_ 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.
_ Breast Cancer Chemo for Breast Ca May Lead to Job Loss By article A study done at the University of Michigan Health System has found that loss of paid employment after a diagnosis of early-stage breast cancer may be common and potentially related to the type of treatment patients received. Published early online in Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the findings support efforts to reduce the side effects and burden of treatments for breast cancer and to identify patients who may forego certain treatments, particularly when the expected benefit is low.
_ 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.
_ Spinal Cord Cells and ALS By Jane Farrell article A previously overlooked group of cells may be contributing to a wide range of disorders, according to research from the University of California, San Francisco. The star-shaped cells, known as astrocytes, might be a factor in illnesses such as Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS), autism and schizophrenia. The finding was published in the journal Nature.
_ Exercise How to Stick With Your Fitness Program By Jane Farrell article By Ken Blanchard and Tim Kearin
_ Better Medicine for Serious Ailments By Jane Farrell article Scientists have discovered a crucial element in a cellular process that could help develop a new class of drugs for treating epilepsy, heart disease and cancer. Researchers from the University of Waterloo, Ontario, found that T-type channels can shift the way they generate electrical signals to cells. The rhythmic signals produced by a normal action of this process support the contraction of heart muscles as well as “firing” in parts of the brain
_ 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.
_ Of Mice and Men ΓÇô But Not Women By Jane Farrell article Laboratory mice are stressed by male experimenters but not by women and the reaction of the rodents may skew research findings. The reason is that the mice pick up on the human male pheromone scent but not that of human females. This may turn out to be the reason that scientists typically have trouble replicating research findings using mice and rats, a fact that has contributed to mounting concern over the reliability of such studies. These are the findings of an international team of pain researchers led by scientists at McGill University in Montreal
_ Men's Health The Disappearing Y Chromosome By article Not only do men have a shorter average life span than women but the incidence of cancer and the death rate from the disease is higher in men than in women. Yet the reason for these differences between the genders has long eluded researchers. Now a study led by scientists as Uppsala University in Sweden has shown a correlation between a loss of the Y chromosome in blood cells and both a shorter life span and higher mortality from cancer in other organs. As you probably know, women have two X chromosomes and men have one X chromosome and on Y chromosome.
_ Glucose Dips Overnight a Risk for Diabetics By article Dipping blood sugars cause surprisingly irregular heart rhythms in diabetics and the dangerous overnight low glucose levels often go undetected. That is the finding of research led by Professor Simon Heller at the University of Sheffield in the UK. A release from the university explains that this discovery sheds important new light on the 'Dead in Bed' syndrome in which people without any history of long-term complications die suddenly from the disease.
_ Targeting Blood Vessels That Keep Cancer Alive By article Researchers from at the University of Pennsylvania are using a DNA vaccine to kill cancer, not by attacking tumor cells but targeting the blood vessels that keep them alive. The vaccine also indirectly creates an immune response to the tumor itself, which amplifies the attack because of a phenomenon called epitope spreading. The results of the study were published in April 2014 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
_ 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.
A Better Approach to Colorectal Surgery By Jane Farrell article Hospital stays for colorectal-surgery patients can be cut by two days via a practice known as “enhanced recovery,” according to researchers from Duke University Hospital. The practice also reduced readmission rates.
Men's Health Risks of Testosterone Tx for Older Men Not Known By article Physicians do not have sufficient information from clinical trials to understand the risks associated with the prescription of testosterone in older men, according to a Comment in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, written by Professor Stephanie Page, of the University of Washington and Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, USA. A release from the publisher notes that while the benefits of testosterone therapy in younger men with a deficiency of the hormone are well established, testosterone is now widely prescribed to older men, particularly in the USA.
_ Women's Health and Wellness Proof of WomenΓÇÖs Intuition By article If you suspect that you have what is popularly called women’s intuition, you may be right. Researchers at the University of Granada, the Barcelona Pompeu Fabra University, and the Middlesex University of London have shown that the tendency to be intuitive could have a biological component related to the lower prenatal exposure to testosterone females receive in the womb. This team says this would lead women to have a "more intuitive and less reflective" attitude to life than men. The study was published in 2014 in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.
_ 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.