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.

Wednesday, 29 April 2015

Sleep, Learning And Memory

Sleep, Learning And Memory.
Babies alter and preserve memories during those many naps they defraud during the day, a new study suggests. "We discovered that sleeping shortly after information helps infants to retain memories over extended periods of time," said study creator Sabine Seehagen, a child and adolescent psychology researcher with Ruhr University Bochum in Germany. "In both of our experiments, only those infants who took an extended nod for at least half an hour within four hours after erudition remembered the information". The study doesn't definitively confirm that the naps themselves supporter the memories stick, but the researchers believe that is happening.

And "While people might assume that infants master best when they are wide awake, our findings suggest that the time just before infants go down for sleep can be a particularly valuable knowledge opportunity". Scientists have long linked more sleep to better memory, but it's been unclear what happens when babies waste a significant amount of time sleeping. In the new study, researchers launched two experiments. In each one, babies grey 6 months or 12 months were taught how to interval mittens from animal puppets.

Monday, 27 April 2015

Enterovirus D68 Or EV-D68 Is Linked To Paralysis

Enterovirus D68 Or EV-D68 Is Linked To Paralysis.
A congregation of 12 Colorado children are affliction muscle weakness and paralysis similar to that caused by polio, and doctors are upset these cases could be linked to a nationwide outbreak of what's usually a good respiratory virus. Despite treatment, 10 of the children first diagnosed late finish summer still have ongoing problems, the authors noted, and it's not known if their limb weakness and paralysis will be permanent. The viral criminal tied to at least some of the cases, enterovirus D68 or EV-D68, belongs to the same kinsfolk as the polio virus.

So "The pattern of symptoms the children are presenting with and the configuration of imaging we are seeing is similar to other enteroviruses, with polio being one of those," said lead author Dr Kevin Messacar, a pediatric catching diseases physician at Children's Hospital Colorado in Aurora. Dr Amesh Adalja is a older associate at the Center for Health Security at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and a spokesman for the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

He stressed that it's "important to confine in framework that this is a rare complication that doesn't reflect what enterovirus D68 normally does in a person. "There's no avoiding comparisons to polio because it's in the same house of virus, but I don't regard we're going to see wide outbreaks of associated paralysis the way we did with polio. For whatever reason, we're inasmuch as a smaller proportion of paralytic cases".

In 2014, the United States shrewd a nationwide outbreak of EV-D68, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). From mid-August to mid-January 2015, plain health officials confirmed more than 1100 cases in all but one state. The virus was detected in 14 patients who died of illness, the CDC reported. In most cases EV-D68 resembles a plain cold, according to the CDC. Mild symptoms count fever, runny nose, sneezing and cough.

People with more spare cases may suffer from wheezing or hindrance breathing. Colorado was hit hard by EV-D68, the report authors say in background notes. In August and September, Children's Hospital Colorado on the ball a 36 percent better in ER visits involving respiratory symptoms and a 77 percent increase in admissions for respiratory illness, compared to 2012 and 2013. During that same experience frame, the hospital also began to behold children come in with mysterious limb weakness and paralysis.

Monday, 20 April 2015

New Ways To Treat Pancreatic Cancer

New Ways To Treat Pancreatic Cancer.
Scientists are working to discovery fresh ways to treat pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest types of cancer in the United States. Pancreatic cancer is the fourth unequalled cause of cancer death in the country. Each year, more than 46000 Americans are diagnosed with the contagion and more than 39000 die from it, according to the US National Cancer Institute. Current treatments count drugs, chemotherapy, surgery and radiation therapy, but the five-year survival figure is only about 5 percent. That's in part because it often isn't diagnosed until after it has spread.

And "Today we skilled in more about this form of cancer. We know it usually starts in the pancreatic ducts and that the KRAS gene is mutated in tumor samples from most patients with pancreatic cancer," Dr Abhilasha Nair, an oncologist with the US Food and Drug Administration, said in an working copy release. Scientists are irritating to develop drugs that target the KRAS mutation, the FDA noted. "Getting the right sedative to target the right mutation would be a big break for treating patients with pancreatic cancer.

Diabetes Medications And Cancer

Diabetes Medications And Cancer.
People with diabetes are less indubitably to take their diabetes medications if they've been diagnosed with cancer, researchers report. The late study included more than 16000 diabetes patients, regular age 68, taking drugs to lower their blood sugar. Of those patients, more than 3200 were diagnosed with cancer. "This about revealed that the medication adherence mid users of blood sugar-lowering drugs was influenced by cancer diagnosis," the researchers wrote. "Although the smash of cancer was more pronounced among cancers with a worse prognosis and among those with more advanced cancer stages, the characteristic in prognosis associated with these cancers seemed to only partly explain the bump of cancer on medication adherence".

To determine the impact, the Dutch and Canadian researchers analyzed the patients' medication hold ratio (MPR), which represents the amount of medication patients had in their possession over a unequivocal period of time. In this study, a 10 percent decline in MPR translated into three days a month where patients did not interpret their diabetes medications. At the time of cancer diagnosis, there was an overall 6,3 percent let go in MPR, followed by a 0,20 percent monthly decline following a cancer diagnosis.

Steps For Flu Prevention

Steps For Flu Prevention.
With flu now widespread across the United States, experts advocate you take effect several steps to reduce your risk. Getting a flu swig is crucial, said Dr Saul Hymes, assistant professor of clinical pediatrics and a expert in pediatric infectious diseases at Stony Brook Children's Hospital in Stony Brook, NY "It's still not too late," he said in a nursing home news release. "Even though one of the predominant strains this year, H3N2, has drifted marginally and is less well covered by the vaccine, there are still three other flu strains out there covered by the vaccine, and the vaccine will probable still offer some protection against H3N2 as well". Dr Susan Donelan, medical principal of health care epidemiology at Stony Brook, said that a variety of flu strains around during most flu seasons.

And "A mismatch of the current strain does not predict a mismatch of circulating strains later in the season. That is what happened in the 2013-2014 opportunity - two distinguishable influenza A viruses and one influenza B 'took turns' being the predominant strain". Flu inveterately peaks between December and February in the United States, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So far this season, 26 children have died from flu, and flu interest was reported widespread in 46 states, the CDC said Friday.

Sunday, 19 April 2015

A Particularly Nasty Flu Season

A Particularly Nasty Flu Season.
The United States is in the engross of a very nasty flu season, federal health officials said Friday, due - in humongous part - to a strain of the virus that's hitting the elderly and children mainly hard. That strain is called H3N2 flu, and it's not a good match to the strains in this year's flu vaccine. As a result, thousands of hoi polloi are being hospitalized and 26 children have died from flu so far, Dr Tom Frieden, top banana of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a twelve press briefing. "Years that have H3N2 predominance be biased to have more hospitalizations and more deaths.

Frieden said hospitalization rates for flu have risen to 92 per 100000 folk this season, primarily due to the H3N2 strain. This compares to a typical year of 52 hospitalizations per 100000 people. In an run-of-the-mill year, more than 200000 people are hospitalized for flu and the digit of children's deaths varies from as few as 30 to as many as 170 or more, CDC officials said. Although it's the halfway of the flu season, the CDC continues to recommend that everybody 6 months and older get a flu shot.