_ Women Recover Faster from Concussions By article A study of concussion patients at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine found that males took longer to recover after concussion than females did. The study, which shows that using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) as a bias-free way to predict concussion outcome, was published online May 6th 2104 in the journal Radiology.
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.
_ 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.
_ 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.
Jumping For Joy In The E.R. By blog OK, so the ER is not the place where you can usually find doctors jumping for joy, but certainly stranger things have happened there, so why not? I had just started my afternoon shift in the area we call the “trauma pod” and as I left my first patient’s room, I was spinning around giving a fist pump in the air and exclaiming, “YES! Now that it the way it is supposed to be!!” Needless to say, this had the attention of all my nursing staff and the doc I was relieving.
_ Heart Health Statin Users Eating More Fat By Jane Farrell article Many Americans who take statins don’t have a healthy diet because the drugs give them a false sense of security, according to a new study. And the number of statin users with unhealthy diets appears to have increased. The research by investigators from UCLA indicates that patients who took statins in 2009-2010 were eating more calories and fat than those who used statins earlier. Among people who didn’t use statins, there was no similar increased.
_ Longhand Trumps Typing for Remembering Your Notes By article The next time you need to take notes, maybe during a meeting at work or when you’re on the phone with a customer service representative, you’ll be more likely to retain the information if you write by hand rather than typing on a digital device. That’s the finding of a study done at Princeton University and published in April 2014 in the journal Psychological Science.
_ Yoga to Help Control Incontinence By article If you’re prone to bladder accidents, practicing a form of yoga may be the answer to regaining control. That’s the conclusion of a study published on April 25th 2014 in Female Pelvic Medicine & Reconstructive Surgery, the official journal of the American Urogynecologic Society. Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco report that a yoga training program designed to improve pelvic health can help women gain more control over their urination and avoid accidental urine leakage.
_ Heart Health Eating Meat Ups Heart Disease Risk By article Here’s more proof that steaks and burgers can be bad for your health: A new study from the Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington has bolstered the link between red meat consumption and heart disease by finding a strong association between heme iron, found only in meat, and potentially deadly coronary heart disease.
_ Take a Walk to Spark Your Creativity By article When the task at hand requires some imagination, taking a walk may lead to more creative thinking than sitting, according to research published in April 2014 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, a publication of the American Psychological Association. A release from the association quotes researcher Marily Oppezzo PhD of Santa Clara University, as saying, "Many people anecdotally claim they do their best thinking when walking, "With this study, we finally may be taking a step or two toward discovering why."
Mental & Emotional Health Counterintuitive Tx for Depression By article Could ratcheting up the activity of neurons in the brain known to be involved with stress-induced depression have the counterintuitive effect of banishing the blues and helping people bounce back?. Yes, say researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City who published their study online April 18th 2014 in the journal Science.
_ Support Group Weight Loss Helps Diabetics By article Weight loss and control of blood sugar can reduce the risk of complications in patients with diabetes but paring off the pounds is difficult for many people. Now a randomized controlled trial of obese adults with type 2 diabetes done at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis suggests that participants enrolled in a community-based structured weight loss program are able to shed more of their excess avoir dupois, improve blood sugar control, and reduce or even eliminate insulin use.
_ Exercise Helps Brain Health By Jane Farrell article Add one more to the already long list of exercise benefits: A study of older adults at increased risk for Alzheimer's disease shows that moderate physical activity may protect brain health. Everyone loses some brain volume with age, but people with a genetic risk for Alzheimer’s usually show greater weakening overtime in the area of the brain known as the hippocampus. The hippocampus is responsible for memory and spatial orientation.
_ 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.
Detecting Diabetes Eye Damage Early By article Indiana University researchers have detected new early-warning signs of the potential loss of sight associated with diabetes. This discovery could have far-reaching implications for the diagnosis and treatment of diabetic retinopathy, potentially impacting the care of over 25 million Americans. The study was published in April 2014 in the journal Biomedical Optics Express.
_ Mental & Emotional Health Childhood Bullying Still Hurts at 50+ By article Were you bullied as a child? You may still be feeling the negative social, physical and mental health effects. A studydone at King's College London and published in April 2014 in the American Journal of Psychiatry is the first to look at the effects of bullying beyond early adulthood. The findings come from the British National Child Development Study that includes data on all children born in England, Scotland, and Wales during one week in 1958. The 7,771participants were then followed up until the age of 50.
_ Can God Cure Your Break-Up Blues? By article Researcher Kristin Laurin of the Stanford Graduate School of Business has explored how faith in God helps people cope with the threat of romantic rejection. A release from the university notes that “God stands in for other relationships in our lives when times are tough”. The study was published on April 17th in Social Psychological and Personality Science,