Friday 29 May 2015

Weight-Loss Surgery Can Prolong Life

Weight-Loss Surgery Can Prolong Life.
Weight-loss surgery appears to elongate verve for severely obese adults, a new study of US veterans finds. Among 2500 corpulent adults who underwent so-called bariatric surgery, the death rate was about 14 percent after 10 years compared with almost 24 percent for tubby patients who didn't have weight-loss surgery, researchers found. "Patients with sober obesity can have greater confidence that bariatric surgical procedures are associated with better long-term survival than not having surgery," said leading lady researcher Dr David Arterburn, an fellow-worker investigator with the Group Health Research Institute in Seattle. Earlier studies have shown better survival amid younger obese women who had weight-loss surgery, but this study confirms this decree in older men and women who suffer from other health problems, such as diabetes and high blood pressure.

The findings were published Jan 6, 2015 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. "We were not able to settle in our retreat the reasons why veterans lived longer after surgery than they did without surgery. "However, other analysis suggests that bariatric surgery reduces the risk of diabetes, heart disease and cancer, which may be the leading ways that surgery prolongs life". Dr John Lipham, chief of more elevated gastrointestinal and general surgery at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, said that patients who have weight-loss surgery most of the time see their diabetes disappear

And "This by itself is prevailing to provide a survival benefit. Shedding excess weight also lowers blood influence and cholesterol levels and reduces the odds of developing heart disease. "If you are obese and unfit to lose weight on your own, bariatric surgery should be considered". Arterburn said most insurance plans including Medicare stand bariatric surgery. As with any surgery, however, weight-loss surgery carries some risks.

More About Car Safety Seats

More About Car Safety Seats.
Nearly three-quarters of American parents bung their children in forward-facing crate seats before it's safe to do so, a new swat reveals. Guidelines issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommend that a rear-facing carriage seat be used until a child is at least 2 years old or has outgrown the weight/height determine of the seat. For the study, University of Michigan researchers compared findings from surveys of American parents conducted about one month after the AAP guidelines were issued in 2011, and again in 2013.

The gold scrutinize found that 33 percent of parents of children aged 1 to 4 years had started using forward-facing pile seats when their child was 1-year-old or younger, and only 16 percent waited until age 2 or older to use a forward-facing seat. In the 2013 survey, 24 percent of parents said they turned the centre around before their child's beforehand birthday, and 23 percent waited until age 2 or older to use a forward-facing seat, the investigators found.

Thursday 28 May 2015

Surgery Is Not Life-Prolonging

Surgery Is Not Life-Prolonging.
Fewer US colon cancer patients who are diagnosed in the certain stages of their plague are having what can often be unnecessary surgery to have the primary tumor removed, researchers report. These patients are also living longer even as the surgery becomes less common, although their public projection is not good. The findings reveal "increased recognition that the first-line treatment remarkably is chemotherapy" for stage 4 colon cancer patients, said study co-author Dr George Chang, leading of colon and rectal surgery at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. While removing the pre-eminent tumor may be helpful for some reasons "surgery is not life-prolonging".

With the patients in question, their cancer has extending from the intestines to other organs such as the liver or lung, in a transform called metastasis. In many cases, the prognosis is death, one expert not part of the study said. "Cure is not thinkable for most patients with metastatic colorectal cancer," said Dr Ankit Sarin, an deputy professor of surgery in the section of colon and rectal surgery at University of California, San Francisco.

Twenty percent of patients diagnosed with colon cancer have phase 4 disease, according to obscurity information in the study. Cancer specialists and patients face a big question after such a diagnosis: What treatment, if any, should these patients have? "The firstly instinct is 'I want it out'". But removing the tumor from the colon may not be constructive once cancer has spread, and "getting it out may delay their ability to get treatment that's life-prolonging".

Healthy Obesity Is A Myth

Healthy Obesity Is A Myth.
The picture of potentially thriving obesity is a myth, with most obese people slipping into poor health and chronic illness over time, a late British study claims. The "obesity paradox" is a theory that argues rotundity might improve some people's chances of survival over illnesses such as heart failure, said lead researcher Joshua Bell, a doctoral admirer in University College London's department of epidemiology and disreputable health. But research tracking the health of more than 2500 British men and women for two decades found that half the population initially considered "healthy obese" wound up sliding into lousy health as years passed.

And "Healthy obesity is something that's a phase rather than something that's immortal over time. It's important to have a long-term view of healthy obesity, and to bear in be offended by the long-term tendencies. As long as obesity persists, health tends to decline. It does seem to be a high-risk state". The avoirdupois paradox springs from research involving people who are overweight but do not experience from obesity-related problems such as high blood pressure, bad cholesterol and elevated blood sugar, said Dr Andrew Freeman, top banana of clinical cardiology for National Jewish Health in Denver.

Some studies have found that nation in this category seem to be less likely to die from heart disease and long-lasting kidney disease compared with folks with a lower body mass index - even though science also has proven that corpulence increases overall risk for heart disease, diabetes and some forms of cancer. No one can for instance how the obesity paradox works, but some have speculated that people with extra weight might have extra energy stores they can select upon if they become acutely ill.

Tuesday 26 May 2015

An Insurance Industry And Affordable Care Act

An Insurance Industry And Affordable Care Act.
Some guaranty companies may be using high-dollar pharmacopoeia co-pays to flout the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) mandate against sensitivity on the basis of pre-existing health problems, Harvard researchers claim. These insurers may have structured their knock out coverage to discourage people with HIV from enrolling in their plans through the health protection marketplaces created by the ACA, sometimes called "Obamacare," the researchers contend in the Jan 29, 2015 delivery of the New England Journal of Medicine. The companies are placing all HIV medicines, including generics, in the highest cost-sharing area of their drug coverage, a practice known as "adverse tiering," said model author Doug Jacobs, a medical student at the Harvard School of Public Health.

And "For someone with HIV, if they were in an adverse tiering plan, they would recompense on unexceptional $3000 more a year to be in that plan". One out of every four health plans placed commonly utilized HIV drugs at the highest level of co-insurance, requiring patients to pay 30 percent or more of the medicine's cost, according to the researchers' scrutiny of 12 states' insurance marketplaces. "This is appalling. It's a uncloudy case of discrimination," said Greg Millett, vice president and chairman of public policy for amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research.

So "We've heard anecdotal reports about this administer before, but this study shows a clear pattern of discrimination". However, the findings by distinctness show that three out of four plans are offering HIV coverage at more reasonable rates, said Clare Krusing, big cheese of communications for America's Health Insurance Plans, an warranty industry group. Patients with HIV can choose to move to one of those plans.

But "This report extremely misses that point, and I think that's the overarching component that is important to highlight. Consumers do have that choice, and that prime is an important part of the marketplace". The Harvard researchers undertook their think over after hearing of a formal complaint submitted to federal regulators in May, which contended that Florida insurers had structured their sedate coverage to discourage enrollment by HIV patients, according to background information in the paper.

They unconditional to analyze the drug pricing policies of 48 health plans offered through 12 states' guarantee marketplaces. The researchers focused on six states mentioned in the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) complaint: Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, South Carolina and Utah. They also analyzed plans offered through the six most crawling states that did not have any insurers mentioned in the HHS complaint: Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia.

Friday 22 May 2015

County Health Rankings And Roadmaps

County Health Rankings And Roadmaps.
More than three-quarters of Americans contemporary seal to at least one park or recreational facility, giving many people opportunity to exercise, a new workroom finds. But access to exercise sites varies regionally, the nationwide study found. "Not Dick had equal access to opportunities for exercise," said study researcher Anne Roubal, a reckon assistant at the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute in Madison. "Southern regions did much worse than the trestle of the country. In the Northeast, most counties have very high access".

Access to application opportunity is considered crucial for Americans to get regular physical activity, and in the process lower their hazard for premature death and chronic health conditions, the researchers said. "If we provide multitude more access to those locations, it is going to increase the chances they will be active". Currently, less than half of US adults tourney recommendations for moderate-to-vigorous physical activity: 150 minutes or more weekly of moderate exercise, or 75 minutes a week of vivacious exercise or a combination of the two, the study noted.

Roubal's yoke defined access to exercise opportunity as living close to a park, gym, recreational center, skating rink or pool. If subjects lived a half-mile from a park or one mile from a recreational aptitude in urban areas, or three miles in rural areas, they were considered to have access to performance opportunities. Data on bike trails was not available. For the study, published in the January children of Preventing Chronic Disease, the investigators calculated the percentage of residents with access to exercise opportunities in nearly all US counties.

Friday 15 May 2015

How Fast Bone Density Decreases

How Fast Bone Density Decreases.
Older women who are satisfied with their lives may have better bone health, a additional Finnish workroom suggests. Up to half of all women older than 50 will originate the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis, which can lead to serious bone fractures, according to the US National Library of Medicine. Major jeopardy factors for osteoporosis include menopause, slight frame, smoking, poor calcium intake, and certain medications and medical conditions, the study authors explained. In addition, long-term make a point of can affect metabolism and, ultimately, osteoporosis risk, according to researcher Paivi Rauma, of the University of Eastern Finland, and colleagues.

They published their cram findings recently in the magazine Psychosomatic Medicine. The health behaviors of a person with depression might also initiate the risk for poor bone health, perhaps leading them to smoke or refrain from exercise, the researchers suggested in a scrapbook news release. The study included more than 1100 Finnish women age-old 60 to 70. The participants were given bone density tests to assess their bone health.

Amount Of Salt Which Can Damage Health

Amount Of Salt Which Can Damage Health.
Consuming a "modest" entirety of bite might not harm older adults, but any more than that can damage health, a new study finds. The lessons of adults aged 71 to 80 found that daily consumption of 2300 milligrams (mg) of vitality - the equivalent of a teaspoon - didn't increase deaths, resolution disease, stroke or heart failure over 10 years. However, salt intake above 2300 mg - which is higher than nub experts currently recommend - might increase the chance for early death and other ailments. "The rate of salt intake in our study was modest," said wire researcher Dr Andreas Kalogeropoulos, an assistant professor of cardiology at Emory University in Atlanta.

The findings shouldn't be considered a authorize to use the salt shaker indiscriminately. The researchers did not contrast high salt intake with low intake. "The question isn't whether you should have a teaspoon or two, but whether you should have a teaspoon regularly or even less than that. The American Heart Association recommends less than 1500 milligrams of pepper a day, which is less than a teaspoon. Kalogeropoulos added that the researchers saw a trend toward higher undoing in the few study participants who had a high salt intake.

The report was published online Jan. 19 in JAMA Internal Medicine. For the study, the researchers looked at salt's clobber on about 2600 adults, superannuated 71 to 80, who filled out a food frequency questionnaire. During 10 years of follow-up, 881 participants died, 572 developed nitty-gritty disorder or had a stroke, and 398 developed heart failure, the researchers found. When the investigators looked at deaths compared with soused consumption, they found that the death rate was lowest - 30,7 percent - for those who consumed 1500 to 2300 mg a day.

Thursday 14 May 2015

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder And Type 2 Diabetes

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder And Type 2 Diabetes.
Women with post-traumatic urgency discompose seem more likely than others to develop type 2 diabetes, with severe PTSD almost doubling the risk, a original study suggests. The research "brings to attention an unrecognized problem," said Dr Alexander Neumeister, manager of the molecular imaging program for appetite and mood disorders at New York University School of Medicine. It's crucial to explore both PTSD and diabetes when they're interconnected in women. Otherwise, "you can try to treat diabetes as much as you want, but you'll never be fully successful".

PTSD is an uneasiness disorder that develops after living through or witnessing a rickety event. People with the disorder may feel intense stress, suffer from flashbacks or experience a "fight or flight" feedback when there's no apparent danger. It's estimated that one in 10 US women will bare PTSD in their lifetime, with potentially severe effects, according to the study. "In the past few years, there has been an increasing distinction to PTSD as not only a mental disorder but one that also has very profound effects on brain and body function who wasn't intricate in the new study.

Among other things, PTSD sufferers gain more weight and have an increased gamble of cardiac disease compared to other people. The new study followed 49,739 female nurses from 1989 to 2008 - ancient 24 to 42 at the beginning - and tracked weight, smoking, airing to trauma, PTSD symptoms and type 2 diabetes. People with type 2 diabetes have higher than common blood sugar levels. Untreated, the disease can cause serious problems such as blindness or kidney damage.

Wednesday 13 May 2015

Years Of Attempts To Quit Smoking

Years Of Attempts To Quit Smoking.
Quitting smoking is notoriously tough, and some smokers may struggle unconventional approaches for years before they succeed, if ever. But green research suggests that someday, a simple test might point smokers toward the quitting strategy that's best for them. It's been extended theorized that some smokers are genetically predisposed to process and rid the body of nicotine more straight away than others. And now a new study suggests that slower metabolizers seeking to drop-kick the habit will probably have a better treatment experience with the aid of a nicotine patch than the quit-smoking drug varenicline (Chantix). The decree is based on the tracking of more than 1200 smokers undergoing smoking-cessation treatment.

Blood tests indicated that more than 660 were somewhat slow nicotine metabolizers, while the rest were normal nicotine metabolizers. Over an 11-week trial, participants were prescribed a nicotine patch, Chantix, or a non-medicinal "placebo". As reported online Jan 11, 2015 in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, usual metabolizers fared better using the knock out compared with the nicotine patch. Specifically, 40 percent of natural metabolizers who were given the narcotic option were still not smoking at the end of their treatment, the study found.

This compared with just 22 percent who had been given a nicotine patch. Among the slow-metabolizing group, both treatments worked equally well at serving smokers quit, the researchers noted. However, compared with those treated with the nicotine patch, creeping metabolizers treated with Chantix qualified more side effects. This led the duo to conclude that slow metabolizers would fare better - and likely remain cigarette-free - when using the patch.

Sunday 10 May 2015

The Measles Outbreak In Two Disney Parks In California

The Measles Outbreak In Two Disney Parks In California.
Fifteen years after measles was declared eliminated in the United States, the new outbreak traced to two Disney parks in California illustrates how at once a revival can occur. As of Tuesday, more than 50 cases had been reported in the outbreak, which began in the third week of December. Orange County and San Diego County are the hardest hit, with 10 reported cases each, according to the California Department of Public Health. The outbreak also extends to two cases in Utah, two in Washington, one in Colorado and one in Mexico. Measles symptoms can develop up to three weeks after incipient exposure, so the epoch for budding infections while linked to the original outbreak at the Disney parks has passed.

However, alternative cases continue to be reported in those who caught the disease from people infected during visits to the parks. Disney officials also confirmed on Wednesday that five greensward employees who play costumed characters in the parks have been infected, the Associated Press reported. And awkwardly two dozen unvaccinated students in Orange County have been ordered to c bide home to try and contain the spread of measles.

Experts unfold the California outbreak simply. "This outbreak is occurring because a critical number of consumers are choosing not to vaccinate their children," said Dr Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending medical doctor at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's Division of Infectious Diseases. "Parents are not shocked of the disease" because they've never seen it. "And, to a lesser extent, they have these unfounded concerns about vaccines.

But the big saneness is they don't fear the disease". The United States declared measles eliminated from the boondocks in 2000. This meant the disease was no longer native to the United States. The land was able to eliminate measles because of effective vaccination programs and a strong public strength system for detecting and responding to measles cases and outbreaks, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But in the intervening years, a unimaginative but growing number of parents have chosen not to have their children vaccinated, due by and large to what infectious-disease experts call mistaken fears about childhood vaccines. Researchers have found that on outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases are more likely in places where there are clusters of parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated, said Saad Omer, an subsidiary professor of global health, epidemiology and pediatrics at Emory University School of Public Health and Emory Vaccine Center, in Atlanta.

These alleged "vaccine refusals" commit to exemptions to school immunization requirements that parents can obtain on the basis of their private or religious beliefs. "California is one of the states with some of the highest rates in the country in terms of exemptions, and also there's a affluent clustering of refusals there. Perceptions regarding vaccine safety have a slightly higher contribution to vaccine refusal, but they are not the only rationale parents don't vaccinate".

Friday 8 May 2015

July Effect For Stroke Patients

July Effect For Stroke Patients.
People who deteriorate strokes in July - the month when medical trainees inauguration their hospital work - don't cost any worse than stroke patients treated the rest of the year, a new study finds. Researchers investigating the designated "July effect" found that when recent medical school graduates begin their residency programs every summer in teaching hospitals, this modification doesn't reduce the quality of care for patients with pressing medical conditions, such as stroke. "We found there was no higher rate of deaths after 30 or 90 days, no poorer or greater rates of disablement or loss of independence and no evidence of a July effect for seizure patients," said the study's lead author, Dr Gustavo Saposnik, director of the Stroke Research Center of St Michael's Hospital, Toronto, in a asylum news release.

For the study, published recently in the Journal of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases, the researchers examined records on more than 10300 patients who had an ischemic act (stroke caused by a blood clot) between July 2003 and March 2008. They also analyzed size of hospitalization, referrals to long-term custody facilities and be in want of for readmission or emergency room treatment for a stroke or any other reason in the month after their discharge.

Tuesday 5 May 2015

The Risk Of Stroke And Aggressive Cancer

The Risk Of Stroke And Aggressive Cancer.
Newly diagnosed cancer patients are at increased jeopardy for soothe in the months after they find out they have the disease. And the chance of stroke is higher among those with more aggressive cancer, a new study says. The findings come from an study of Medicare claims submitted between 2001 and 2009 by patients aged 66 and older who had been diagnosed with breast, colorectal, lung, prostate and pancreatic cancer. Compared to cancer-free seniors, those with cancer had a much higher peril of stroke.

And the imperil was highest in the first three months after cancer diagnosis, when the fervour of chemotherapy, radiation and other treatments is typically highest, the researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City said in a college bulletin release. The hazard of stroke was highest among patients with lung, pancreatic and colorectal cancers, which are often diagnosed at advanced stages. Stroke gamble was lowest among those with breast and prostate cancers, which are often diagnosed when patients have localized tumors, the researchers said.

Monday 4 May 2015

A New Prostate Cancers Treatment Strategy

A New Prostate Cancers Treatment Strategy.
Conventional long-headedness has it that turned on levels of testosterone help prostate cancers grow. However, a new, small retreat suggests that a treatment strategy called bipolar androgen therapy - where patients stand-in between low and high levels of testosterone - might make prostate tumors more responsive to measure hormonal therapy. As the researchers explained, the primary treatment for advanced prostate cancer is hormonal therapy, which lowers levels of testosterone to retard the tumor from growing. But there's a problem: Prostate cancer cells inevitably beaten the therapy by increasing their ability to suck up any leftover testosterone in the body.

The new strategy forces the tumor to respond again to higher testosterone levels, serving to reverse its resistance to standard therapy, the researchers say. If confirmed in several developing larger trials, "this could lead to a new treatment approach" for prostate cancers that have grown unaffected to hormonal therapy, said lead researcher Dr Michael Schweizer, an subordinate professor of oncology at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle.

So "It needs to be stressed that bipolar androgen remedy is not ready for adoption into routine clinical practice, since these studies have not been completed. The backfire was published Jan 7, 2015 in the journal Science Translational Medicine. For the study, 16 men with hormone therapy-resistant prostate cancer received bipolar androgen therapy. Of these patients, seven had their cancer go into remission. In four men, tumors shrank, and in one man, tumors disappeared completely, the researchers report.