_ Heart Health Anger and Heart Attacks By Jane Farrell article For some people, anger could literally be a killer. A new study has found that there’s a nearly fivefold increase in heart attack risk in the two hours following an outburst. “There has been a lot of research on anger; we already know it can be unhealthy, but we wanted to quantify the risk, not just for heart attack, but for other potentially lethal cardiovascular events as well,” said lead author Elizabeth Mostofsky, MPH, ScD, a post-doctoral fellow in the cardiovascular epidemiological unit at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Exploring the Uplifting Effects of Aromatherapy By blog Think back to the last time you experienced a pleasant smell. Remember how it made you feel? For me the smell of fresh-cut grass puts my mind at ease and instantly relaxes me. The scent of lavender makes me less anxious and ready to fall asleep. I also love the smell of lemon — which reminds me of my mother's lemon pie and summer. These are just a few examples of how scents can have a powerful effect on the mind, influence your mood and lower anxiety.
_ Body Clock Controls Healing of Hearing Damage By article A discovery at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden paves the way for medication to help people with hearing disabilities. The researchers have identified a biological circadian clock in the hearing organ, the cochlea. This circadian clock controls how well hearing damage may heal.
_ Ten Ways To Control High Blood Pressure Without Medication By Jane Farrell article Editor's note: Hypertension is one of the most common, and most serious, health problems. It has the potential to damage vital organs like the brain, heart and kidneys. Millions of people take medications to control their high blood presure, but lifestyle changes are often just as important and can make it possible to handle hypertension without any medicine. Here, experts from the Mayo Clinic offer some non-medicinal ways to control hypertension.
_ Disruptive Sleep and Alzheimer's Patients By Jane Farrell article Scientists are coming closer to finding out how Alzheimer’s disrupts sleep patterns, and that could eventually lead to more effective ways to improve sleep among AD patients. People with Alzheimer’s often have poor biological rhythms that result in fragmented sleep as well as agitation in the late afternoon and early evening, a phenomenon known as “sundowning.” But it hasn’t been clear until now whether the biological clock is disrupted or destroyed altogether.
_ In One Ear and Out the Other By Sondra Forsyth article Do you remember that sound bite you heard on the radio this morning? The name of the person you met socially yesterday? The grocery items your spouse asked you to pick up? Chances are the answer is no, according to a study done at the University of Iowa that showed there is truth to the old adage “in on ear and out the other”. The team reports in a paper published February 2014 in the journal PLoS ONE that we don't remember things we hear nearly as well as things we see or touch.
_ Sunburns Strike Twice By article As severe winter weather lingers in many areas of the country, you may be thinking ahead to sunnier days when you’ll be able to soak up some rays. Yet here’s even stronger proof that UV rays are hazardous to your health: Researchers at the University of Bonn in Germany have found that skin inflammation following UV irradiation promotes cancer cell spread along blood vessels.
The Secret of Life is One Thing: How to Be Successful at Love and Work By blog After spending his life helping people, the “father” of modern psychology and psychoanalysis made a simple observation: “Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.” Most of us recognize that when things are going well at home and at work our lives are joyful. If our love life or our work life is stressful, we suffer.
_ Dating Is Your Online Profile Too Revealing? By Jane Farrell article By Judith Bitterli Editor’s Note: Internet dating is serious business. According to the Statistics Brain Research Institute, the internet dating scene generated $1.049 billion in revenue for the year 2012. And online dating sites aren’t the only place where potential mates are checking each other out. AVG Technologies, an online security firm, found in a survey that one in three young baby boomers (45-54) were also using social media such as Facebook and Twitter to research a person they might be interested in.
_ Mental & Emotional Health Fighting Mild Forgetfulness By Jane Farrell article Editor’s note: Dementia, including Alzheimer’s, is one of the most frightening health problems, especially as we age. It cannot be prevented or cured, and it is marked by a humiliating mental decline. Because it affects primarily older people, many of us are frightened by signs of forgetfulness or memory loss. Here, the experts from the National Institute on Aging explain the issue of mild forgetfulness and how you can handle it: What is mild forgetfulness?
_ Blood-Pressure Meds and Serious Falls By Jane Farrell article Blood-pressure medications have an unintended and potentially deadly side effect: they increase the risk of serious fall injuries by up to 40 percent. Yale School of Medicine researchers looked at 4,961 patients older than 70 who had hypertension. Among the participants, 14 percent didn’t take any medication, 55 percent took moderate doses and 31 percent took high doses.
_ Protecting Yourself From BPA By Jane Farrell article Editor’s Note: Over the last few years, there have been frightening headlines about the dangers of the chemical BPA, many of them focusing on health risks, including possible liver damage. Water bottles and other containers bearing the label “BPA-free” are common in stores and supermarkets– an indication of how widely known the issue is.
_ Heart Health "Sticky Blood" and Strokes By Jane Farrell article Scientists at Imperial College London have discovered that iron deficiency may increase the risk of stroke by making blood stickier and more vulnerable to dangerous clothing. The Imperial team found that iron deficiency increases the stickiness of platelets, small blood cells that initiate blood clotting when they stick together.
Heart Health Post-Stroke Blood Pressure Treatment Not Always Effective By Jane Farrell article Giving blood pressure lowering medications to patients who have suffered a stroke doesn’t reduce their likelihood of death or major disability, according to a new study. The study was published inJAMA. At least 25 percent of the population has high blood pressure, which greatly increases the risk of stroke. Lowering blood pressure has been shown to reduce the risk of stroke.
_ Pain Management Talk Therapy Best for Chronic Pain? By Jane Farrell article Psychological treatment often provides better relief for chronic pain than prescription drugs or surgery, according to a review published by the American Psychological Association. However, it’s used much less frequently. “Chronic pain affects 116 million American adults, making it more prevalent than heart disease, diabetes and cancer combined, and traditional medical approaches are inadequate,” said lead author Mark P. Jensen, PhD, of the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Washington.
Finding Ways to Detect and Treat AD By article Researchers at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada are unraveling the mysteries of the amyloid beta peptides implicated in Alzheimer's disease. The team presented findings at the 58th Annual Biophysical Society Meeting in San Francisco from February 15th to 17th.
Vision Health Training Can Improve Vision By Sondra Forsyth article With a little practice on a computer or tablet — 25 minutes a day, four days a week, for two months — our brains can actually learn to see better. That is the encouraging finding of research done at the University of California, Riverside and published in the journal Current Biology. Although the team did the training with baseball players at the university who had normal vision, the hope is that the same training, called perceptual learning, will help people with low vision due to cataracts, macular degeneration, or amblyopia.
_ Poor Sleep = Better Dream Recall By Jane Farrell article Researchers have pinpointed an area in the brain that may be linked to why some people recall more dreams than others. In a study published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, investigators linked the difference between “high dream recallers” and “low dream recallers” to an area of the brain called the temporo-parietal junction. Increased activity in that area, which acts as an information-processing hub, might promote intermittent waking throughout the night. And that, in turn, makes dreams easier to recall.