healthy living for women + their families
New research into the physiological causes of depression could eventually yield treatments beyond common antidepressants like Prozac and Zoloft.
According to the research, published in Current Psychiatry, treatments on the horizon include new medications, electrical and magnetic stimulation of the brain and long-term cognitive behavioral therapy for stress management.
Resveratrol is already believed to have a number of health benefits, including reducing the risk of heart disease and fighting the effects of aging. Now, scientists have made an additional discovery about a protein, linked to resveratrol, that keeps cells healthy over a long period of time.
Investigators led by researchers from Northwestern University discovered that the protein SIRT1, which is activated by resveratrol, regulates another protein, (heat shock factor 1 (HSF1), keeping it active.
By the Cleveland Clinic
Replacing worn body parts has become pretty common today. Of course, none of us are The Six Million Dollar Man of 1970s TV fame, and if you’re facing major joint surgery like hip or knee replacement or reconstruction, you may be concerned about what happens after the surgery.
In thinking about what to expect from the recovery process, you may wonder how quick your recovery will be or how much pain you’ll experience.
When it comes to treating chronic pain, sedation may not always be the best choice before the actual procedure, according to new research.
“Sedation doesn’t help, but it does add expense and risk,” says study leader Steven P. Cohen, M.D., a professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. “In some places, every patient is being sedated. Our research shows it should be used very sparingly.”
A newly developed program can help women fight obesity and reduce health risks in just five visits, according to a new study.
The finding was published in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS).
The pilot program, called WAIPointes (WAI stands for "who am I"), is also reimbursed by insurance. The authors of the article said WAIPointes, which lasts six months, helped women stay engaged with their goals of reducing menopausal symptoms and maintaining healthy lifestyle changes.
Editor’s Note: Yoga, once practiced by only a few people, is a growth industry in the U.S. According to recent statistics, 15 million American adults practice yoga, a mind-body technique that combines physical and mental aspects. It can be beneficial in a number of ways, including increasing flexibility, battling lower back pain and providing peace of mind.
Here’s an additional benefit of being active: Moderate aerobic exercise could help slow the progression of retinal degenerative diseases, including age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
The results of the animal study were published in The Journal of Neuroscience.
One of the leading causes of blindness in older people, AMD is caused by the death of light-sensing nerve cells in the retina called photoreceptors.
Annual mammograms for women aged 40-59 don’t reduce the death rate from breast cancer, according to a new study.
The study, published on bmj.com, also said that 22 percent of breast cancers detected via mammogram were over-diagnosed—meaning that the cancers that were found were ones that would not cause symptoms or death.
The findings are fueling an ongoing debate about the benefits of mammograms.
Most of us have heard the phrase empty calories. We know that they’re not a good thing, but how much do you know about what empty calories are, exactly, and how many are in foods you may eat daily?
Here, from the experts at the site choosemyplate.gov, a program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is what you need to know:
Solid fats and added sugars add calories to food but few or no nutrients. For this reason, the calories from solid fats and added sugars are often called empty calories.
Researchers have uncovered a previously unknown mechanism in the body that regulates a hormone that is essential for a number of crucial functions, including the control of blood pressure.
Researchers say there might be one good thing about being fatigued: we make better health-care decisions when we’re feeling tired and run down.
“We proposed that people are more motivated to engage in healthful behavior when they are depleted and perceive their safety to be at stake,” write authors Monika Lisjak, of Erasmus University, and Angela Y. Lee, of the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.
Nutritional support for cancer patients is more crucial than many of us realize. In fact, an estimated 20 to 40 percent of cancer patients die from malnutrition-related causes.
In some ways, that is unfortunately not surprising, given the side effects that usually occur with chemotherapy or radiation. But, according to the Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA), even just a 5 percent weight loss in a month can decrease a patient’s tolerance for treatment, or can alter their treatment plan.
An in-home program that provided elderly people with counseling and resources increased the time they lived successfully at home, even with dementia and other memory disorders.
Most of the participants in the study said they preferred to stay at home.
The pilot program, conducted by researchers from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, focused on elderly Baltimore residents over a period of 18 months.
Researchers are well on the way to making hemp oil good for cooking.
The experts, from the University of York in the UK, have developed hemp plants with a substantially increased content of oleic acid. That development means hemp oil can now be a cooking oil similar to olive oil. The new oil has a much longer shelf life and can be used for industrial as well as domestic purposes.
The research was published in Plant Biotechnology Journal.
Experts are calling for a full evaluation of the risks and benefits of hormone therapy for older men with declining levels of testosterone.
The statement by the Endocrine Society was prompted by recent studies, one from the Veterans Health Care System and the other from the National Institutes of Health, that have raised concerns about the risks of testosterone therapy for older men with a history of heart disease.
Researchers have pinpointed a source of age-related motor decline, and that could lead to targeted treatments to deal with the condition.
The investigators, from the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, discovered evidence that so-called “set points” in the nervous system are not inevitably determined during development but can be “reset” with age.
For the first time, researchers have developed guidelines for preventing women from having strokes.
"If you are a woman, you share many of the same risk factors for stroke with men, but your risk is also influenced by hormones, reproductive health, pregnancy, childbirth and other sex-related factors," said Cheryl Bushnell, M.D., M.H.S., author of the statement published in the American Heart Association journal Stroke.
The guidelines outline stroke risks for women women and provide recommendations on how o treat them, including:
Supportiveness from a spouse can help people fare better in their overall cardiovascular health, according to a new study.
The findings, by researchers from the University of Utah, show that when partners perceive the support they get from each other as ambivalent – sometimes helpful, sometimes stressful – their levels of coronary artery calcification (CAC) tend to be high.
The findings were published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
