_ Beauty & Style Skin Skin Health Are Your Skincare Products Making You Sick? By Sondra Forsyth article By Diane Blum Most of us put on gloves when we clean our bathrooms, as weΓÇÖre very aware of the dangers of toxic chemicals coming into direct contact with our skin. But what about all of the synthetic chemicals that we innocently apply to our bodies? Every day we absorb self-applied toxins, and most are no further away than our bathroom make-up counter. Shampoos, soaps, deodorants, and all the many ΓÇ£de-agingΓÇ¥ skincare products we women use. How do we know they are all safe?
_ More Liver Transplants Possible With New Technique By Jane Farrell article Scientists have found a way to preserve livers for a longer time before transplant. The investigators, from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Engineering in Medicine, said that their technique permitted successful transplantation of rat livers after being preserved for up to four days. That is more than triple the length of time organs can currently be preserved. The discovery was published in the journal Nature Medicine.
_ Healthy Diet & Nutrition Update on Leptin & Appetite Control By Jane Farrell article Twenty years ago, scientists found that the hormone leptin regulates metabolism, appetite, and weight through brain cells called neurons. Now Yale School of Medicine researchers have discovered that the hormone also acts on glial cells in the brain cells to control appetite. The study, published in the June st 2014 issue of Nature Neuroscience, could lead to development of treatments for metabolic disorders such as obesity and diabetes.
Male Menopause: No Longer a Myth, But a Medical Reality By blog My search to understand male menopause began in the early 1990s and was both personal and professional. Personally, I was nearing the age of 50 and my wife was telling me something was wrong. ΓÇ£YouΓÇÖre hormonal,ΓÇ¥ she told me. ΓÇ£ItΓÇÖs like youΓÇÖre going through menopause or something.ΓÇ¥ At first I laughed at the idea. But professionally many of my male clients were experiencing prostate problems, erectile dysfunctions, anger, depression, and other symptoms that I was learning were related to the ΓÇ£change of life.ΓÇ¥
_ Exercise Fitness Trends: Hot or Not? By Jane Farrell article By Scott Weiss, D.P.T., A.T., CSCS With summer just around the corner, many people are focusing their energy on getting back into shape. Unfortunately, what used to be a simple trip to the gym has now turned into a roundabout of trial and error, checking out each of the new classes and workouts that keep popping up. Variety is both fun and beneficial, but while choosing which activities best suit your needs, also remember to be wary of the trendy workouts topping the charts. Here are my recommendations:
Sleep Health 7 Hidden Causes of Fatigue By Jane Farrell article From the Cleveland Clinic Fatigue can signal anemia, diabetes, hypothyroidism or hepatitis C. But once your doctor rules out major medical causes of fatigue, it’s time to consider hidden ones. “We look for the less obvious roots of fatigue — that’s our job,” says Tanya Edwards, MD, Medical Director of Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Integrative Medicine. Hidden causes include: 1. A junk food diet
Aging Well Geroscience, The Study of Age-Related Health Issues By article A new collection of articles appearing in May 2014 in The Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences focuses on how the basic biology of aging drives chronic disease. Together, they highlight the value of the emerging field of geroscience, which uses an integrated approach to the study of diseases and disability associated with growing older.
_ Stem Cells Make ΓÇ£Heart Disease-on-a-ChipΓÇ¥ By Jane Farrell article Harvard scientists have merged stem cell and “organ-on-a-chip” technologies to grow, for the first time, functioning human heart tissue carrying an inherited cardiovascular disease. The research appears to be a big step forward for personalized medicine because it is working proof that a chunk of tissue containing a patient's specific genetic disorder can be replicated in the laboratory.
_ Osteoporosis Fracture Risk Tool Is Flawed By article If you’re between the ages of 40 and 65, or if you’ve ever broken a single bone, the World Health Organization's tool for assessing the likelihood of breaks would underestimate your risk of “fragility fractures” resulting from falls. That is the conclusion of a study done at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec, Canada and published in April 2014 published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).
_ Resveratrol's Secrets Revealed! By article Unless you’ve been living in another solar system, you’ve repeatedly heard the news that resveratrol, a component of red wine and grapes, is associated with reducing LDL (bad) cholesterol, heart disease, and some types of cancer. Also found in blueberries, cranberries, mulberries, peanuts, and pistachios, resveratrol is associated with beneficial health effects in aging, inflammation and metabolism. Yet researchers have not been able to explain how and why resveratrol works its magic.
_ Maximizing the Use of Donated Organs By article The quality of kidney and liver donations is fundamentally important for the longevity of transplants and the health of recipients. That’s why it’s critical to know which organs are suitable for transplantation, as well as to use techniques that preserve an organ’s function after donation. Several studies published in the British Journal of Surgery in April 2014address these issues and offer ways to maximize the use of donated organs.
_ Mental & Emotional Health Anxiety Medications as You Age By article Anxiety medications can affect you differently as you age. The National Institutes for Health Senior Health Portal alerts you in to possible problems: The research on treating anxiety disorders in older adults is limited. However, most disorders can be treated with medication or psychotherapy. For some people, a combination of medication and psychotherapy may be the best treatment approach. Antidepressants
_ Ground-Breaking ΓÇ£Brown FatΓÇ¥ MRI Scan By Jane Farrell article The first MRI scan to show “brown fat” in a living adult could prove to be an essential step towards a new wave of therapies to aid the fight against diabetes and obesity. Researchers from Warwick Medical School and University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust in the UK used a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) based method to identify and confirm the presence of brown adipose tissue in a living adult. The study was published on April 17th 2014 in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.
The "A-to-F" Guide To Self-Acceptance By blog Aging gracefully is difficult when it comes to our changing bodies. It is almost like some alien force takes over and brings with it extra weight, a slower metabolism and “curves” where they never existed before. Here‘s my “A-to-F” guide to accepting your body, and your value, in life after 50.
_ Long Live the Mitochondria! By article Manipulating the metabolic process of mitochondria, the “power plants” of cells, may compensate for defects that are associated with aging and various neurological diseases. That is the finding of scientists at the University of Alberta who published their research on April 10th 2014 in Cell Reports. The study will appear in the print edition of the journal on April 24th.
_ Weight Loss Can Sun Exposure Help You Lose Weight? By Jane Farrell article Exposure to light in the morning rather than later in the day may be a good way to manage weight, new research shows. The study, from Northwestern Medicine, found that the timing, intensity and duration of light exposure is linked to Body Mass Index (BMI).
_ Viral Invasions And Your Blood Sugar By Jane Farrell article A crucial discovery about the relationship between viruses and cells could lead to treatment for conditions as disparate as cancer and the common cold. The findings, by scientists from UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, represent the first detailed study explaining exactly how viruses reprogram the metabolism of the cells they invade to promote continued viral growth. The study results were published in the journal Cell Metabolism.
_ Weight Loss Weight Loss Program in Sign Language Helps the Deaf By article A group of deaf adults using American Sign Language in a healthy lifestyle program successfully lost weight, according to a study presented at the American Heart Association's Epidemiology & Prevention/Nutrition, Physical Activity & Metabolism Scientific Sessions in March 2014 in San Francsico.