A New Technique For Reducing Cravings For Junk Food

A New Technique For Reducing Cravings For Junk Food.
Researchers piece that they may have hit on a budding trick for weight loss: To eat less of a certain food, they suggest you prophesy yourself gobbling it up beforehand. Repeatedly imagining the consumption of a food reduces one's edacity for it at that moment, said lead researcher Carey Morewedge, an assistant professor of social and conclusion sciences at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. "Most people think that imagining a chow increases their desire for it and whets their appetite. Our findings show that it is not so simple," she said.

Thinking of a food - how it tastes, smells or looks - does multiplication our appetite. But performing the mental symbolism of actually eating that food decreases our desire for it, Morewedge added. For the study, published in the Dec 10, 2010 flow of Science, Morewedge's team conducted five experiments. In one, 51 individuals were asked to dream up doing 33 repetitive actions, one at a time.

A jurisdiction group imagined putting 33 coins into a washing machine. Another collection imagined putting 30 quarters into the washer and eating three M&Ms. A third circle imagined feeding three quarters into the washer and eating 30 M&Ms. The individuals were then invited to nosh freely from a bowl of M&Ms.

Those who had imagined eating 30 candies in truth ate fewer candies than the others, the researchers found. To be ineluctable the results were related to imagination, the researchers then mixed up the experiment by changing the number of coins and M&Ms. Again, those who imagined eating the most candies ate the fewest.

The Number Of End-Stage Renal Disease In Diabetic Patients Decreased By 35% Over The Past 10 Years

The Number Of End-Stage Renal Disease In Diabetic Patients Decreased By 35% Over The Past 10 Years.
The percentage of different cases of end-stage kidney complaint requiring dialysis among Americans diagnosed with diabetes level 35 percent between 1996 and 2007, a new study has found. The age-adjusted figure of end-stage kidney disease, also known as end-stage renal disease (ESRD), that was linked to diabetes declined from 304,5 to about 199 per 100000 kinsfolk during that time. The declining rates occurred in all regions and in most states.

No grandeur had a significant increase in the age-adjusted rate of unusual cases of the condition, the researchers report in the Oct 29, 2010 issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ESRD, which is kidney bankruptcy requiring dialysis or transplantation, is a costly and disabling health that can lead to premature death. Diabetes is the matchless cause of ESRD in the United States and accounted for 44 percent of the approximately 110000 cases that began healing in 2007.

Dialysis Six Times A Week For Some Patients Better Than Three

Dialysis Six Times A Week For Some Patients Better Than Three.
Kidney failing patients who double-barrelled the number of weekly dialysis treatments typically prescribed had significantly better sensitivity function, overall health and general quality of life, new scrutinization indicates. The finding stems from an analysis that compared the impact of the 40-year-old standard of concern - three dialysis treatments per week, for three to four hours per period - with a six-day a week treatment regimen involving sessions of 2,5 to three hours per session. Launched in 2006, the similarity involved 245 dialysis patients assigned to either a typical dialysis schedule or the high-frequency option. All participants underwent MRIs to assess pluck muscle structure, and all completed quality-of-life surveys.

In addition to improved cardiovascular healthfulness and overall health, the analysis further revealed that two concerns faced by most kidney failure patients - blood arm-twisting and phosphate level control - also fared better under the more frequent remedying program. Dr Glenn Chertow, chief of the nephrology division at Stanford University School of Medicine, reports his team's observations in the Nov 20, 2010 online copy of the New England Journal of Medicine, to co-occur with a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Society of Nephrology in Denver.

And "Kidneys function seven days a week, 24 hours a day," Chertow respected in a Stanford University news release. "You could imagine why people might feel better if dialysis were to more closely imitative kidney function. But you have to factor in the burden of additional sessions, the rove and the cost".

Two New Tests To Determine The Future Of Patients With Diseased Kidneys

Two New Tests To Determine The Future Of Patients With Diseased Kidneys.
Researchers have come up with two budding tests that seem better able to vaticinate which patients with dyed in the wool kidney disease are more likely to progress to kidney failure and death. This could help streamline care, getting those patients who privation it most the care they need, while perhaps sparing other patients unnecessary interventions. "The late markers provide us with an opportunity to address kidney disease prior to its panel stage," said Dr Ernesto P Molmenti, vice chairman of surgery and captain of the transplant program at the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in Manhasset, NY - "Such primordial treatment could provide for increased survival, as well as enhanced quality of life".

And "The brute problem right now is the tests we use currently just are not very good at identifying people's progressing to either more advanced kidney bug or end-stage kidney disease, so this has big implications in trying to determine who will progress," said Dr Troy Plumb, interim key of nephrology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. But, he added, "there are affluent to have to be validated clinical trials" before these young tests are introduced into clinical practice.

Both studies will appear in the April 20 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, but were released Monday to match with presentations at the World Congress of Nephrology, in Vancouver. Some 23 million community in the United States have chronic kidney disease, which can often forge ahead to kidney failure (making dialysis or a transplant necessary), and even death. But experts have no real good way to predict who will progress to more serious disease or when.

Right now, kidney function, or glomerular filtration rank (GFR), is based on measuring blood levels of creatinine, a unproductive product that is normally removed from the body by the kidneys. The first set of study authors, from the San Francisco VA Medical Center, added two other measurements to the mix: GFR regulated by cystatin C, a protein also eliminated from the body by the kidneys; and albuminuria, or too much protein in the urine.

Chronic Heartburn Is Often No Great Risk Of Esophageal Cancer

Chronic Heartburn Is Often No Great Risk Of Esophageal Cancer.
Contrary to public belief, acid reflux disease, better known as heartburn, is not much of a endanger agent for esophageal cancer for most people, according to new research. "It's a rare cancer," said investigate author Dr Joel H Rubenstein, an assistant professor in the University of Michigan branch of internal medicine. "About 1 in 4 people have symptoms of GERD acid reflux infection and that's a lot of people," he said. "But 25 percent of people aren't common to get this cancer. No way".

GERD is characterized by the frequent rise of stomach acid into the esophagus. Rubenstein said he was upset that as medical technology advances, enthusiasm for screening for esophageal cancer will increase, though there is no testimony that widespread screening has a benefit. About 8000 cases of esophageal cancer are diagnosed in the United States each year, he said.

The examination was published this month in the American Journal of Gastroenterology. Using computer models based on text from a national cancer registry and other published dig into about acid reflux disease, the study found only 5920 cases of esophageal cancer to each whites younger than 80 years old, with or without acid reflux disease, in the US populace in 2005.

However, white men over 60 years old with regular acid reflux symptoms accounted for 36 percent of these cases. Women accounted for only 12 percent of the cases, no matter what of epoch and whether or not they had acid reflux disease. People with no acid reflux symptoms accounted for 34 percent of the cases, the authors said. Men under 60 accounted for 33 percent of the cases.

For women, the peril for the cancer was negligible, about the same as that of men for developing soul cancer, or less than 1 percent, the researchers said. Yet the infinite majority of gastroenterologists surveyed said they would recommend screening for youthful men with acid reflux symptoms, and many would send women for the testing as well, according to enquire cited in the study.

In Men With Prostate Cancer Observed Decrease In Penis Size

In Men With Prostate Cancer Observed Decrease In Penis Size.
A puny loads of men with prostate cancer complain that their penis appears to be shorter following treatment, doctors report. According to researchers from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women's Cancer Center, Boston, these patients said that this unexpected surface make interfered with their dear relationships and made them regret the type of treatment they had chosen. "Prostate cancer is one of the few cancers where patients have a hand-picked of therapies, and because of the range of possible side effects, it can be a tough choice," ponder leader Dr Paul Nguyen, a radiation oncologist, said in a Dana-Farber news release.

So "This go into says that when penile shortening does occur, it really does affect patients and their mark of life. It's something we should be discussing up front so that it will help reduce treatment regrets". The affectation effect was most common among men who had prostatectomies, which is the surgical removal of the prostate, and those who had hormone-based psychotherapy coupled with radiation. Nguyen added that most patients are able to cope with just about any side effect if they identify about it in advance.

The study involved 948 men with recurrent prostate cancer. The men were enrolled in a registry that collects communication on patients whose prostate cancer shows signs of coming back after their earliest treatment. Most of the men were between the ages of 60 and 80. Of the men elaborate in the study, 54 percent had their prostate surgically removed, 24 percent received emanation combined with hormone-blocking treatment and 22 percent chose to undergo only radiation.

Some Medicines Purchased Via The Internet Can Be Dangerous

Some Medicines Purchased Via The Internet Can Be Dangerous.
Internet-based companies store them, men keep up to buy them and experts continue to apprise of the dangers of counterfeit drugs for erectile dysfunction. A new study, conducted in South Korea and slated for conferring Monday at the American Urological Association annual meeting in San Francisco, finds that not only can these copy drugs be contaminated, they may contain too much of the active ingredient or none at all. The drugs could especially be risky for men with hypertension or heart disease, the study found.

The message? Stay away from non-prescription erectile dysfunction (ED) drugs, the experts say. "There are lots of rip-offs," said Dr John Morley, captain of geriatrics and acting boss of endocrinology at Saint Louis University. "There's still a lot of denote that many of the things you buy off the Internet without going through a regular dispensary might appear cheaper or better but they're usually not and they usually don't work".

Drugs known as phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors (PDE5Is) are old widely by men with erectile dysfunction - and sometimes by those without the condition. Perhaps the best known of the extraction are sildenafil (Viagra) and tadalafil (Cialis). Since it was developed in 1998, the make available for these and similar products - legitimate or not - has mushroomed.

Do Not Feed Pets Sugar In Any Form To Keep Them Healthy

Do Not Feed Pets Sugar In Any Form To Keep Them Healthy.
A not-so surprising part is now appearing in those treats your mood craves. Over the whilom five years, sugar has increasingly been added to some popular brands of dog and cat treats to depute them more palatable and profitable, according to veterinarian Dr Ernie Ward, break down of the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention. Noting that 90 million US pets are considered overweight, Ward said, "If I could only idea to one factor causing the modern-day smooge obesity epidemic, it would have to be treats. It's that seemingly innocent extra 50 calories a date in the form of a chew or cookie that adds up to a pound or two each year".

And "Dogs, be humans, have a sweet tooth, and manufacturers know this," Ward added. "If a dog gobbles a survey quickly, an owner is more likely to give another, and another". Americans spend more than $2 billion annually on dog and cat treats, according to Euromonitor International, a call research firm. In fact, some of the largest players in the cosset food industry are companies also producing humane snack foods, including Del Monte, Nestle, and Proctor & Gamble.

To care for pets trim and healthy, Ward tells owners to avoid treats with any form of sugar (such as sucrose, dextrose, or fructose) listed as one of the culmination three ingredients. "The summation of sugar to pet treats has increased not only the calories but also the potential risk of insulin resistance and diabetes".

Veterinarian Dr Jennifer Larsen, an helpmate professor of clinical nutrition at the University of California's School of Veterinary Medicine in Davis, explained that sugar is cast-off in foods and treats for a variety of reasons, and only some of those are agnate to palatability. For example, corn syrup is used as a thickener and to delay the dough for separate mixing of ingredients, and dextrose is used to evenly distribute moisture throughout a food.

"Sugar has a duty in the physical and taste characteristics of many products, helping to mask bitter flavors imparted by acidifying agents, or changing the nature of specific treat types," she said. Still, consumers persist in the dark as to how much sugar commercial pet treats contain. Unlike human foods, the number of sugar isn't listed on the label. New labeling regulations are currently being considered, though, that would let it be known maximum sugar and starch content.

Ethnic And Racial Differences Were Found In The Levels Of Biomarkers C-Reactive Protein In The Blood

Ethnic And Racial Differences Were Found In The Levels Of Biomarkers C-Reactive Protein In The Blood.
Levels of the blood biomarker C-reactive protein (CRP) can transform all conflicting racial and ethnic groups, which might be a timbre in determining heart-disease risk and the value of cholesterol-lowering drugs, a new British study suggests. CRP is a writing on the wall of inflammation, and elevated levels have been linked - but not proven - to an increased danger for heart disease.

Cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins can reduce heart risk and CRP, but it's not totally if lowering levels of CRP helps to reduce heart-disease risk. "The dissimilarity in CRP between populations was sufficiently large as to influence how many people from different populations would be considered at boisterous risk of heart attack based on an isolated CRP measurement and would also affect the relation of people eligible for statin treatment," said study researcher Aroon D Hingorani, a professor of genetic epidemiology and British Heart Foundation Senior Research Fellow at University College London. "The results of the mainstream analysis indicate they physicians should bear ethnicity in be bothered in interpreting the CRP value," she added.

The report is published in the Sept 28, 2010 online issue of Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics. For the study, Hingorani and her colleagues reviewed 89 studies that included more than 221000 people. They found that CRP levels differed by blood and ethnicity, with blacks having the highest levels at an customary of 2,6 milligrams per liter (mg/L) of blood. Hispanics were next (2,51 mg/L), followed by South Asians (2,34 mg/L), whites (2,03 mg/L), and East Asians (1,01 mg/L).

New Blood Thinner Pill For Patients With Deep Vein Thrombosis

New Blood Thinner Pill For Patients With Deep Vein Thrombosis.
A reborn anti-clotting pill, rivaroxaban (Xarelto), may be an effective, ready and safer healing for patients coping with deep-vein thrombosis (DVT), a pair of new studies indicate. According to the research, published online Dec 4, 2010 in the New England Journal of Medicine, the knock out could bid a new option for these potentially life-threatening clots, which most typically produce in the lower leg or thigh. The findings are also slated for presentation Saturday at the annual convention of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), in Orlando, Fla.

And "These study outcomes may at all change the way that patients with DVT are treated," study author Dr Harry R Buller, a professor of drug at the Academic Medical Center at the University of Amsterdam, said in an ASH announcement release. "This new treatment regimen of oral rivaroxaban can potentially deliver blood clot therapy easier than the current standard treatment for both the patient and the physician, with a single-drug and forthright fixed-dose approach".

Another heart expert agreed. "Rivaroxiban is at least as effective as the older painkiller warfarin and seems safer. It is also far easier to use since it does not require blood testing to patch up the dose," said cardiologist Dr Alan Kadish, currently president of Touro College in New York City.

The survey was funded in part by Bayer Schering Pharma, which markets rivaroxaban most the United States. Funding also came from Ortho-McNeil, which will market the drug in the United States should it improvement US Food and Drug Administration approval. In March 2009, an FDA admonitory panel recommended the drug be approved, but agency review is ongoing pending further study.

The authors note that upwards of 2 million Americans occurrence a DVT each year. These pin clots - sometimes called "economy flight syndrome" since they've been associated with the immobilization of yearn flights - can migrate to the lungs to form potentially deadly pulmonary embolisms. The fashionable standard of care typically involves treatment with relatively well-known anti-coagulant medications, such as the word-of-mouth medication warfarin (Coumadin) and/or the injected medication heparin.

While effective, in some patients these drugs can eager unstable responses, as well as problematic interactions with other medications. For warfarin in particular, the unrealized also exists for the development of severe and life-threatening bleeding. Use of these drugs, therefore, requires sincere and continuous monitoring. The search for a safer and easier to administer curing option led Buller's team to analyze two sets of data: One that perforated rivaroxaban against the standard anti-clotting drug enoxaparin (a heparin-type medication), and the second which compared rivaroxaban with a placebo.

Traffic Seems To Increase Kids' Asthma Attacks

Traffic Seems To Increase Kids' Asthma Attacks.
Air fouling from borough traffic appears to increase asthma attacks in kids that require an emergency chamber visit, a new study reports. The effect was found to be strongest during the warmer parts of the year. The researchers who conducted the study, done in Atlanta, were tiresome to pinpoint which components of pollution recreation the biggest role in making asthma worse. So "Characterizing the associations between ambient display pollutants and pediatric asthma exacerbations, particularly with respect to the chemical composition of particulate matter, can supporter us better understand the impact of these different components and can help to inform public health behaviour decisions," the study's lead author, Matthew J Strickland, an assistant professor of environmental salubriousness at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, said in a news publicity from the American Thoracic Society.

The researchers examined the medical records of children 5 to 17 years past one's prime who had been treated in Atlanta-area emergency rooms from 1993 to 2004 because of asthma attacks. Data were gathered from more than 90,000 asthma-related visits. They then analyzed connections between the visits and common text on the levels of 11 different pollutants.

The researchers found signs that ozone worsens asthma, as they had expected. But they also found indications that components of corruption that comes from combustion engines, such as those in cars and trucks, were also linked to perilous asthma problems in kids. Results of the study were published online April 22 in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Asthma is a lingering (long-term) lung affliction that inflames and narrows the airways. Asthma causes recurring periods of wheezing (a whistling signal when you breathe), chest tightness, shortness of breath, and coughing. The coughing often occurs at tenebrousness or early in the morning. Asthma affects people of all ages, but it most often starts in childhood.

Normal Levels Of Vitamin D Is Associated With Improved Treatment Of Some Leukemia Patients

Normal Levels Of Vitamin D Is Associated With Improved Treatment Of Some Leukemia Patients.
Patients with a definite sort of leukemia who had scarce vitamin D levels when their cancer was diagnosed saw their disease progress much faster and were two times more fitting to die than those with adequate vitamin D levels, a new study finds. Researchers also discovered that increasing vitamin D levels in patients was linked to longer survival times, even after controlling for other factors associated with leukemia progression. This is an respected conclusion for both patients and doctors, according to the researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn and the University of Iowa.

The disorder - dyed in the wool lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) - is cancer of the white blood cells (lymphocytes) and mainly affects adults. Although CLL is often diagnosed at an original stage, the standard approach is to mark time until patients develop symptoms before beginning chemotherapy, explained study author and hematologist Dr Tait Shanafelt.

New Methods Of Treatment Of Intestinal Infections

New Methods Of Treatment Of Intestinal Infections.
Here's a unique construction on the old idea of not letting anything go to waste. According to a small new Dutch study, considerate stool - which contains billions of useful bacteria - can be donated from one human to another to cure a severe, common and recurrent bacterial infection. People who have the infection, called Clostridium difficile (or C difficile), observation long bouts of severe diarrhea, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting. For many, antibiotics are ineffective.

To press matters worse, prepossessing antibiotics for months and months wipes out a large percentage of bacteria that would normally be accommodating in fighting the infection. "Clostridium difficile only grows when normal bacteria are absent," explained investigate author Dr Josbert Keller, a gastroenterologist at Hagaziekenhuis Hospital, in The Hague. The stool from a donor, conflicting with a salt solution called saline, can be instilled into the crazy person's intestinal system, almost like parachuting a team of commandos into enemy territory.

The vigorous person's abundant and diverse gut bacteria go to work within days, wiping out the stubborn C difficile that the antibiotics have failed to kill, according to the study. "Everybody makes jokes about this, but for the patients it very makes a big difference," Keller said. "People are desperate".

The research, published Jan 16, 2013 in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that the infusion of benefactor stool was significantly more serviceable in treating iterative C difficile infection than was vancomycin, an antibiotic. Of the 16 boning up participants, 13 (81 percent) of the patients had resolution of their infection after just one infusion of stool and two others were cured with a support treatment. The approach is not new, but this research is the first controlled whack ever done, according to Dr Ciaran Kelly, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the designer of an editorial accompanying the research.

Previous reports have been simple case studies, which are considered less conclusive. C difficile is the most commonly identified cause of hospital-acquired communicable diarrhea in the United States, according to Kelly. The take care of of giving and receiving a stool donation is relatively simple. Study author Keller said participants typically asked lineage members to donate part of a bowel movement, thoughtful it would be more comfortable to receive such a donation of such a substance from someone they knew.

Reduction Of Distress In Children During Stem Cell Transplantation

Reduction Of Distress In Children During Stem Cell Transplantation.
For children undergoing staunch cubicle transplantation, complementary therapies such as massage and humor group therapy don't seem to reduce their distress, researchers found. Stem cell transplantation is Euphemistic pre-owned to treat cancer and other illnesses, and it is a prolonged and physically demanding process that often causes children and their families lofty levels of distress, the authors of the study noted.

Previous studies have shown that complementary therapies, such as hypnosis and massage, can every so often help adult patients cope with stem cell transplantation. The results of the creative US study, which included 178 children undergoing stem apartment transplantation at four medical centers, were released online July 12 in advance of booklet in an upcoming print issue of the journal Cancer.

Antiretroviral Therapy Works, And HIV-Infected People Live Long

Antiretroviral Therapy Works, And HIV-Infected People Live Long.
Better treatments are extending the lives of tribe with HIV, but aging with the AIDS-causing virus takes a ringing that will trial the health care system, a new report says. A survey of about 1000 HIV-positive men and women ages 50 and older living in New York City found more than half had symptoms of depression, a much higher charge than others their lifetime without HIV.

And 91 percent also had other habitual medical conditions, such as arthritis (31 percent), hepatitis (31 percent), neuropathy (30 percent) and considerable blood pressure (27 percent). About 77 percent had two or more other conditions. About half had progressed to AIDS before they got the HIV diagnosis, the appear found. "The elevated news is antiretroviral therapies are working and people are living.

If all goes well, they will have sustenance expectancies similar to those without HIV," said Daniel Tietz, executive director of the AIDS Community Research Initiative of America. "But a 55-year-old with HIV tends to appearance like a 70-year-old without HIV in terms of the other conditions they have occasion for treatment for," he said Wednesday at a meeting of the Office of National AIDS Policy at the White House in Washington, DC.

The examination included interviews with 640 men, 264 women and 10 transgender people. Dozens of experts on HIV and aging attended the meeting, which was intended to recognize the needs of older adults with HIV and to investigate ways to better services to them. Currently, about 27 percent of those with HIV are over 50. By 2015, more than half will be, said the report.

Because of their exceptional needs, this poses challenges for social health systems and organizations that serve seniors and people with HIV, Tietz said. HIV can be isolating, Tietz said. Seventy percent of older Americans with HIV active alone, more than twice the evaluate of others their age, while about 15 percent live with a partner, according to the report.