Wednesday, September 3, 2014

The Simple Way To Boost Your Heart Health By 46%


heart health
Photo credit: Jenny Acheson
If the inner tube that’s usually in the pool during those lazy, hazy days of summer is now firmly around your middle, here’s some news that’ll help deflate it and strengthen your heart in the process.
Daily exercise reduces your risk for heart failure by a whopping 46%, according to a big new study published in the journal Circulation. From 1997 to 2010, Swedish researchers tracked the exercise habits and heart failure rates of nearly 40,000 adults (all of whom were healthy at the outset). The more active folks were, the lower their risk of heart failure. And while any amount of exercise was better than none, those with the lowest heart failure risk did either 60 minutes of moderate activity (e.g., walking) or 30 minutes of vigorous activity (e.g., running) every day.

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Aromatherapy May Ease Work Stress


Aromatherapy could help relieve work-related stress among oncology nurses, according to the results of a small study.
When an essential oil was diffused in the nurses station at James Cancer Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, the nurses reported being less affected by tension, worry, and demands.
"A patient who had a diffuser in her room was saying how much it helped her; that's how we got the idea of seeing whether it could help our staff," Kelly Tomlinson-Pinkham, MSN, RN, OCN, told Medscape Medical News.
>READ ORIGINAL ARTICLE to learn about research that shows that complementary alternative medicine approaches, including aromatherapy, can help ease psychological stress.

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Searching for You, using those paid sites to find people info

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Finding information about someone has never been easier, thanks to Google. But, have you ever been tempted to pay for one of those "people search" websites to see what you can really find out about someone?
FactFinder 12 wanted to find out, so we paid for subscriptions to two of those services, Spokeo and Intelius. We then set up at the Wichita Public Library to see what we could learn about some volunteers.
The websites found relatives, jobs, email and home addresses, home values, age, race and education level. There was even a section for court records.
READ ON to find more detail how public records are available from kwchlogo

Most Fitness Apps Don't Use Proven Motivational Techniques

That lovely weather may be more motivating than the smartphone app.
If you downloaded a fitness app and didn't become a workout ninja, it may be that the app lacked the scientifically tested motivational techniques that would help get you off the couch.
Instead, most popular fitness apps focus more on teaching you how to do the exercise, according to researchers at Penn State University who analyzed the 200 top apps.
"You need motivational support to turn that knowledge into action," saysDavid Conroy, a kinesiology professor at Penn State who led the study, which was published Tuesday in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
And that's where most of the 200 apps examined fell flat.
READ MORE to find out which apps used motivational rewards from Health News From NPR

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Ocular Sealant Superior to Sutures After Cataract Surgery


BOSTON —The ocular ReSure Sealant (Ocular Therapeutix) provides a convenient, safe, and effective alternative to sutures after cataract surgery, according to results from a pivotal phase 3 randomized trial.
Corneal wound leaks are common after cataract surgery; the rate is as high as 85%, said Terry Kim, MD, professor of ophthalmology at the Duke University Eye Center in Durham, North Carolina.
"Even perfectly constructed wounds can be compromised with internal or external pressure or manipulation," he said.
Dr. Kim, who was among several speakers describing results with the ReSure Sealant, presented the findings here at the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery 2014 Symposium.
The sealant, a synthetic polyethylene glycol hydrogel, was approved by US Food and Drug Administration in January. It is the first gel sealant approved in the United States to prevent wound leaks after cataract surgery.
> READ MORE to find out about the cost/risk/benefit tradeoffs from medscape.com

Antibiotics Often Used Inappropriately for Catheter-Associated Bacteriuria


NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Clinicians often don't know how to manage catheter-associated asymptomatic bacteriuria, so they overtreat it with antibiotics, a new survey suggests.
"We found that health care providers' cognitive biases, or mental shortcuts, are set incorrectly," said principal investigator Dr. Barbara W. Trautner of the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.
"Certain cues ingrained during medical training, such as elevated white blood cells in the urine being diagnostic of urinary tract infection (UTI) in young women, are being applied incorrectly to patients with urinary catheters. These incorrect mental shortcuts lead to over-diagnosis of UTI in hospitalized patients with urinary catheters," she told Reuters Health by email.
>LEARN MORE about education and better methods to avoid overtreatment from medscape.com 

Monday, April 28, 2014

Diabetes Mellitus Due to Food Additives and Pollution?

Diabetes MellitusThe most commonly noted causes for the rise in diabetes mellitus are obesity and overeating but could food additives and pollution contribute? Type 2 diabetes accounts for 90-95% of all diabetes cases. In 2000, 171 million people worldwide had diabetes and that is expected to increase to 366 million by 2030. This epidemic has received a lot of attention but the fact remains that there is zero evidence that diabetes mellitus results from overeating and a sedentary lifestyle.
The problem with this disease, and many others, is that the mechanisms involved are so complex that approaches to managing the rise are more treatment-based than prevention-based.  The current model explaining type 2 diabetes assumes, without true evidence, that insulin resistance precedes elevated insulin levels. Hyperinsulinemia is thought to be the body’s compensatory response to insulin resistance but there is no understood mechanism by which such resistance triggers secretion.
In 2012, a meta-analysis published by the American Diabetes Association proposed that food additives may trigger type 2 diabetes. The study takes a critical view of the current disease model and the commonly blamed culprits: obesity, overeating, and an inactive lifestyle. Though the authors are of the opinion that hypersecretion of insulin is the catalyst of insulin resistance they conclude that there are likely many factors which could contribute.
READ MORE to find out previous medical conclusions were not scientifically based from  Guardian Liberty Voice

Friday, April 25, 2014

The Trouble With Rice

As a plant, rice is particularly prone to absorbing certain toxic metals from the soil. Consumers have already become alarmed over reports of rice-borne arsenic in everything from cereal bars to baby food. Some food manufacturers have stepped up screening for arsenic in their products, and agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration now recommend that people eat a variety of grains to “minimize potential adverse health consequences from eating an excess of any one food.”
But it’s not just arsenic and cadmium, which are present in soil both as naturally occurring elements and as industrial byproducts. Recent studies have shown that rice is custom-built to pull a number of metals from the soil, among them mercury and even tungsten. The findings have led to a new push by scientists and growers to make the grain less susceptible to metal contamination.
The highest levels often occur in brown rice, because elements like arsenic accumulate in bran and husk, which are polished off in the processing of white rice. The Department of Agriculture estimates that on average arsenic levels are 10 times as high in rice bran as in polished rice.
> READ MORE to find our where the levels are highest from the nytimes.com

More Smoking Equals Lower Quality of Life


ORLANDO, Florida ― Smoking cigarettes, even for a short time, is associated with a significantly lower quality of life (QoL), new research suggests.
A review of 54 studies that assessed QoL in relation to smoking showed that taking up smoking even for a brief duration was associated with lower physical, mental, and social functioning and increased depression.
"The message is important to get across to clinicians and to smokers and may help people quit," lead author Matthew Goldenberg, DO, from Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center, Phoenix, Arizona, told Medscape Medical News.
"We are trying to change the perception that our patients with mental illness or co-occurring addictions have about smoking. They feel that smoking actually helps their nerves and calms them down, when in fact it actually has a negative impact on their quality of life, even if they've been smoking for a few weeks or months," he added.
>READ MORE about the study from medscape.com

What's So Bad About E-Cigarettes?



The Food and Drug Administration says it plans to regulate e-cigarettes, along with cigars and other tobacco products. Health advocates say it’s about time, but many “vapers” who use e-cigarettes say regulation will damage a product that’s a far safer substitute for cigarettes.
“The FDA has over stepped their boundaries,” supporters wrote in an online petition posted this week. “Do Not, allow the FDA to take control of a life saving product .”
Even health experts agree that electronic cigarettes, which deliver nicotine in a heated mist of water, glycerin and propylene glycol, might be useful in helping people who want to quit smoking. So where’s the harm in them?
Mostly, it’s the unknown, the FDA says. “We can’t even tell you what the compounds are in the vapor,” FDA’s Mitch Zeller told reporters.
>READ MORE about risks to youth and watch Dr Nancy Snub out Myths at NBCNews