Exercise May Lead to a Smarter, More Successful You
By cialis viagra levitra | March 9, 2010
A strong cardiovascular system in young adulthood may boost brainpower, making for better school grades and more overall success later in life, new research suggests.
Given that most doctors and laypeople know (or should know) the benefits of exercise and its impact on healthy bodies, the authors of a new study, appearing in this week’s online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are hoping the findings can influence public policy.
Doctors “have known the principal idea for 3,000 years: A healthy mind lives in an healthy body,” said study senior author H. Georg Kuhn, professor for regenerative neuroscience at the Center for Brain Repair and Rehabilitation, Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, University of Gothenburg in Sweden. “We are aiming at politicians and educators who decide on academic curricula and budgets and how sport fits into the picture of academic success.”
The study also found that genetics played a lesser role in explaining the mind-body link than did environment.
“This gets back to empowerment. You can’t determine that exercise or eating well isn’t going to help you because of your genetic background,” said Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, a preventive cardiologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City and a spokeswoman for the American Heart Association. “This is showing you that, regardless of genes, what you choose to do and how you choose to live can make a difference.”
The relationship between physical activity and cognitive function has been studied before, but usually in older adults (in relation to dementia) and in children.
And studies that focused on young adults, as these authors did, have tended to be smaller.
“Young adulthood is the time span in which important behavioral habits and cognitive functions are shaped,” explained Kuhn. “It is the period when academic performance has the biggest impact on the future life.”
This is also a time when the central nervous system is still developing, he noted.
The study was an extremely large one, involving 1.2 million Swedish men born between 1950 and 1976.
More than 250,000 of the men were sibling pairs and more than 3,000 were twins, of which 1,432 were identical twins.
The researchers took information from the time the men were conscripted into the military (age 18), which is compulsory in Sweden. This information was then correlated with information on the men’s prior academic performance, how many siblings they had and what socioeconomic class they came from.
Better cardiovascular fitness was associated with higher intelligence, although muscle strength was not, the researchers found.
“The emphasis at gyms is for strength over aerobic capacity but aerobic fitness is where we need to pay our focus,” said Dr. Jonathan H. Whiteson, co-director of the Joan and Joel Smilow Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation and Prevention Center at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City.
The twins portion of the analysis showed that environmental factors accounted for more than 80 percent of the equation, and genetics for less than 15 percent.
Any number of factors could explain why better cardiovascular fitness through exercising impacts brain function, including improved blood flow to the brain, diminished anxiety, enhanced mood and less fatigue, Whiteson said.
“We’ve known that aerobic exercise has been associated with improved cognitive performance. We’ve known that from studies dating back from the ’70s,” he said. “They picked the area of young men which may not have had a lot of research. This confirms what we’ve already known about younger and older individuals.”
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Fear of Anxiety May Lead to Depression
By cialis viagra levitra | March 2, 2010
Fear of anxiety may push “above-average” worriers into depression, a new study suggests.
“Anxiety sensitivity has been called a fear of fear,” study author Andres Viana, a graduate student in psychology at Penn State, said in a news release. “Those with anxiety sensitivity are afraid of their anxiety because their interpretation is that something catastrophic is going to happen when their anxious sensations arise.”
Viana and colleagues analyzed questionnaires completed by 94 volunteers, average age 19, who were moderate to high worriers. The questionnaires assessed worry, generalized anxiety and depression.
The responses showed that anxiety sensitivity significantly predicted depression symptoms. The researchers also found that two of the four issues that comprise anxiety sensitivity — the “fear of cognitive dyscontrol” and the “fear of publically observable anxiety symptoms” — specifically predicted depression symptoms. The two other issues — the “fear of cardiovascular symptoms” and the “fear of respiratory symptoms” — weren’t significant predictors of depression.
“What we found was that the fear of the cognitive sensations typical of anxiety, like the inability to concentrate, was related to depression. And we also found that the link exists in people who are afraid of symptoms that could potentially have social implications or symptoms of anxiety that may be subject to negative evaluation,” Viana said.
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U.S. official says mammograms policy unchanged
By cialis viagra levitra | February 27, 2010
U.S. health officials on Wednesday distanced themselves from controversial new breast cancer screening guidelines that recommend against routine mammograms for healthy women in their 40s and said federal policy on screening mammograms has not changed.
In a move likely to reassure American women, U.S. House and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force that issued the guidelines on Monday does not set federal policy and does not affect what services the government will pay for.
Critics of the new guidelines said they would lead to more cancer deaths and expressed fear insurance companies would use them to justify denying coverage for mammograms to women in their 40s.
“The Task Force has presented some new evidence for consideration but our policies remain unchanged,” Sebelius said in a statement.
“Indeed, I would be very surprised if any private insurance company changed its mammography coverage decisions as a result of this action,” she said.
The proposed changes address healthy women with an average risk of breast cancer, not women who have a family history of breast cancer or some other special risk.
The guidelines were swiftly rejected by cancer experts, and the American Cancer Society said it would not change its recommendations for routine mammograms starting at age 40.
Recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of experts sponsored by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research, typically set the standard for preventive services in the United States.
“There is no question that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force Recommendations have caused a great deal of confusion and worry among women and their families across this country,” Sebelius said.
“I want to address that confusion head on,” she said.
“The U.S. Preventive Task Force is an outside independent panel of doctors and scientists who make recommendations. They do not set federal policy and they don’t determine what services are covered by the federal government,” she said.
She said there has been long-standing debate in the United States over when routine screening mammograms should start, and how often they should be done.
“What is clear is that there is a great need for more evidence, more research and more scientific innovation to help women prevent, detect, and fight breast cancer, the second leading cause of cancer deaths among women.”
She advised women to “keep doing what you have been doing for years — talk to your doctor about your individual history, ask questions, and make the decision that is right for you.”
Representative Dave Camp, the ranking Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, said the new guidelines amount to rationing. “This is what happens when bureaucrats make your health care decisions,” he told the New York Times on Tuesday.
Democrats bristled at the suggestion that the new guidelines were motivated by cost, something the panel has denied.
“If we can cut through the Republicans’ political gamesmanship on this issue, the new breast cancer recommendations, as always, were an attempt to put the best possible evidence in the hands of women and their doctors, so they can assess their own risk and benefit,” Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, a Democrat from Connecticut said in a statement.
“To suggest that our bill, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, does anything other than reduce cost, ensure that insurers stop discriminating against women, and improve the health insurance system for the 192,000 American women diagnosed with breast cancer each year, is absurd,” DeLauro said in a statement.
Breast cancer is the top cancer killer of women globally, killing 500,000 annually.
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Benefits of Eating Fish May Depend on Preparation
By cialis viagra levitra | February 20, 2010
You’ll get more heart-healthy benefits from omega-3 fatty acids if you eat baked or boiled fish instead of fried, dried or salted fish, according to a new study, which also found that adding low-sodium soy sauce or tofu is a good idea for women.
“It appears that boiling or baking fish with low-sodium soy sauce [shoyu] and tofu is beneficial, while eating fried, salted or dried fish is not. In fact, these methods of preparation may contribute to your risk,” study author Lixin Meng, a doctoral candidate at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, said in a news release from the American Heart Association.
“We did not directly compare boiled or baked fish versus fried fish, but one can tell from the [risk] ratios, boiled or baked fish is in the protective direction, but not fried fish,” Meng said.
The researchers studied the source, type, amount and frequency of dietary intake of omega-3 among 82,243 men and 103,884 women in Los Angeles County and Hawaii. The participants included blacks, whites, Hispanics, Japanese and native Hawaiians. They were 45 to 75 years old and had no history of heart disease.
During an average of 11.9 years of follow-up, there were 4,516 heart-related deaths among the participants.
Men who consumed the most omega-3 fatty acids (about 3.3 grams per day) had a 23 percent lower risk of cardiac death than those who ate only 0.8 grams per day.
“Clearly, we are seeing that the higher the dietary omega-3 intake, the lower the risk of dying from heart disease among men,” Meng said.
The association between omega-3 fatty acid intake and reduced risk of cardiac death wasn’t as apparent among women, the study authors noted.
However, the study found clear heart health benefits for women who consumed greater amounts of shoyu and tofu.
“My guess is that, for women, eating omega-3s from shoyu and tofu that contain other active ingredients such as phytoestrogens might have a stronger cardioprotective effect than eating just omega-3s,” Meng said.
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FDA Approves New Drug Treatment for Long-Term Pain Relief after Shingles Attacks
By cialis viagra levitra | February 13, 2010
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the approval of Qutenza (capsaicin) 8% patch, a medicated skin patch that relieves the pain of post-herpetic neuralgia (PHN), a serious complication that can occur after a bout with shingles.
Shingles is an outbreak of rash or blisters on the skin that is caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox — the varicella-zoster virus. Anyone who once had chickenpox is at risk of shingles since the virus may become reactivated years after the initial infection. PHN is a condition affecting nerve fibers and the skin that can cause excruciating pain for weeks, months or even years. About 10 to 15 percent of patients who have shingles experience PHN and the complication is even more common in elderly patients.
Qutenza contains capsaicin, a compound found in chili peppers. Although there are over-the-counter products with lower concentrations of capsaicin that are marketed for the treatment of PHN, Qutenza is the first pure, concentrated, synthetic capsaicin-containing prescription drug to undergo FDA review . It was approved on Nov. 16.
“This new product can provide effective pain relief for patients who suffer from PHN,” said Bob Rappaport, M.D., director of the Division of Anesthesia, Analgesia and Rheumatology Products in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
The most frequently reported adverse drug reactions included pain, swelling, itching, redness, and bumps at the application site.
Qutenza must be applied to the skin by a health care professional since placement of the patch can be quite painful, requiring use of a local topical anesthetic, as well as additional pain relief such as ice or use of opioid pain relievers. The patient must also be monitored for at least one hour since there is a risk of a significant rise in blood pressure following patch placement.
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Face Transplant Patient Can Smell, Taste, Breathe Normally
By cialis viagra levitra | February 6, 2010
The woman who underwent the first facial transplant in the United States can now smell, taste what she eats and breathe through her nose, according to a report from her surgeons.
Nearly a year after the surgery, blood vessels from the transplanted tissue have integrated with existing tissue, she has had no significant complications and her sensory and motor abilities, including the ability to speak, continue to improve, they say in the November/December issue of the Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery.
“This really does open up new frontiers both for transplanting more of the face and for offering it to individuals with previous reconstructive failures,” said Dr. Wayne Larrabee, Jr., a clinical professor of head and neck surgery at the University of Washington in Seattle and editor of the journal.
Connie Culp, a mother and grandmother from Unionport, Ohio, was shot by her husband in a failed murder-suicide attempt in 2004. The shotgun blast destroyed the middle part of her face, including her nose and nasal passage, upper jaw and cheeks, and she lost her sight.
Though there were three face transplants performed worldwide before Culp’s — and a total of about seven to date — Culp’s “near-total” face transplant was among the most extensive ever performed. The surgery replaced much of the soft tissue of her face, the bony structure of the palate (roof of the mouth) and her upper jaw.
Making the surgery even more challenging, the transplant was a “salvage operation,” done after Culp had endured 23 failed attempts at reconstructive surgery. The earlier operations caused extensive scarring and destroyed blood vessels, further complicating an already difficult task.
“This patient had undergone multiple previous procedures for reconstruction which had failed,” Larrabee said. “This made the surgery much more difficult but the ethical decision very clear.”
Last Dec. 9, eight surgeons from the Cleveland Clinic replaced 80 percent of Culp’s face and jaw during a 22-hour operation. The donor was a woman who had been pronounced brain dead and was a match for Culp’s age, race and skin complexion. The new face included the nose, upper lip, lower eyelids, upper jaw, incisor teeth, palate and various glands, as well as bones and ligaments. Culp, then 46, was given immunosuppressant drugs to prevent rejection.
Before operating, surgeons weren’t sure if all of the donor tissue could be supplied with blood through the facial arteries, but bleeding from the tissue during the surgery told them the facial arterial system would be enough, according to the report.
“It demonstrates not only a masterpiece of surgical technique but the importance of modern medical teamwork to accomplish this patient’s goals,” Larrabee said. “Technically, the ability to use just the facial blood vessels and not the deeper ones opens new possibilities. Eventually this operation could become standard for severe facial injuries.”
Dr. Laurie Casas, a clinical associate professor of surgery at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, said much more needs to be learned before facial transplants become anything more than experimental. Some of the key questions that need to be answered are the long-term impact on patients, including to what extent they are able to return to normal activities, such as work and socializing.
“We are all so excited about the fact that it can be done. The question is, ‘On whom should it be done? And when should it be done’?” Casas said. “The world, including the United States, is just beginning to understand how face transplants will really fit into our reconstructive efforts.”
Culp will likely have another surgery later this year to remove extra glandular tissue around her lower jaw. If surgeons get their wish, the final outcome will look remarkably like a normal face.
“If the promising initial results continue, the operation may become standard of care for extensive facial injuries,” according to the report.
In related news from the same journal, researchers from the University of Texas Medical School found that rib cartilage from human donors is an alternative to the patient’s own rib cartilage in nasal plastic surgery.
Though the patient’s own rib cartilage is the preferred choice, it’s not always suitable, researchers write. A review of medical records of 357 patients who underwent nasal plastic surgery using irradiated donor cartilage found a complication rate of 3.25 percent, no greater than the complication rate when the patient’s own cartilage was used. Irradiation decreases the chances of rejection, according to the study.
During an average follow-up of nearly eight years, about 94 percent of patients reported being satisfied with their appearance, ability to breathe and quality of life.
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Common Knee Pain May Improve With Therapy
By cialis viagra levitra | January 29, 2010
Supervised physical therapy is better than regular “wait-and-see” care for patients with a certain type of severe knee pain, according to research that suggests it reduces pain and improves function more effectively.
The findings, which are published in the Oct. 21 online edition of BMJ, examine patellofemoral pain syndrome, a common condition that causes pain in the front of the knee during and after exercise.
Women are more likely to develop the condition than men, and people usually start having symptoms when they’re teenagers, the study authors noted.
Doctors often advise patients to rest when they experience pain and avoid doing things that trigger pain. This is referred to as a wait-and-see approach.
In the new study, Dutch researchers sought to confirm previous findings that suggested conflicting results about the link between physical therapy and improvement in function, and only limited evidence that therapy would reduce pain.
The researchers looked at 131 patients aged 14 to 40, all of whom had been diagnosed with patellofemoral pain syndrome.
Of the subjects, 65 were assigned to a supervised physical therapy program and 66 took the wait-and-see approach. Both groups were given instructions about exercises to do at home, and both groups were told to avoid doing things that are painful, the study authors noted.
The researchers found that more patients who underwent physical therapy felt that they had recovered after three and 12 months, but the difference between the two groups wasn’t statistically significant.
However, the physical therapy group did do significantly better when it came to pain, both at rest and during activity, the authors reported. And that group also did better after three months, but not after 12.
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Cocoa in Chocolate May Be Good for the Heart
By cialis viagra levitra | January 22, 2010
If you’re tempted to raid your child’s Halloween candy stash at the end of this month, here’s one reason you might not have to restrain yourself.
Spanish researchers put 42 men and women on a diet that included 40 grams of unsweetened cocoa powder (about 1.4 ounces) mixed with skim milk daily, or plain skim milk. After one month, those who drank the cocoa-flavored milk had lower levels of inflammatory markers associated with heart disease than those drinking the milk alone.
That result was critical because the participants, whose average age was about 70, were at high risk of cardiovascular disease because they had diabetes and three or more risk factors for heart disease, including smoking, high blood pressure, high levels of LDL “bad” cholesterol (more than 160 milligrams per deciliter), low levels of HDL “good” cholesterol (below 35 milligrams per deciliter), obesity or a family history of early coronary heart disease.
The inflammatory markers, called adhesion molecules, are proteins that cause white blood cells to stick to the walls of the arteries, which can lead to the formation of atherosclerotic plaques, explained Shelley McGuire, an associate professor of food science and nutrition at Washington State University and a spokeswoman for the American Society for Nutrition.
“One of the major strengths of the study was they were measuring adhesion molecules, which we have recently learned are very important in the formation of atherosclerosis,” McGuire said. “Another strength is that the study was randomized and controlled. Because of this, we can pretty confidently say there was something in the cocoa powder that had an effect.”
The researchers also found that the cocoa powder group had an increase in HDL cholesterol, which can help reduce levels of LDL cholesterol and has been shown to have anti-inflammatory, antioxidant properties.
The study is published in the November issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
During the study, participants didn’t take additional vitamins or supplements, and the only cocoa-containing products they consumed were those provided by researchers.
Previous research has suggested chocolate may be beneficial for heart health because it contains anti-inflammatory chemicals called polyphenols. Polyphenols are also found in wine, coffee and tea, along with fruits and vegetables such as apples, broccoli, onions, blueberries, blackberries, cherries, strawberries, plums and red grapes, said Connie Diekman, director of university nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis.
“One of the best ways to get plenty of polyphenols is to consume lots of fruits and vegetables,” Diekman said.
The researchers noted the anti-inflammatory effects derived from cocoa were modest compared to those observed for other foods rich in polyphenols, such as wine.
And before you start inhaling candy bars, which are high in fat and calories, researchers noted that study participants were given non-fat, sugar-free cocoa powder and skim milk. Even then, they gained a small amount of weight.
In the study, the chocolate milk contained about 136 calories. If adding cocoa to your diet, be sure to reduce calories somewhere else, or get some extra exercise.
“My recommendation, as a registered dietitian, would be for people to look at cocoa — whether in the form of cocoa or chocolate — as a part of a healthful eating plan, not a magic bullet for reducing inflammation,” Diekman said. “If including cocoa and small amounts of chocolate in an otherwise healthful eating plan helps people enjoy what they eat and stick with that plan, then these things can fit.”
In findings that should come as no surprise, researchers noted that “adherence to the dietary protocol was excellent.”
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Diabetes Drug May Boost Weight Loss in Obese Patients
By cialis viagra levitra | January 15, 2010
The diabetes drug liraglutide helps obese people without diabetes lose weight, researchers have found.
The study authors also reported that high doses of liraglutide were more effective at helping people shed pounds than the weight-loss drug orlistat.
In the study, which included 564 diabetes-free obese patients aged 18 to 65 at 19 sites in Europe, participants were randomly selected to receive one of four injected doses of liraglutide (1.2 milligrams, 1.8 milligrams, 2.4 milligrams or 3 milligrams) or a placebo once a day, or 120 milligrams of orlistat three times a day.
All of the patients also increased their levels of physical activity and followed a calorie-restricted diet, which allowed for about 500 calories less per day than they needed.
Weight loss among patients taking liraglutide doses of 1.2, 1.8, 2.4 and 3 milligrams was 4.8 kilograms (10.5 pounds); 5.5 kilograms (12 pounds); 6.3 kilograms (14 pounds), and 7.2 kilograms (15.8 pounds), respectively, compared with 4.1 kilograms (9 pounds) with orlistat and 2.8 kilograms (6 pounds)with placebo. Weight loss of more than 5 percent occurred in 76 percent of patients taking 3 milligrams of liraglutide, 44 percent of patients taking orlistat, and 30 percent of patients in the placebo group, the researchers found.
Reduced blood pressure was noted in all of the patients taking liraglutide. The groups taking 1.8 to 3 milligrams of liraglutide had an 84 percent to 96 percent reduction in the prevalence of prediabetes, which is poor blood glucose control that’s not yet bad enough to qualify as diabetes.
Nausea and vomiting was more common among patients taking liraglutide than among those in the placebo group, the study authors noted.
“The results of this study indicate the potential benefit of liraglutide, in conjunction with an energy-deficit diet, in the treatment of obesity and associated risk factors,” wrote Dr. Arne Astrup, of the department of human nutrition at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and colleagues.
Additional studies with a follow-up longer than 20 weeks are now needed to investigate the long-term risk/benefit profile of liraglutide, the study authors noted.
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Adding Drug Doesn’t Help Control Blood Pressure
By cialis viagra levitra | January 8, 2010
Adding an angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) drug to help control blood pressure has no benefit for people with heart disease who already are taking an ACE inhibitor, a new study finds.
The so-called “meta-analysis” of 41 previous studies found that combination therapy seems no better than ACE inhibitor therapy alone and may be harmful.
Results of the study, funded by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, were published in the Oct. 20 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine.
“The question is whether you are going to provide more benefits to patients by adding an ARB,” said Jean Slutsky, director of the AHRQ Center for Outcomes and Evidence, which commissioned the study. “From this study, it appears that it doesn’t seem to actually improve care.”
It’s a finding with financial as well as medical implications. Millions of Americans now take ACE — angiotensin converting enzyme — inhibitors to control high blood pressure. ARBs, which have become increasingly popular in recent years, tend be more expensive, since many ACE inhibitors are available as generic drugs while ARBs generally are not.
Both classes of drugs lower blood pressure by their effect on angiotensin II, a molecule that tightens arteries. ACE inhibitors attempt to prevent formation of angiotensin II, while ARBs block the cell receptors through which they act.
The new study was one of a series done to improve the effectiveness of health care in the United States, Slutsky said. “There was some uncertainty about the effectiveness, benefits and harms of ACE inhibitors versus ARBs in this population” (people with known but stable heart disease), she said.
The analysis of the 41 trials examined in the study found that ACE inhibitors reduced the risk of death by about 13 percent for people whose cardiac problems did not include heart failure, and the risk of heart attack by about 17 percent. Adding an ARB drug did not reduce the risk further, but did increase the rate at which drug therapy was discontinued because of side effects such as fainting.
“We showed results similar to what they [the authors of the new study] did,” said Dr. Sripal Bangalore, a fellow in interventional cardiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who published a similar meta-analysis a year ago. “Our study showed that the addition of an ARB to an ACE inhibitor did not give any benefit in terms of heart endpoint, unless in patients who had heart failure.”
The lesson for doctors prescribing drugs for blood pressure control in people with stable heart disease is clear, Bangalore said: “Based on current studies, combination therapy should be avoided.”
Current guidelines by organizations such as the American Heart Association already reflect that lesson. Guidelines generally recommend ACE inhibitors as a first-line therapy for high blood pressure.
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