Health and Fitness News

Welcome to the Stars Hollow Health and Fitness weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

‘Hands-only’ CPR works, but survival still low

(Reuters Health) – “Hands-only” CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) is usually as effective as traditional CPR that includes mouth-to-mouth breathing – but the odds that cardiac arrest victims will survive with minimal brain damage are still quite low, a large study from Japan finds.

Researchers say the findings support statements from the American Heart Association and other groups that compression-only CPR can be a comparable alternative to the traditional technique of alternating chest compressions with mouth-to-mouth breathing.

Experts find brain enzyme that makes pain last

(Reuters) – Researchers working on mice have found an enzyme in the brain that appears to make pain last after nerve injury and they hope to use it as a new target to treat chronic pain in people.

In a paper published in Science magazine Friday, the scientists in Canada and South Korea said they managed to alleviate pain after blocking the enzyme.

“It provides us with basic understanding of the brain mechanism for chronic pain,” lead author Min Zhuo, a physiology professor at the University of Toronto, wrote in an email.

Study says Huntington’s tests to aid drug search

(Reuters) – Scientists have developed a new range of tests that allow them to track the progression of Huntington’s disease long before symptoms appear and should aid the development of drugs for the incurable inherited disease.

In a study published in The Lancet Neurology journal, researchers said their battery of tests, which include advanced brain imaging and cognitive and motor skill assessments, were sensitive enough to detect signs of the disease many years before it takes hold and to show changes in brain function over just one year.

Heart stenting on the rise in Canada

(Reuters Health) – The number of Canadians having blocked heart arteries opened with a non-surgical procedure more than doubled between 1994 and 2005, mirroring trends seen in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere, according to a new study.

It is unclear whether the increase reflects appropriate use of the procedure, called angioplasty, or has been “too great” — or possibly not great enough — said lead researcher Dr. Ansar Hassan, of Saint John Regional Hospital in Canada.

Military’s gays policy harms health, doctor says

(Reuters) – The U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy for gays helps spread disease and puts service members’ health at risk, a commentary by a doctor in the  New England Journal of Medicine said Wednesday.

Military personnel afraid of giving frank sexual histories to military physicians can miss treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, including the AIDS virus, and may spread them to others, according to Dr. Kenneth Katz.

“The consequences of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ are clear. Infections go undiagnosed. Service members and their partners go untreated,” wrote Katz, an STD specialist in San Diego County’s Health and Human Services Agency.

J&J confirms widely expanded contact lens recall

(Reuters) – Johnson & Johnson, which has been beset by product recalls, on Wednesday confirmed that it recalled nearly five times as many contact lenses as the 100,000 boxes it announced in August due to eye stinging.

J&J said that in late October the recall of its 1 Day Acuvue TruEye lenses, which took place primarily in Japan, was expanded to a total of about 492,000 boxes.

J&J heartburn worsens as Mylanta joins recall list

(Reuters) – Johnson & Johnson’s consumer-product distress worsened on Wednesday as the company recalled 12 million bottles of over-the-counter Mylanta and almost 85,000 bottles of its AlternaGel liquid antacid.

J&J said the actions, which it described as “wholesale and retail level” recalls, were taken because the presence of small amounts of alcohol from flavoring agents was not noted on product packaging.

“It is unlikely that use of these products will cause either alcohol absorption or alcohol sensitivity adverse events,” the company said on its Mylanta website.

FDA staff note risks of AstraZeneca cancer drug

(Reuters) – An experimental AstraZeneca pill to treat inoperable thyroid cancer carries “substantial toxicity” for patients, U.S. drug reviewers said in documents released on Tuesday.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration staff said they would ask an advisory panel to consider skin, lung and other risks with the drug, vandetanib, at a public meeting on Thursday.

UNICEF says HIV-free generation is achievable

(Reuters) – A generation of babies could be born free of AIDS if the international community stepped up efforts to provide universal access to HIV prevention, treatment and social protection, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

A report by the U.N. children’s fund UNICEF found that millions of women and children, particularly in poor countries, fall through the cracks of HIV services either due to their gender, social or economic status, location or education.

Factbox: AIDS virus infects 33 million globally

(Reuters) – A new report from the U.S. Institute of Medicine recommends that governments and non-profit groups fighting AIDS in Africa concentrate more on preventing new cases than on treating patients.

The panel of international experts projects that 70 million Africans will be infected with the human immunodeficiency virus by 2050 unless something changes.

Treating dengue more difficult with growing obesity: experts

(Reuters) – Experts warned Friday that treating dengue, a potentially fatal disease caused by a mosquito-borne virus, will become more difficult in the future as more people around the world become overweight and obese.

Dengue patients suffer from capillary permeability, when fluid leaks from their blood vessels into surrounding tissues, causing breathing difficulty and complications in major organs like the brain, liver and kidneys.

“The virus has an impact on the wall of the capillaries and allows more fluids to leave the tubes and into the tissues,” said Jeremy Farrar, tropical medicine professor and director of the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Vietnam.

Pregnancy-related deaths rise in the U.S.

(Reuters Health) – While it remains rare for a woman in the U.S. to die from pregnancy complications, the national rate of pregnancy-related deaths appears to be on the upswing, a new government study finds.

Researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that between 1998 and 2005, the rate of pregnancy-related deaths was 14.5 per 100,000 live births. And while that rate is low, it is higher than what has been seen in the past few decades.

Older U.S. women stick to hormone pills: study

(Reuters) – Prescriptions for hormone replacement therapy have fallen more than 50 percent in the United States since 2001, but doctors are still inexplicably giving women high-dose pills linked to strokes and cancer, researchers reported on Thursday.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other groups do not say women should avoid hormone replacement therapy, or HRT, but they recommend taking the lowest possible dose for the shortest period of time.

“We’re disappointed,” Dr. Randall Stafford of Stanford University in California, who led the study, said in a statement.

Doctors encouraged pregnant women to get flu shot

(Reuters) – About twice as many pregnant women as usual got flu vaccines last year during the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, most because their doctors urged them to do so, federal government researchers reported on Thursday.

But still only about half of the women pregnant during the flu season got immunized, even though they are much more likely to become severely ill, die or lose their babies if they come down with the flu, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.

Study links finger length to prostate cancer risk

(Reuters) – Men with long index fingers have a lower risk of prostate cancer, British scientists said on Wednesday, a finding that could be used to help select those who need regular screening for the disease.

Researchers at Britain’s Warwick University and the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) found that men whose index finger is longer than their ring finger were one-third less likely to develop the disease than men with the opposite pattern of finger lengths.

“Relative finger length could be used as a simple test for prostate cancer risk, particularly in men aged under 60,” said Ros Eeles from the ICR, who helped lead the study.

Prostate cancer: Watching and waiting may be best

(Reuters) – Older men with low-risk prostate cancer may be better off getting regular check-ups that rushing to get surgery or radiation, researchers using a computer model suggested on Tuesday.

That is largely because most men have at least one side effect from treatment, the team from the Dana-Farber Cancer Research Institute and Harvard Medical School in Boston said on Tuesday.

Donor milk may lack key nutrients for preemies

(Reuters Health) – Breast milk helps protect premature babies from potentially fatal complications, but a new study shows that donated breast milk, meant to supplement what the mother provides, may lack key nutrients.

Researchers found that donated breast milk did not contain enough of a fatty acid that tiny babies need for their developing nervous system, and also lacked amino acids, the building blocks of proteins.

Encouragingly, they also found that pasteurizing donor milk — needed to kill any lingering microbes, which could be deadly to preemies with developing immune systems — did not affect any nutrients, suggesting this step doesn’t strip donor milk of what preemies need.

Air pollution tied to babies’ ear infection risk

(Reuters Health) – Babies and toddlers who live in areas with moderate air pollution may have a higher risk of middle-ear infection than those breathing cleaner air, a Canadian study suggests.

The findings, reported in the journal Epidemiology, do not prove that air pollution itself was the cause. But if it is, that would allow parents to influence their kids’ risk of infection by moving to a place with better air.

Suicide risk increases after heart attack

(Reuters Health) – People are more likely to commit suicide in the wake of a heart attack — and some are more at risk than others, new study findings report.

In the immediate aftermath of a heart attack the risk of suicide rises dramatically among people with a history of mental illness. These patients are about 60 times more likely to commit suicide than people who did not experience either a heart attack or mental illness.

Even for patients with no history of mental illness, the risk for suicide is tripled in the month after a heart attack – and the risk remains elevated for at least five years. This was true for both men and women, and regardless of socioeconomic status.

Drugmakers, academics join up on mental illness

(Reuters) – Nine major pharmaceutical companies have agreed to pool data on drug trials with academic institutions in an effort to improve ways of developing of new medicines to treat psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia.

The collaboration, which involves Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly and Roche among others, will bring together data on 67 trials on 11 licensed drugs and will make up the largest database of clinical trial data in psychiatric research, according to the project’s leaders.

Salty diet does harm in heart failure

(Reuters Health) – People who’ve experienced heart failure and eat a high-salt diet are more likely to end up in the hospital, a new study finds.

“High salt intake is particularly dangerous for heart failure patients, even for those who are doing well and are stable on their medications,” author Dr. Gary E. Newton of Mount Sinai Hospital in Ontario told Reuters Health.

Extreme long-distance running can damage the body

(Reuters Health) – Endurance athletes who run extraordinarily long distances over a sustained period of time lose muscle as well as fat, and they severely impair their immune function.

That’s according to data presented at the 2010 annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

“If you do this type of sport, you have to know that it is very stressful for the immune system, that you will lose not only fat but muscle, and that no matter how much you eat, it will not be enough to sustain your body,” Dr. Uwe Schutz, from University Hospital of Ulm, Germany, told Reuters Health.

Exercise often enough for Achilles injury recovery

(Reuters Health) – Most people with inflammation of the Achilles tendon, a common overuse injury, can recover with the help of exercise therapy alone, a small study suggests.

A full recovery might take time, as tendons are often slow to heal, researchers say, but sticking with exercise could help people avoid more invasive treatments like drug injections into the joint or even surgery.

The study found that among 34 patients who had exercise therapy for so-called Achilles tendinopathy for three to six months, 80 percent fully recovered with no further treatment — though some developed new symptoms over the next several years.

Should you eat protein before exercise, or after?

(Reuters Health) – Eating protein after exercising may help rev up the body’s muscle-making machinery, in both young and older men alike, a small study suggests.

The study of 48 men – half in their twenties and the other half in their seventies — found that in both age groups, consuming a protein drink after exercise led to a greater increase in muscle protein, compared with downing the drink after a period of rest.

What’s more, muscle protein increased at nearly the same rate in young and elderly men, the researchers report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

North Americans get enough calcium, vitamin D

(Reuters) – Most people in the United States and Canada get plenty of vitamin D and calcium, and may damage their health by taking too many supplements, experts advised on Tuesday.

Contrary to popular wisdom, many Americans and Canadians get plenty of calcium and vitamin D and most do not need extra supplements to keep their bones strong, the Institute of Medicine committee said.

“National surveys in both the United States and Canada indicate that most people receive enough calcium, with the exception of girls ages 9-18, who often do not take in enough calcium,” the report reads.

Skipping breakfast may not enlarge a kid’s lunch

(Reuters Health) – Skipping breakfast may not change how much food a kid eats during the rest of the day, suggests a new study.

But missing the morning meal still carries consequences, the researchers caution.

Some evidence has suggested that the increasingly common practice of skipping breakfast could lead kids to overeat at later meals, and eventually pack on extra pounds. Yet few studies have rigorously tested whether that’s what really happens, lead researcher Tanja Kral of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, in Philadelphia, told Reuters Health in an e-mail.