Web Tool for Estimating Risk of Five Major Diseases

A few clicks of the mouse tell visitors to the "Your Disease Risk" Web site their risk for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, stroke and osteoporosis. The Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis recently launched this easy-to-use tool, which offers a wealth of information about risk factors and prevention strategies for five prominent diseases affecting millions of Americans.On the Web site (http://www.yourdiseaserisk.wustl.edu), users can answer a series of simple questionnaires about their medical history, eating habits, exercise and other behaviors and then get a personalized estimate of their risk for 12 different cancers plus heart disease, diabetes, stroke and osteoporosis. Users will also find tips on how to lower their...

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Moderate Drinkers Report Better Health

Moderate drinkers are more likely to report above-average health than lifetime abstainers, light drinkers and heavy drinkers, a new study reveals.“Our results suggest that a moderate amount of drinking is not necessarily dangerous for most people and may actually be health-enhancing,” said study coauthor Michael French, Ph.D.However, it is unclear whether moderate drinking leads to better health or whether moderate drinkers simply lead healthier lifestyles, he said.This finding confirmed much of the clinical evidence on this topic. However, previous research has focused on objective health indicators such as cardiovascular disease, injuries and mortality. “We wanted to see if moderate drinkers are actually feeling better by their own assessment,” said French, professor of health economics...

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Secondhand smoke = potent carcinogen absorbed

New research on secondhand smoke discovers nonsmoking workers immediately absorb potent carcinogenOffering alarming new evidence on the dangers of permitting smoking in the workplace, scientists have found that nonsmoking restaurant and bar employees absorb a potent carcinogen—not considered safe at any level—while working in places where they had to breathe tobacco smoke from customers and co-workers. The carcinogen, NNK, is found in the body only as a result of using tobacco or breathing secondhand smoke.In a study to be published in the August 2007 edition of the American Journal of Public Health, investigators at the Multnomah County Health Department and Oregon Department of Human Services report that elevated levels of NNK showed up in the urine of nonsmoking employees shortly after...

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Exercise stimulates formation of new brain cells

Exercise has a similar effect to antidepressants on depression. This has been shown by previous research. Now Astrid Bjørnebekk at Karolinska Institutet has explained how this can happen: exercise stimulates the production of new brain cells.In a series of scientific reports, she has searched for the underlying biological mechanisms that explain why exercise can be a form of therapy for depression and has also compared it with pharmacological treatment with an SSRI drug.The experiment studies were conducted on rats. The results show that both exercise and antidepressants increase the formation of new cells in an area of the brain that is important to memory and learning. Astrid Bjørnebekk’s studies confirm previous research results, and she proposes a model to explain how exercise can have...

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Therapeutic value of meditation unproven

Therapeutic value of meditation unproven, says studyWhile it's not likely to do you any harm, there is also no compelling evidence that meditation has therapeutic value“There is an enormous amount of interest in using meditation as a form of therapy to cope with a variety of modern-day health problems, especially hypertension, stress and chronic pain, but the majority of evidence that seems to support this notion is anecdotal, or it comes from poor quality studies,” say Maria Ospina and Kenneth Bond, researchers at the University of Alberta/Capital Health Evidence-based Practice Center in Edmonton, Canada.In compiling their report, Ospina, Bond and their fellow researchers analyzed a mountain of medical and psychological literature—813 studies in all—looking at the impact of meditation on...

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Emotions Can Affect Recovery from Hip Surgery

A patient's emotional state plays a significant role in his or her recovery from hip surgery, suggests Saint Louis University research published this month.Orthopaedic surgeons typically use two tests to determine if a patient has recovered from hip surgery: one is a clinical measure of hip function given by the doctor, and the second is a questionnaire patients answer that considers a wide variety of factors in determining the overall success of the surgical procedure."We started out simply looking to see if the results of the two tests were correlated; the one doctors give has been used for decades to evaluate hip function, and the other that the patient answers is much newer," says Berton Moed, M.D., chair of the department of orthopaedic surgery at Saint Louis University School of Medicine....

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Brain stimulation reduces risk of Alzheimer's

Frequent brain stimulation in old age reduces risk of Alzheimer's diseaseHow often old people read a newspaper, play chess, or engage in other mentally stimulating activities is related to risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study published June 27, 2007, in the online edition of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.For the study, more than 700 people in Chicago, IL, with an average age of 80 underwent yearly cognitive testing for up to five years. Participants were part of the Rush Memory and Aging Project, a longitudinal study of more than 1,200 older people. Of the participants, 90 developed Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers also performed a brain autopsy on the 102 participants who died.The study found a cognitively active person in old...

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Aspirin not as good for women as for men

A new study shows that aspirin therapy for coronary artery disease is four times more likely to be ineffective in women compared to men with the same medical history.Historically, studies have shown that aspirin therapy is less effective in women than in men, but it has remained unclear how much less effective and whether this affects patient outcomes, said Michael Dorsch, clinical pharmacist and adjunct clinical instructor at the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy.Dorsch is the lead author of the paper, "Aspirin Resistance in Patients with Stable Coronary Artery Disease," which appears online today in the Annals of Pharmacotherapy.Originally, Dorsch and his team set out to determine if patients with a history of heart attacks were more apt to be aspirin resistant than those with coronary...

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You Can Repay Your Sleep Debt

More than 60% of women don’t regularly get the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep per night. As sleep debt mounts, health consequences increase. It may take some work, but you can repay even a chronic, longstanding sleep debt, reports the July 2007 issue of Harvard Women’s Health Watch.Sleep loss exacts a toll on the mind as well as the body, research has shown. In one study, scientists assigned groups of healthy men and women, ages 21 to 38, to get different amounts of sleep— eight, six, or four hours per night—or no sleep at all for three nights in a row. No one was allowed to sleep during the day. Every two hours during their waking periods, all the participants completed sleepiness questionnaires and took tests for reaction time, memory, and cognitive ability.Over the course of two...

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Antidepressant, bone loss link

Physician says published findings 'raise some concern about people taking SSRIs'Two new studies suggest older men and women taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, a class of antidepressants that includes Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft, are prone to increased bone loss.The jointly released studies by scientists at Oregon Health & Science University, and in San Francisco, Minneapolis, San Diego and Pittsburgh, found that elderly men taking the so-called SSRIs had lower bone mineral density, and that elderly women taking the antidepressants had a higher rate of yearly bone loss.The studies appear in today's issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, a publication of the Journal of the American Medical Association.The studies "raise some concern about people taking SSRIs and whether they may...

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Link: depression and low levels of folate

A unique study by researchers at the University of York and Hull York Medical School has confirmed a link between depression and low levels of folate, a vitamin which comes from vegetables.In research published in the July edition of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, the York team led by Dr Simon Gilbody, concluded that there was a link between depression and low folate levels, following a review of 11 previous studies involving 15,315 participan...

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Omega-3s May Help Slow Prostate Cancer Growth

Research in mice suggests that a diet high in omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil and certain types of fish could potentially improve the prognosis of men who are genetically prone to develop prostate cancer.“This study clearly shows that diet can tip the balance toward a good or a bad outcome,” said senior researcher Yong Q. Chen, Ph.D., from Wake Forest University School of Medicine. “It’s possible that a change in diet could mean the difference between dying from the disease and surviving with it.”In mice that were engineered with a genetic defect that caused prostate cancer, a diet high in omega-3 fatty acids beginning at birth reduced tumor growth, slowed disease progression and increased survival. The research is reported online today by the Journal of Clinical Investigation and will...

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Nausea/Vomiting = Lower Risk of Breast Cancer

It may not seem so at the time, but women who suffer through morning sickness during their pregnancies actually may be fortunate.Those women may have a 30 percent lower risk of developing breast cancer later in life than mothers-to-be who experience nine nausea-free months, a new study by epidemiologists at the University at Buffalo suggests."Although the exact mechanism responsible for causing nausea and vomiting during pregnancy has yet to be pinpointed, it likely is a result of changing levels of ovarian and placental hormone production, which may include higher circulating levels of a hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin," said David Jaworowicz, Jr., first author on the study."In vitro studies have shown that this hormone possesses several activities that have potential protective...

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Dietary calcium is better than supplements

Dietary calcium is better than supplements at protecting bone healthWomen who get most of their daily calcium from food have healthier bones than women whose calcium comes mainly from supplemental tablets, say researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Surprisingly, this is true even though the supplement takers have higher average calcium intake.Adequate calcium is important to prevent osteoporosis, which affects an estimated 8 million American women and 2 million American men. Another 34 million Americans have low bone mass, placing them at increased risk for osteoporosis. Calcium consumption can help maintain bone density by preventing the body from stealing the calcium it needs from the bones.The researchers' conclusions about calcium intake, published in the...

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More women than men having mid-life stroke

More women than men appear to be having a stroke in middle age, according to a study published June 20, 2007, in the online edition of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Researchers say heart disease and increased waist size may be contributing to this apparent mid-life stroke surge among women.For the study, researchers analyzed data from 17,000 people over the age of 18 who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Of the participants, 606 people experienced a stroke.The study found women in the 45 to 54 age range were more than twice as likely as men in the same age group to have had a stroke. There were no sex differences in stroke rates found in the 35 to 44 and the 55 to 64 age groups.“While our analysis shows increased waist...

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Estrogen Good vs. Heart Disease For Some

Estrogen Use Lowered One Risk Factor for Heart Disease among Some Younger Postmenopausal Women, Stanford Researcher SaysHowever, risks for blood clots, stroke must be considered before starting estrogen therapy, Stefanick notesA follow-up study to the federally funded Women's Health Initiative should help allay one concern in a subset of women in their 50s who are considering taking estrogen to relieve hot flashes. The study shows that among women who have had hysterectomies, estrogen use was associated with a significantly reduced risk for one predictor of future heart attacks.However, a Stanford University School of Medicine researcher who is the senior author of the follow-up study reminded women that hormone therapy still carries other health risks, such as the increased likelihood of...

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How to Avoid Heat Stroke

Keeping cool on hot, humid summer days is good advice for more reasons than sheer comfort. It's vital for good health - even staying alive. That's the message from the Pennsylvania Medical Society, warning young and old alike that heat stroke is a deadly illness to be avoided at all costs - even if it means sacrificing a day at the beach."Heat stroke is not an accident," says Marilyn J. Heine, M.D., an emergency physician in Bucks County and a member of the Pennsylvania Medical Society. "Over the summer, we see too many cases of heat-related illness in the emergency room, but it's a condition that generally can be prevented with a little effort and lots of common sense."Still, it happens all too frequently. There have been several highly publicized reports of athletes dying from heat stroke...

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Five Ways to Have a Stress-free Vacation

From working late the night before you leave for the beach to dealing with fighting kids and tight finances—vacations can often cause as much stress as they are supposed to relieve.Experts from The Menninger Clinic provide the following tips to help you relax and get the benefits from your much-deserved time off.• Allow time for departure and your return. Nothing is worse than feeling rushed when leaving for or returning from vacation. Build in some extra time for travel in your vacation plans, keeping in consideration that flights may be delayed or that you may encounter unexpected traffic while driving. “When possible, include in your vacation plans a day to be at home before you leave to gear up for your trip, and a day at home after you return from your trip to allow for time to wind down,”...

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Screening reduces Down's births by 50 percent

Non-invasive screening of pregnant women with ultrasound early in pregnancy, combined with maternal blood analysis, has reduced the number of children born in Denmark with Down Syndrome by 50%. In September 2004, the National Board of Health in Denmark recommended new guidelines for prenatal diagnosis. “Previously this was restricted to pregnant women over 35 years of age, but since the implementation of the new guidelines it has been available to any woman who wants it.”The women were offered a measurement of nuchal translucency in the fetus by ultrasound. This test looks at thickness of the black space (fluid) in the neck area of the fetus. If there is more than the normal amount of fluid the risk of Down syndrome is increased. Likewise if there is a certain combination of serum markers...

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Substance in Soy Products= Bone Density+

Substance in Soy Products Increased Bone Density Compared to Placebo• In a randomized placebo-controlled trial involving 389 women with osteopenia, those who took 54 mg/d of genistein, a phytoestrogen derived from soy products, had greater bone mineral density and improved markers of bone metabolism after two years than women who took a pill containing only calcium and vitamin D (Article, p.839).• Osteopenia (diminished amount of bone but not as severe as osteoporosis) is common among women after menopause. The most serious consequences of low bone density are bone fractures.• Those who took the genistein pills did not have increased endometrial thickness, a problem with some hormone treatments for low bone density. The genistein group had more gastrointestinal side effects than the control...

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Candy cigarettes = future smokers?

New research suggests that playing with candy cigarettes may favorably set the minds of some children towards becoming future cigarette smokers. The study, reported in the July issue of Preventive Medicine, shows that in a nationally representative sample of 25,887 US adults, the percentages who had never consumed candy cigarettes were 12% in current and former smokers vs. 22% in never smokers, and the corresponding percentages of adults who had regularly (often or very often) consumed candy cigarettes were 22% in current and former smokers vs. 14% in never smokers.Candy cigarettes are made of candy or gum, shaped into cylindrical sticks and sold in rectangular boxes roughly the size of cigarette packs. In the US they are typically displayed next to the bubble gum and the trading cards commonly...

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Eating foie gras dangerous to health?

University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine professor and researcher Alan Solomon, M.D., director of the Human Immunology and Cancer/Alzheimer’s Disease and Amyloid-Related Disorders Research Program, led a team that discovered a link between foie gras prepared from goose or duck liver and the type of amyloid found in rheumatoid arthritis or tuberculosis.Their experimental data, appearing in this week's edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has provided the first evidence that a food product can hasten amyloid development.Amyloidosis is a disease process involving the deposit of normal or mutated proteins that have become misfolded. In this unstable state, such proteins form hair-like fibers, or fibrils, that are deposited into vital organs like the heart,...

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Breast feeding protects from rheumatoid arthritis

Longer term breast feeding protects mother from risk of developing rheumatoid arthritisBreast feeding for a period of thirteen months or more has been shown to reduce the mother’s the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis (RA), according to new data presented today at EULAR 2007, the Annual European Congress of Rheumatology in Barcelona, Spain. In the study, the longer the breast feeding period, the lower the mother’s risk of developing RA in later life. Comparable use of oral contraceptives (OCs) or hormone replacement therapy (HRT) did not show a significant effect on the risk of developing RA.Lead researcher Dr Mitra Keshavarz, of Malmö Hospital University, Sweden, said of the study, “Whilst other studies suggest that hormonal factors play a part in the development of RA, and we know...

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Alcohol intake = lower risk of rheumatoid arthritis

But smoking reduces alcohol's benefitsAlcohol may protect against rheumatoid arthritis (RA), with three units a week exhibiting protective effects and ten units a week being more protective still. An alcohol consumption of three units per week or more also reduced the risk by smoking or by a genetic predisposition to RA.An increased alcohol (ethanol) consumption of three or more units per week was associated with a decreased risk of developing RA. The findings could improve understanding of the effects of lifestyle on the risk of developing RA and pave the way for new potential treatment approaches based on the apparently beneficial effects of alcohol.Henrik Källberg at the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, who is a PhD student said, “Several previous studies have indicated a suppression...

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Runners: Let Thirst Be Your Guide

Many people are drinking too much water, including sports drinks, when exercising, a practice that could put some individuals engaging in prolonged types of endurance exercise at risk of potentially lethal water intoxication, say international experts who study disorders of water metabolism. Such exercise includes marathons, triathlons, and long distance cycling. This serious condition, known as exercise-induced hyponatremia (EAH), could be prevented if only people would respect their personal thirst “meter,” or would undertake a “sweat test” to determine how much water they actually need to drink in order to replace just the body fluids lost during exercising, the researchers say. A group of experts in this condition has issued a number of papers and recommendations, including an international...

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College Students Face Obesity, High Blood Pressure

Obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and inactivity: they’re not just your father’s problems any more, University of New Hampshire research finds. New data on the widely unstudied demographic of college students indicates that this group of 18 – 24-year-olds are on the path toward chronic health diseases. Although limited, national data suggest the trend is not unique to UNH.The UNH data, collected from more than 800 undergraduates enrolled in a general-education nutrition course, find that at least one-third of UNH students are overweight or obese, 8 percent of men had metabolic syndrome, 60 percent of men had high blood pressure, and more than two-thirds of women are not meeting their nutritional needs for iron, calcium or folate.“They’re not as healthy as they think they are,”...

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Pills increase unhealthy behavior?

When consumers are diagnosed with a health condition such as obesity, they don’t immediately trade fries for carrot sticks or start taking brisk walks after dinner. In a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Consumer Research, Lisa Bolton and Americus Reed, both marketing professors at Wharton School of Business, and Kevin G. Volpp and Katrina Armstrong, both professors at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, found that consumers who contemplate taking a prescription or over-the-counter drug for their condition become more likely to engage in bad habits like junk food and a sedentary lifestyle.This “boomerang effect” happens for two reasons. First, drug marketing undermines motivation to live a healthy lifestyle – ‘why bother eating low-fat foods when a drug exists to fight fat...

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Extra sleep improves athletes' performance

Athletes who get an extra amount of sleep are more likely to improve their performance in a game, according to a research abstract that will be presented Wednesday at SLEEP 2007, the 21st Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS).The study, authored by Cheri Mah of Stanford University, was conducted on six healthy students on the Stanford men's basketball team, who maintained their typical sleep-wake patterns for a two-week baseline followed by an extended sleep period in which they obtained as much extra sleep as possible. To assess improvements in athletic performance, the students were judged based on their sprint time and shooting percentages.Significant improvements in athletic performance were observed, including faster sprint time and increased free-throws....

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Does OTC diet pill Alli live up to its name?

The first and only over-the-counter product for weight loss approved by the Food and Drug Administration will be available Friday, June 15.Orlistat, known by the brand name Alli, works by decreasing the amount of fat absorbed by the body. It is the OTC version of Xenical, a prescription weight loss pill. The good news: Orlistat has been tested and the prescription version has been used since 1999.Last fall Dr. James Anderson, head of the UK College of Medicine Metabolic Research Group, and his colleagues examined the effects of OTC strength (60 mg) orlistat on mildly to moderately overweight individuals. The study was the first of its kind. Previously, the drug's effects had only been studied in obese individuals. Study participants took either orlistat or a placebo three times daily with...

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Can a Mediterranean diet prevent colon cancer?

Are all healthy eating plans the same when it comes to cancer prevention?Researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center are beginning a study to look at whether diet can impact a person’s risk of developing colon cancer. Specifically, the researchers will compare a Mediterranean diet – high in olive oil, nuts and fish – with a standard healthy eating plan.“Overall eating patterns appear to be more important for cancer prevention than intakes of specific nutrients or food groups. We hope this study will give us an indication of the benefits that a person’s diet can have on health, especially in terms of reducing the risk of colon cancer,” says Zora Djuric, Ph.D., research professor of family medicine at the U-M Medical School and principal investigator on the Healthy...

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Defenses Against Summer Food Poisoning

Anyone who’s ever been struck by food poisoning does not soon forget it. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that 76 million cases of food-borne disease occur annually in the United States, though this number could be much higher due to underreporting.“Raw or undercooked meat, fish and produce are the most common culprits of food poisoning, however, even canned or packaged foods can have bacteria present and need thorough cooking first,” says Patricia Raymond, M.D., noted board-certified gastroenterologist, author and assistant professor at Eastern Virginia Medical School. “Cases vary in severity and usually last for two to four days, but they can be the longest days of your life when you feel this badly.”Despite how scary it seems to millions – making national news reports with...

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