_ Refilling Prescriptions Online Can Help Your Health By Jane Farrell article Using an online service to refill medications actually helped some people with their health, according to a new study. Researchers from Kaiser Permanente and the University of California, San Francisco Medical School followed 17,760 diabetic patients who got care from Kaisesr Permanente in northern California between 2006 and 2010. The subjects used online patient portals, which allow users to order prescription refills, communicate with their health care providers, schedule appointments, access their health records and view their lab test results
_ Weight Loss Getting on the Scales Helps Long-Term Weight Loss By Jane Farrell article Long-term weight loss, considered an elusive goal, can be achieved if people keep practicing essential health behaviors, researchers say. And one of those behaviors is weighing yourself regularly.
_ Why You Should Donate Blood By Jane Farrell article Editor’s note: Many people make a list of New Year’s resolutions, and most of us have difficulty keeping them! But here’s one resolution that’s easy to follow through on: donating blood. Hospitals and patients are in critical need for blood, yet the donation rate is very low.
_ Can Your Lungs Smell Odors? By Jane Farrell article When you smell something, you’re probably using your lungs as well as your nose, researchers say.
_ Reading Can Change Your Brain's Responses By Jane Farrell article If you’ve ever read a story that changed your life, it may have changed your brain as well. Researchers from Emory University have discovered that reading a novel can cause changes in the brain’s “resting-state connectivity.”
_ What it Really Means to ΓÇ£Just Do Your BestΓÇ¥ By Jane Farrell article By Cindy Laverty When I was fully immersed in my first caregiving journey, one of the things that used to drive me to distraction was when people (who, by the way, had never cared for anyone) told me to relax and "just do my best."
Turning Off the ΓÇ£Aging GenesΓÇ¥ By Jane Farrell article Researchers at Tel Aviv University and Bar-Ilan University say they have found a possible way to stop the aging process. A release from the university notes that until now, restricting calorie consumption has been one of the few proven ways to combat aging. However, Keren Yizhak and colleagues have developed a computer algorithm that predicts which genes can be "turned off" to create the same anti-aging effect as calorie restriction.
_ Heart Health Survival Tips for Heart-Attack Season By Jane Farrell article Snow shoveling is great exercise, but if you’re over a certain age or have health problems, it could prove deadly unless you protect yourself.
Brain Training Works ΓÇ£With a CatchΓÇ¥ By Jane Farrell article Do online exercises, games, software, and apps designed to “train your brain” really work? University of Oregon psychologists say, yes, but "there's a catch." The catch, according to Elliot T. Berkman, a professor in the Department of Psychology and lead author on a study published in the January 1st 2014 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, is that training for a particular task does heighten performance, but that advantage doesn't necessarily carry over to a new challenge.
Myths About Palliative Care By Jane Farrell article A specialized, multidisciplinary team approach to caring for seriously ill people and their families, is often errantly reduced to end-of- life care. This misconception has led to palliative care involvement being introduced late in an illness, often depriving patients and their families of comprehensive symptom control, support and assistance with complex decision-making throughout the course of their illness when it could provide the most benefit.
Sex and Depression: A Gender-Specific Approach to Healing By Jane Farrell blog Depression runs in my family. I became aware of that fact when my father took an overdose of sleeping pills when I was five years old. Growing up I had little understanding of what had happened or why he was hospitalized and disappeared from our lives. But I did grow up with a hunger to understand depression and a terror that I would become depressed myself and face my own suicidal demons.
Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget By Jane Farrell blog “Men and women think differently, approach problems differently, emphasize the importance of things differently, and experience the world around us through entirely different lenses,” says Marianne J. Legato, M.D., Founder of the Foundation for Gender Specific Medicine and author of numerous books on men and women including, Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget.
Quick and Effective Ways to Deal with Chronic Pain Without Drugs By Jane Farrell blog According to the American Academy of Pain Medicine, pain affects more Americans than diabetes, heart disease, and cancer combined. The list below shows the number of chronic pain sufferers compared to other major health conditions. Chronic Pain 100 million Americans
The Two Secret Ingredients Most Men Lack That Keep Them From Becoming Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise By Jane Farrell blog “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” This quote is often attributed to Benjamin Franklin since it appeared in his Poor Richard’s Almanack, though the idea was likely around much earlier. Most of us could use some help with our health, our money-flow, and our wisdom. There are many things that can help us achieve our goals, but I think there are two things that are vitally important, but are often neglected in our liv
_ Giant Pandas Could Be Source of Drugs By Jane Farrell article Giant pandas produce a powerful antibiotic in their blood stream that may be a rich source of powerful new drugs, Chinese scientists say. The substance, which kills bacteria and fungi, could lead to new treatments against drug resistant superbugs and other diseases, they said. Researchers at Nanjing Agricultural University identified the substance, cathelicidin-AM, by analyzing panda DNA, The Daily Telegraph of London reported Sunday.
_ Texas Judge: No Cancer Screenings or Birth Control for Poor Women By Jane Farrell article Texas can cut off funding to Planned Parenthood's family planning programs for poor women, a state judge ruled Monday, requiring thousands to find new state-approved doctors for their annual exams, cancer screenings and birth control. Judge Gary Harger said that Texas may exclude otherwise qualified doctors and clinics from receiving state funding if they advocate for abortion rights.
_ FDA Approves 1st TB Drug in 40 Years By Jane Farrell article The Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved a Johnson & Johnson tuberculosis drug that is the first new medicine to fight the deadly infection in more than four decades. The agency approved J&J's pill, Sirturo, for use with older drugs to fight a hard-to-treat strain of tuberculosis that has not responded to other medications. However, the agency cautioned that the drug carries risks of potentially deadly heart problems and should be prescribed carefully by doctors.