* In one hour, your heart works hard enough to produce the equivalent energy to raise almost 1 ton of weight 1 yard off the ground. *
* The average human blinks his eyes 6,205,000 times each year. *
* Every person has a unique tongue print. *
* The average human's heart, will beat 3000 million times in their lifetime. *
* The largest litter was produced by a Burmese\Siamese mother. There were 19 kittens. However, 4 of the kittens were stillborn. *
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
A Doctor's Rx for Chronic Pain
From lower-back issues to osteoarthritis, chronic pain can be debilitating – and hard to treat. We asked top pain doctor James Dillard, M.D., to explain how a combination of conventional and alternative treatment can relieve suffering and what to look for when choosing a pain specialist. Hurting? You’re not alone. According to the American Academy of Pain Medicine, more than 76 million Americans live with chronic pain. The problem costs the U.S. workforce $1.2 billion a year in lost productivity.
Whether chronic pain affects the back or neck – the two most common areas – a lot of people are seeking relief. And their discomfort isn’t just persistent, it gets worse over time.
“Acute pain happens when you burn your hand on the stove – that goes away after a while. But when pain is chronic, it’s like turning up the volume,” says James N. Dillard, M.D., D.C., CAc, author of The Chronic Pain Solution (Bantam).
Dillard, who practices in New York, has been treating pain for 25 years. He combines alternative and conventional treatments to manage pain, drawing on his background as an acupuncturist, chiropractor and physician.
In this exclusive interview, he reveals what causes chronic pain and the most effective ways to treat it.
Why is pain much worse in some people than others?
They have sensitized nervous systems.
Some people may be genetically predisposed to experiencing changes in their brain stem and nerve cells that turn up the volume on pain.
According to [Harvard neuroscientist] Clifford Woolf, this type of pain takes on a life of its own. It’s out of sync with any tissue damage.
Pain that lives in the nervous system is known as centrally mediated pain.
How do nervous system changes affect the pain we feel?
They amplify pain. And it will actually spread, so pain in the foot begins to spread to the whole limb.
[Patients] go to their doctors and get MRI [magnetic resonance imaging] scans to find the cause of pain. The doctors keep looking for what’s wrong in the tissues, but what’s wrong is in the nervous system.
They see a bulging disk and think that’s the problem. Truth is, almost everyone has abnormalities in their spine. In fact, 63% of people who have no pain have abnormal MRIs.
What’s the next step?
If you’re not getting any relief from your primary care physician, you should see a pain specialist.
I recommend [someone who incorporates] integrative pain medicine, which involves a combination of nerve-quieting medications, complementary and alternative medicine, and conventional physical therapy.
He or she should be someone who thinks acupuncture, massage and dietary changes are reasonable to try.
Why do some people develop chronic pain following an injury?
A big part of the reason is that they haven’t really rehabilitated the body part, so there’s not enough normal sensory stimulation.
You wind up losing your range of motion, and your muscles are full of tissue knots. Many people become afraid to injure the part again. They become excessively protective, and that ramps up the pain.
To be fully rehabbed, you need normal sensations. That requires physical therapy and a full return to the use of the injured part. You’ve got to move it and use it.
What are the alternative treatments?
There’s no one recipe for this – every patient has to have individualized care.
I use a combination of acupuncture, massage and certain pain-quelling nutritional supplements and herbs.
Omega-3 fatty acids are the best. They help limit inflammation. [So do] anti-inflammatory herbs like turmeric. [Read more about the benefits of turmeric in our article 10 Essential Superfoods for Women.]
The treatment might also involve relaxation work and stress-management techniques.
Which pain medications do you prescribe?
When I use medications, it’s usually as part of an integrative approach.
I tend to use anti-epileptics like gabapentin [Neurontin] and pregabalin [Lyrica], or a class of antidepressants known as SNRIs – selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors – that includes duloxetine [Cymbalta].
Also, older antidepressants – tricyclics like amitriptyline [Elavil] and nortriptyline [Pamelor, Aventyl] work. I usually start people on low dosages and then ramp them up slowly.
I also practice what I call rational polypharmacy. It’s a well-targeted use of medications, and I use a combination of as few drugs as possible.
I don’t dismiss drugs like narcotic painkillers or long-acting morphine. I still prescribe those, as well as anti-inflammatories and steroidal anti-inflammatories.
Do you worry that your patients could become addicted to these painkillers?
Everything can be habit-forming, even herbal medicines. But drugs aren’t the problem [on their own]. It’s not the wine, scotch or [oxycodone] Oxycontin.
It’s about the personality. You have to be aware of your potential to become addicted, and manage that. And your prescriber has to know you have the potential to become addicted.
Can changing your diet help reduce pain?
Well, you certainly can’t be eating an inflammatory diet – getting lunch handed to you through the car window.
Eliminating fast food, refined sugar and white bread would help.
I recommend following the anti-inflammatory food pyramid by Andrew Weil [director of the University of Arizona’s Center for Integrative Medicine].
It involves eating a lot of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans and healthy fats from foods like walnuts, canola oil and flaxseed.
Exercise is important. But how do you become more physically active when you’re hurting?
In all honesty, a lot of people can’t exercise. They’re a 7 or 8 on the pain scale [a 1-10 scale doctors use to measure patient discomfort], and they’re the worst tangled ball of yarn you can imagine.
I have to figure out how to get them down on the pain scale before talking to them about breath work, meditation or exercise.
So how do they know when they’re ready to exercise? And what should they do?
You have to take every person on a case-by-case basis. When they’re ready, they might want to start trying to swim a bit.
If pain isn’t an issue, what are the best exercises to keep it from becoming one?
My bottom line is that you should balance exercise and stretching in healthy quantities. Mix up your exercises – have a variety. Get in the water; do a little biking or rowing. Climb a hill.
We talk about low, medium and high impact. Particularly for women, in terms of osteoporosis, you want to have a little impact. Walking is an ideal impact [activity], or even jumping jacks.
Do some yoga to stay flexible. People feel old not because they’re getting old, but because they’re getting stiff.
One study found that glucosamine may not work to prevent osteoarthritis. Do you agree?
The papers on glucosamine and chondroitin are mixed. A 2006 study in the New England Journal of Medicine, for instance, found that the two supplements didn’t reduce pain in the overall group of patients who were studied.
But what the press didn’t pick up on was the fact the supplements did have a significant effect on patients in the moderate to severe group. And there are five other studies that say they’re helpful.
What forms of alternative medicine can patients practice on their own?
Anything that works on the mind-body connection is helpful. That includes relaxation exercises, breath work, meditation and mindfulness-based stress reduction [MBSR], which involves a merging of yoga and meditation.
MBSR, which was developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn [founder of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School], is one of the most robust techniques for chronic pain and chronic illness.
It’s offered in medical centers all over the country now.
If you need to see a pain specialist, what should you look for?
You want someone who takes a multidisciplinary approach to treating pain. These doctors follow the guidelines issued by the major medical pain organizations, like the American Pain Society and the North American Spine Society.
They’ll do physical therapy, but also involve social workers and psychologists. In other words, they treat the whole person.
Speaking of psychologists, what’s the role of mental health in pain treatment?
Depression, anxiety and catastrophizing [fearing the worst] are major factors in pain, because pain is a catastrophe.
Pain feeds depression, and depression feeds pain. It’s a question of which came first. You have to untangle the ball and figure out what happened.
The emotional fallout of pain is a huge hurdle for sufferers. I sometimes have to convince people to see my psychological colleagues if I think they need support. It helps if I joke with them and they can start laughing.
So laughter is important in alleviating pain?
Absolutely. Hanging out with funny friends or watching a weekly sitcom can make a world of difference. There’s a huge amount of research on that.
For more on alternative treatments to pain, visit the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine website.
What’s Your Inflammation IQ?
The latest scientific research indicates that inflammation is behind more than 80% of the conditions we suffer from – everything from arthritis to heart disease. Fighting it can get you on track to a healthier, happier life.
Whether chronic pain affects the back or neck – the two most common areas – a lot of people are seeking relief. And their discomfort isn’t just persistent, it gets worse over time.
“Acute pain happens when you burn your hand on the stove – that goes away after a while. But when pain is chronic, it’s like turning up the volume,” says James N. Dillard, M.D., D.C., CAc, author of The Chronic Pain Solution (Bantam).
Dillard, who practices in New York, has been treating pain for 25 years. He combines alternative and conventional treatments to manage pain, drawing on his background as an acupuncturist, chiropractor and physician.
In this exclusive interview, he reveals what causes chronic pain and the most effective ways to treat it.
Why is pain much worse in some people than others?
They have sensitized nervous systems.
Some people may be genetically predisposed to experiencing changes in their brain stem and nerve cells that turn up the volume on pain.
According to [Harvard neuroscientist] Clifford Woolf, this type of pain takes on a life of its own. It’s out of sync with any tissue damage.
Pain that lives in the nervous system is known as centrally mediated pain.
How do nervous system changes affect the pain we feel?
They amplify pain. And it will actually spread, so pain in the foot begins to spread to the whole limb.
[Patients] go to their doctors and get MRI [magnetic resonance imaging] scans to find the cause of pain. The doctors keep looking for what’s wrong in the tissues, but what’s wrong is in the nervous system.
They see a bulging disk and think that’s the problem. Truth is, almost everyone has abnormalities in their spine. In fact, 63% of people who have no pain have abnormal MRIs.
What’s the next step?
If you’re not getting any relief from your primary care physician, you should see a pain specialist.
I recommend [someone who incorporates] integrative pain medicine, which involves a combination of nerve-quieting medications, complementary and alternative medicine, and conventional physical therapy.
He or she should be someone who thinks acupuncture, massage and dietary changes are reasonable to try.
Why do some people develop chronic pain following an injury?
A big part of the reason is that they haven’t really rehabilitated the body part, so there’s not enough normal sensory stimulation.
You wind up losing your range of motion, and your muscles are full of tissue knots. Many people become afraid to injure the part again. They become excessively protective, and that ramps up the pain.
To be fully rehabbed, you need normal sensations. That requires physical therapy and a full return to the use of the injured part. You’ve got to move it and use it.
What are the alternative treatments?
There’s no one recipe for this – every patient has to have individualized care.
I use a combination of acupuncture, massage and certain pain-quelling nutritional supplements and herbs.
Omega-3 fatty acids are the best. They help limit inflammation. [So do] anti-inflammatory herbs like turmeric. [Read more about the benefits of turmeric in our article 10 Essential Superfoods for Women.]
The treatment might also involve relaxation work and stress-management techniques.
Which pain medications do you prescribe?
When I use medications, it’s usually as part of an integrative approach.
I tend to use anti-epileptics like gabapentin [Neurontin] and pregabalin [Lyrica], or a class of antidepressants known as SNRIs – selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors – that includes duloxetine [Cymbalta].
Also, older antidepressants – tricyclics like amitriptyline [Elavil] and nortriptyline [Pamelor, Aventyl] work. I usually start people on low dosages and then ramp them up slowly.
I also practice what I call rational polypharmacy. It’s a well-targeted use of medications, and I use a combination of as few drugs as possible.
I don’t dismiss drugs like narcotic painkillers or long-acting morphine. I still prescribe those, as well as anti-inflammatories and steroidal anti-inflammatories.
Do you worry that your patients could become addicted to these painkillers?
Everything can be habit-forming, even herbal medicines. But drugs aren’t the problem [on their own]. It’s not the wine, scotch or [oxycodone] Oxycontin.
It’s about the personality. You have to be aware of your potential to become addicted, and manage that. And your prescriber has to know you have the potential to become addicted.
Can changing your diet help reduce pain?
Well, you certainly can’t be eating an inflammatory diet – getting lunch handed to you through the car window.
Eliminating fast food, refined sugar and white bread would help.
I recommend following the anti-inflammatory food pyramid by Andrew Weil [director of the University of Arizona’s Center for Integrative Medicine].
It involves eating a lot of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans and healthy fats from foods like walnuts, canola oil and flaxseed.
Exercise is important. But how do you become more physically active when you’re hurting?
In all honesty, a lot of people can’t exercise. They’re a 7 or 8 on the pain scale [a 1-10 scale doctors use to measure patient discomfort], and they’re the worst tangled ball of yarn you can imagine.
I have to figure out how to get them down on the pain scale before talking to them about breath work, meditation or exercise.
So how do they know when they’re ready to exercise? And what should they do?
You have to take every person on a case-by-case basis. When they’re ready, they might want to start trying to swim a bit.
If pain isn’t an issue, what are the best exercises to keep it from becoming one?
My bottom line is that you should balance exercise and stretching in healthy quantities. Mix up your exercises – have a variety. Get in the water; do a little biking or rowing. Climb a hill.
We talk about low, medium and high impact. Particularly for women, in terms of osteoporosis, you want to have a little impact. Walking is an ideal impact [activity], or even jumping jacks.
Do some yoga to stay flexible. People feel old not because they’re getting old, but because they’re getting stiff.
One study found that glucosamine may not work to prevent osteoarthritis. Do you agree?
The papers on glucosamine and chondroitin are mixed. A 2006 study in the New England Journal of Medicine, for instance, found that the two supplements didn’t reduce pain in the overall group of patients who were studied.
But what the press didn’t pick up on was the fact the supplements did have a significant effect on patients in the moderate to severe group. And there are five other studies that say they’re helpful.
What forms of alternative medicine can patients practice on their own?
Anything that works on the mind-body connection is helpful. That includes relaxation exercises, breath work, meditation and mindfulness-based stress reduction [MBSR], which involves a merging of yoga and meditation.
MBSR, which was developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn [founder of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School], is one of the most robust techniques for chronic pain and chronic illness.
It’s offered in medical centers all over the country now.
If you need to see a pain specialist, what should you look for?
You want someone who takes a multidisciplinary approach to treating pain. These doctors follow the guidelines issued by the major medical pain organizations, like the American Pain Society and the North American Spine Society.
They’ll do physical therapy, but also involve social workers and psychologists. In other words, they treat the whole person.
Speaking of psychologists, what’s the role of mental health in pain treatment?
Depression, anxiety and catastrophizing [fearing the worst] are major factors in pain, because pain is a catastrophe.
Pain feeds depression, and depression feeds pain. It’s a question of which came first. You have to untangle the ball and figure out what happened.
The emotional fallout of pain is a huge hurdle for sufferers. I sometimes have to convince people to see my psychological colleagues if I think they need support. It helps if I joke with them and they can start laughing.
So laughter is important in alleviating pain?
Absolutely. Hanging out with funny friends or watching a weekly sitcom can make a world of difference. There’s a huge amount of research on that.
For more on alternative treatments to pain, visit the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine website.
What’s Your Inflammation IQ?
The latest scientific research indicates that inflammation is behind more than 80% of the conditions we suffer from – everything from arthritis to heart disease. Fighting it can get you on track to a healthier, happier life.
Chorus of Outrage over Dogfighting Smartphone Application - HELP PLEASE, IF THERE'S ANYTHING WE CAN DO TOGETHER TO GET THIS TAKEN OFF PLEASE HELP!!
Michael Vick was immersed in dogfighting for two decades, until his federal arrest and then conviction in 2007. Now, since his prison term ended, he’s volunteered with HSUS to speak to youth in urban communities throughout the country about the evils of dogfighting, in order to warn young men and kids away from the barbaric enterprise. Today, he’s joined our call to request that Android Market end its promotion of a new dogfighting application.
“I’ve come to learn the hard way that dogfighting is a dead-end street,” Vick said in a statement released by The HSUS today. “Now, I am on the right side of this issue, and I think it’s important to send the smart message to kids, and not glorify this form of animal cruelty, even in an Android app.”
The HSUS runs outreach programs and works
with law enforcement to tackle dogfighting.
The Internet is rife with outrage over a mobile app called "Dog Wars," which simulates the experience of raising dogs to fight and setting them against one another. It’s a stupid concept, really, and it’s puzzling at some level that anyone smart enough to develop an app in the first place would imagine that he or she could promote this one without provoking widespread anger. Perhaps they want to provoke, as a means of cashing in.
This game gives detailed instructions concerning the selection of dogs, food, a feeding schedule, and items to properly condition dogs for fighting. These are virtually identical to the conditioning methods our anti-dogfighting team typically finds when working with law enforcement to raid these criminal operations.
During the last several decades, The HSUS has spearheaded the national effort to criminalize animal fighting and to see that laws against this barbaric practice are enforced. We have upgraded nearly all of the laws against animal fighting at the state and federal levels, worked with law enforcement on hundreds of criminal cases, trained thousands of law enforcement officials on investigating such crimes, and developed tip lines and rewards programs to deter and to arrest people involved in dogfighting.
Like a lot of cruelties, however, dogfighting seems at time ineradicable, with lawless people staging fights between dogs for money and the thrill of the bloodletting. That’s why, even with the general soundness of the laws, we must continue to press the battle and to work to root out animal fighting wherever we see it.
We also must work to make dogfighting as unappealing as possible to the people at risk of getting involved in the activity, challenging those who celebrate it and making it socially radioactive, since at base it is a despicable and degrading spectacle.
We must exhibit a zero-tolerance policy for this branding of dogfighting as a socially acceptable enterprise, a sort of cyber training ground for the activity. To that end, HSUS will raise these same concerns with Google, the owner of Android Market, and other stakeholders that may not have realized that some small person has developed and is distributing this Dog Wars app.
The developer of Dog Wars is hyping the game as something you’ll never see in the iPhone app store. That’s probably true, and there’s a reason for it. Cruelty is never “just a game,” and there’s no case to be made for an app that promotes one of the most widely criminalized forms of mistreatment of animals.
“I’ve come to learn the hard way that dogfighting is a dead-end street,” Vick said in a statement released by The HSUS today. “Now, I am on the right side of this issue, and I think it’s important to send the smart message to kids, and not glorify this form of animal cruelty, even in an Android app.”
The HSUS runs outreach programs and works
with law enforcement to tackle dogfighting.
The Internet is rife with outrage over a mobile app called "Dog Wars," which simulates the experience of raising dogs to fight and setting them against one another. It’s a stupid concept, really, and it’s puzzling at some level that anyone smart enough to develop an app in the first place would imagine that he or she could promote this one without provoking widespread anger. Perhaps they want to provoke, as a means of cashing in.
This game gives detailed instructions concerning the selection of dogs, food, a feeding schedule, and items to properly condition dogs for fighting. These are virtually identical to the conditioning methods our anti-dogfighting team typically finds when working with law enforcement to raid these criminal operations.
During the last several decades, The HSUS has spearheaded the national effort to criminalize animal fighting and to see that laws against this barbaric practice are enforced. We have upgraded nearly all of the laws against animal fighting at the state and federal levels, worked with law enforcement on hundreds of criminal cases, trained thousands of law enforcement officials on investigating such crimes, and developed tip lines and rewards programs to deter and to arrest people involved in dogfighting.
Like a lot of cruelties, however, dogfighting seems at time ineradicable, with lawless people staging fights between dogs for money and the thrill of the bloodletting. That’s why, even with the general soundness of the laws, we must continue to press the battle and to work to root out animal fighting wherever we see it.
We also must work to make dogfighting as unappealing as possible to the people at risk of getting involved in the activity, challenging those who celebrate it and making it socially radioactive, since at base it is a despicable and degrading spectacle.
We must exhibit a zero-tolerance policy for this branding of dogfighting as a socially acceptable enterprise, a sort of cyber training ground for the activity. To that end, HSUS will raise these same concerns with Google, the owner of Android Market, and other stakeholders that may not have realized that some small person has developed and is distributing this Dog Wars app.
The developer of Dog Wars is hyping the game as something you’ll never see in the iPhone app store. That’s probably true, and there’s a reason for it. Cruelty is never “just a game,” and there’s no case to be made for an app that promotes one of the most widely criminalized forms of mistreatment of animals.
Monday, April 25, 2011
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY ....
The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score.
FUN FACTS
* At 39 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature of almost all of the deep ocean is only a few degrees above freezing. *
* In 1958, the United States Coast Guard icebreaker East Wind measured the world's tallest known iceberg off western Greenland. At 550 feet it was only 5 feet 6 inches shorter than the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. *
* If the ocean's total salt content were dried, it would cover the continents to a depth of 5 feet. *
* Undersea earthquakes and other disturbances cause tsunamis, or great waves. The largest recorded tsunami measured 210 feet above sea level when it reached Siberia's Kamchatka Peninsula in 1737. *
* The Antarctic Ice Sheet is almost twice the size of the United States. *
* In 1958, the United States Coast Guard icebreaker East Wind measured the world's tallest known iceberg off western Greenland. At 550 feet it was only 5 feet 6 inches shorter than the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. *
* If the ocean's total salt content were dried, it would cover the continents to a depth of 5 feet. *
* Undersea earthquakes and other disturbances cause tsunamis, or great waves. The largest recorded tsunami measured 210 feet above sea level when it reached Siberia's Kamchatka Peninsula in 1737. *
* The Antarctic Ice Sheet is almost twice the size of the United States. *
Half Feel Worse After Prostate Removal
A new study shows nearly half of men feel worse after having their prostate gland removed due to cancer, although three-quarters would do it again given the same circumstances.
Tens of thousands of men each year undergo the surgery, called prostatectomy, and may suffer long-term consequences to their quality of life, in particular sexual function.
In the current study, published in the Journal of Urology, researchers asked 236 men how they were doing up to one year after surgery.
Three out of four had regained their physical and mental well-being and had no more problems with incontinence than before the operation. But just one out of four had recovered his ability to have intercourse.
The research team, led by Dr. Adrian Treiyer at St. Antonius Hospital in Eschweiler, Germany, also teased out the circumstances that were tied to better recovery.
Men were more likely to get their quality of life back if they had a type of surgery that leaves the nerves controlling erection intact, for instance, and if they participated in a rehabilitation program.
While the study doesn't prove that rehab is helpful -- men who did better might be likely to join such a program, for example -- the possibility is worth noting, said Dr. Mark Litwin, a urologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved in the study.
Rehab programs, which are relatively new in prostate cancer care, can include talk therapy or a drug regimen to treat erectile dysfunction.
"It's not just about recovery of the penis and its ability to become erect, but helping men come to terms with being a cancer survivor," Litwin told Reuters Health.
Both physical well-being, such as experiencing less pain, and mental health, including feeling good and functioning well socially, were tied to remaining continent and not encountering any complications after surgery.
"Some of these things, no one can control, such as baseline PSA," Litwin said. "But some they can. Patients can doctor-shop and find the best care."
In the type of surgery the patients had, surgeons make a cut between the belly button and the pubic bone to get to the prostate, which is then removed entirely -- so-called radical prostatectomy.
About one in six American men get prostate cancer at some point in their life, according to the American Cancer Society. But they don't necessarily have to have their prostate removed because of it.
Some may get radiation treatment instead, or they may have their tumor destroyed by a kind of surgery that uses freezing liquids. Others may choose just to be monitored -- so-called watchful waiting -- to see if the cancer grows slowly enough to be safely ignored.
All of these strategies have problems of their own, and the right option depends on both the cancer and the patient's values.
Litwin said most studies have focused on the drawbacks to prostate cancer surgery, and indeed, the new findings confirm that most men have worse sexual function after the procedure.
"Quality of life definitely takes a hit, both physically and emotionally," Litwin added, "but ultimately, it tends to go back to normal."
Tens of thousands of men each year undergo the surgery, called prostatectomy, and may suffer long-term consequences to their quality of life, in particular sexual function.
In the current study, published in the Journal of Urology, researchers asked 236 men how they were doing up to one year after surgery.
Three out of four had regained their physical and mental well-being and had no more problems with incontinence than before the operation. But just one out of four had recovered his ability to have intercourse.
The research team, led by Dr. Adrian Treiyer at St. Antonius Hospital in Eschweiler, Germany, also teased out the circumstances that were tied to better recovery.
Men were more likely to get their quality of life back if they had a type of surgery that leaves the nerves controlling erection intact, for instance, and if they participated in a rehabilitation program.
While the study doesn't prove that rehab is helpful -- men who did better might be likely to join such a program, for example -- the possibility is worth noting, said Dr. Mark Litwin, a urologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved in the study.
Rehab programs, which are relatively new in prostate cancer care, can include talk therapy or a drug regimen to treat erectile dysfunction.
"It's not just about recovery of the penis and its ability to become erect, but helping men come to terms with being a cancer survivor," Litwin told Reuters Health.
Both physical well-being, such as experiencing less pain, and mental health, including feeling good and functioning well socially, were tied to remaining continent and not encountering any complications after surgery.
"Some of these things, no one can control, such as baseline PSA," Litwin said. "But some they can. Patients can doctor-shop and find the best care."
In the type of surgery the patients had, surgeons make a cut between the belly button and the pubic bone to get to the prostate, which is then removed entirely -- so-called radical prostatectomy.
About one in six American men get prostate cancer at some point in their life, according to the American Cancer Society. But they don't necessarily have to have their prostate removed because of it.
Some may get radiation treatment instead, or they may have their tumor destroyed by a kind of surgery that uses freezing liquids. Others may choose just to be monitored -- so-called watchful waiting -- to see if the cancer grows slowly enough to be safely ignored.
All of these strategies have problems of their own, and the right option depends on both the cancer and the patient's values.
Litwin said most studies have focused on the drawbacks to prostate cancer surgery, and indeed, the new findings confirm that most men have worse sexual function after the procedure.
"Quality of life definitely takes a hit, both physically and emotionally," Litwin added, "but ultimately, it tends to go back to normal."
Study: Coffee Doesn't Up Blood Pressure
Despite earlier concerns, downing lots of coffee doesn't seem to increase the risk of high blood pressure, according to a new report -- but the evidence isn't conclusive.
High blood pressure has been linked to heart disease, stroke, and a shorter life expectancy, and some scientists have suggested that coffee might fuel the problem.
The new report pools data from six previous studies that included more than 170,000 people in total. For each study, scientists surveyed the participants to find out how many cups of coffee they drank each day -- from less than one to more than five -- and then followed them for up to 33 years.
Just more than one in five participants eventually developed high blood pressure, according to the findings, which appear in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
But the chance of being diagnosed with the condition was no different between people who said they chugged more than five cups of coffee per day and those who drank very little.
Still, the report "is not saying there's no risk" to drinking lots of java, Dr. Liwei Chen, who worked on the study, told Reuters Health.
Chen, from the Louisiana State University School of Public Health in New Orleans, said more data would be needed to draw a firm conclusion.
What's more, people who drank between one and three cups per day had a slightly higher risk of high blood pressure than those who drank less -- a result the researchers couldn't explain.
Dr. Lawrence Krakoff, who studies high blood pressure at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, said that the question about coffee's effects "keeps popping up" among both his patients and fellow doctors.
But it has yet to be answered completely, said Krakoff, who was not involved in the new work.
"I don't think of coffee as a risk factor for" high blood pressure, he told Reuters Health. However, "If people are drinking 12 cups a day and aren't sleeping, I assume that that's an important issue."
Dr. Gary Curhan, who worked on one of the studies Chen and her colleagues looked at, agreed.
"There may be other adverse effects to (drinking) large amounts of caffeine," Curhan, of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, told Reuters Health.
But based on the existing data, he said there is no reason to believe that drinking coffee would lead to high blood pressure.
Chen's team could not compare the effect of drinking caffeinated versus decaffeinated coffee, as some of the studies they analyzed had participants report both together or only asked about caffeinated coffee.
And the relationship between coffee drinking and blood pressure is further complicated by the possibility that it doesn't work the same way in everyone, she said.
"People with a different genetic background may react to coffee differently," Chen said. "For some people maybe it's safe to drink a lot of coffee, but not for other people."
High blood pressure has been linked to heart disease, stroke, and a shorter life expectancy, and some scientists have suggested that coffee might fuel the problem.
The new report pools data from six previous studies that included more than 170,000 people in total. For each study, scientists surveyed the participants to find out how many cups of coffee they drank each day -- from less than one to more than five -- and then followed them for up to 33 years.
Just more than one in five participants eventually developed high blood pressure, according to the findings, which appear in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
But the chance of being diagnosed with the condition was no different between people who said they chugged more than five cups of coffee per day and those who drank very little.
Still, the report "is not saying there's no risk" to drinking lots of java, Dr. Liwei Chen, who worked on the study, told Reuters Health.
Chen, from the Louisiana State University School of Public Health in New Orleans, said more data would be needed to draw a firm conclusion.
What's more, people who drank between one and three cups per day had a slightly higher risk of high blood pressure than those who drank less -- a result the researchers couldn't explain.
Dr. Lawrence Krakoff, who studies high blood pressure at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, said that the question about coffee's effects "keeps popping up" among both his patients and fellow doctors.
But it has yet to be answered completely, said Krakoff, who was not involved in the new work.
"I don't think of coffee as a risk factor for" high blood pressure, he told Reuters Health. However, "If people are drinking 12 cups a day and aren't sleeping, I assume that that's an important issue."
Dr. Gary Curhan, who worked on one of the studies Chen and her colleagues looked at, agreed.
"There may be other adverse effects to (drinking) large amounts of caffeine," Curhan, of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, told Reuters Health.
But based on the existing data, he said there is no reason to believe that drinking coffee would lead to high blood pressure.
Chen's team could not compare the effect of drinking caffeinated versus decaffeinated coffee, as some of the studies they analyzed had participants report both together or only asked about caffeinated coffee.
And the relationship between coffee drinking and blood pressure is further complicated by the possibility that it doesn't work the same way in everyone, she said.
"People with a different genetic background may react to coffee differently," Chen said. "For some people maybe it's safe to drink a lot of coffee, but not for other people."
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