healthy living for women + their families
Researchers are well on the way to making hemp oil good for cooking.
The experts, from the University of York in the UK, have developed hemp plants with a substantially increased content of oleic acid. That development means hemp oil can now be a cooking oil similar to olive oil. The new oil has a much longer shelf life and can be used for industrial as well as domestic purposes.
The research was published in Plant Biotechnology Journal.
Experts are calling for a full evaluation of the risks and benefits of hormone therapy for older men with declining levels of testosterone.
The statement by the Endocrine Society was prompted by recent studies, one from the Veterans Health Care System and the other from the National Institutes of Health, that have raised concerns about the risks of testosterone therapy for older men with a history of heart disease.
Researchers have pinpointed a source of age-related motor decline, and that could lead to targeted treatments to deal with the condition.
The investigators, from the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, discovered evidence that so-called “set points” in the nervous system are not inevitably determined during development but can be “reset” with age.
Diaphragm pacing, a system that gained nationwide attention when Raymond Onders, MD of University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Clevelandimplanted the stimulator in actor Christopher Reeve, has now been shown to be successful not only in weaning patients from mechanical ventilators but also in bridging patients to independent respiration. The study, done at the center, was published in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery.
Seven new genetic regions associated with type 2 diabetes have been identified in the largest study to date of the genetic basis of the disease. DNA data was brought together from more than 48,000 patients and 139,000 healthy controls from four different ethnic groups. The research was conducted by an international consortium of investigators from 20 countries on four continents, co-led by investigators from Oxford University's Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics. The study is published in the February 2014 issue of journal Nature Genetics.
Although more people survive a stroke now than 10 years ago, women have a poorer post-stroke quality of life than men do, according to a study done at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, NC and published in the February 7th 2014 online issue of the journal Neurology.
Here's another addition to our ThirdAge Video Collection. Press play to start learning!
By Edward Oberg
With the introduction of legislation such as Obama Care, The Affordable Care Act, and even DOMA, the world of insurance is in flux and shopping for a new policy is more confusing than ever. This leaves those who remain uninsured and those who have found themselves underinsured with the newly imposed restrictions in quite a quandary. Despite the plethora of new questions these changes pose, luckily there are answers to be had.
By Hilary Young
While caring for a loved one may seem like the better, cheaper alternative to assisted living, there are actually many financial issues to consider. Understanding these issues and knowing how to cope with them is vital because people are now living longer than ever before and many family members will eventually take on the role of caregiver.
For the first time, researchers have developed guidelines for preventing women from having strokes.
"If you are a woman, you share many of the same risk factors for stroke with men, but your risk is also influenced by hormones, reproductive health, pregnancy, childbirth and other sex-related factors," said Cheryl Bushnell, M.D., M.H.S., author of the statement published in the American Heart Association journal Stroke.
The guidelines outline stroke risks for women women and provide recommendations on how o treat them, including:
Supportiveness from a spouse can help people fare better in their overall cardiovascular health, according to a new study.
The findings, by researchers from the University of Utah, show that when partners perceive the support they get from each other as ambivalent – sometimes helpful, sometimes stressful – their levels of coronary artery calcification (CAC) tend to be high.
The findings were published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
“Telehealth”, an approach to saving costs and improving patient care in hospitals, goes far beyond videoconferenced doctor visits, according to researchers at the University of Michigan who conducted the first survery of how broadly web-based technologies are being used nationwide. The team found that 42 percent of U.S. hospitals use some type of "telehealth" approach. The study, published in the February 2014 issue of the journal Health Affairs, breaks down adoption rates by state.
A review published in February 2014 in Nutrition Journal debunks the myth that dietary supplement users are operating under a "halo effect" or are somehow short-changing themselves, eating poorly, not exercising regularly, and relying on a supplement alone for good health. On the contrary, the data collected by researchers at the Council for Responsible Nutrition indicate that in fact dietary supplement users make better food choices in addition to taking supplements.
In 2003, the American Heart Association and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute created National Wear Red Day to raise awareness about the fact that heart disease was claiming the lives of nearly 500,000 American women each year. The event is held annually on the first Friday in February. Today, February 7th 2014, why not wear red to participate in the effort to make sure we realize that, especially as we age and reach postmenopause, heart to heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women?
Here's another addition to our ThirdAge Video Collection. Press play to start learning!
You've been told that you have chronic kidney disease (CKD). What does that mean? And what does it mean for your health and your life? Here, the experts from the National Kidney Disease Education Program, part of the National Institutes of Health, offer expert tips on living with the condition.
First, the basics: Your illness affects your two kidneys. Each is about the size of your fist. They filter wastes and excess water from your blood to make urine. They also help control blood pressure, and they manufacture hormones.
Researchers have taken a step toward better diagnosis and treatment of endometriosis by discovering a pattern of molecules and cellular activity linked to the painful condition.
Endometriosis, the invasion of uterine tissue into surrounding organs, including the peritoneal cavity and the ovaries, affects an estimated 10 percent of women. It can cause severe pain and infertility. It’s also difficult to diagnose because symptoms may disappear for years at a time, and very little is known about its cause.
