This morning a news release from the University of Southern California entitled “Meat and cheese may be as bad as smoking” hit my inbox. Since then, numerous sites around the web have picked up the eyeball-grabbing headline and the accompanying story. If you encountered any of those posts and you’re over 65, don’t be alarmed and don’t cut back on the percentage of protein you eat.
Tag: depressive symptoms
Goodbye to Reading Glasses?
A new finding by researchers could help improve vision for adults who are lost without their reading glasses.
Middle-aged people who suddenly need reading glasses, patients with traumatic brain injuries, and people with visual disorders such as "lazy eye" likely have one thing in common — "visual crowding." That’s the inability to recognize individual items surrounded by multiple objects.
Chemo at End of Life Ups Risk of Dying in ICU
The use of chemotherapy in terminally-ill cancer patients in the last months of life is associated with increased risk of undergoing resuscitation and dying in an intensive care unit, suggests a paper published on bmj.com today.
The researchers suggest that end-of-life discussions may be particularly important for patients receiving chemotherapy and suggest that caregivers should ensure that patients are aware of their prognosis, likely outcomes of treatment and that their choices are aligned with their end-of-life values.
Minimally Invasive Back Surgery
Research done at the Beaumont Health Systems in Royal Oak, Michigan and published in the February 2014 online issue of the journal Spine has shown that patients who have a low back surgery called minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion end up better off in many ways than patients who have more invasive surgery to alleviate debilitating pain.
Alzheimer’s in a Petri Dish
Pearse, PhD, confirmed what had long been observed in mouse models—that the mutations associated with early-onset Alzheimer's disease are directly related to protein cleavage errors that cause a rise in amyloid-beta (Aβ) protein 42, which all people produce but somehow clump together to form plaques in Alzheimer's patients.
Anger and Heart Attacks
For some people, anger could literally be a killer.
A new study has found that there’s a nearly fivefold increase in heart attack risk in the two hours following an outburst.
“There has been a lot of research on anger; we already know it can be unhealthy, but we wanted to quantify the risk, not just for heart attack, but for other potentially lethal cardiovascular events as well,” said lead author Elizabeth Mostofsky, MPH, ScD, a post-doctoral fellow in the cardiovascular epidemiological unit at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
How Robotic Surgery Helps Prostate-Cancer Patiets
Prostate-cancer patients who have robotic-assisted surgery have less need for treatments such as hormone or radiation therapy, according to a new study.
Researchers from UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center also found that the robotic-assisted surgery left fewer instances of cancer cells at the edge of the surgical specimen.
The study, published in the journal European Urology, was led by Dr. Jim Hu, director of robotic and minimally invasive surgery in the urology department at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Blood Test to Detect Heart Attacks Quickly
A new blood test can detect heart attacks hours faster than the current gold-standard blood test, according to a study led by Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine researchers and published in 2014 in the American Journal of Physiology – Heart and Circulatory Physiology.
FDA Wants to Update Nutrition Labels
The Food and Drug Administration wants to update the look and content of the Nutrition Facts Label to help consumers make better food choices and follow healthy dietary practices. The proposed changes include:
Proposed 2015 Medicare Part C Updates
Medicare beneficiaries can get greater protections, value, and care in the Medicare services they receive through the proposed policies in March of 2014 by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The 2015 Advance Notice and draft Call Letter takes important steps to improve payment accuracy for Medicare Advantage (Part C) for 2015.
Women More Competitive Than Men
True or false: Men are very competitive while women have a tendency to nurture relationships with others. The surprise answer, according to researchers at Harvard and the University of Quebec, is false. Co-authors Richard Wranghamand Joyce Benenson showed that within academic departments, women of different social or professional ranks cooperate with each other less well than men do. The paper was published March 3rd 2014 in the journal Current Biology.
Experts Have Overlooked Binge-Drinking Patterns
Studies linking moderate drinking to potential health benefits may have failed to take into account the issue of binge drinking among older “moderate” drinkers, a new study shows.
Previous research, the investigators say, has focused on average drinking levels rather than drinking patterns. And that, the investigators say, hides underlying factors such as heavy episodic or weekend binge drinking.
14 Questions About Your Breast Cancer Diagnosis
prognosis and medical choices.
A Simple Weapon Against Bacteria
An element in vinegar can kill even highly drug-resistant bacteria, according to a new study.
The ingredient, acetic acid, can effectively kill even the stubborn Mycobacterium tuberculosis, an international team of researchers from Venezuela, France, and the US reports in the journal mBio®, of the American Society for Microbiology.
Mycobacteria cause tuberculosis, and non-TB mycobacteria are common in the environment, even in tap water, and are resistant to commonly used disinfectants.
Curbing Antibiotic Rx for UTIs in Hospitals
A simple change in how the hospital laboratory reports urine culture results may help improve antibiotic prescribing practices and patient safety, according to a proof-of-concept study conducted in 2013 at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto and published online in March 2014 in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
Body Clock Controls Healing of Hearing Damage
A discovery at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden paves the way for medication to help people with hearing disabilities. The researchers have identified a biological circadian clock in the hearing organ, the cochlea. This circadian clock controls how well hearing damage may heal.
How Mood Influences Food Choice
Do you have a tendency to reach for junk food or sweets instead of healthy options when you’re down in the dumps? If so, you’re not alone. Researchers at the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab Previous, armed with previous research that found that emotions affect eating, set out ot find out why this happens. Their paper will be published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology.
Medicare Part D Saved $1.5 Billion a Year
Good news about Medicare Part D from a study done by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of Illinois at Chicago: The prescription coverage saved expenditures totaling $1.5 billion annually for the first four years and also significantly reduced hospital admissions. The data were published in March 2014 by the National Bureau of Economic Research