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.
Tag: depressive symptoms
Sleeping Well Boosts Survival for Breast Ca Patients
A study done at Stanford and published in the May 1st 2014 issue of the journal Sleep reports that “sleep efficiency”, defined as the ratio of time asleep to time spent in bed, is predictor of survival time for women with advanced breast cancer.
It’s Melanoma Monday!
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.
6 Tips for Overcoming Diabetes Burnout
Diabetes isn’t easy, and having to prick your finger day in and day out to check your blood sugar can be grating. Even though this task takes up about a combined 120 seconds of our day, it’s a tedious responsibility that comes with “good” or “bad” news depending on whatever our blood sugar is. After a while, who could blame you for being sick of it, for forgetting to do it, or for wanting to forget you have diabetes altogether?
5 Ways to Stop Being a Passive Patient
It’s high time for patients to take an active role in their own healthcare.
There was a time when many people had long-term relationships with a family doctor – someone who knew them and their families well.
Does Melatonin Work?
could get to sleep. Millions of people suffer from the same condition, and melatonin, a popular dietary supplement, is said to help.
The melatonin sold in stores is a concentrated form of a natural hormone that plays a role in sleep. The hormone’s levels in the body rise in the a.m. and fall in the p.m. It’s been studied in connection with sleep disorders such as jet lag and insomnia, as well as dementia symptoms.
Can Money Buy Happiness? Maybe, Maybe Not
Spending money on life experiences such as theater tickets or travel may not make materialistic shoppers any happier. Yet for these people, the purchase of high-end items fails to boost their mood as well. That is the conclusion of a study done at San Francisco State University and slated for publication in the June 2014 edition of the Journal of Research in Personality.
Home Health Visits Keep Heart Patient Out of the Hospital
Research done at North Shore University Hospital on Long Island demonstrated a very significant reduction in hospital readmissions after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery for patients who received home health care through the “Follow Your Heart” program. The study was published in the May 2014 issue of The Annals of Thoracic Surgery.
Original Oily Fish Study Flawed
You’ve heard it here on ThirdAge and probably elsewhere as well: Oily fish such as salmon, fresh tuna, and swordfish are currently recommended as part of a heart healthy diet. Oops! An international team of researchers have called into question the validity of a now-classic study from the 1970s that claimed that because the diet of Eskimos in Greenland is rich in whale and seal blubber, these peopledon’t have coronary artery disease at the same rate as other populations.On the contrary, the Eskimos turn out to have alarmingly high rates of lethal CAD and stokes.
Watch: Treating Nausea
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Abnormal “Binocular Vision” as We Age
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.
Alzheimer’s Subtype Often Misdiagnosed
Neuroscientists have defined a subtype of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) that they say is neither well recognized nor treated appropriately.
The variant – called hippocampal sparing AD – made up 11 percent of the 1,821 AD-confirmed brains examined by researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Florida.
Asthma Medicine Definitively Linked to Bone Loss
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.
Watch: The Symptoms of Throat Cancer
Here's another addition to our Third Age video collection. Press play to start learning.
For Meds Adherence, Feedback Trumps Digital Nagging
A device that monitors people when they take their meds and then give feedback has advantages over “automated nagging” according to a release from Carnegie Mellon University about a study done there and presented on April 30th 2014 at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) in Toronto.
Even a Little Activity Helps Prevent Knee OA
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.
Human Cartilage Created From Stem Cells
For the first time, scientists have grown fully functional human cartilage from human stem cells.
The experts, from Columbia University, said that the process could help repair cartilage defects in humans. It could also make a composite graft with bone.
The discovery was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Fracture Risk Tool Is Flawed
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).