessary surgeries, a new study finds.

The research focused on ambulatory surgery centers — medical facilities that perform surgeries not requiring an overnight stay. Visits to such centers have tripled in number within the last decade.

In areas that included ambulatory surgery centers, the researchers noted a significant increase in the number of so-called discretionary procedures, specifically colonoscopy and endoscopy to look for problems in the esophagus, stomach, and small intestine.

Specifically, they found that the yearly number of colonoscopies and endoscopies increased by 1,610 and 775, respectively, for every 100,000 residents after an ambulatory surgery center opened.

Overall, this increase translated into an additional 25,000 colonoscopies and 9,800 endoscopies between 2002 and 2006 within the state of Florida alone, the authors note in the journal Archives of Surgery.

The benefits of the centers, explained study author Dr. John Hollingsworth of the University of Michigan, is that they are more efficient than hospitals, which saves patients time — and money.

But the increase in potentially unnecessary surgeries following the introduction of an ambulatory surgery center suggests these added costs may somewhat offset whatever money is being saved, Hollingsworth noted.

"It is entirely possible that the increased healthcare expenditures associated with greater procedure use in markets where opened may mitigate some of the efficiencies related to."

The increase in some discretionary surgeries is probably not a result of ambulatory surgery centers reaching a backlog of necessary surgeries, Hollingsworth added. For comparison with discretionary procedures that are often optional and may be performed for screening purposes, he and his colleagues looked at the frequency of a type of surgery that is always medically necessary — breast surgery to remove cancerous tissue. No rise in those procedures was seen when ambulatory surgery centers came to an area.

That said, the researchers could not determine whether the additional colonoscopies and endoscopies were, in fact, medically necessary, or might end up saving money in the long-term by diagnosing diseases earlier, he cautioned. "We cannot say whether a given patient needed a particular procedure or not," he said in an e-mail.

Every year, 57 million outpatient surgeries take place in the United States. To handle the volume, many communities have opened ambulatory surgery centers, which now total more than 5,000 nationwide.

To investigate whether the appearance of an ambulatory surgery center changes surgery rates, Hollingsworth and his team reviewed the total number of outpatient surgeries among patients 65 and older that took place in Florida hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers between 1998 and 2006. They focused on regions in which an ambulatory surgery center opened during the study period, and those without one.

Most ambulatory surgery centers are owned — at least in part — by the doctors who staff them, which gives those doctors more control over scheduling surgeries and purchasing equipment, for instance, Hollingsworth noted.

But physician ownership also creates a conflict, he added, by encouraging doctors to schedule additional procedures.

Typically, colonoscopies at ambulatory surgery centers cost Medicare an average of $400 each, and slightly less for endoscopies.

Even if there is an increase in unnecessary procedures, ambulatory surgery centers are likely still a good thing, Dr. Steven Stain of Albany Medical College told Reuters Health in an e-mail.

"I think they are good for patients because of the efficiency, convenience, and lower costs of operation," said Stain, who wrote an accompanying editorial in the journal.

"However, physician-owned ambulatory surgery centers may reflect a conflict of interest between the physician's patient-care responsibilities and perceived personal financial interest," he added. "This may lead to an erosion of the public's trust in healthcare providers."

In response to the new paper, a spokesperson for the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association pointed to a 2009 study by KNG Health Consulting, which concluded that ambulatory surgery centers promote a shift of surgeries and screening procedures from hospitals to outpatient centers but do not increase the number of operations performed.

5 Reasons to Love Quinoa

Looking for a high-protein, big-on-nutrition super food that allows you to get creative in the kitchen? Cook up some creamy quinoa. This nutty-tasting, slightly crunchy, grain-like food was a favorite of the Incas, and it has been gaining popularity in the United States during the past 10 to 15 years.

It packs a powerful protein punch and is a versatile substitute for pasta and rice dishes. And with its fiber content and phytochemicals, it’s a formidable ally in the fight against cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.

1. Unique treat

Quinoa, pronounced “KEEN-wah,” is fairly new to the United States, but has been cultivated and enjoyed in the Andes Mountains in Peru, Chile, and Bolivia for more than 5,000 years. Native Indians there considered it a sacred staple and called it the “mother seed.”

While it has grain-like qualities and is often referred to and used as a grain, quinoa is actually a fruit of a plant related to beets, spinach, and Swiss chard. Quinoa is sold in health-food stores and is becoming more widely available in grocery stores, says the American Dietetic Association.

2. Protein wonder

Quinoa is richer in nutrients than many grains, and is a protein powerhouse. The protein contained in quinoa is a complete protein, which means it has all nine essential amino acids including lysine, critical for tissue repair and growth, says whfoods.com.

People who eat at least three servings of whole grains a day (including quinoa) have a decreased risk of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, and they more easily maintain a healthy weight, reports the American Institute for Cancer Research. Quinoa contains saponins, phytochemicals that may fight a variety of chronic diseases, including cancer, the AICR says.

3. Versatility queen

With its mild, nutty flavor and couscous-like texture, quinoa can stand as a substitute in many dishes calling for pasta, rice, or other grains. It works as a fluffy side dish and with stews and soups, and with its bland taste, serves well as a base dish. Be sure to rinse quinoa with water before cooking to eliminate its bitter-tasting, natural, protective coating.

When it comes to nutrients, quinoa tops some of the base dishes it stands in for. It is a good source of fiber (quinoa has 5 grams per cup vs. 3.5 grams in one cup of brown rice); folate; and essential minerals magnesium, iron, copper, and phosphorous. Plus, it’s low in cholesterol and sodium.

For a filling, satisfying, vitamin C-rich dish, try making the American Institute for Cancer Research’s recipe for Quinoa-Stuffed Red Peppers.

4. Fat fighter

Quinoa is considered a resistant-starch food and a weapon in the battle of the bulge. The concept of resistant-starch foods is getting a lot of attention lately with the publication of “The Carb Lovers Diet,” “The Skinny Carbs Diet,” and recent research from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center for Human Nutrition. Resistant starch, a type of carbohydrate that resists digestion in the small intestine, gives you a feeling of fullness, raises metabolism, and controls blood sugar and cravings, Frances Largeman-Roth, R.D., co-author of of “The Carb Lovers Diet,” tells WebMD.com.

Most of the recommended resistant-starch foods are unprocessed, natural foods, many of which are high in fiber and part of a healthy diet anyway. In addition to quinoa, beans, brown rice, and whole-grain pasta are considered resistant-starch foods.

5. Friend of vegans

Vegetarians and vegans in search of protein sources have an excellent choice in quinoa, which has more protein than other grains. And people with celiac disease, who cannot tolerate the grain protein gluten, can enjoy gluten-free foods made with quinoa, which also is ground into flour and made into pasta, says the American Dietetic Association.

Consider these serving suggestions from whfoods.com:

• Add nuts and fruit to cooked quinoa and serve for breakfast.

• For wheat-free tabouli, substitute quinoa for bulgar wheat.

• Mix pinto beans, scallions, coriander, and pumpkin seeds with chilled, cooked quinoa for a lively, spicy salad.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Good health puts us in a position to work better, stronger, harder and smarter on our goals. If you don't have it, do the best you can to attain your goals.

2 Food Combos to Improve Your Life

One of the best ways to live a longer, healthier life is to watch the foods you eat. You may have to bypass cravings for fatty or processed foods in favor of others that have definite health benefits, from reducing risk of heart disease to helping you slim down. Here are two good ones to start:

Apricots and Almonds: These foods, when eaten together, help prevent bad LDL cholesterol from oxidizing, preventing dangerous plaque buildup in the arteries. Try a quarter-cup of each for a snack.

Garlic and Onions: These aromatic veggies not only help your heart, but may also reduce your risk of cancer. Try them together in a delicious sauce or soup.

Why Low-Fat May Not Be So Healthy

If you're following a very low-fat diet to improve your health, you might want to try this trick: Add the equivalent of one tablespoon of fat to each meal, as long as it's healthy fat like olive oil, seeds, nuts or fish.

Why? Having a small amount of dietary fat in your diet can help your liver keep production of triglycerides (fats found in the blood) in check—and reduce your heart disease risk by as much as 25 percent.

So, go ahead and give in to your fat cravings—in moderation, of course! Just continue to stay away from the "bad" fats—foods that are deep-fried, trans fats or the fats in processed foods.

Does Grapefruit Help You Burn Fat and Lose Weight?

You can almost picture those 1950s sitcoms where women with tiny belted waists sit around a dinette eating their "weight-loss secret" of the moment, grapefruit.

Grapefruit has long been associated with dieting. To this day, many weight-loss diets claim that the acid in grapefruit will burn fat.

So is any of this true? Can this bitter fruit really help you burn fat and lose weight? According to the American Diabetes Association (ADA), grapefruit will not burn fat but may help you lose weight.

People who regularly eat grapefruit before their meals are likely to lose weight. But this isn’t due to any secret ingredient. It’s simply because grapefruit is filling, takes a long time to eat and is relatively low in calories, so you're likely to be satisfied with less food. There are no studies that support the claim that grapefruit burns body fat or speeds up metabolism.

So, while grapefruit is not a miracle food for burning fat, it's still a great option for filling up on more wholesome foods.

Compiled from 101 Weight Loss Tips for Preventing and Controlling Diabetes by Anne Daly, Linda Delahanty and Judith Wylie-Rosett. Copyright by the American Diabetes Association. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Cell Phone Use Changes Brain Activity

Spending 50 minutes with a cell phone plastered to your ear is enough to change brain cell activity in the part of the brain closest to the antenna.

But whether that causes any harm is not clear, scientists at the National Institutes of Health said on Tuesday, adding that the study will likely not settle recurring concerns of a link between cell phones and brain cancer.

"What we showed is glucose metabolism (a sign of brain activity) increases in the brain in people who were exposed to a cell phone in the area closest to the antenna," said Dr. Nora Volkow of the NIH, whose study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study was meant to examine how the brain reacts to electromagnetic fields caused by wireless phone signals.

Volkow said she was surprised that the weak electromagnetic radiation from cell phones could affect brain activity, but she said the findings do not shed any light on whether cell phones cause cancer.

"This study does not in any way indicate that. What the study does is to show the human brain is sensitive to electromagnetic radiation from cell phone exposures."

Use of the devices has increased dramatically since they were introduced in the early to mid-1980s, with about 5 billion mobile phones now in use worldwide.

Some studies have linked cell phone exposure to an increased risk of brain cancers, but a large study by the World Health Organization was inconclusive.

Volkow's team studied 47 people who had brain scans while a cell phone was turned on for 50 minutes and another while the phone was turned off.

While there was no overall change in brain metabolism, they found a 7 percent increase in brain metabolism in the region closest to the cell phone antenna when the phone was on.

Experts said the results were intriguing, but urged that they be interpreted with caution.

"Although the biological significance, if any, of increased glucose metabolism from acute cell phone exposure is unknown, the results warrant further investigation," Henry Lai of the University of Washington, Seattle, and Dr. Lennart Hardell of University Hospital in Orebro, Sweden, wrote in a commentary in JAMA.

"Much has to be done to further investigate and understand these effects," they wrote.

Professor Patrick Haggard of University College London said the results were interesting since the study suggests a direct effect of cell phone signals on brain function.

But he said much larger fluctuations in brain metabolic rate can occur naturally, such as when a person is thinking.

"If further studies confirm that mobile phone signals do have direct effects on brain metabolism, then it will be important to investigate whether such effects have implications for health," he said.

John Walls, a spokesman for CTIA-The Wireless Association, an industry group, said the scientific evidence so far "has overwhelmingly indicated that wireless devices, within the limits established by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), do not pose a public health risk or cause any adverse health effects."

Volkow said her the findings suggest the need for more study to see if cell phones have a negative effect on brain cells.

Meanwhile, Volkow isn't taking any chances. She now uses an ear phone instead of placing a cell phone next to her ear.

"I don't say there is any risk, but in case there is, why not?"

How to Stay Healthy and Independent? Be Social

Do you lunch regularly with friends? Meet weekly for poker, bowling, or bocci? Then chances are you are not going to become physically disabled any time soon. Research at the Rush University Medical Center has found a connection between higher levels of social activity — dining out, playing bingo, volunteering — with a lower risk of becoming disabled.

“Social activity has long been recognized as an essential component of healthy aging, but now we have strong evidence that it is also related to better everyday functioning and less disability in old age,” lead researcher Bryan James, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow in the epidemiology of aging and dementia at the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center, said in a statement.

With this recent study in mind, here are some ways to be socially active and age in a healthy way.

Stay connected

The study, to be published in the April issue of the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, looked at 954 older adults with a mean age of 82. People who were more socially active were about twice as likely to remain free of disability that involved daily living activities, such as eating, than those who were less active. And they were 1.5 times more likely to be free of disabilities involving mobility or household management, such as walking up and down stairs and using the phone.

“The findings are exciting because social activity is potentially a risk factor that can be modified to help older adults avoid the burdens of disability,” James said.

Some ways of staying connected are:

• Taking a part-time job

• Adopting a pet

• Providing child care for a neighbor or relative

• Volunteering at a local school

• Joining a chorus or theater production

Keep moving

How being social helps prevent disability is not completely understood, according to James. It could be that it supports the function of our musculoskeletal system and neural networks that we all need to function independently, he said. This all adds to the “move it or lose it” argument health experts like to make and is yet another reason to be physically fit. Plus, if you exercise with other people you get a workout and engage in a social activity.

Older adults are recommended to build to up to 30 minutes of endurance exercise a day that gets you breathing hard, says the National Institute on Aging. Good activities are brisk walking and biking. Strength, balance, and stretching exercises like yoga and tai chi are also important for rounding out your exercise repertoire and giving you a complete program.

Drive safely

When you’re driving to your church meeting group or heading to the local VFW, take care behind the wheel. As we age our reaction times may slow because of older, stiffer joints and weaker muscles. But it’s critical to be able to make fast decisions and move rapidly to avoid accidents. The National Institute on Aging recommends becoming aware of how your mind or body may be changing, and talking to your doctor about it. It also advises when driving to:

• Brake early when you need to stop

• Leave extra space between you and the car in front of you

• On high-traffic, fast-moving highways, drive in the right lane where vehicles move more slowly, allowing for more time with decisions

Eliminate household hazards

While the Rush University Medical Center study found that with higher levels of social activity you are more likely to be able to remain active around the house, keeping your surroundings safe will help as well. Protect yourself from slipping and falling and possibly breaking a bone by following these tips from the National Institute on Aging:

• Be sure carpets are fastened firmly to the floor

• Don’t leave around clutter that you could trip on

• Make sure your hallways and stairways are well-lit with light switches on both ends of the hall and on the top and bottom of stairs

• Have tightly fastened handrails on both sides of your stairway

• Keep a night light on in the bathroom and near your bed

For more tips on healthy aging, go to the National Institute on Aging website.

Keep Pain from Stopping Your Love Life - Chronic conditions like arthritis or fibromyalgia

Everyone is can get a little nervous about dating and having their romantic expectations met. But imagine if on top of the usual hurdles to creating crafting the perfect date, you also had the stress of having a chronic illness. Chronic conditions often are associated with fatigue and even pain, which can definitely affect your intimate relationship. Everyone wants to feel loved, desired, appreciated and sexy. Some illnesses can impact your self-image or physical abilities to the point of hampering your sex life and your romantic life in general.

Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), for example, is an autoimmune disease that affects well over one million people. It is usually diagnosed in relatively young people, often in their 30s and 40s, and about 70 percent of those with RA are women. The joints become inflamed causing pain and fatigue and disfiguring damage. Many women with RA fear how potential mates will react to their condition. Those currently in a relationship often worry about their sex life becoming limited by pain or they are embarrassed by their bodies. (Check out "Playing the Dating Game with RA.")

Arthritis is hardly the only health condition that affects women--and may pose challenging to someone who wants to engage in an intimate relationship. But whether it's fibromyalgia, diabetes, asthma or another condition, educating yourself on how to best manage the symptoms and how to navigate your relationship through open honest communication are the best tools to making romance go smoothly. Some tips:

See your doctor regularly
You need professional help to manage your physical symptoms. Chronic conditions can wear you down, but don’t deal with it by avoiding the doctor. This can backfire because you could be missing the treatments that will help you feel better.

Plan ahead
Talk openly with your partner about how to stop your condition from getting in the way of your sex. For instance, talk about issues like what time of day you feel the most comfortable and energetic, and that is a good time for sex. If the evenings are usually tough for you, propose a candlelight brunch.

Plan to take a bubble bath together…it's romantic and playful and at the same time the warm water will help ease any pain, allowing for a more relaxed intimacy afterwards. Sometimes with chronic illness, though, the best laid plans don’t end up working out, so it’s also important to be flexible. If you wake up feeling crummy, there is no catastrophe in telling your mate you’d like to postpone the romance until tomorrow.

Be a good listener
Spouses of someone with a chronic illness often feel their needs come second. They need to know that isn’t true. Find out what you partner likes sexually and needs emotionally. Consider telling your spouse or partner that for you, giving is as gratifying as receiving.

What if you are single?
Relationships are so important when you have an illness -- any relationships! When romantic holidays arrive, you can still enjoy yourself. Gather together some single friends and make your own celebration. If you want to start dating, try getting set up through friends or join a dating site. Once you’ve starting dating, you many wonder when to bring up your condition. The first date is too much too soon and may scare a potential mate away. On the other hand, waiting too long is a bad idea -- your date may misinterpret you ending a date due to pain or exhaustion. So once you have been on some dates and have a sense that the person is someone you want to invest time and energy in, it’s the right time to bring it up.

Broaden your definition of sex
Sex is about two people giving each other mutual pleasure. Sometimes we get too hung up on intercourse done in certain positions. But sexual activity of all kinds enhances a relationship. Sex is about sharing what each of you enjoys and getting a little creative. Try using pillows to provide comfort and introduce toys to help with stimulation. Touching each other in affectionate and romantic ways that aren’t only foreplay goes a long way in solidifying that sexual connection.

Much of enjoying romantic relationships has to do with how your view yourself and your confidence level. Educating yourself about your illness and how to manage it from a psychological standpoint can make such a big difference. So can talking with others who have the same condition. Ask advice from women in your support system about clothes, nutrition and general tips for taking care of yourself. Being informed can give you confidence that will combat the kind of self consciousness that tends to interfere with intimacy. So get out there and enjoy some romance….you deserve it!

FUN FACTS

* Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined. *

* You can't kill yourself by holding your breath. *

* Elephants are the only animal that can't jump. *

* Starfish don't have brains. *

* A rhinoceros's horn is made of compacted hair. *

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Worrying is wasted time. Use the same energy for doing something about whatever worries you.

Hearing Loss Prevalent in Middle Age

A new survey of mostly middle-aged adults reveals that among people aged 45 to 54, one in nine shows signs of hearing impairment.

The researchers tested hearing in more than 2,800 adults between the ages of 21 to 84. Over that large range, one in seven had lost some degree of hearing, and as expected, the rate of hearing loss increased with age.

Almost all of those older than 80 — about 90 percent — had lost some hearing, but the rate had already reached one in nine among adults 45 to 54 years old, the largest age group in the population.

Hearing loss "is a significant problem, even in middle age," said Dr. Peter Rabinowitz of Yale University, who was not involved in the study.

The authors, led by Scott Nash of the University of Wisconsin, determined someone was hearing impaired if at least one ear had trouble hearing various sounds within the range of human speech.

The cutoff, Nash explained, is considered "mild impairment." So much so, that people may not even realize they have trouble hearing, said Rabinowitz, since the changes can occur relatively slowly. "Not everyone is aware of it."

The authors found signs that hearing loss might be linked to risks for heart disease and stroke. Specifically, they saw hearing loss was correlated with the health of the blood vessels of the retina in the eye, an indication of blood vessel health overall.

Other studies have also linked ear health to heart disease and stroke risk, Rabinowitz said in an interview. These findings "provide additional evidence" that such risk "may be associated with hearing."

The association makes sense, he noted — the inner ear depends on a rich supply of blood, and research shows that when blood circulation is compromised, the ear can suffer.

However, the authors did not see an association between hearing impairment and other measures of heart disease and stroke risk in middle-aged adults, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity.

"This may have been due to the younger age of the cohort, or the low prevalence of some of these conditions in this population," Nash suggested. "As this population ages, however, it will be very informative to see what effect, if any, these diseases have on future hearing."

At least 29 million Americans currently live with hearing impairment, most commonly men, older adults, and those exposed to loud noises, according to the Archives of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery report.

To take a closer look at hearing loss in various age groups, Nash and his team surveyed 2,837 adults.

Indeed, the rate of hearing impairment increased with age, exceeding 40 percent in those 65 and older. But it also affected 6 percent of those between the ages of 35 and 44, nearly 11 percent of adults 45 to 54, and more than 25 percent of adults 55 to 64.

These rates are high, but "unfortunately not all that surprising," Nash told Reuters Health in an e-mail, since previous studies have also found similar numbers.

Doctors typically do not routinely screen middle-aged adults for hearing loss. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, sponsored by the U.S. government's Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, is in the midst of an evaluation of new evidence since 1996. That was when it issued its last recommendations, which are no longer available.

These findings suggest researchers should investigate whether it makes sense to screen middle-aged adults, said Rabinowitz. And, importantly, whether maintaining your cardiovascular health helps protect your ears as you age, he added. "Taking care of your overall health may help your hearing."

Nash agreed. "We need not think of (hearing impairment) as an inevitable part of aging, but should instead think of hearing impairment as a change in health status that we may be able to delay or prevent all together."

Alcohol Abuse Increases Surgical Risks

The more people drink before having a hip or knee replaced, the higher their risk for complications right after the surgery, a new study suggests.

Doctors have long suspected that excessive drinkers have more problems after surgery, but "this is the first study that really shows, with data and statistics," that it's true, said Dr. Nicholas Giori, from Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, who presented the results last week at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons in San Diego.

Giori and his colleague Dr. Alex Harris looked at surgical complication rates in 185 men who had hip and knee replacement surgery at the Palo Alto Veterans Affairs Hospital.

They found that men who admitted alcohol abuse at their annual check-up were more likely to have complications in the period right after their surgery compared to men who said they didn't drink too much.

Complications included pneumonia, delirium, stroke, life-threatening infections, blood clots in the lungs and in major blood vessels, gastrointestinal bleeding, major infections of the surgery site, serious heart rhythm abnormalities, urinary tract infection, and shock.

Every year at their annual check-up, VA patients answer questions on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT-C). Each man in the study had reported at least some drinking in the past year.

Alcohol misuse, as defined by the AUDIT-C test, includes drinking more than four times a week, having more than nine drinks in a typical day, or regularly having more than six drinks a day.

After taking patients' age and other illnesses into account, each additional point on the 12-point scale corresponded to a 29 percent increase in the average number of complications.

The next step would be to see whether screening for drinking problems and trying to treat them before the surgery would help lower the complication risk, Giori said.

"We could intervene in anyone who tests over 5 and try to have them reduce their drinking for a month or so before surgery and see what happens," he said.

"We might really scare some people into stopping because I certainly do find that during the perioperative period people start to get serious about their medical care," Giori added. "If I have a serious conversation with them about their risks and behaviors, most people will listen and it is actually a good time to intervene."

Bone Drugs May Boost Longevity

While bone drugs have gotten a bad rap in the media recently, experts hope mounting evidence of benefits may convince patients not to shun the medicines.

This month, Australian researchers published the latest report to hint that elderly women who take bisphosphonates — as the bone drugs are known — live longer than those who don't get treatment.

Out of every 100 women in their study, three who were not taking bone drugs died every year, compared to less than one of those who were on the drugs.

Although the findings don't prove the bone drugs actually boost longevity — it's possible that women on treatment are generally healthier, for instance — they fit with earlier studies.

"To me, this was good news," said Dr. Ethel S. Siris, who heads the Toni Stabile Osteoporosis Center at Columbia University in New York and was not involved in the study.

Examples of bone drugs are Merck's Fosamax, Roche's Boniva, Novartis's Reclast, and Warner Chilcott's Actonel.

They are usually prescribed for the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis, which affects about 10 million Americans, the majority of them postmenopausal women.

The disease makes the bones brittle and raises the chance of fractures, which have been linked to earlier death.

Estimates from Siris' team published in January show the drugs may have staved off more than 144,000 fractures among post-menopausal American women over an eight-year period.

Last year, the Food and Drug Administration warned that the medications might raise the risk of an unusual type of thigh fracture, and there have also been a few cases of bone death, or osteonecrosis, of the jaw.

After Australian national television reported on that side effect in December 2007, prescription rates for bone drugs dropped sharply, leading to an estimated 130 extra fractures and 14 deaths over the following nine months, according to one study.

"The bad news is that overstating the levels of risk of side effects with these drugs — which the media have been doing for some time now — has led people to stop the drugs when they should be taking them," said Siris, who is also past president of the National Osteoporosis Foundation.

Experts hope the new survival findings may help re-establish confidence in the drugs, some of which can be bought for about $10 per month in the United States.

Led by Dr. John A. Eisman of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, the researchers tapped into an ongoing study following elderly people in a small Australian city.

They grouped more than 2,000 people according to three kinds of drugs — bone drugs, hormone replacement therapy, or calcium supplements with or without vitamin D.

Over about 15 years of follow-up time, 466 women and 400 men died. After accounting for several health factors, women who took the bone drugs were about two-thirds less likely to die during the study than those who weren't getting any treatment.

The reduction was 52 percent for men taking these drugs, but neither hormone treatment nor calcium was linked with a decrease in death rates.

"These findings have potentially extremely important consequences, which should have a major impact on the way osteoporosis treatment is viewed and used," the researchers, who report funding from drugmakers, write in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

They add that many patients, even those with fractures, are not currently getting treatment, an "apathy (that) should no longer be tolerated," they say.

In an e-mail to Reuters Health, Dr. Murray Favus, who directs the bone program at the University of Chicago Medical Center, said the new findings might ease concerns about the drugs.

Only about one in 100,000 people taking bone drugs actually develop osteonecrosis of the jaw, he said, and the atypical fractures linked to the drugs are also very uncommon, he said.

"The concern about complications or just not being committed to the medication has led many patients to stop oral bisphosphonate therapy," he said.

"However, if one adds extended lifespan to the equation, will patients be willing to assume some risk for the long-term complications in the pursuit of a longer life?"

Experts generally recommend screening for osteoporosis in anyone over 65, and as young as 50 if they have risk factors.