Steer Clear of Raw Milk, Researchers Warn

TUESDAY, March 31, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Raw milk causes more than half of all milk-related foodborne illnesses in the United States, even though only about 3.5 percent of Americans drink raw milk, according to a new report.

The researchers warned that people are nearly 100 times more likely to get a foodborne illness from raw (unpasteurized) milk than from pasteurized milk.

While some claim that raw milk is healthier and tastes better than pasteurized milk, the report authors said their findings show that raw milk carries significant health risks. People should not drink it, they said.

The team at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future reviewed 81 published journal articles about raw cow’s milk. They found it was often contaminated with Salmonella, Campylobacter, Listeria and a dangerous type of E. coli. These bacteria can cause foodborne illness leading to diarrhea, vomiting, cramping, fever and even kidney failure or death.

The report was recently prepared for Maryland lawmakers as they consider lifting a ban on the sale of raw milk.

“Ultimately, the scientific literature showed that the risk of foodborne illness from raw milk is over 100 times greater than the risk of foodborne illness from pasteurized milk,” lead author Benjamin Davis, a doctoral candidate in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Department of Environmental Health Sciences, said in a school news release.

“Although potential benefits related to the consumption of raw milk would benefit from further investigation, we believe that from a public health perspective it is a far safer choice to discourage the consumption of raw milk,” he added.

Co-author Cissy Li, also a doctoral candidate in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, said the risks of consuming raw milk instead of pasteurized milk are “well established in the scientific literature.” In some cases, the consequences are severe or fatal, she said in the news release.

“Based on our findings, we discourage the consumption of raw milk, especially among vulnerable populations such as the elderly, people with impaired immune systems, pregnant women, and children,” Li added.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about raw milk.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1IjPPL2

Heart Groups Issue Updated Blood Pressure Guidelines

By Steven Reinberg

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, March 31, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Three leading groups of heart experts have issued updated guidelines that set blood pressure goals for people with heart disease.

Specifically, the guidelines reinforce a target blood pressure of less than 140/90 mm Hg for those at risk for heart attack and stroke. The guidelines also set a goal of 130/80 mm Hg for those with heart disease who have already had a heart attack, stroke or a ministroke, or who have had a narrowing of their leg arteries or an abdominal aortic aneurysm.

However, the new guidelines are intended to be more flexible than ones crafted in 2007, said Dr. Clive Rosendorff, chairman of the committee that wrote the updated guidelines. Ultimately, the blood pressure goal any individual patient tries to achieve should be left to the discretion of the doctor and the patient.

For example, the lower goal may not be appropriate for older, frail patients who might experience dizziness if their blood pressure drops too much.

“Guidelines are simply that, guidelines, they are not inflexible rules,” Rosendorff said.

The updated guidelines, from the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology and the American Society of Hypertension, were published March 31 in the journal Hypertension.

“In patients with heart disease, untreated high blood pressure is a major risk for heart attack and stroke,” said Rosendorff, who is also a professor of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.

Rosendorff said these guidelines are for patients with heart disease. New blood pressure guidelines for people who have high blood pressure but do not have heart disease are in the works, but those won’t be released for some time, he said.

High blood pressure has become a growing problem in the United States during the past decade, according to a recent report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The overall death rate from high blood pressure has increased 23 percent since 2000, even as the death rate from all other causes has dropped 21 percent. That spike was seen in both genders and was most marked among those aged 45 to 64 and those over 85.

According to Rosendorff, one change in the updated guidelines is a concise statement about which drugs should be used to lower blood pressure in patients with heart disease.

“There are three drugs which have been shown to improve outcomes,” he said. These include beta-blockers that slow the heart rate and reduce the force of cardiac contraction and also increase blood flow to the heart, Rosendorff said.

The guidelines also recommend angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) and angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitors (ACE inhibitors), which increase the size of blood vessels, thus lowering blood pressure, and diuretics that lower blood pressure by reducing the amount of fluid in the body.

Dr. Gregg Fonarow, a professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, said men and women with high blood pressure and heart disease may benefit from more cohesive management strategies that target both conditions.

“As large numbers of men and women have not achieved optimal control of their blood pressure and are having major cardiovascular events which could have been prevented, more needs to be done to ensure implementation of these recommendations into routine clinical practice,” Fonarow said.

Dr. Harlan Krumholz, a professor of cardiology at the Yale School of Medicine, views the updated guidelines as part of an ongoing debate among experts as to what blood pressure goals should be.

“The main issue is that not many contemporary trials have focused on patients with high blood pressure in this range, and there is some uncertainty about who benefits most from drug treatment, whether adding additional pills is helpful, and in what sequence. As always, the best path for people with minor elevations of blood pressure is to treat it with lifestyle change, including diet and exercise,” he said.

More information

Visit the American Heart Association for more on high blood pressure.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1NFooib

Tied to Your Phone? Here’s a Simple Way to Use it Less

Courtesy of Molly McLeod

When it comes to smartphone addiction—to borrow from internet parlance—the struggle is real. As much as we all love to browse Facebook, snap photos (for Instagram, of course), and check e-mail and texts on the go, research shows that constantly checking your phone increases stress, rather than lessening it.

Our phone-dependency has also been linked to other health problems, including “text neck,” back pain and poor sleep to name a few. And still, we can’t put them down.

RELATED: 12 Worst Habits For Your Mental Health

That’s where artist Molly Mcleod comes in. The designer created some super useful iPhone wallpapers to remind people to stop and smell the roses, rather than taking pictures of them.

If you’re among the sufferers of compulsive smartphone-checking, download one and use it to remind yourself to look up—or you may miss something truly special. Plus, they’re pretty funny.

All you have to do is save these images to your phone, then set them as a wallpaper.

If you can’t quit Twitter

RELATED: 12 Ways We Sabotage Our Mental Health

If you’re ‘Queen of the ‘Grams’

RELATED: 17 Surprising Reasons You’re Stressed Out

And finally… If you’re all-around obsessed

RELATED: 14 Strategies to Become a Happier Person

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1xUfbz5

The Medieval Cure That May Actually Kill Antibiotic-Resistant Bugs

Getty Images

A 10th-century medicine that was originally used to treat eye infections may also be able to cure staph infections.

Researchers at the University of Nottingham recreated an ancient potion recipe from Bald’s Leechbook, one of the oldest medical texts in existence. By following the recipe steps precisely, including using a wine from a thousand-year-old vineyard, researchers developed a medicine that was found to kill 90% of MRSA bacteria in mice. MRSA is a particularly hard-to-treat bacterial infection resistant to many modern antibiotics.

“When we got the first results we were just utterly dumbfounded,” microbiologist Freya Harrison told CNN. “We did not see this coming at all.”

Researchers aren’t yet sure exactly why the ancient potion is so effective. The odd mixture of ingredients—onion, garlic, wine and cow stomach bile—may create a new molecule when combined or they may be separately killing off different parts of the bacterial infection.

This article originally appeared on Time.com.

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1bNXhUB

Eat Right to Protect Your Sight

TUESDAY, March 31, 2015 (HealthDay News) — A number of nutrients can help keep your eyes healthy, and some may even improve your eyesight, an eye doctor says.

It’s particularly important to eat a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, said Dr. James McDonnell, a pediatric ophthalmologist at Loyola University Health System in Maywood, Ill.

“Make a colorful plate, especially with greens, blues and reds. Certain foods have distinct benefits for the eyes in addition to overall health, including many of the trendy superfoods such as kale, broccoli and sweet potatoes,” he said in a Loyola news release.

McDonnell said healthy eating might help protect you from cataracts, macular degeneration — a leading cause of vision loss in older Americans — and even blindness.

He listed several nutrients that are especially good for your eyes.

Astaxanthin. “This supernutrient protects eyes from developing cataracts, macular degeneration and blindness,” McDonnell said. “Seaweed and wild, rather than farmed, salmon are excellent choices high in astaxanthin. It also aids in so many aspects of wellness that astaxanthin is my top recommendation for incorporation into your diet.”

Omega-3. This fatty acid contained in fish protects against dry eye and age-related macular degeneration, he said.

“Studies show that individuals who ate oily fish such as tuna, sardines, herring and salmon at least once a week were 50 percent less likely to develop neovascular [wet] macular degeneration than those who ate fish less than once per week,” McDonnell said.

Anthocyanins. “Blueberries, bilberries and especially black currants contain high amounts of anthocyanins and help to maintain the health of the cornea and blood vessels in every part of the eye,” McDonnell said. “They also help reduce the risk of cataracts and macular degeneration as well as decrease inflammatory eye disease and diabetic retinopathy.”

Vitamin D. “Safe sun exposure, fish oils, fatty fish and, to a lesser extent, beef liver, cheese, egg yolks and certain mushrooms contain this master hormone, which acts on more than 4,000 genes,” McDonnell said. He added that vitamin D3 supplementation has been shown to help prevent age-related macular degeneration, reduce retinal inflammation and improve vision.

Zeaxanthin. This nutrient, which McConnell said reduces the risk of age-related macular degeneration, is found in dark green vegetables such as kale, broccoli, collards, raw spinach and romaine lettuce. “Lightly cooking these vegetables increases your body’s ability to absorb these nutrients,” McDonnell said.

Bioflavonoids. Found in tea, red wine, citrus fruits and cherries, bioflavonoids may lower the risk of cataracts and macular degeneration, he said. And beta-carotene, contained in carrots, sweet potatoes, spinach, kale and butternut squash, protects you against night blindness and dry eyes, the eye doctor noted.

Lutein. This nutrient is also good for your eyes. “The best source is from organic eggs laid by pastured organic hens. You can also take supplements made from marigold flowers,” McDonnell said.

More information

The U.S. National Eye Institute has more about healthy eyes.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1CtuAot

Benefits of Iron Supplements Unclear for Pregnant Women, Young Children

By Tara Haelle

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, March 31, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Taking iron supplements during pregnancy doesn’t appear to significantly change any health outcomes for mom or baby, a new review shows.

A second review — this one on infants and toddlers — found no evidence that iron supplements improved growth or development.

Both conclusions come from a U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) review of the latest research on iron supplementation and screening for pregnant women, babies and young children.

The USPSTF determined that there isn’t enough evidence to recommend that pregnant women or infants and children receive iron supplements or be screened for iron deficiencies. But, they also noted there isn’t enough evidence to recommend against either practice.

The recommendations regarding prenatal supplements are an unchanged update from those in 2006. What’s new is that this study also finds no evidence to support routine screening.

“There is not enough research to demonstrate that women need to be routinely screened for iron-deficiency anemia or that they should routinely take iron supplements in the absence of symptoms,” said Dr. Amy Cantor, lead author of the prenatal study.

“It is not particularly harmful to take an iron supplement, but it may not be necessary,” added Cantor, who is an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology and family medicine at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.

Generally, a healthy pregnant woman who does not have symptoms of low iron does not need any more than the 27 milligrams per day of iron that the Institute of Medicine recommends, Cantor said.

Her team analyzed the evidence from 11 trials on pregnant women routinely taking iron supplements. It found that supplements didn’t affect women’s quality of life or rates of C-sections, underweight newborns, preterm birth or infant death.

The researchers did find that women’s iron levels improved with supplements. But, whether or not there is a benefit from this change is unclear, according to the investigators.

The researchers didn’t find any studies looking at the benefits of screening for iron deficiency.

Not everyone was on board with the USPSTF recommendations.

Iron helps blood carry oxygen and nutrients throughout the body, so low iron levels can cause problems during pregnancy, said Dr. Andre Hall, an obstetrician and gynecologist at Birth and Women’s Care in Fayetteville, N.C.

“In addition, if a mother is anemic, she has less reserve in cases of bleeding during delivery,” he said.

According to Dr. Jill Rabin, co-chief of the division of ambulatory care at Women’s Health Programs-PCAP Services in the North Shore-LIJ Health System of New Hyde Park, N.Y., doctors may still recommend that women take iron supplements and continue to screen for iron deficiency at the beginning of prenatal care and late in the third trimester.

“We still continue to recommend supplements and screening because we know iron helps carry the blood to the mom and the baby,” said Rabin. “There are no major harms, and the benefits may be enormous, so we should just keep doing what we’re doing and keep doing more research,” she said.

The most common problems associated with taking iron supplements were nausea, constipation and diarrhea that went away on their own, study author Cantor said. Women can get iron through a diet rich in dark green leafy vegetables, various meats and seafood, beans, dried fruit and iron-fortified cereals, breads and pasta, she said.

The findings in infants and toddlers were similar to those for pregnant women, according to Marian McDonagh, a professor of epidemiology at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, and lead author of that study.

McDonagh’s team reviewed 10 trials they identified that measured effects of iron supplements in children aged 6 months to 2 years.

“Although some evidence on routine iron supplementation in children ages 6 to 24 months indicates improvements in hematologic [blood] values, limited evidence from controlled studies indicates no benefits in growth or neurodevelopmental test scores, and no other clinical outcomes have been evaluated in the literature for children living in developed countries,” McDonagh said. “The effects of routine iron supplementation in young children are unknown at this time.”

As in the maternal studies, the researchers weren’t able to find any studies that measured the benefits or harms of screening children for iron deficiency.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends screening children before age 2, and this review doesn’t have enough evidence to sway recommendations that are in place, according to Dr. Roya Samuels, a pediatrician at Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New Hyde Park, N.Y.

“Despite the conclusions, it’s still important to do routine iron screenings, especially in infants and toddlers because that age range involves rapid growth, and there’s a higher likelihood that there could be problems with eating,” Samuels said. “Toddlers who only want to eat bread and pasta may not be getting enough iron.”

The findings on pregnant women were released online March 30 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The findings on children were published in the April issue of Pediatrics.

More information

Learn more about preventing anemia from the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1Eyv7Jk

Scientists Find More Evidence of Breast Milk’s Goodness

TUESDAY, March 31, 2015 (HealthDay News) — A high-tech comparison of the breast milk of humans and their close primate relatives is revealing just how nutritious the human variety is.

The research was led by Danielle Lemay, a nutritional biologist at the University of California, Davis’ Genome Center. Her team used a new technique for identifying proteins found in breast milk.

The researchers found that human breast milk has far more protein content than the breast milk of one of humans’ closest primate relatives, the rhesus macaque monkey.

“The higher levels of these proteins in human milk are consistent with the well-established perspective that human babies, compared to other primate infants, are born at a slightly earlier stage of development and require higher levels of specific proteins that will nurture them as they mature,” Lemay said in a university news release.

In other words, human breast milk might be even more protein-rich because human babies rely on its nutritional benefits to a larger degree than other primates.

Lemay and her colleagues published the findings online this month in the Journal of Proteome Research.

The new research relies on a new means of molecular analysis that enabled the team to spot more than 1,600 distinct proteins in human milk, of which more than 500 were spotted for the first time.

This compared with just over 500 proteins found in rhesus macaque milk.

The breast milk of humans and rhesus monkeys also share 88 proteins in common, the team noted. However, 93 percent of those shared proteins were still found in higher quantities in human milk.

Some of those proteins aid in the digestion of fats, Lemay’s team said, while others boost babies’ ability to absorb iron and vitamins B-12 and D.

Current recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics urge women to breast-feed their baby exclusively for the first six months of life, and then combine breast milk and other foods until at least 12 months.

Going forward, Lemay suggested that “proteins that appear to have neurodevelopmental significance for human babies will be key targets for future research focused on enhancing infant formula.”

More information

There’s more on breast milk at the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1ywoQqo

Clues to ‘Brain Fog’ in Chronic Fatigue Patients Found in Spinal Fluid

By Amy Norton

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, March 31, 2015 (HealthDay News) — People with chronic fatigue syndrome show a distinct pattern of immune system proteins in their spinal fluid — a finding that could shed light on the “brain fog” that marks the condition, researchers say.

The new study found that, compared with healthy people, those with chronic fatigue syndrome had lower levels of certain immune-system proteins called cytokines in the fluid that bathes the spinal cord and brain.

The exception was one particular cytokine, which was elevated in not only people with chronic fatigue, but also those with multiple sclerosis.

The finding could offer clues as to why people with chronic fatigue syndrome typically have problems with memory, concentration and thinking, said lead researcher Dr. Mady Hornig, a professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York City.

The study also bolsters evidence that some type of immune dysfunction underlies the puzzling disorder, Hornig said.

Chronic fatigue syndrome is known medically as myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, or ME/CFS. In the United States, it affects up to 2.5 million people, according to the Institute of Medicine, a scientific panel that advises the federal government.

In February, the IOM released a report affirming that chronic fatigue syndrome is a legitimate medical condition that many health professionals still misunderstand — or even dismiss as a figment of patients’ imagination.

The term “chronic fatigue syndrome” was coined back in 1988, and in hindsight, it was a “lousy” choice, said Suzanne Vernon, a virologist and scientific director of the Solve ME/CFS Initiative, based in Los Angeles.

“People hear it and think, ‘Oh, you’re tired. I’m tired, too,'” said Vernon, who was not involved in the study. “But this is debilitating fatigue. It’s like having a case of the flu that never goes away.”

Plus, symptoms go beyond fatigue, and include what’s been dubbed “brain fog” — a collection of thinking-related problems such as confusion and difficulty with concentration and short-term memory.

For the new study, reported March 31 in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, Hornig’s team studied spinal-fluid samples from 32 people with chronic fatigue syndrome, 40 with multiple sclerosis, and 19 healthy people.

Overall, the researchers found reduced levels of most cytokines in chronic fatigue syndrome patients’ spinal fluid, versus the two other groups. But one cytokine, eotaxin, was elevated in people with chronic fatigue syndrome and those with multiple sclerosis.

The significance of that finding is not clear yet, Hornig said. But she said eotaxin is involved in allergy-like immune responses.

To Vernon, the findings offer “additional evidence of clear [biological] markers in ME/CFS.”

“These biomarkers are indications of some kind of disease process,” Vernon said. In other words, she added, chronic fatigue syndrome is “not made up.”

Why did the study include people with multiple sclerosis? There are some similarities between MS and chronic fatigue syndrome, Hornig explained. MS patients suffer fatigue, and the disease is believed to be caused by an abnormal immune reaction — in this case, against the body’s own nerve tissue.

The precise cause of chronic fatigue syndrome is far from clear, but in general, it’s thought to involve some type of immune system dysfunction, Hornig explained.

In a recent study, her team found that in people who’ve had chronic fatigue syndrome for a relatively short time — fewer than three years — cytokine levels in the blood were actually elevated. They dropped again, though, in people who’d had the disease for a longer time.

People in the current study had had chronic fatigue syndrome for about seven years. So the relatively low cytokine levels in their spinal fluid “parallel” what was seen in the earlier study, Hornig said.

“I think what we’re seeing is an immune system exhaustion over time,” Hornig speculated.

The theory is that the immune system may initially go into overdrive against an invader — like a virus — and then be unable to dial itself down, Hornig explained. That could account for the high cytokine levels in people who’ve had chronic fatigue syndrome for a short time.

Over time, though, the immune system may essentially wear itself down, leading to weak responses to mild infections that a healthy immune system would readily handle, Hornig suggested.

One hope, Hornig said, is that these findings could lead to objective tests that can diagnose chronic fatigue syndrome early.

An objective test, such as a blood test measuring cytokines, would be welcome, Vernon said. Right now, she noted, people often wait for years for a diagnosis, which is based on symptoms.

Understanding the biology of the disease could also lead to treatments, Hornig said.

“We can’t promise this will translate into treatments around the corner,” she said. “But we hope to start giving doctors some tools.”

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on chronic fatigue syndrome.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1xTw6So

New Stroke Prevention Efforts May Be Paying Off

By Dennis Thompson

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, March 31, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Fewer people are being treated in U.S. emergency rooms for strokes caused by blood clots in the brain, which experts read as a sign that current stroke prevention methods are working.

The rate of emergency department visits for either a stroke or a mini-stroke (transient ischemic attack) — a temporary blockage of blood flow to the brain — decreased dramatically between 2001 and 2011, according to a new U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report.

Such ER visits declined 35 percent for adults 18 and older, and 51 percent for those 55 to 74, said the report from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).

The statistics mirror a “dramatic reduction in stroke fatality in the country, which we believe is likely due to better control of risk factors,” said Dr. Larry Goldstein, chief of the division of stroke and vascular neurology and director of the Duke Stroke Center at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C.

People are preventing strokes by taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs and medications to control high blood pressure, Goldstein said. In addition, fewer people are smoking, which is a leading risk factor for stroke, and indoor air laws are limiting nonsmokers’ exposure to secondhand smoke.

The CDC report, published in the March NCHS Data Brief, also contained evidence that doctors are providing more comprehensive care for stroke victims, experts said.

For example, doctors more frequently used MRIs or CT scans to evaluate a patient who came to the emergency room with signs of a blood-clot stroke, the CDC report found.

The percentage of ER stroke visits that involved an MRI or CT scan increased 39 percent between 2001 and 2011, researchers said.

Such scans are important prior to giving patients powerful clot-busting medications that can quickly treat a stroke and prevent further brain damage, said lead report author Anjali Talwalkar, a medical officer with the NCHS.

“If it’s a stroke that is a bleed in the brain, you don’t want to give certain types of medication,” such as clot-busting drugs, since they could cause the bleeding to increase, Talwalkar said. “These scans are definitely a critical piece of care for a stroke.”

Experts also found it encouraging that more patients are being admitted into a hospital or transferred to another facility after showing up in an ER for stroke. The number of admissions or transfers increased 10 percent between 2001 and 2011, according to the report.

“That reflects the growing importance of more aggressive stroke treatments,” said Dr. Richard Libman, vice chair of neurology for North Shore-LIJ Health System in Manhasset, N.Y.

These aggressive treatments can include what’s called “drip and ship,” in which patients are given clot-busting drugs at local hospitals and then transferred to stroke centers that can provide more comprehensive care, Libman said.

These stroke centers also have been pioneering ways to clear blood clots by snaking a catheter into a person’s head and removing the clot manually, he added.

Not all the news from the CDC report was positive, however.

The researchers also found that fewer people are arriving at the ER by ambulance after suffering stroke symptoms.

The percentage of ambulance-transported stroke patients younger than 75 decreased 41 percent between 2004 and 2011, the report found.

This decrease happened despite public health campaigns aimed at getting people who may be suffering a stroke to call 911 immediately, Libman said.

“Data and studies have shown that if you have a stroke and you get to the hospital early by ambulance, you have a higher chance of being treated with clot-busting drugs than if you arrive by any other mode of transportation,” he said.

Clot-busting drugs are only effective when given soon after onset of stroke, and doctors may choose not to use them if hours have passed, Libman said.

“Whenever you have symptoms suggestive of stroke, call 911. Get to the nearest emergency department as soon as possible,” he said.

More information

For more on clot-busting drug therapy, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1ywoQ9P

New Stroke Prevention Efforts May Be Paying Off

By Dennis Thompson

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, March 31, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Fewer people are being treated in U.S. emergency rooms for strokes caused by blood clots in the brain, which experts read as a sign that current stroke prevention methods are working.

The rate of emergency department visits for either a stroke or a mini-stroke (transient ischemic attack) — a temporary blockage of blood flow to the brain — decreased dramatically between 2001 and 2011, according to a new U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report.

Such ER visits declined 35 percent for adults 18 and older, and 51 percent for those 55 to 74, said the report from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).

The statistics mirror a “dramatic reduction in stroke fatality in the country, which we believe is likely due to better control of risk factors,” said Dr. Larry Goldstein, chief of the division of stroke and vascular neurology and director of the Duke Stroke Center at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C.

People are preventing strokes by taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs and medications to control high blood pressure, Goldstein said. In addition, fewer people are smoking, which is a leading risk factor for stroke, and indoor air laws are limiting nonsmokers’ exposure to secondhand smoke.

The CDC report, published in the March NCHS Data Brief, also contained evidence that doctors are providing more comprehensive care for stroke victims, experts said.

For example, doctors more frequently used MRIs or CT scans to evaluate a patient who came to the emergency room with signs of a blood-clot stroke, the CDC report found.

The percentage of ER stroke visits that involved an MRI or CT scan increased 39 percent between 2001 and 2011, researchers said.

Such scans are important prior to giving patients powerful clot-busting medications that can quickly treat a stroke and prevent further brain damage, said lead report author Anjali Talwalkar, a medical officer with the NCHS.

“If it’s a stroke that is a bleed in the brain, you don’t want to give certain types of medication,” such as clot-busting drugs, since they could cause the bleeding to increase, Talwalkar said. “These scans are definitely a critical piece of care for a stroke.”

Experts also found it encouraging that more patients are being admitted into a hospital or transferred to another facility after showing up in an ER for stroke. The number of admissions or transfers increased 10 percent between 2001 and 2011, according to the report.

“That reflects the growing importance of more aggressive stroke treatments,” said Dr. Richard Libman, vice chair of neurology for North Shore-LIJ Health System in Manhasset, N.Y.

These aggressive treatments can include what’s called “drip and ship,” in which patients are given clot-busting drugs at local hospitals and then transferred to stroke centers that can provide more comprehensive care, Libman said.

These stroke centers also have been pioneering ways to clear blood clots by snaking a catheter into a person’s head and removing the clot manually, he added.

Not all the news from the CDC report was positive, however.

The researchers also found that fewer people are arriving at the ER by ambulance after suffering stroke symptoms.

The percentage of ambulance-transported stroke patients younger than 75 decreased 41 percent between 2004 and 2011, the report found.

This decrease happened despite public health campaigns aimed at getting people who may be suffering a stroke to call 911 immediately, Libman said.

“Data and studies have shown that if you have a stroke and you get to the hospital early by ambulance, you have a higher chance of being treated with clot-busting drugs than if you arrive by any other mode of transportation,” he said.

Clot-busting drugs are only effective when given soon after onset of stroke, and doctors may choose not to use them if hours have passed, Libman said.

“Whenever you have symptoms suggestive of stroke, call 911. Get to the nearest emergency department as soon as possible,” he said.

More information

For more on clot-busting drug therapy, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1ywoQ9P

‘Gluten Free Museum’ Tumblr Imagines Famous Artwork Without Grains

Gluten-free breads, cookies, pastas and flours abound. Last year, “gluten free diet” was one of the top ten most-searched health terms on Google. Whether you’ve got a true allergy or intolerance to this protein found in wheat, you’ve tried cutting it out to lose weight, or you are currently rolling your eyes and eating a bowl of pasta right now, you can’t deny that “going gluten free” has become a cultural touchstone.

But what would life look like if gluten never existed at all?

RELATED: 5 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Gluten

The hilarious new Tumblr Gluten Free Museum imagines that possibility for us, taking works of art (or pop culture) and making them “gluten free.” Think Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” minus the wheat-gathering pitchfork or Chief Wiggum sans donut.

The Tumblr doesn’t offer up any clues as to the mastermind behind these photoshopped works of art, so we’re not sure who to credit for this stroke of genius. Either way it has us laughing—and hoping that perhaps it can bring the gluten-intolerant and bread-lovers among us together, once and for all.

RELATED: 15 Gluten-Free Recipes

Here are some of our favorite works.

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1IMQ16e

Ob-Gyns: Use Ultrasound to Assess Pelvic Symptoms

TUESDAY, March 31, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Ultrasound should be the first type of imaging used to assess pelvic symptoms in women, a group of U.S. experts says.

Ultrasound is safer and more cost-effective than other types of imaging for these types of cases, the team of obstetricians and gynecologists wrote in an article published March 31 in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

They support an American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine initiative called Ultrasound First, which urges doctors to use ultrasound when evidence shows that it is equally, if not more, effective compared to other imaging methods for the area on the patient’s body that requires examination.

“This recommendation applies particularly to obstetric and gynecologic patients. A skillfully performed and well-interpreted ultrasound usually eliminates the need to perform additional more costly and complex cross-sectional imaging techniques,” article lead author and institute president Dr. Beryl Benacerraf said in a journal news release.

Currently, many women with pelvic pain, masses or flank pain first undergo CT scans, and sometimes MRIs, noted Benacerraf, who is also a clinical professor in obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology and radiology at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

However, CT scans and MRIs of the pelvis often result in unclear findings that require further clarification using ultrasound, she said.

Moreover, the growing use of CT raises safety concerns, added article co-author Dr. Steven Goldstein, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at NYU School of Medicine.

“The use of CT scans has tripled since 1993,” Goldstein said, noting that radiation associated with CT may pose a cancer risk.

It’s estimated that 29,000 future cancers could be related to CT done in the United States in 2007 alone, Goldstein added. And nearly half of those predicted cancers were attributed to CT of the pelvis and abdomen, he said.

“For example, patients with suspected kidney stones frequently have a CT scan first, despite the associated radiation burden. In a recent study, most of the patients evaluated first by ultrasound did not ultimately need a CT scan, sparing radiation exposure,” Goldstein noted.

Ultrasound imaging uses sounds waves rather than radiation.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development has more about pelvic pain.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1IMx43C

E-Cigs Tied to Drinking, Other Risky Teen Behaviors

TUESDAY, March 31, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Electronic cigarettes are used by both smoking and nonsmoking teens, and are associated with drinking and other risky behaviors, a new study finds.

“We found that e-cigarette access is strongly related to alcohol use in teenagers,” said study author Karen Hughes. She is a professor of behavioral epidemiology at Liverpool John Moores University in England.

“Those who drink are more likely to have accessed e-cigarettes than nondrinkers regardless of whether they smoke normal cigarettes or not, and those who drink frequently, binge drink, drink to get drunk, drink strong alcohol products, and show signs of unsupervised alcohol consumption are most likely to have accessed e-cigarettes,” said Hughes in a news release from BMC Public Health.

The study was published in the journal on March 30.

The researchers from the university surveyed more than 16,000 students, aged 14 to 17, in England and found that 20 percent of them had used e-cigarettes.

Of those who had tried e-cigarettes, 16 percent had never smoked, 23 percent had tried smoking but didn’t like it, nearly 36 percent were regular smokers, nearly 12 percent only smoked when drinking, and nearly 14 percent were ex-smokers.

Students who drank alcohol were much more likely to use e-cigarettes than nondrinkers, and those who regularly binge drank were four times more likely to use e-cigarettes than those who didn’t drink, according to the study.

Among those who drank, e-cigarette use was associated with binge drinking and violence after drinking, regardless of whether they smoked. These findings suggest that teens who use e-cigarettes are at risk for other types of substance use and risk-taking, according to the researchers.

Fellow study author Mark Bellis said, “Our research suggests that we should be very concerned about teenagers accessing e-cigarettes. While debate on e-cigarettes has focused largely on whether or not they act as a gateway to tobacco cigarette use, e-cigarettes themselves contain a highly addictive drug that may have more serious and longer lasting impacts on children because their brains are still developing.”

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse has more about e-cigarettes.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1IMx6IV