Encouraging Health

From WebMD.com:

Genistein, a compound found in soy, may strengthen the bones of women at risk for osteoporosis.

So say Italian researchers including Francesco Squadrito, MD, of Italy’s University of Messina.

They studied 389 postmenopausal Italian women with osteopenia, in which bone mineral density is less than ideal but not as severe as osteoporosis.

First, the women got DEXA (dual X-ray absorptiometry) bone mineral density scans of their upper thigh bone (femoral neck) and lower (lumbar) spine. Next, they followed a low-fat, healthy diet for a month. Then the researchers split the women into two groups.

One group of women got pills containing genistein, calcium carbonate, and vitamin D. The dosage was “similar to that in vegetarian Asian diets,” write the researchers.

The other group received similar pills without genistein (placebo). The women took their pills daily for two years without knowing if the tablets contained genistein.

During that time, the women got annual DEXA scans of their femoral neck and lumbar spine. They were evaluated every three months for problems including breast tenderness, hot flashes, depression, gastrointestinal symptoms, irritability, insomnia, and vaginal bleeding.

To read more, click above.

womens bones, osteoporosis, genistein

womens bones, osteoporosis, genistein

from Real Age.com:

Words may not trip as lightly off the tongue as we get older, but we can do something about it: Eat salmon.

And tuna. And herring. And lake trout. Sounds like a fish tale, but it’s true. Here’s how eating fish helps give you a silver tongue.

Thank Fat for a Nimble Mind
Middle-aged and older adults who have higher blood levels of certain fatty acids — those found in fatty fish like salmon and tuna — fare better on verbal fluency tasks compared with their peers who are deficient in fatty acids. It seems to be particularly true for people with artery troubles like hypertension or high levels of unhealthy blood fats. Researchers suspect that people in this group suffer from greater oxidative stress — which can wreak havoc on memory and other cognitive functions.

fish fats, memory

fish fats, memory

From MSNBC. com:

A woman whose defibrillator activated one week to the hour after her father died, and recorded the event, may provide the first documented evidence of “anniversary reaction,� doctors reported.

The defibrillator acted as a pacemaker, perhaps saving the 50-year-old woman’s life. Its function of keeping a precise record of when it was activated made it possible to establish the precise time of the event, the doctors reported.

In a dramatic extra twist to the story, the patient was standing by the open grave of her sister-in-law, who had herself died when she heard the news of the father’s death.

Dr. Michael Sweeney of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston and Dr. Michael Quill of the University of Rochester School of Medicine in New York reported on the occurrence in the journal HeartRhythm.

“We have all, almost to the point of being urban legend, heard stories of people literally dropping dead upon receipt of tragic news … or a widower dying on the anniversary of his deceased spouse’s (death),â€? Sweeney said in a telephone interview.

No one could really prove it, but the case of the woman, who had had the defibrillator implanted after an earlier heart attack, may provide good evidence, he said.

Sweeney said he learned of the story when the woman came into his office for a routine checkup. He noticed that the defibrillator — a device that sits quietly in a patient’s body until an abnormal heart rhythm activates it — had provided a mild shock to her heart five months after it was implanted.

Read more by clicking above.

heart, tragic anniverssries

heart, tragic anniverssries

From MSNBC.com

Thousands of tubes of contaminated Chinese-made toothpaste were shipped to state prisons and mental hospitals in Georgia, officials said Thursday, a sign that U.S. distribution of the tainted products was wider than initially thought.

Officials with the state prison system and with the agencies that run mental hospitals and juvenile detention centers said they knew of no health problems stemming from the Chinese products.

They said the toothpaste contaminated with diethylene glycol, which is often found in antifreeze, was immediately taken out of use as soon as federal officials notified the state about the problem.

To read more, click above.

china, poison toothpaste

china, poison toothpaste

Echinacea may not only help reduce the symptoms of a cold but may help prevent infection with some cold viruses, U.S. researchers said Monday.

People who took echinacea had a 58 percent lower risk of catching a cold, according to the researchers, who did not study the herb’s effects directly but looked at the results of 14 studies in an approach called a meta-analysis.

Dr. Craig Coleman of the University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy, who led the research, cautioned that the studies involved only 1,600 people. They also involved various echinacea products, so it was still difficult to know for sure whether and how echinacea might work to prevent colds.

“All the studies trended toward reducing a patient’s odds of developing a cold. But none of them was large enough — they didn’t have enough patients — to prove it statistically,” said Coleman in a telephone interview.

Coleman’s study, published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases, is one of the few to take a look at the efficacy of echinacea, a widely used product derived from several different species of flower.

“Someone needs to do a really large, well-done, randomized trial. That is unlikely to occur because there is a lack of funding,” Coleman said.

- - - - - - - - -
Also: One of the studies looked at echinacea used together with with vitamin C, another common cold remedy, and that one showed the two together reduced the number of colds by 86 percent.

To read more: Echinacea Study

Echinacea, Vitmin C, cold

Echinacea, Vitmin C, cold

msnbc.cominvestigates the weekend warrier.

They’re heroes of the modern world. The busy bees who work all week and still find time to play hard on Saturday and Sunday to make up for all that desk jockeying. They’re the weekend warriors, of course.

Turns out, though, there may not be all that many of them.

Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scanned two national databases involving nearly 300,000 Americans to determine how many people actually do cram a week’s worth of exercise — at least 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity — into two days a week (not necessarily on just Saturdays and Sundays).

They found that only about 1 percent to 3 percent of Americans actually fit the bill of a weekend warrior, according to a report in the May issue of the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. One database was from 2003 and one covered 1999 through 2004.

Given all the anecdotal reports about the weekend-warrior phenomenon, “we were surprised that the prevalence was low,� says study author Judy Kruger, an epidemiologist at the CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

Read more about the Nation of Slugs. www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18043834/

exercise, work

exercise, work

From CNN.com Health:

New tests involving blood and brain scans can detect symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, and brief appraisals of real-life functioning can predict who is likely to develop it, researchers said Sunday.

The tests will be critical, experts told a meeting on Alzheimer’s disease, because more than 26 million people now have the brain-wasting disease and this number will quadruple, to 106 million, by 2050.

“By 2050, 1 in 85 persons worldwide will have Alzheimer’s disease,” said Ron Brookmeyer of Johns Hopkins University, who led the study on how many people have the disease.

No drugs can significantly affect Alzheimer’s disease, although four have a very modest impact if given early on.

The disease is very difficult to detect until it has progressed from mild memory loss to clear impairment. Patients eventually lose all ability to care for themselves.

Detecting the disease early can help patients and their families plan better for the future but can also help researchers develop drugs to treat and perhaps even prevent the disease.

Anders Lonneborg and colleagues of DiaGenic, a biotech company based in Oslo, Norway, found a set of 96 genes that look different in the blood of Alzheimer’s patients when compared with the same genes in healthy people.

Their study of more than 100 older people, half from memory clinics and half from senior centers, found Alzheimer’s accurately 85 percent of the time.

They identified genes related to the immune system, to inflammation and to cell division. The company has applied to regulators in the United States and Europe to approve the test, Lonneborg told a meeting of the Alzheimer’s Association in Washington.

Alzheimers

Alzheimers

RealAge.com gives advice for lowering blood pressure

A Breath of Better Blood Pressure

“Take a deep breath and calm down.” If you’ve done it, you know a long, slow breath really does help. But can it do more than restore your composure?

Seems so. If done the right way, the simple act of breathing can help bring down your blood pressure (BP). Here’s the six-step way to make it happen.

6 Steps to Better Breathing
In a study, it took only 10 minutes of proper breathing technique daily to lower blood pressure considerably after 8 weeks. The people in the study used a high-tech, interactive audio program that guided their breathing with music. Here’s the tech-free way to do your lungs — and your BP — right.

1. Lie flat on the floor.
2. Take a deep, slow breath. Imagine your lungs filling up with air. (This should take about 5 seconds.)
3. As you breathe in, your belly button should be moving away from your spine — the result of your diaphragm pulling air into your lungs.
4. Toward the end of your inhalation, your chest also may expand.
5. When your lungs feel nice and full, exhale slowly. (This should take about 7 seconds.)
6. You should notice your belly button pulling toward your spine as you exhale.

Other Ways to Get Down
Besides better breathing, how else can you lower your blood pressure? Regular exercise and a low-fat/low-sodium diet (this one works) do the job. And some yoga, meditation, or biofeedback help.

deep breathing, lower blood pressure

deep breathing, lower blood pressure

From RealAge.com:

•Black and Blue

Some strange, dark things may be in your near future.

Like chokeberries. And elderberries. These little black- to blue-hued berry beauties pack one heck of an anthocyanin punch — an even stronger one than blueberries do — so you may be seeing more of them in products on grocery store shelves.

A Tricky Flavor Situation
Although chokeberries and elderberries are tops when it comes to anthocyanin content — and they really ratchet up the diversity factor in your diet — there is one challenge in coming up with uses for them: taste. Both berries are extremely astringent, and neither is edible raw.

Coming Soon?
Still, given their near superfood status, you may see them appearing more frequently in commercially prepared juices and other health-food products. If you go the grow-it-yourself route, you can bake chokeberries (also called aronia berries) or elderberries in breads or cook them down with sugar to make jams or pies. You can also inquire about fresh berries at local farmers markets.

The take-away lesson here: Dark is good. It’s true for chocolate and just about any berry variety.

chokeberies, elderberries, anthocyanin

chokeberies, elderberries, anthocyanin

Neel, over at http://www.healthybpm.com tagged me! If you’re not familiar with tags or memes, here’s what it is:

In blog world you pass your friends a note by leaving a comment, visit them by hitting their site, show them love with a link to their entry, and hand off the silly childhood chain letter by tagging them to do a meme.

So, here’s my seven random facts about me:

1. I blog on my TabletPC, a TC1100 and Nokia 9500
2. I walk 1 1/4 miles every day
3. I love cooking healthy
4. I haven’t used salt in my cooking or at my table in 20 years.
5. I have a weakness for cheesecake and Peanut Butter IceCream (together or seperate)
6. I play Online Instant Win Games daily (and have won nice prizes)
7. I love Coffee - - I have five different types of ways to make coffee

I tag:

Maddy at http://www.hogwartsherald.com/
Robyn at http://www.about-omahane.com/
Anne-Marie at http://www.teachersmackdown.com/
Kim at http://www.homecomputertalk.com/
Noel at http://www.mobilitywatch.com/
Lisa at http://www.diabeteshealthtalk.com/
And Rob at http://www.gadgetdose.com/ because I’ve lurked there, LOL

The rules:

Each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to then report this on their own blog with their 7 things as well as these rules. They then need to tag 7 others and list their names on their blog. They are also asked to leave a comment for each of the tagged, letting them know they have been tagged and to read the blog.