Archive for the 'Health and Wellness' Category

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More accurate diagnosis for food allergy may require eating some of it

Published on September 5, 2011 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Guidelines issued in December of 2010 by a group of food allergy experts, led by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, indicate that those who believe they have food allergies might want to take an oral food test, called an oral food challenge. During this test they consume the suspected food in a doctor’s office. Then the symptoms are observed, so the doctor can give a more accurate diagnosis.

These guidelines eliminate trying to diagnose a food allergy only by using a skin-prick or a blood test that may only suggest that a person is “sensitized” to a certain food. These tests may also be given in addition to looking at the patient’s medical history, along with a physical exam.

Many doctors have numerous blood tests done on different foods. Then when they find insignificant amounts of an antibody present, they assume that the patient is allergic to this food and should never consume it. Often these patients are put on extremely restricted diets that are usually not necessary.

The guidelines emphasize that some food allergies will disappear on their own. It is a fact that 80 percent of children with allergies to eggs or milk will eventually outgrow the allergy.

More than thirty professional groups, as well as federal and lay organizations, helped to create these guidelines that were published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

More vitamin D now recommended for children

Published on September 5, 2011 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is now recommending that infants, children and adolescents get double the amount of vitamin D that was previously advised. This new clinical report, called Prevention of Rickets and Vitamin D Deficiency in Infants, Children and Adolescents, indicates that all children should get 400 international units (IU) of Vitamin D, the same as drinking four eight ounce glasses of fortified mile each day.

Frank Greer, MD, FAAP, who is chair of the AAP Committee on Nutrition and co-author of the report, “Supplementation is important because most children will not get enough vitamin D through diet alone” says “we are doubling the recommended amount of vitamin D children need each day because evidence has shown this could have life-long health benefits.”

There are new indicators revealing that vitamin D, along with building strong bones, could prevent diseases such as diabetes and cancer. Children who don’t get enough vitamin D are vulnerable to getting rickets, which is a bone disease that can cause growth problems and fractures and lead to developing osteoporosis as they age.

So how does one get more vitamin D? Well, first we need to understand that our bodies don’t make their own vitamin D, so we have to get it from other sources such as diet or sunlight. The body creates vitamin D when sunlight reaches our skin. Unfortunately direct sun exposure raises the risk for skin cancer, so it is important to limit your exposure to no more than about 20 minutes.

A safer way to help your child the suggested amount of vitamin D is through the food they eat each day. Some vitamin D rich foods are tuna, salmon, eggs and fortified milk, but it is hard for kids to get enough vitamin D through diet alone. Your pediatrician can help you decide if a supplement, like an over-the counter vitamin D with 100 to 400 IUs, is what your individual child needs.

In the future, new guidelines may induce a surge of vitamin D-fortified foods in the grocery store. Until then, your pediatrician is probably your best source for information. It is not a good idea to give a supplement without a recommendation, because they may already be getting the amount of vitamin D that they need.

Here are some ways to get more vitamin D into your child’s daily diet:

  •  Cereal with fortified milk for breakfast or a snack
  •  Cream-based soups or use fortified milk instead of water in soup or hot cereal
  •  Fortified yogurt instead of ice cream as a treat – freeze in ice pop trays
  •  Serve pudding made with fortified milk for dessert
  •  Buy orange juice that is fortified with vitamin D
  •  Make smoothies with fortified milk, yogurt and fruit
  •  Get cereal bars and cereals that are fortified
  •  Make sandwiches with egg salad or cheese ( cut into fun shapes )

New software could eliminate need for some types of prostate cancer testing

Published on August 4, 2011 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Even though prostate cancer is the second most common form of cancer in men, diagnosing it is often a difficult task. This said, there is a new software being used at some hospitals that may help detect prostate cancer much earlier, extinguishing unnecessary testing and making it easier to create a treatment plan.

This new software, called VividLook, is a program that uses magnetic resonance imaging. This makes test results easier to read and helps doctors pinpoint where a malignancy is located in the prostate.

Dr. Mark Shapiro, chief of radiology at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center in N.J., says “It will potentially eliminate the need for biopsies in some men and help guide biopsies in others so we will have a lot less false-negative biopsy results.”

When one is screened for prostate cancer, they undergo a digital rectal exam and then a blood test that measures the level of a protein called prostate specific antigen. Usually a 4 or below is a normal PSA, but patients who have higher levels may be pressed to get a biopsy. There are some drawbacks to getting a biopsy. First of all, they are not always accurate. It is aggravating that many men who go through the procedure, do so needlessly because most patients with an elevated PSA don’t even have prostate cancer. These biopsies are also invasive tests that could cause bleeding and or infection. According to the National Cancer Institute, only 25 to 35 percent of patients with a PSA level between 4 and 9 have the disease. This is why PSA tests frequently come back as false-positives and biopsy results are often false-negative.

VividLook will hopefully help wipe out the need for too many biopsies and help physicians find tumors when they do exist. Before this new software came about, doctors did not do MRIs on the prostate and often took 12 or more tissue samples from all areas of the gland with each procedure. This had to be done because deciphering images from a gland with so many veins and arteries deep inside the pelvic cavity and behind the bladder was almost impossible. Now, with the new software, a specific area can be located on the MRI, and physicians can biopsy that certain area. Shapiro says ” This localizes the tumor or can show there is no tumor at all after getting an elevated PSA.”

In the U.S. alone, almost 218,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year, and more than 32,000 succumb to the disease. The good news is that more than 2 million men are now alive who were previously diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Some basic reminders about sunscreen

Published on July 25, 2011 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Well since we are here in yet another sweltering summer, it wouldn’t hurt to bring up some basic facts to remind people to not forget the sunscreen! Plus, for those of you who care more about appearance than health, remember that the most important indicator for the health and appearance of your skin is the use of sunscreen.

It’s very important to stay in the shade when the sun is at it’s peak hours, till around 2pm, and always wear sunscreen whether it’s sunny or not. Try to make putting on sunscreen a daily habit, like taking a shower and brushing your teeth. Think about how much younger you will stay later in life when others will be wrinkled and spotted like a dried up apple that has fallen from a tree and baked in the sun.

Appearance is very important to most people, but preventing skin cancer is much more serious. So what exactly causes skin cancer? Well, it is caused by the ultraviolet A and B rays from the sun and, sorry tanning bed lovers, tanning beds. If you like a quick and even tan without going in the sun, try the new spray tans! Most tanning salons who have the tanning beds, offer this quick and safe type of spray tanning. UVA rays can permeate deep into the skin and even through window glass. They can eventually overpower the immune system, making the body unable to guard against developing skin cancer. Again, for those trying to stay young, UVA rays also cause premature wrinkling.

The rays that cause us to get sunburn are UVB rays. An easy way to remember which rays cause which is UVA for aging and UVB for burning. This said, both UVA and UVB are cancer-causing agents.

The more you are in the sun during your lifetime, the more likely you could develop skin cancer. Since this is a collective risk over time, it is so important to protect your skin from the sun’s effects every day, even when you will be outside for short periods of time. This is especially true in the spring, because even though the temperature is low, the sun is very strong.

So don’t be caught out in the sun at an event without having put on sunscreen. Put your sunscreen on first thing in the morning, even before your moisturizer and make-up. If you are strapped for time, you can make things simple and just use your sunscreen as your moisturizer. The majority of people don’t put on enough sunscreen. Try to remember to use about the size of a shot glass full of sunscreen to cover all your exposed areas. Don’t forget your ears and lips. To avoid a mess in your hair, you can use a spray sunscreen for your scalp. It is important to protect this area too, because that is the closest area to the sun. Also use a lip balm with an SPF of 30. Try to reapply your sunscreen every 2 hours or less, even when it is waterproof.

With all the different sunscreens out there, it is so hard to understand what SPF to choose. Some have said that sunscreens with an SPF more than 15 do not protect any better than those with just an SPF of 15. Not true. Sunscreens that have a higher SPF than 15 absolutely protect better against the sun’s damaging rays! Whether you pick a lotion, spray, gel or wax, make sure you choose a sunscreen that has a broad spectrum coverage with both UVA and UVB protection, is waterproof and has an SPF of 30 or higher. Have fun in the sun, but don’t get burned.

U.S. shows progress on cancer report

Published on June 26, 2011 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

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Around 1, 596, 670 Americans will be diagnosed with cancer this year. Within that number, about 571, 950, which is more than 1,500 each day, will die. These figures come from the June 17 report from the American Cancer Society. They update cancer incidence and mortality statistics every year. Their Cancer Facts and Figures 2011 provides a more in depth explanation of where the United States rates when it comes to cancer.

Dropping since the 1990s, cancer death rates have proceeded to decline among males and females in almost all racial and ethnic groups since 1998, according to the report. The ACS believes that the falling rate in cancer mortality rates from 1990 to 2007 designate almost 900,000 lives that could have been lost due to cancer but were not.

Even though they have been increasing since the 1930s, lung cancer death rates have been on the decline for women. For men, the death rates began to fall about 10 years ago. This said, lung cancer will be the cause of almost 25 percent of all cancer deaths for women in 2011.

From 1997 to 2007, cancer death rates for men plunged by 22.2 percent for men and for women by 13.9 percent. Most of the lessening was the result of decreasing mortality rates for colorectal and breast cancer for women and lung, prostate and colorectal cancers for men.

Disturbingly, the report notes that the American Cancer Society reveals that cancer death rates for the least educated are more than twice the amount of that for the most educated. The report claims that if this difference was eradicated, 37 percent of the premature cancer deaths that happened in 2007 among those between 25 to 64 years old, could have been prevented. This number mirrors more than 60,000 lives.

Even though all this is good news, cancer is still the second-leading cause of death in the U.S. The ACS reports that cancer is responsible for almost one in every four deaths. Currently, only heart disease kills more.

Health risks are linked to access to restaurants

Published on June 16, 2011 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

A new study has concluded that the chance of early death from heart disease or diabetes increases with dining out too often. There is particular concern with dining out at fast-food restaurants.

It was found that early deaths from diabetes rose by 8 percent in neighborhoods near fast-food restaurants. The report also said that premature deaths from heart disease increased by 5 percent.

Unfortunately the study also found a link with full-service restaurants and health risks. According to the study, dying earlier from diabetes climbed by 3 percent for each full-service restaurant in or near a neighborhood.

Elizabeth Racine, the lead researcher for the Mecklenburg County Community Food Assessment, said “the number of restaurants that are available within an area is related to premature deaths. Although she said this, she does admit that more data is required to know for sure if restaurants have a direct link to mortality rates. She also said “You’d have to look at people over time to see if that exposure causes these things.”

These findings are very substantial considering that Americans spend 48 percent of their food dollars on average at restaurants based on estimates from the U.S. Departure of Agriculture, according to Racine.

Of course it is noteworthy to mention that many restaurants now offer healthy options. It is simply up to the customers to make healthy choices. Another thing to think about is that you can eat just as badly at home as you would in a restaurant.

Husbands who help with housework keep wives healthy

Published on May 31, 2011 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Finally some research that helps support all those women who have had to nag their husbands to get up off the couch and help with the housework. Scientists have found that women’s health and happiness depends heavily on whether or not her husband or partner helps with the housework.

To arrive at this conclusion, researchers studied the daily activities of 30 working couples in Los Angeles during a period of one week. The levels of the stress hormone cortisol was tracked in each couple. This hormone is at it’s peak during the day as it helps the body cope with physical and mental challenges, and in the evening, it usually decreases when the day’s activities slow down.

Unfortunately some people have unusually high cortisol levels and some even have levels that don’t fall at the end of the day. These people not only feel stressed, but they are susceptible to a variety of physical and mental illnesses. Studies have even indicated that they are prone to die at a younger age. This is why researchers thought that linking cortisol levels with evening activities of married parents would uncover a lot about how domestic routines influence health and happiness.

All the couples studied had at least one child living at home that was between the age of 8 and 10 and the median age of the parents was 41. On average, the women spent 30 percent of their nights doing housework and around 11 percent on relaxing activities. In contrast, the men spent 20 percent of their time doing housework and around 19 percent on leisure.

Not surprisingly, the scientists from University of Southern California, the University of Los Angeles and Connecticut College, discovered that spending too much time on chores in the evening tended to keep cortisol levels high in husbands and wives. Also, when they looked at the study more carefully they noticed that the cortisol levels of married women decreased more when their husbands helped with the housework. On the other hand, the dad’s cortisol wasn’t likely to drop unless they spent more time relaxing in the evening while their wives kept busy with chores.

The researchers wrote in the Journal of Family Psychology that “arguments about who’s doing the dishes and who’s flipping through channels have repercussions for the health of both spouses.” Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, an Ohio State University psychologist, says that this is especially true for working moms. She studies the effect of relationships on immune function.

Antipsychotic drugs given to elderly despite increased death risk

Published on May 19, 2011 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

A recent government audit discovered that almost one in every seven elderly nursing home residents are given strong atypical antipsychotic drugs, without the consideration that these medicines raise the risk of death and are not approved for such treatments. Nearly all of these patients have dementia. The FDA has warned that these drugs, usually given to patients with serious conditions such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, are not appropriate for these patients.

This audit found that in the first part of 2007, the federal Medicare program paid for antipsychotics that were given in error during the first six months  of 2007. This cost the program an astounding $116 million for that first half of that year.

Daniel Levinson, who is the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, wrote that “government, taxpayers, nursing home residents as well as their families and caregivers should be outraged and seek solutions.” He also pointed out that these drugs such as Risperdal, Zyprexa, Seroquel, Abilify and Geodon, are “potentially lethal” to some elderly patients and that some drug manufacturers illegally marketed their medicines for these uses “putting profits before safety.”

The audit is a rare evaluation done by the government to check if doctors are treating Medicare patients as they should in nursing homes. Levinson recommended that the government should keep a record of the diagnoses given to Medicare patients so it can determine if the drugs prescribed to them are accurate and suitable for the patients’ needs.

Even though this is common in the private sector, an oversight such as this is extremely rare in the Medicare program and would most likely be strongly advised against by doctors’ groups and most in Congress who see government intrusions into the doctor-patient relationship as wrong.

In reaction to the audit, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said that some of the inaccurate use of antipsychotics in elderly nursing home patients is the consequence of drug manufacturers paying kickbacks to nursing homes to increase those prescriptions.

Less women dying from lung cancer

Published on May 7, 2011 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

For the first time ever, the death rates for women dying from lung cancer are decreasing. Even though it is a minuscule amount, a little less than 1 percent a year, it still provides hope towards the battle against lung cancer.

Unfortunately lung cancer is still the nation’s, as well as the world’s, leading cancer killer. This said, this drop has been anticipated for a long time. A similar decrease began in U.S. men about ten years ago. Elizabeth Ward of the American Cancer Society, said “It looks like we’ve turned the corner.”

Thanks to the success against some of the main types of cancer – breast, prostate and colorectal, and lung cancer in men, death rates from cancer have been slowly dwindling for years. Preventing cancer is more beneficial than treating it, and the U.S. has reported small but significant declines in new cases as well.

The new report reveals that death rates have fallen on an average of 1.6 percent a year between 2003 and 2007, which is the latest data available. The researchers reported in the National Cancer Institute that rates of new diagnoses have diminished almost 1 percent a year.

Diagnosis and deaths are still on the increase for other types of cancer such as liver, kidney, melanoma and pancreatic cancer. Also, cancer is predominately a disease of the older population, and it is swiftly aging.

In general, men were heavier smokers long before women, which caused men’s lung cancer deaths to skyrocket first. Then in the early 1990s, death rates started to fall, and less young men fell into the habit. The new report showed that those rates were decreasing by 3 percent a year between 2005 and 2007. Researchers have been expecting the same thing to happen with women, so they began noting signs that death rates had started to slowly fall for a few years. Now that they have a straight five year trend, they are assured that the decrease is real, according to Brenda Edwards, a statistician from the National Cancer Institute.

Edwards mentioned that the cigarette industry targeted women in the late 1960s and ’70s. She called this “the Virginia Slims effect”. This escalated smoking for some young women around this time. She said that the death rate may temporarily be increased for these women as they get older.

Lung cancer is projected to kill more than 159,000 Americans this year. About 70,500 will be women.

More study advised on connection between food dyes and hyperactivity

Published on April 30, 2011 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

An advisory panel from the FDA has suggested that the agency study more about the tie between food coloring and childhood hyperactivity. This said, they claim that the products that have these dyes do not currently need warnings.

The committee voted 8 to 6 for food packages not to have warnings on packages with food colorings. Currently the products have to list the food colorings, but contain no warning about a potential link to hyperactivity. This committee consisted of doctors, scientists and consumer representatives.

The panel did agree with the FDA and indicated that there is not sufficient enough evidence to say that specific food dyes cause hyperactivity in most children. However, they were in accordance that diets that do not contain food dyes seem to work well for a considerable amount of children with behavior problems.

During a two-day meeting, the advisory committee looked at the links between the dyes and attention deficit disorder. The FDA agrees with studies that show  hyperactivity and other behavioral problems are worsened by food dyes, as well as other substances found in foods. For most children, there is no proven effect.

The FDA and the panel now must decide if all this should lead to more regulation. Academics who have been studying the issue, as well as public advocates, both agree that the dyes do not seem to be the main cause of hyperactivity, but they claim that the effects of specific dyes on a percentage of children has caused enough concern to support a ban on the additives.

The meeting was held by the FDA in reaction to a 2008 petition that was filed by the advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest to ban Yellow 5, Red 40 and six other dyes. The director of the group, Michael Jacobson, said that he is disappointed that panel members were looking for exact scientific evidence that the link exists. He is pleased  that at least the FDA is accepting the fact that food coloring may affect hyperactivity in some children.

Even though dyes are still found in U.S. foods, certain companies have decreased the use of dyes in food that are sold in Europe.