_ Unlocking the Secrets of the Fountain of Youth By article A first of its kind atomic level look at the enzyme telomerase may “unlock the secrets to the fountain of youth”, according to scientists at Arizona State University in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai. The study was published on May 4th 2014 in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.
_ Medical Care The Right Questions to Ask Your Doctor About Hepatitis C By Sondra Forsyth article By Sondra Forsyth The Centers for Disease Control has designated May as Hepatitis Awareness Month. One goal of that campaign is to let Boomers know that of the more than three million Americans infected with hepatitis C, over 75% are in their 50s and 60s. You can find out the extent of your risk with this 5-minute online assessment from the CDC.
37 Million Could Be Saved Through Global Health Programs By Jane Farrell article Reaching globally-agreed targets for health risks such as smoking and alcohol can prevent more than 37 million deaths by 2025, according to new statistics. The study, led by researchers from Imperial College London, said the health risks are caused by the “big four” illnesses: cancer, diabetes, lung disease and cardiovascular disease. The study, published in The Lancet, found that the majority of death prevention would be in low- to middle-income nations, while the reductions for smoking and blood pressure will lead to the largest benefits.
_ Women's Health and Wellness Women & Peripheral Artery Disease By Sondra Forsyth article Women, especially older women, face greater limits on their lifestyle and have more severe symptoms as a result of peripheral artery disease (PAD) than men do. The condition happens when fatty deposits build up in arteries outside the heart, usually the arteries supplying fresh oxygen and blood to the arms, legs and feet. About 8 million Americans have peripheral artery disease.
_ Challenging the Notion of ΓÇ£Healthy ObesityΓÇ¥ By Jane Farrell article Back in October of 2013, the concept of “healthy obesity” made news because of a study published in the journal Diabetologia about overweight people with no metabolic problems. Now a study published on April 30th 2014 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology challenges that assertion. A release from the publisher explains that obese people who have no signs of cardiovascular disease show a much higher prevalence of early plaque buildup in the arteries compared to healthy normal weight individuals, according to a study.
_ Skin Skin Health ItΓÇÖs Melanoma Monday! By article May 5th 2014 is Melanoma Monday, and the entire month of May is Melanoma/Skin Cancer Detection and Prevention Month, according to a release from the American Academy of Dermatology. (The observances are registered trademarks of the academy). The academy encourages all of us to learn how to detect skin cancer. An estimated one in five Americans will be diagnosed with skin cancer in the course of their lifetime, and one person dies from melanoma – the deadliest form of skin cancer – every hour.
Vision Health Abnormal ΓÇ£Binocular VisionΓÇ¥ as We Age By article Abnormal “binocular vision”, which involves the way our eyes work together as a team, increases dramatically as we age, according to research from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. A release from the university reports that the study also found that general health and antidepressant use are also linked to this disorder, which affects depth perception and therefore may increase the risk of falls.
_ Asthma Medicine Definitively Linked to Bone Loss By Jane Farrell article Scientists appear to have definitively established a new risk factor for bone loss: asthma. According to a study published in Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, there is a definitive connection between the use of corticosteroids and loss of bone mineral density.
_ Mental & Emotional Health Stress Management Stress-Free Living Stress Is Contagious By article Watching somebody else try to cope with a stressful situation, even on TV, can be enough to bump up your own level of the stress hormone called cortisol. That is the finding of research done at the Max Planck Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig and the Technische Universität Dresden and published on April 17th 2014 in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.
_ Even a Little Activity Helps Prevent Knee OA By article Here’s some good news if you aren’t all that eager to engage in high intensity workouts. All you need to do to stave of the pain and disability of knee osteoarthritis as you age is to get up out your chair and do ordinary tasks such as running the vacuum or pushing a shopping cart. That’s the finding of research y done at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago and published on April 29th 2014 on the British Medical Journal.
_ Vitamin D and Aggressive Prostate Cancer By Jane Farrell article Researchers say that Vitamin D deficiency is an indicator of aggressive prostate cancer risk in middle-aged men who underwent a biopsy. Adam B. Murphy, M.D., MBA, assistant professor in the Department of Urology at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said that the finding affected European-American and African-American men, although the link between Vitamin D deficiency andaggressive prostate cancer was stronger in African-Americans.
Vision Health Protect Your Eyes During Exercise By Jane Farrell article For many of us, the warmer seasons mean more exercise. And you’re probably taking several safety factors into account: how to protect yourself from dehydration or the sun’s damaging and even deadly rays. We should think about our sight as well. According to the National Institutes of Health, emergency room doctors treated an estimated 42,000 sports-related eye injuries each year. And 90 percent of them, the NIH says, could have been prevented with protective eyewear.
_ Healthy Diet & Nutrition Mental & Emotional Health Stress Management Stress-Free Living Chronic Stress Makes Junk Food Even Worse for You By article File this under “That’s not fair!” People who are not dealing with chronic stress can get away with eating a lot of high-fat, high-sugar food without upping their risk of metabolic syndrome, but stressed out people can’t. That’s the finding of research done at the University of Califorina, San Francisco.
_ Sleep Health Cherry Juice Promotes Better Sleep By article A morning and evening ritual of tart cherry juice may help you sleep better at night. That’s the finding of a study presented on April 28th at the annual meeting of the American Society of Nutrition, which is being held in conjunction with the Experimental Biology 2014 meeting in San Diego Researchers from Louisiana State University found that drinking Montmorency tart cherry juice twice a day for two weeks helped increase sleep time by nearly 90 minutes among older adults with insomnia. The study has been submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
_ New Approaches to Parkinson's By Jane Farrell article Three studies from the University of Pennsylvania demonstrate new approaches to understanding and treating Parkinson’s disease, and eventually even staving it off. The findings were to be presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology.
_ 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.
_ Heart Health Six Tips to Turn Back the Clock on Your Heart By article By Steven Masley, MD, CNS The first step to avoiding cardiovascular disease, which is the #1 killer of Americans, including women—is understanding how your heart and arteries age. The traditional approach to evaluating heart disease does not address what’s actually happening within your arteries. The single factor that causes most heart problems is not cholesterol per se, but the growth of plaque in your arteries. This is what determine your heart’s true age.
_ 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.