_ A Blood Test for Alzheimer's By Jane Farrell article There’s an Alzheimer’s blood test now – a procedure that can detect whether a healthy person will develop mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s within three years. The test has a 90 percent accuracy rate. Described in the April issue of Nature Medicine, the test could lead to the development of treatment for early-stage Alzheimer’s, when therapy would be more effective at slowing or preventing onset of symptoms.
_ Sleep Health How to Keep Your Body from ΓÇ£Falling BackΓÇ¥ By Jane Farrell article By Julia Samton, MD
_ Prehospital Alerts for Stroke Patients By article Prehospital stroke alerts by emergency medical services personnel can shorten the time to effective treatment with "clot-busting" drugs for patients who have had a stroke, according to a report in the March issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons.
10 Things You Should Expect From Your Doctor By article By David Longworth, MDof the Cleveland Clinic You just waited two hours for a doctor who’s running late. Once in the office, the doctor zips through a jargon-filled speech, orders a test, writes a prescription and sends you on your way. You leave in a cloud of confusion, realizing that you never even asked a question.
_ Heart Health The ΓÇ£DemonizationΓÇ¥ of Saturated Fats? By article After President Eisenhower had a heart attack in his 50s, the erroneous belief that diets low in saturated fat curb heart disease risk was strengthened, according to Dr, James DiNicolantonio, a cardiovascular research scientist and doctor of pharmacy based in Ithaca, New York. His editorial appears online in the March 2014 issue of Open Heart, a journal published by the British Medical Association. Dr.
_ Aging Well Over 65? High Protein Diet Is Protective By Sondra Forsyth article This morning a news release from the University of Southern California entitled “Meat and cheese may be as bad as smoking” hit my inbox. Since then, numerous sites around the web have picked up the eyeball-grabbing headline and the accompanying story. If you encountered any of those posts and you’re over 65, don’t be alarmed and don’t cut back on the percentage of protein you eat.
_ 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.
_ Weight Loss Food and Exercise for Weight Control By article By Jana Klauer MD A large study, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, surveyed diet and exercise patterns of U.S. men and women over a 20-year period. The participants were evaluated at 4-year intervals for diet, physical exercise, and body weight. Here’s what the researchers found about diet: Higher amounts of vegetables and fruit, whole grains (instead of refined grains), nuts and yogurt protect against weight gain.
_ FDA Wants to Update Nutrition Labels By article The Food and Drug Administration wants to update the look and content of the Nutrition Facts Label to help consumers make better food choices and follow healthy dietary practices. The proposed changes include:
_ Women More Competitive Than Men By article True or false: Men are very competitive while women have a tendency to nurture relationships with others. The surprise answer, according to researchers at Harvard and the University of Quebec, is false. Co-authors Richard Wranghamand Joyce Benenson showed that within academic departments, women of different social or professional ranks cooperate with each other less well than men do. The paper was published March 3rd 2014 in the journal Current Biology.
_ How Mood Influences Food Choice By article Do you have a tendency to reach for junk food or sweets instead of healthy options when you’re down in the dumps? If so, you’re not alone. Researchers at the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab Previous, armed with previous research that found that emotions affect eating, set out ot find out why this happens. Their paper will be published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology.
Caregiving Peace of Mind for Long-Distance Caregivers By article By Marki Flannery Every Sunday, Donna placed a call from her home in Washington D.C. to her Aunt Catherine, to check up on her. At age 87, Catherine lived alone in her longtime Lower Manhattan apartment and, except for an attack of angina a couple years ago, was in relatively good health. Donna asked, as she usually did, about her aunt's weekend and was heartened to hear she had gotten out with friends. "My neighbor's daughter took us to the Metropolitan Museum," Catherine said, sounding uplifted.
_ 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.
High-Calorie Diet Could Slow Lou GehrigΓÇÖs Disease By Jane Farrell article Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis(ALS), commonly called Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a rapidly progressive and fatal neurodegenerative disorder affecting the nerve cells that control muscle movement. Patients gradually lose the ability to control the body's muscles, including those that control breathing. This leads to respiratory failure and death on average about three years after patients are diagnosed.
_ Mental & Emotional Health Diagnosing Borderline Personality Disorder By Jane Farrell article Borderline personality disorder, a serious mental illness, affects six to ten million Americans, according to statistics from New York-Presbyterian Hospital. That’s more than twice the number of people affected by bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. And up to 90 percent of those diagnosed are women; while that may be because women seek treatment more often than men, it’s still a substantial number. Despite its prevalence, borderline personality disorder less widely known than other conditions such as depression.
_ Over 80s Over-Treated for Stroke Prevention By article People in their 80s are often prescribed drugs to ward off a stroke when the risk of a stroke is not that high and the drugs have other side effects, according to research doneby Dr. Kit Byatt of the Department of Geriatric Medicine at The County Hospital in Hereford, UK and published online in the journal Evidence Based Medicine. Byatt maintains that people in this age group are being "over-treated" and that doctors need to rethink their priorities and beliefs about stroke prevention.
_ The 12 Habits of Highly Healthy People: #1, Physical Activity By article By Katherine Zeratsky, R.D., L.D. The Mayo Clinic has created a program modeled on the same on that Mayo Clinic employees follow. It’s called "12 Habits of Highly Healthy People." The 12 habits are: 1) Physical activity 2) Forgiveness 3) Portion size
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.