Posted by VicPlough on Jul 31, 2011 in
Health Washington (CNN) — A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit Wednesday that tried to block funding of stem-cell research on human embryos.
A federal appeals court in April lifted a previous injunction on continued funding, and U.S. District Chief Judge Royce Lamberth has now agreed with the Obama administration that the lawsuit brought by two scientists should be dismissed.
The 38-page decision is a victory for supporters of federally funded testing for a range of diseases and illnesses.
The field of embryonic stem-cell research has been highly controversial, because in most cases the research process involves destroying the embryo, typically four or five days old, after removing stem cells. These cells are blank and can become any cell in the body. Because of the destruction of embryos, most opponents believe this is moral issue. Supporters of the research point to the potential for saving lives.
The White House applauded the decision.
"While we don’t know exactly what stem cell research will yield, scientists believe this research could treat or cure diseases that affect millions of Americans every year," said Stephanie Cutter, a deputy senior advisor to the president. "That’s why President Obama has long fought to support responsible stem-cell research."
Legislation passed in 1996 prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars in the creation or destruction of human embryos "for research purposes." Private money had been used to gather batches of the developing cells at U.S.-run labs.
The current administration had broken with the Bush White House and issued rules in 2009 permitting those cells to be reproduced in controlled conditions and for work on them to move forward.
Obama officials have been at odds with many members of Congress over whether the National Institutes of Health research actually causes an embryo’s destruction, as prohibited by the Dickey-Wicker Act.
In opposing the lawsuit, the government had argued that an extensive list of research projects outlined by the government health research agency would have to be shelved if the courts blocked further funding.
The plaintiffs have the option of now taking their case back to the appeals court, and perhaps then to the U.S. Supreme Court for review on the larger constitutional questions.
Some scientists believe embryonic stem cells could help treat many diseases and disabilities because of their potential to develop into many different cell types in the body.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia had lifted an injunction imposed last year by Lamberth, who said at the time all embryonic stem-cell research at the National Institutes of Health amounted to destruction of embryos, in violation of congressional spending laws. The three-judge appeals panel concluded that "the plaintiffs are unlikely to prevail because Dickey-Wicker is ambiguous and the NIH seems reasonably to have concluded" the law does not ban research using embryonic stem cells.
Taking that as his cue, Lamberth said the appeals court decision left him no choice but to dismiss the suit.
"The NIH reasonably interpreted the (Obama) executive order to demand new guidelines that would govern the funding of responsible and scientifically worthy embryonic stem-cell research projects, and had it adopted the views of the commentators who categorically objected to such funding and banned it altogether, its rule would have violated the law," Lamberth said.
The case began with a lawsuit against the National Institutes of Health by scientists opposed to the use of embryonic stem cells, working with a group that seeks adoptive parents for human embryos created through in vitro fertilization, including the nonprofit Christian Medical Association.
Embryonic stem-cell research differs from other kinds of stem-cell research, which don’t require embryos. The ruling does not deal with separate research on adult stem cells, which remains permissible under federal law.
When the injunction was first issued by Lamberth in August, Ron Stoddart, executive director of Nightlight Christian Adoptions, another of the groups that filed the lawsuit, said he supported adult stem-cell research that doesn’t require destroying embryos.
"Frequently people will say, ‘Why are you opposed to stem-cell research?’ and of course our answer is, ‘We’re not,’" Stoddart said. "We’re opposed to the destruction of the embryos to get embryo stem cells."
Some stem-cell scientists said Wednesday’s ruling would offer a measure of certainty that such expensive research, often years in development, can continue.
"Much more work needs to be done to determine which kinds of stem cells will lead to future scientific and medical advances," said Sean Morrison, director of the University of Michigan’s Center for Stem Cell Biology. "This ruling also allows the NIH to continue funding research based on scientific merit rather than having courts influence the distribution of funds among scientific disciplines."
When President George Bush first approved federal funding of human embryonic stem-cell research in 2001, 64 existing stem-cell lines that were created before August 9, 2001, qualified for federal funding. But of those, only 21 actually were usable for scientists. Bush later rescinded the funding.
Under the Obama administration’s rules, at least 75 stem-cell lines qualify for federal funding, according to the National Institutes of Health.
NIH has invested more than $500 million in human embryonic stem-cell research.
Scientists conducting such research say continued federal funding is necessary, because they would have greater flexibility to work collaboratively within labs, across labs and around the world on the latest treatments and breakthroughs.
Supporters of embryonic stem-cell research say their studies have shown promise to treat a range of debilitating conditions including diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, cancers, and spinal cord injuries.
The case is Sherley v. Sebelius (1:09-cv-1575).
Originally Published On: www.cnn.com – Original Article Here
Posted by VicPlough on Jul 30, 2011 in
Health Video game and technology expert John Gaudiosi is the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Gamerlive.tv video syndication network. He’s covered video games for upwards of 400 outlets over the past 20 years from Forbes to The Hollywood Reporter and produces 3D television and online content for outlets like DirecTV and NVIDIA 3D Vision Live.
(CNN) — For many people, video games conjure adrenalized scenes of gunning down enemy fighters or steering race cars at thumb-blistering speeds.
But mind-body guru Deepak Chopra has another idea: a serene, peaceful game he says can help people relieve stress and achieve inner harmony.
Chopra has spent the past three years designing "Leela," an interactive experience that aims to teach gamers how to achieve a peaceful and focused state of being using the ancient system of "chakras." The game, from publisher THQ and developer Curious Pictures, debuts in November and is marketed as "a journey into the self."
Created for Microsoft’s Kinect system for Xbox 360 and Nintendo’s Wii console, "Leela" — it means "play" in Sanskrit — incorporates 43 interactive exercises that focus on the body’s seven energy centers, using Chopra’s spiritual teachings and philosophies.
Gameplay focuses on moving one’s body to interact with on-screen imagery, which is set to a relaxing soundtrack. Those who play with Kinect will use their arms, legs, hips, and head to perform meditative tasks, while Wii players will use the hand-held controller.
Some examples: One "root chakra" activity challenges players to move their hips from side to side to rotate cracks in a barren planet and unleash rain and sunlight. Another focuses on the "third-eye chakra" and requires gamers to rotate their head to follow a colored path through the game screen. As their head moves, so does the screen.
There are no scores kept in the game and players don’t have to complete a level before moving from one challenge to the next. Chopra just wants people to interact with the game, whose themes correlates with his teachings.
In an interview for CNN, the bestselling author and alternative-medicine expert talks about the role video games will play in his work and how new technologies are enabling him to further enhance the mind-body experience.
What was it about video games as an art form that attracted you?
Video games are addictive and we all live in an addictive society. People are addicted to their BlackBerries. People are addicted to their computer. And kids — and pretty clever adults, women included — are addicted to video games, the ones that play them.
So I wanted to explore how you can use games to not only have a good time, but to increase that experience of flow and actually maximize your physical and mental capacity.
How did you create the gameplay experience that people will have in "Leela"?
I went to [developer] Curious Pictures in New York and I saw what they were doing in the movie industry, and they had some interest in video games. We had many brainstorming sessions. I used to go and see them almost every week, and we’ve done that for 2½ years. We spent that time seeing how we could make the game meaningful, but also playful. That’s how we came up with the name Leela, which literally means "play."
What would you like to next explore in the interactive space?
I would like to take the video game to the next evolutionary level. In this particular video game, "Leela," we have monitoring of breath as one of the game experiences.
We have 43 games altogether, but there’s one that gives you feedback on your breath. And that’s the first time it’s been done. It’s required a lot of technology, and a lot of glitches had to be removed, but I think the next frontier is measuring heart rate variability, which is the most sensitive indicator of stress. It measures your parasympathetic to sympathetic nervous system response.
So that’s coming soon, I’m sure. Galvanic skin resistance is coming soon, as well. And the best will be when we can monitor brain waves in a game.
What role do you see technology playing in helping people to improve their mental well-being?
I think the way technology is moving right now, we could probably, with a little deeper understanding, accelerate the evolution of the human brain within a few months [to equal] what might take hundreds of years of biological evolution.
Now, that’s a very strange statement when you hear it for the first time. But the way technology is expanding right now, we’re getting a better understanding of how experience shapes the anatomy of the brain, as well as all the neurons and neuroplasticity.
There’s also genetic indeterminism, which means your genes turn on and off based on your life experiences, and all the work being done in quantum psychology. They’re talking about things like you know how your emotions, your relationships, your sense of achievement, and your purpose of meaning in your daily life — all this actually influences the way your body functions.
Technology is a new frontier, and I’m totally interested in being part of this movement.
Chopra on science, spirituality and superheroes
What are your thoughts on the evolution of technology within video games, as Wii has opened up motion-sensor gaming to Kinect for Xbox 360 and PlayStation Move?
I think it’s great. You couldn’t have hoped for such a fast evolution in the video game industry. There’s so much room for creativity.
Did you play video games at all growing up?
I did not. I did become very interested in playing as you develop these games. I played "Flow," "Flower" and "Child of Eden," which are all interesting games that show what can be done creatively in this space.
What are your thoughts on the role video games play today in society?
We know that video games are more popular than motion pictures, so there’s something happening. I think because they’re interactive and they are much more fun than being a passive observer, we’re going to see games evolve even more moving forward.
What’s your favorite gadget?
I use a gizmo every night that monitors not only my brain waves, it monitors my dreams, it tells me how many hours I was in deep sleep and dream sleep. It records how many times I woke up, what the quality of my sleep was, the demographic I fall into, my age. All of this is already available.
What’s that device called?
It’s called Zeo. So you can go to Zeo.com. And you wear a little headband, and from about 5 to 10 feet away it can measure your brain waves.
What are you most excited about when it comes to the role technology will play in our future?
The way technology moves, it’s doubling in its capacity every year. A long time ago I talked to Peter Guber, who used to be head of Columbia Pictures, and I was playing around with the idea of directing your dreams. Sometimes people have the most amazing dreams.
If you could not only learn to watch your dreams, but you could see that you can influence them and choreograph them and become the director and screenwriter of that, the implications would be amazing.
And if there was a video game to do that, "Wow, we would have a completely new way of storytelling." I want to be able to do that in a video game, but we’ll see.
Originally Published On: www.cnn.com – Original Article Here
Posted by VicPlough on Jul 30, 2011 in
Health (CNN) — There I was at a long-awaited dinner with friends Saturday night, when in the midst of our chatting, I watched my right hand sneaking away from my side to grab my phone sitting on the table to check my e-mail.
"What am I doing?" I thought to myself. "I’m here with my friends, and I don’t need to be checking e-mail on a Saturday night."
The part that freaked me out was that I hadn’t told my hand to reach out for the phone. It seemed to be doing it all on its own. I wondered what was wrong with me until I read a recent study in the journal Personal and Ubiquitous Computing that showed I’m hardly alone. In fact, my problem seems to be ubiquitous.
The authors found smartphone users have developed what they call "checking habits" — repetitive checks of e-mail and other applications such as Facebook. The checks typically lasted less than 30 seconds and were often done within 10 minutes of each other.
On average, the study subjects checked their phones 34 times a day, not necessarily because they really needed to check them that many times, but because it had become a habit or compulsion.
"It’s extremely common, and very hard to avoid," says Loren Frank, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco. "We don’t even consciously realize we’re doing it — it’s an unconscious behavior."
Why we constantly check our phones
Earlier this year, Frank started to realize that he, too, was habitually checking his smartphone over and over without even thinking about it. When he sat down to figure out why, he realized it was an unconscious, two-step process.
First, his brain liked the feeling when he received an e-mail. It was something new, and it often was something nice: a note from a colleague complimenting his work or a request from a journalist for help with a story.
"Each time you get an e-mail, it’s a small jolt, a positive feedback that you’re an important person," he says. "It’s a little bit of an addiction in that way."
Once the brain becomes accustomed to this positive feedback, reaching out for the phone becomes an automatic action you don’t even think about consciously, Frank says. Instead, the urge to check lives in the striatum, a part of the brain that governs habitual actions.
The cost of constant checking
For Frank, constant checking stressed him out and really annoyed his wife.
Dr. Adam Gazzaley, a neurologist at UCSF, sees another cost: Whenever you take a break from what you’re doing to unnecessarily check your e-mail, studies show, it’s hard to go back to your original task.
"You really pay a price," he says.
Habitually checking can also become a way for you to avoid interacting with people or avoid doing the things you really need to be doing.
"People don’t like thinking hard," says Clifford Nass, a professor of communication and computer science at Stanford University. Constantly consulting your smartphone, he says, "is an attempt to not have to think hard, but feel like you’re doing something."
How to know if you’re a habitual checker
1. You check your e-mail more than you need to.
Sometimes you’re in the middle of an intense project at work and you really do need to check your e-mail constantly. But be honest with yourself — if that’s not the case, your constant checking might be a habit, not a conscious choice.
2. You’re annoying other people.
If, like Frank, you’re ticking off the people closest to you, it’s time to take a look at your smartphone habits.
"If you hear ‘put the phone away’ more than once a day, you probably have a problem," says Lisa Merlo, a psychologist at the University of Florida.
3. The thought of not checking makes you break out in a cold sweat.
Try this experiment: Put your phone away for an hour. If you get itchy during that time, you might be a habitual checker.
How to get rid of your checking habit
1. Acknowledge you have a problem.
It may sound AA-ish, but acknowledging that you’re unnecessarily checking your phone — and that there are repercussions to doing so — is the first step toward breaking the habit.
"We can be conscious of the habit of checking. We can unlearn its habits," says Sherry Turkle, a psychologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self.
2. Have smartphone-free times.
See if you can stay away from your phone for a few hours. If that makes you too nervous, start off with just 10 minutes, Merlo suggests. You actually don’t have to stay away from your phone altogether — you can just turn the e-mail function off (or Facebook or whatever you’re habitually checking).
3. Have smartphone-free places.
You can also establish phone-free zones, which is what Frank did to cure his smartphone habit.
"The first thing I did was banish it from the bedroom," he says. "I would have to walk down the hallway to my study to actually be able to see it."
You could also force yourself to stop checking when you’re in a social situation, like out to dinner with friends. (Last Saturday night, I shoved my phone way down into my purse where I couldn’t see it).
Joanna Lipari, a psychologist who practices in California, uses this strategy when her teenage daughter has friends over.
"I have a rule. Like the Old Wild West which had you check your gun at the saloon entrance, I have a basket by the door, and the kids have to check their phones in the basket," she says. Otherwise, she says, the kids would stare at their phones and not interact with one another.
CNN’s Sabriya Rice contributed to this report.
Originally Published On: www.cnn.com – Original Article Here
Posted by VicPlough on Jul 30, 2011 in
Health (Health.com) — Laura Finlayson, 40, from Westwood, New Jersey, just couldn’t seem to shake her persistent cough. It lingered for months and was so violent that she ended up in the emergency room with bruised ribs.
Then she found out it was asthma, most likely triggered by a bout of pneumonia. She decided to take matters into her own hands. She started training to become a runner, lost 25 pounds, strengthened her lung function and now has her symptoms almost completely under control.
In August 2008, I developed a nasty case of pneumonia. I just couldn’t seem to get better. Doctors gave me antibiotics and then even more antibiotics, but they couldn’t get the symptoms under control.
Gov. Christie in the hospital
My coughing was so bad that people in my office were scared of me; one coworker even asked me if I had been checked for tuberculosis. Months passed, and in October I was still coughing as badly as I had in the summer.
It got so bad that I actually ended up in the emergency room because doctors thought I may have broken my ribs from coughing so hard. It turned out that my ribs were bruised.
Health.com: Can’t stop coughing? 8 possible reasons
By the beginning of November, I had seen a pulmonologist. He gave me a lung function test and told me my asthma was completely out of control. I was shocked.
My first reaction was, "But I don’t have asthma!" The doctor said, "You do now!" He told me that some people can develop asthma after having a bad lung infection.
I had never heard of anyone developing asthma as an adult before, so the diagnosis came as a surprise. So did my first asthma attack. Kids who grew up with it know what it feels like, but for me it came out of nowhere. It felt like my chest was in a vise; the pressure on both sides felt like someone was crushing my chest.
‘I was on so many steroids I could be a New York Yankee’
My breathing was horrible when I was first diagnosed. I was wheezing so loudly at night, it would wake me up. I couldn’t exert myself in any way without getting short of breath.
They treated me with so many steroids, I used to say they should make me an honorary Yankee. (That’s just my joke, though; I know the inflammation-fighting drugs used to treat asthma are corticosteroids, a class of drug completely different from the anabolic steroids sometimes abused by athletes.)
Health.com: 10 best cities for people with asthma
After the corticosteroids helped improve my lung function, my doctor prescribed Symbicort, a kind of drug called a bronchodilator. It is taken in an inhaler and helps relax airway muscles. I now use it twice a day. I also take the allergy medicine Allegra-D in the morning to make sure I don’t get congested during the day. If I get even a little bit congested, it makes my asthma worse.
At night I also take Singulair, a pill that helps prevent asthma symptoms by blocking the chemicals the body releases in response to asthma triggers. If I get sick, doctors will put me right back on prednisone, a powerful corticosteroid, to prevent my asthma from flaring up.
I have to take my bronchodilator inhaler with me everywhere, just in case of emergencies. I have one in the car, one in my desk, one in my purse, and one in my gym bag. I have to use it before I exercise and when I feel an asthma attack coming on.
Health.com: Surprising triggers of lung trouble
A half-marathon helped me regain my health
This was all a bit overwhelming, and it took me a long time to feel like myself again. I was feeling down — I had been sick for six months, and I was completely out of shape.
I woke up on New Year’s Day and decided to take my asthma into my own hands. It wasn’t about losing weight, but about committing myself to achieving a goal. I saw a training program in a magazine for a half-marathon and signed up for it. I knew, even if I had to walk, that I would finish that race.
The first week started light; I could only walk for nine minutes and jog for one minute. But I figured it would be a good way to get back into shape as well as to take control of my lung function. I was determined to kick that asthma out of me. I had an attack or two in the beginning of my training and my pulmonologist was worried I was trying to push myself too far, too fast. He suggested I take it easy. But that’s not really my personal style.
I was so nervous about the race that I ended up adhering to every training recommendation. The result? I felt great going into the race. The day was incredibly hot for April. Event organizers were hosing us off with fire hoses as we ran through New York City’s Central Park.
Health.com: Star athletes with asthma
I used my emergency inhaler before the race, as I do before any exercise, but I never had to use it during the race — even though I had it with me the whole time, just in case. Afterwards, a friend said, "Don’t you feel so proud of yourself?" I did, but at the same time, I didn’t really think it had been as hard as I thought!
I’m not ready to stop my medications
Everyone thought I was insane, but I’ve kept up with the running. Since my first half-marathon, I’ve run three 10Ks and a four-mile race.
Running is definitely helping to control my asthma, although the medicines play a huge role as well. My lung strength and function is improving, but my doctor is not at all inclined to take me off any medications. However, I rarely have asthma attacks now.
I do have asthma triggers beside exercise. Seasonal allergies, particularly in the spring, can cause trouble. Even though I’m on a lot of medicine to control the allergies, when I get congested, the mucus drips into my chest and causes breathing difficulties.
Health.com: 20 ways to stop allergies
I also react very strongly to specific allergens, like cats, or air pollutants, like secondhand smoke. I was recently in Detroit, where they still allow smoking indoors. I was in a casino for about 20 minutes before I had to go back to my hotel room; I was coughing so hard I threw up.
Despite these periodic breathing problems, I feel great. Mostly I’m happy that I’ve taken control of my health and my fitness. I’ve lost about 25 pounds and dropped a few sizes.
I’ve taken control of my own life by trying to build up my lung strength and function. There’s only so much the medicine can do. I can’t just sit back and wait for a cure.
Copyright Health Magazine 2010
Originally Published On: www.cnn.com – Original Article Here
Posted by VicPlough on Jul 28, 2011 in
Health (CNN) — Long before drug cartels, crack wars and TV shows about addiction, cocaine was promoted as a wonder drug, sold as a cure-all and praised by some of the greatest minds in medical history, including Sigmund Freud and the pioneering surgeon William Halsted.
According to historian Dr. Howard Markel, it was even promoted by the likes of Thomas Edison, Queen Victoria and Pope Leo XIII.
It was an explosive debut that would be echoed a century later, when cocaine re-emerged as a different kind of miracle drug, the kind that could let you party all night long with no ill effects and no risk of addiction. Each time, the enthusiasm was misplaced and the explosion left a wreckage of human lives behind.
In 1884, Sigmund Freud was a young physician in Vienna, struggling to make a living even as he dreamed of being a world-famous medical pioneer. He just needed a discovery — and he thought he had it.
"If all goes well," he wrote his future wife, Martha, "I will write an essay on it and I expect it will win its place in therapeutics by the side of morphine and superior to it. … I take very small doses of it regularly against depression and against indigestion and with the most brilliant of success."
Dr. Howard Markel: Freud’s cocaine problem
Freud wasn’t the first to write about cocaine. The drug is derived from the coca plant, where natives in South America had been chewing the leaves for centuries.
By 1880, a number of companies had succeeded in creating a concentrated version: cocaine hydrochloride — that would set the world reeling.
"It was tens to hundreds of times more powerful than chewing on a coca leaf," Markel says. "It was extremely pure and extremely powerful."
In the 1880s, medical literature consisted of case reports: doctors writing about their trial and error with individual patients. By the early 1880s, there were case reports on cocaine, many published in the widely read Therapeutic Gazette, which was published by Parke-Davis, cocaine’s largest manufacturer.
According to Markel, Freud devoured these reports and set himself to writing the definitive tome. The result, in 1884, was "Uber Coca," 70 pages of tribute to the white powder that Freud thought could prove a cure for morphine addiction. … Somehow in his rapture, he mentioned only in passing that the drug could also serve as a potent topical painkiller — for which it is still sometimes used.
Halsted, then 32, was already a well-known surgeon in New York when he read Freud’s paper and was immediately drawn to explore its uses as a painkiller. Aside from high rates of infection, surgery in the 1880s was a brutal business.
Ether and chloroform were used as anesthetics, but according to Markel, doctors and nurses would have to literally wrestle the patient to keep them down as they administered the choking gas.
Seeking a better method, Halsted began injecting cocaine into his own limbs, as well as those of friends, students and colleagues. While he discovered a valuable means of deadening nerve endings, the findings came at a high price. By the time a patient came in to his operating room a few months later, with a compound leg fracture, the surgeon was a physical and mental wreck.
Says Markel, "(Halsted) was so high on cocaine that he knew he couldn’t operate. So he just left the scene, took a cab and went home, and stayed at his townhouse for the next seven months, high on cocaine."
No doubt there were many addicts like Halsted, but in large part their problems were hidden by a wave of positive publicity.
"There were all sorts of health claims being made," says Markel. "If you had a stomach ache, if you were nervous, if you were lethargic, if you needed energy, if you had tuberculosis, if you had asthma, all sorts of things. It was going to cure what you had. And this was how it was advertised, too. Not only by marketers who made these drinks, but by major pharmaceutical houses."
But back then, drugs weren’t trapped behind pharmacy walls. Cocaine was sold in drinks, ointments, even margarine. The most popular product was Vin Mariani, a Bordeaux wine developed by a French chemist, with 6 milligrams of cocaine in every ounce — nearly 200 milligrams in a typical bottle.
In Atlanta, a Civil War veteran named John Syth Pemberton created a copycat wine. Pemberton, who had become a morphine addict after suffering war wounds, was interested in cocaine as a treatment for morphine addiction.
He was also a shrewd businessman. When Fulton County, his Atlanta home, banned the sale of alcohol, he concocted a sweet, nonalcoholic version: Coca-Cola.
In Vienna, Freud’s own health was deteriorating due to heavy cocaine use. He suffered an irregular heartbeat and severe nasal blockages. "I need a lot of cocaine," he confessed in an 1896 letter. Soon after, though, he swore off the drug. "The cocaine brush has been completely put aside," he wrote to a friend.
Freud may not have been truly addicted, but he wasn’t alone in growing wary of the wonder drug. Says Markel, "By the early 1890s, the medical literature was filled with reports of people who had taken too much cocaine and now had become florid addicts to the stuff."
Halsted was one of them. But it didn’t keep him from developing the radical mastectomy, as well as techniques that led to sharply reduced rates of complication and infection. Among other things, Halsted invented the rubber surgical glove.
The advertisements went away. By 1903, there was no more cocaine in Coca-Cola. By 1914, the drug was often seen as something for undesirables — and often, mixed up in ugly stereotypes.
An infamous article in The New York Times, by the physician Edward Huntington Williams, warned of a new danger: "Negro cocaine ‘fiends.’ " Williams described a North Carolina police chief who claimed his regular ammunition had little effect on these drug users, and had switched to larger bullets.
Wrote Williams, "Many other officers in the South, who appreciate the increased vitality of the cocaine-crazed Negroes, have made a similar exchange for guns of greater shocking power for the express purpose of combating the ‘fiend’ when he runs amuck."
Later in 1914, Congress passed the Harrison Narcotics Act, banning the nonmedical use of cocaine, as well as other drugs, like marijuana. Cocaine’s long career as an outlaw had begun.
Once banned, cocaine was largely off the radar, although Markel says there was an uptick in use during Prohibition. By the 1970s, the stories of criminals and addicts were largely forgotten.
With the forgetting came an explosion in use that would surpass the one a century before. Again, it started with the elite. "To be a cocaine user in 1979 was to be rich, trendy and fashionable," says Mark Kleiman, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Los Anegeles, and co-author of "Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know." "People weren’t worried about cocaine. It didn’t seem to be a real problem." Of course, it was a mirage.
The last straw for many was the 1986 death of Len Bias, the former University of Maryland basketball star who had just been drafted by the Boston Celtics. Bias died of a heart attack after a night of partying and cocaine use with friends.
As they had a century earlier, lawmakers responded with a ferocity that hit poor — and nonwhite — users hardest. In 1986 and again in 1988, Congress passed mandatory sentencing laws that led to an explosion in the U.S. prison population.
"Virtually every state, as well as the federal government, now has some mix of mandatory sentencing," says Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a group that advocates for poor drug defendants. "Federal prosecutors will tell you it’s supposed to be for the large-scale or most complex cases, but the reality is, it hasn’t worked out that way."
The laws drew a sharp distinction between crack and powder use. The sale of 500 grams of powder cocaine was punishable by a five-year mandatory prison sentence; just 5 grams of crack would bring the same penalty.
It’s a distinction with little rhyme or reason, says Mauer. "It’s the same drug."
Since the peak in the mid-’80s, the number of users has dropped by about half, according to the most widely accepted studies. Cocaine use today is dominated by addicts, according to Kleiman, who estimates that 50% to 60% of all cocaine is consumed by people who have been arrested in the past year.
Cocaine has been praised and cursed, not through one but through two frenzied cycles, a century apart. And yet addictive drugs, not to mention the lure of any cure-all drug, can have a serious sway on perception.
Freud never acknowledged the role of cocaine in his physical ills, Markel says. "It’s amazing what people will do to deny the dangers of the things they tend to like."
Originally Published On: www.cnn.com – Original Article Here
Posted by VicPlough on Jul 28, 2011 in
Health (Parenting) — How to handle braces, casts, stitches and more — without the drama:
1. A broken bone
You watch as if in slow motion as your child crashes his scooter or falls from the jungle gym, your worst fears realized as he screams and clutches his arm or leg. If the bone is actually protruding, don’t move him; call 911.
Otherwise, call your doctor or head to the ER, says Meridith Sonnett, M.D., director of pediatric emergency medicine at the Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York-Presbyterian.
The ouch factor
"Breaking a bone hurts right away and usually a lot," Dr. Sonnett says, so expect your child to reprise the Home Alone scream — over and over. Younger kids may hate holding still for the x-ray, not to mention it could be uncomfortable depending on how they need to be positioned.
And, of course, being immobilized for weeks or months in a tight, itchy cast is awful. Fortunately, if the doc does need to manipulate the bone extensively — a horribly painful procedure — your child will be sedated.
On-the-spot soothers
Ask for pain relief right away — in fact, insist on it. You’ll be there for a while, and there’s no need for your child to suffer needlessly. Then distract, distract, distract. "When my ten-year-old son broke his arm last year, we talked and giggled about the science-fiction books he’d been reading while we waited in the ER," says Frances Schagen of Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Littler kids will feel better just snuggling with you — ask if he can sit on your lap for the x-ray or even the casting. If your child is at least 8, look into whether he can have a removable, soft cast; if a hard one is inevitable, consider a waterproof variety.
"The downside is it may start to smell after a while and so need to be replaced a few times. But for some kids, being able to swim all summer is worth it," Dr. Sonnett says. You’ll still need to cover it at bathtime so that it will last longer.
Thinking ahead
Okay, no one really prepares for a broken bone, but if it does happen, try to take extra care about the words you use while waiting for the doctor. Even "broken bone" could conjure images of shattered glass in your child’s head.
Instead, you might simply want to say that it’s hurt or injured, cautions Betsy Cetnarowski, a child life specialist at Akron Children’s Hospital in Ohio. Older kids can handle more detail, so use simple medical terminology and walk them through what they may see, hear, and feel.
8 times your pediatrician wants you to call
2. A from-the-vein blood draw
Most baby and toddler screening blood tests involve a quick prick of the finger. But to get a firm diagnosis, your child’s doctor needs a bigger sample — and that means inserting a needle into a vein.
The ouch factor
The tension of the band hurts, the needle pinches — and the trauma of holding still with the thing dangling out of her arm is worst of all. Depending on your child’s age, you may be asked to restrain her — which could be more upsetting for you than her! "My son had his first big blood draw when he turned one," says Elizabeth Shaw, Parenting’s deputy editor.
"The lab tech instructed me to lie across his shoulders so he couldn’t move. As he screamed and looked at me with these big, pleading eyes, I cried right along with him." Plus, a small number of kids will actually experience a blood or needle phobia that could cause fainting, says Martin Antony, Ph.D., a psychologist at Ryerson University in Toronto and author of Overcoming Medical Phobias.
On-the-spot soothers
Before the technician gets started, ask for a topical anesthetic. If your child gets light-headed during the procedure, instruct her to tighten all the muscles in her body except the ones being used for the draw, Antony advises; this should raise dipping blood pressure enough to stave off a swoon.
For some kids, pointing out interesting aspects of the experience can relieve fear, says Lori Gottwein, a child life specialist at the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.
That’s what Jennifer Harshman did for her 14-month-old son, Alexander. Knowing his fascination with how things work, the Carmi, IL, mom turned it into a science experiment of sorts. "As the technician laid out her supplies, I told him, ‘Look, she’s getting ready to take some blood from your arm with those tools,’" Harshman recalls. "Then I encouraged him to watch the blood flow into the tubes."
Alexander stared intently — and never cried. But if you think your child is better off not watching, by all means have her look away.
Thinking ahead
Before arriving at the lab, give your child a brief explanation of what’s going to happen and, most important, why. Try not to downplay the pain, but avoid overdramatizing it if you can.
Instead, Gottwein says, use age-appropriate, sense-oriented explanations, such as "The nurse will wrap something like a rubber band around your arm, which will feel tight." You can also do some pretending with a doll at home to help toddlers and preschoolers get the gist of what to expect.
One other tip: Do your best to control your own anxiety, suggests Antony. "Kids learn that a situation is okay by seeing that their parents aren’t afraid."
How to talk to your child’s pediatrician in 15 minutes
3. Filling a cavity
More than one in four children now has a cavity by preschool, and half of kids have one by age 9. Dentists blame the usual (too much exposure to juice and sugary snacks).
The ouch factor
It’s not as bad as you’re imagining, since in kids, a much smaller area of the mouth needs to be anesthetized; that limits the awful rubber-lip, exploding-face feeling.
And as with adults, most dentists will use a numbing agent before inserting the needle, says Michael J. Hanna, D.M.D., a pediatric dentist in Pittsburgh. Some offices now use a laser instead of a drill to clean out the decay-causing bacteria. The benefit? It’s painless.
On-the-spot soothers
Let him break out his iPod (or borrow yours) and escape into music or an audiobook. And try not to let your own dental dread infect him.
If you cower in the corner or ask if it hurts, his fear level may rise. Instead, sit quietly and (fake) calmly, or read a book (okay, the same passage over and over).
Thinking ahead
Ask about the office policy on parents in the treatment room. Not all allow you to accompany your child (even toddlers), so if you know that will never fly with your kid, look for someone else.
As the appointment draws near, do a little role-playing: Two days before 4-year-old Grace Graham was to get a small cavity filled, her dad, Brock, lessened her anxiety by having her play dentist herself. The Gilbert, AZ, dad drew a black dot on a piece of wood in their garage.
"I told her the wood had a cavity, and we could use my electric rotary grinder to clean it out," he says. Then she filled the hole with wood putty.
You can also alleviate anxiety just by giving it a positive spin: "For young children, we say we’re going to drip medicine around the tooth to make it fall asleep, and then we’re going to power-wash the dark spot away," Dr. Hanna says.
10 common health emergencies and how to deal with them
4. Getting stitches
It’s usually not too hard to tell which gashes need more help than can be found in your first-aid kit: anything that’s more than a quarter-inch deep (especially on the head) or gapes open is usually worthy of stitches.
The ouch factor
The blood, the gore, the idea of taking a needle and thread to the skin — don’t be surprised if there’s anxiety from the minute your child’s injured until the deed is done. And the needle delivering anesthesia can add (momentarily) to the pain. Smaller wounds may be glued instead of sewn shut, and that may sting, too.
On-the-spot soothers
Ask if a topical numbing gel can be applied before the anesthesia is injected. "You have to wait half an hour for it to kick in, but it’s worth it," Dr. Sonnett says.
Thinking ahead
Remember that cuts — especially on the head or face — bleed profusely. (Using a red or other dark-colored cloth to cover the injury may help ease queasies.) Then be honest about what’s to come.
"This way, your child can rely on what you say if something similar occurs in the future," Dr. Sonnett says. "I’d suggest something like ‘The numbing medicine may pinch at first, but after that you won’t feel anything.’?"
And if you’re going to head to the emergency room, try to grab some books, toys, or a music player on the way out — you could be in for a long wait.
19 famous people with ADHD
5. Having a hospital procedure
Maybe your child was born with a problem that now must be surgically corrected. Or perhaps he needs to stay overnight for tests. Or it could be that he got nabbed by appendicitis. Whatever the cause, he’s in good company. More than 2 million kids under age 15 are admitted to hospitals annually.
The ouch factor
Some procedures often done on check-in — giving blood, inserting a catheter — are inevitably painful. But being in a foreign place with bunches of strangers poking and prodding is often more upsetting.
On-the-spot soothers
When a technician had to insert an IV into 2-year-old Jona Jaffe’s hand, her mom, Jaelline, had her take a deep breath and blow a huge, fake bubble. As the technician proceeded, Jaelline told a story in great detail of them entering the bubble and flying over their favorite sites in Disneyland.
Also effective: Try to give your child choices whenever possible, to make him feel more empowered. "You can’t say, ‘Do you want this shot?’ But you can say, ‘Left arm or right arm? Sitting on my lap or lying down?’" child life specialist Cetnarowski advises. Finally, if the experience will be particularly unpleasant, feel free to resort to bribery. New deluxe Play-Doh set, anyone?
Thinking ahead
Many hospitals hold kids’ orientation programs and tours, which your child attends a few days to a few weeks beforehand to help him visualize what’s coming. "If yours doesn’t, ask if there’s someone who can give you a private walk-through," Cetnarowski says. She also warns about using words that have a scary double meaning. For example, "If your child will get general anesthesia, never say he’s being ‘put to sleep,’" she says. "He knows you did that to your dog!"
How gross is it? Your germiest situations analyzed
6. Getting braces
Her gap-toothed, crooked smile might be cute for a little while — but not so much when she grows up.
The ouch factor
Holding still can be a challenge during the x-rays the orthodontist will take of her jaw and skull. To keep her from moving, tiny rods are placed on the outside of her ears — awkward but painless.
Gagging may kick in during the next phase of the process: impressions. The child must bite into molds holding a plasterlike material. The braces don’t hurt when the orthodontist puts them on, but — as my 11-year-old daughter unhappily discovered — the pressure of teeth shifting causes achiness (sometimes severe) several hours later and for days after.
On-the-spot soothers
If your child’s a gagger, ask the orthodontist if he can use a numbing spray on the back of her throat prior to taking the impressions, says Bob Bray, D.D.S., president-elect of the American Association of Orthodontists. It can disable the reflex.
If it’s allowed, just holding her hand and reminding her to breathe deeply through her nose (some kids may feel like they can’t breathe well with the trays in) can help her relax. And after the braces are applied, some orthodontists offer a special wafer to munch.
"Chewing stimulates blood flow to the nerve sockets, which lessens the pain," Dr. Bray says. If yours doesn’t, ask about using sugarless gum. Be sure to have an over-the-counter pain reliever for when you get home, and plan on having soup and applesauce for that first night’s supper.
Thinking Ahead Just give your child a heads-up about what’s going to take place. If she’s worried about her appearance, it can help to remind her that all her friends will probably have them soon, too — and that the payoff will be well worth it: gorgeous teeth for life!
7. Swallowing a pill
For years your child has taken liquid medicines, or you’ve emptied capsules into applesauce and mixed melted pills into oatmeal. But now she needs to take a slow-release or coated pill, and there’s no way around it: You’ve got to help her get it down.
The ouch factor
Your child might gag as soon as the pill hits her tongue; or she could worry so much about choking that her throat will instinctively tighten.
On-the-spot soothers
Let her take a few sips before the pill goes in; a dry mouth makes swallowing tougher. "This also reminds her that swallowing is a natural process, one her throat will do automatically if she lets it," says Paul Doering, professor of pharmacy practice at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
But forget the widespread advice to toss the head back; that actually closes the esophagus, says Cooper White, M.D., a pediatrician at Akron Children’s Hospital.
Instead, have her slide the pill to the back of her mouth, slightly dip her chin toward her chest, and take a sip of water. If the pill feels stuck or is going down too slowly, just tell her to keep drinking. It won’t take long before that feeling disappears.
Thinking ahead
Ask if there’s a choice between a tablet and a capsule, and if so, choose the latter, says Doering. "Capsules float lightly on top of water, while a tablet sinks like a rock on the tongue," he says.
It can also help to practice with teeny bits of food. Toronto mom Audrey Ciccone had her son Michael, then 7, wash down grains of rice and then pill-size pieces of apple before moving on to his actual medicine, which he was able to swallow on the first try. Way to go!
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Originally Published On: www.cnn.com – Original Article Here
Posted by VicPlough on Jul 27, 2011 in
Health (CNN) — Long before drug cartels, crack wars and TV shows about addiction, cocaine was promoted as a wonder drug, sold as a cure-all and praised by some of the greatest minds in medical history, including Sigmund Freud and the pioneering surgeon William Halsted.
According to historian Dr. Howard Markel, it was even promoted by the likes of Thomas Edison, Queen Victoria and Pope Leo XIII.
It was an explosive debut that would be echoed a century later, when cocaine re-emerged as a different kind of miracle drug, the kind that could let you party all night long with no ill effects and no risk of addiction. Each time, the enthusiasm was misplaced and the explosion left a wreckage of human lives behind.
In 1884, Sigmund Freud was a young physician in Vienna, struggling to make a living even as he dreamed of being a world-famous medical pioneer. He just needed a discovery — and he thought he had it.
"If all goes well," he wrote his future wife, Martha, "I will write an essay on it and I expect it will win its place in therapeutics by the side of morphine and superior to it. … I take very small doses of it regularly against depression and against indigestion and with the most brilliant of success."
Dr. Howard Markel: Freud’s cocaine problem
Freud wasn’t the first to write about cocaine. The drug is derived from the coca plant, where natives in South America had been chewing the leaves for centuries.
By 1880, a number of companies had succeeded in creating a concentrated version: cocaine hydrochloride — that would set the world reeling.
"It was tens to hundreds of times more powerful than chewing on a coca leaf," Markel says. "It was extremely pure and extremely powerful."
In the 1880s, medical literature consisted of case reports: doctors writing about their trial and error with individual patients. By the early 1880s, there were case reports on cocaine, many published in the widely read Therapeutic Gazette, which was published by Parke-Davis, cocaine’s largest manufacturer.
According to Markel, Freud devoured these reports and set himself to writing the definitive tome. The result, in 1884, was "Uber Coca," 70 pages of tribute to the white powder that Freud thought could prove a cure for morphine addiction. … Somehow in his rapture, he mentioned only in passing that the drug could also serve as a potent topical painkiller — for which it is still sometimes used.
Halsted, then 32, was already a well-known surgeon in New York when he read Freud’s paper and was immediately drawn to explore its uses as a painkiller. Aside from high rates of infection, surgery in the 1880s was a brutal business.
Ether and chloroform were used as anesthetics, but according to Markel, doctors and nurses would have to literally wrestle the patient to keep them down as they administered the choking gas.
Seeking a better method, Halsted began injecting cocaine into his own limbs, as well as those of friends, students and colleagues. While he discovered a valuable means of deadening nerve endings, the findings came at a high price. By the time a patient came in to his operating room a few months later, with a compound leg fracture, the surgeon was a physical and mental wreck.
Says Markel, "(Halsted) was so high on cocaine that he knew he couldn’t operate. So he just left the scene, took a cab and went home, and stayed at his townhouse for the next seven months, high on cocaine."
No doubt there were many addicts like Halsted, but in large part their problems were hidden by a wave of positive publicity.
"There were all sorts of health claims being made," says Markel. "If you had a stomach ache, if you were nervous, if you were lethargic, if you needed energy, if you had tuberculosis, if you had asthma, all sorts of things. It was going to cure what you had. And this was how it was advertised, too. Not only by marketers who made these drinks, but by major pharmaceutical houses."
But back then, drugs weren’t trapped behind pharmacy walls. Cocaine was sold in drinks, ointments, even margarine. The most popular product was Vin Mariani, a Bordeaux wine developed by a French chemist, with 6 milligrams of cocaine in every ounce — nearly 200 milligrams in a typical bottle.
In Atlanta, a Civil War veteran named John Syth Pemberton created a copycat wine. Pemberton, who had become a morphine addict after suffering war wounds, was interested in cocaine as a treatment for morphine addiction.
He was also a shrewd businessman. When Fulton County, his Atlanta home, banned the sale of alcohol, he concocted a sweet, nonalcoholic version: Coca-Cola.
In Vienna, Freud’s own health was deteriorating due to heavy cocaine use. He suffered an irregular heartbeat and severe nasal blockages. "I need a lot of cocaine," he confessed in an 1896 letter. Soon after, though, he swore off the drug. "The cocaine brush has been completely put aside," he wrote to a friend.
Freud may not have been truly addicted, but he wasn’t alone in growing wary of the wonder drug. Says Markel, "By the early 1890s, the medical literature was filled with reports of people who had taken too much cocaine and now had become florid addicts to the stuff."
Halsted was one of them. But it didn’t keep him from developing the radical mastectomy, as well as techniques that led to sharply reduced rates of complication and infection. Among other things, Halsted invented the rubber surgical glove.
The advertisements went away. By 1903, there was no more cocaine in Coca-Cola. By 1914, the drug was often seen as something for undesirables — and often, mixed up in ugly stereotypes.
An infamous article in The New York Times, by the physician Edward Huntington Williams, warned of a new danger: "Negro cocaine ‘fiends.’ " Williams described a North Carolina police chief who claimed his regular ammunition had little effect on these drug users, and had switched to larger bullets.
Wrote Williams, "Many other officers in the South, who appreciate the increased vitality of the cocaine-crazed Negroes, have made a similar exchange for guns of greater shocking power for the express purpose of combating the ‘fiend’ when he runs amuck."
Later in 1914, Congress passed the Harrison Narcotics Act, banning the nonmedical use of cocaine, as well as other drugs, like marijuana. Cocaine’s long career as an outlaw had begun.
Once banned, cocaine was largely off the radar, although Markel says there was an uptick in use during Prohibition. By the 1970s, the stories of criminals and addicts were largely forgotten.
With the forgetting came an explosion in use that would surpass the one a century before. Again, it started with the elite. "To be a cocaine user in 1979 was to be rich, trendy and fashionable," says Mark Kleiman, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Los Anegeles, and co-author of "Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know." "People weren’t worried about cocaine. It didn’t seem to be a real problem." Of course, it was a mirage.
The last straw for many was the 1986 death of Len Bias, the former University of Maryland basketball star who had just been drafted by the Boston Celtics. Bias died of a heart attack after a night of partying and cocaine use with friends.
As they had a century earlier, lawmakers responded with a ferocity that hit poor — and nonwhite — users hardest. In 1986 and again in 1988, Congress passed mandatory sentencing laws that led to an explosion in the U.S. prison population.
"Virtually every state, as well as the federal government, now has some mix of mandatory sentencing," says Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a group that advocates for poor drug defendants. "Federal prosecutors will tell you it’s supposed to be for the large-scale or most complex cases, but the reality is, it hasn’t worked out that way."
The laws drew a sharp distinction between crack and powder use. The sale of 500 grams of powder cocaine was punishable by a five-year mandatory prison sentence; just 5 grams of crack would bring the same penalty.
It’s a distinction with little rhyme or reason, says Mauer. "It’s the same drug."
Since the peak in the mid-’80s, the number of users has dropped by about half, according to the most widely accepted studies. Cocaine use today is dominated by addicts, according to Kleiman, who estimates that 50% to 60% of all cocaine is consumed by people who have been arrested in the past year.
Cocaine has been praised and cursed, not through one but through two frenzied cycles, a century apart. And yet addictive drugs, not to mention the lure of any cure-all drug, can have a serious sway on perception.
Freud never acknowledged the role of cocaine in his physical ills, Markel says. "It’s amazing what people will do to deny the dangers of the things they tend to like."
Originally Published On: www.cnn.com – Original Article Here
Posted by VicPlough on Jul 27, 2011 in
Health (CNN) — With more than 5 million people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease in the United States, a number that’s expected to rise to 16 million by 2050, the pressure is on to find better methods of diagnosis, treatment and prevention.
Around the world, Alzheimer’s disease is the second most feared disease, behind cancer, according to a recent survey of five countries conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health.
Yet there is still a lot of misinformation: Only 61% of Americans who responded to the survey correctly identified Alzheimer’s disease as a fatal illness. Many participants also mistakenly believe there are sure diagnostic methods and effective treatments to slow the disease, but most would seek medical attention if they became aware of their own early signs.
The research that came out of the Alzheimer’s Association 2011 International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease, which took place in Paris last week, reflects a growing emphasis on early detection.
Research suggests the best targets for exploring treatments are patients who do not have full-blown Alzheimer’s disease, but experience mild symptoms. Scientists have identified biological indicators called biomarkers that seem to be associated with Alzheimer’s, although they are not perfect predictors.
Alzheimer’s Association: 10 signs of Alzheimer’s
"Things are heading earlier and earlier. And the use of biomarkers has been really essential for helping everybody move toward an understanding of what the earliest changes are and when they can be detected," said Dr. Allan Levey, chair of neurology at Emory University School of Medicine.
Early detection
So far, no drug has been developed to significantly slow the progression of the disease in all patients. And there’s no way to halt or reverse the decline of memory and other cognitive abilities once Alzheimer’s has been diagnosed. Since attempts to help patients who already have symptoms in these ways have failed, scientists must look to the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s in hopes of stopping it before it begins.
Studies presented at the conference reinforced the notion that signs of Alzheimer’s may develop in the brain 10 to 20 years before any symptoms begin.
A substance in the brain called beta-amyloid has been associated with dementia in people who have those kinds of symptoms. This is the main ingredient of plaques that build up in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.
People with a rare genetic form of Alzheimer’s, whose specific genetic mutations guarantee that they will develop the disease, tended to show signs of amyloid plaques in PET scans and cerebrospinal fluid 10 to 20 years before the onset of symptoms. These results come from the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network project.
But that represents only a small fraction of Alzheimer’s patients — 1% of cases worldwide, specifically. If you don’t have the genetic form, there’s no way to tell if you will go on to develop the disease, even if you have accumulation of amyloid plaques. There are some people who have them but do not show symptoms of Alzheimer’s.
The kinds of tests that would detect beta-amyloid levels are not widely available. And it’s not clear that pulling the amyloid plaques out of the brain reverses the process of cognitive decline; this is one area of research right now.
Another biomarker of interest is a protein called tau, implicated in the neurofibrillary tangles — which basically take the shape of cells and destroy them — that build up in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, particularly in the memory center called the hippocampus. But there’s no scan to detect these tangles in a living patient.
A major focus of research on early detection is patients who have mild cognitive impairment, a collection of symptoms involving difficulty with memory, language and other mental functions, but which does not interfere with everyday life. It is not necessarily a precursor to Alzheimer’s disease, but it does raise the risk of progressing into that more severe illness.
Understanding mild cognitive impairment is important in coming up with better treatments for dementia in general, because the brain hasn’t deteriorated as much as in Alzheimer’s, so it may not be too late to intervene, experts say.
The brain is the primary organ the disease attacks, but a small study presented at the conference suggests the eyes may also reveal signs of Alzheimer’s. Researchers looked at photos of retinal blood vessels and found some differences in Alzheimer’s patients, but further research is needed to confirm this idea of using an eye exam to help diagnose Alzheimer’s. The same holds for a study suggesting that falling is indicative of Alzheimer’s early stages: It’s a preliminary idea that needs further investigation.
Identifying risk and prevention factors
Another area of focus is identifying risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease. These are associations, not known direct causes.
"Age is a risk factor we can’t modify, at least yet. Our genetics, we can’t modify yet, which is another major risk factor," Levey said. "But certainly seeking clues about ones that are modifiable is an important" research area.
At the Paris conference, researchers said 3 million cases of Alzheimer’s could be prevented worldwide if lifestyle-based, chronic disease risk factors were reduced by 25%. This estimate is based on a mathematical model.
In the United States, physical inactivity had the biggest association with Alzheimer’s out of the risk factors studied, followed by depression and smoking. Midlife hypertension, midlife obesity, low educational attainment and diabetes are other risk factors.
"If we can demonstrate that these risk factors can be modified, and that it will lead to lower rates of Alzheimer’s disease, the impact could be huge," Levey said.
People in their 40s and 50s have still got perhaps a couple of decades to modify lifestyle to potentially lower risk, he said.
There is also growing evidence that head trauma may increase the risk of dementia. One study presented at the conference in Paris found that traumatic brain injury was associated with dementia among older veterans.
A study of former NFL players suggests that football players also may be at increased risk for mild cognitive impairment or similar cognitive decline, perhaps as a result of repeated head injury during these former athletes’ sports careers. In fact, 75 former professional football players are suing the NFL, alleging that the league concealed information about the harmful effects of concussions on the brain for decades.
There is also the idea of cognitive reserve: that keeping the mind active can at least delay the onset of dementia. It also seems that intelligence might help the brain stay in the mild phase of the disease longer, although more study needs to be done in this area as well.
"We know that highly intelligent people have more tolerance to plaque buildup and to loss of energy in their brains than people with lower levels of intelligence and less education," said Dr. Steven DeKosky, vice president and dean of the University of Virginia’s School of Medicine, at an Alzheimer’s forum at the National Press Foundation in May. "Their brain basically fights it off and finds some other ways to get the things done."
Caregiving
One of the underappreciated effects of Alzheimer’s disease is how great a toll it takes on caregivers. Caregivers are much more frequently ill and die earlier than people who do not care for someone with the disease, studies have shown. The stress of taking care of someone chronically ill is sometimes called caregiver syndrome.
Caregiving is hazardous to health because of the stress of helping Alzheimer’s patients, and because caregivers may ignore their own health, DeKosky said.
"Alzheimer’s patients, when they get into moderate and severe stages, don’t have some real sense of time," DeKosky said. "They have to be watched every minute."
Patients may hurt themselves or wander off if not under constant supervision. And it’s common for patients to reverse their sleeping and waking cycles, so caregivers’ daily habits are likewise disrupted.
The cost is staggering: Caregivers provide more than $200 billion in unpaid care, 17 billion hours each year, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
Gibbons’ advice to Alzheimer’s caregivers: Breathe, believe and receive
Why don’t we know more?
Two of the biggest obstacles to finding treatments for Alzheimer’s disease are lack of money and difficulty enrolling people in clinical trials, experts say.
The United States spends $450 million each year in Alzheimer’s research money, compared to $6 billion for cancer, $4 billion for heart disease and $3 billion for HIV/AIDS research.
In spite of the money that does exist for research, Alzheimer’s clinical trials are hard to fill with participants, said Dr. R. Scott Turner, director of the Georgetown University Memory Disorders Program.
Sometimes people believe they’re just having "senior moments" and don’t want to acknowledge their illness, Turner said. In other cases, patients don’t want to go through the hassle of the trial if they’re not guaranteed to receive an experimental drug; but, in order for a scientific study to be valid, patients must be randomly assigned to either the drug or a placebo.
Also, some trials don’t test drugs at all, but simply look for those biomarkers that may help predict disease later or explore other early diagnostic methods. Such methods will be in high demand when an effective treatment is developed, DeKosky said.
"When the first drug is successful, let’s say in symptomatic disease — may it be so — the crush to take advantage of what we know, while it’s still in research format now, will be immense," DeKosky said.
If you or a loved one are interested in exploring clinical trials, the Alzheimer’s Association runs a system called TrialMatch to assist in finding a trial near you.
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Originally Published On: www.cnn.com – Original Article Here
Posted by VicPlough on Jul 27, 2011 in
Health (Health.com) — Affluent countries, including the U.S., tend to have higher rates of depression than lower-income nations such as Mexico, a new study from World Health Organization researchers suggests.
In face-to-face interviews, teams of researchers surveyed nationally representative samples of people in 18 countries on five continents — nearly 90,000 people in all — and assessed their history of depression using a standardized list of nine criteria.
In addition to looking at personal characteristics such as age and relationship status, the researchers divided the countries into high- and middle-to-low income groups according to average household earnings.
Health.com: The 10 most depressing states in the U.S.
The proportion of people who have ever had an episode of clinical depression in their lifetime is 15% in the high-income nations and 11% in lower-income countries, the study estimates.
France (21%) and the United States (19%) had the highest rates, while China (6.5%) and Mexico (8%) had the lowest.
It’s not clear what accounts for this pattern, says Evelyn Bromet, Ph.D., the lead author of the study and a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at Stony Brook University, in Stony Brook, New York. But she stresses that wealth — and happiness — are relative concepts.
"Wherever you are, there’s always people doing better than you," Bromet says. "You’d think that countries that are better off should have lower rates [of depression], but just because they have a high income doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of stress in the environment."
Health.com: 10 careers with high rates of depression
Moreover, she adds, the richest countries in the world also tend to have the greatest levels of income inequality, which has been linked to higher rates of depression as well as many other chronic diseases.
The income-related trends did not hold for all measures of depression, however. When Bromet and her colleagues looked only at episodes of depression that occurred in the previous year, the rate was nearly identical in higher- and lower-income countries, about 6%. (Here again, though, the U.S. came out close to the top: Its 8% rate was second only to Brazil’s 10%.)
This may reflect actual differences in depression rates, but it could also be that people in poorer countries are for some reason less likely to recall or relate episodes of depression from their past, the authors say.
Health.com: How to avoid depression relapse
Comparing depression rates across different countries is inherently challenging, because survey participants may be influenced by cultural norms or their interactions with the interviewer, says Timothy Classen, Ph.D., an assistant professor of economics at Loyola University Chicago who has studied the link between economics and suicide.
"There are significant disparities across countries in terms of the availability and social acceptance of mental health care for depression," says Classen, noting that there tends to be more stigma surrounding depression in a country like Japan than in the U.S. (Classen says this may explain why Japan has a higher suicide rate, even though its depression rates in the study were three to four times lower than those in the U.S.)
Health.com: European suicides spiked during economic crisis
Different age groups appeared to fare better than others depending on a country’s level of affluence. For instance, older adults in high-income countries generally had lower rates of depression than their younger counterparts, while the trend was reversed in several poorer countries.
In a country like the Ukraine, Bromet says, older people "have enormous pressure on them and they don’t have enough money to live and take care of grandchildren and health problems. Their lives are extremely difficult relative to older people in this country."
Bromet says the study findings can help countries identify their own high-risk populations, whether it’s older adults in Ukraine or young divorced women in Japan.
"I hope people in these countries will start thinking about social and medical support for these groups in particular, and what they can do to prevent depression in the future," she says.
The study, which was published today in the journal BMC Medicine, is part of the WHO’s Mental Health Survey Initiative.
Government organizations (including the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health), charitable foundations, and pharmaceutical companies across the world have all helped finance the initiative, but the funders played no role in the data collection, analysis, or publication.
Copyright Health Magazine 2010
Originally Published On: www.cnn.com – Original Article Here
Posted by VicPlough on Jul 27, 2011 in
Health (CNN) — When Alden Waters gets migraines, she feels as if her head is being squeezed into a vise. Depending on what she has eaten, she may vomit. The headache takes longer to go away if she can’t rest and goes to teach her math classes anyway.
"It’s rare, but it does happen that I won’t be able to come to school," said Waters, 26, a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Los Angeles.
About 29.5 million Americans experience migraine pain and symptoms, and 75% of people with migraines are women, according to the federal Office on Women’s Health. One of those women is Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, who released a letter from her physician Wednesday explaining her migraine headaches.
Bachmann does not take daily medications to manage her condition, but is prescribed sumatriptan and odansetron for migraines as needed, Attending Physician of the United States Congress, Dr. Brian Monahan, wrote in the letter.
Opinion: Bachmann’s migraines are a phony issue
The experience of having a migraine is individual, and it’s impossible to generalize about what it feels like for any given person, but many people experience more than just pain in their heads, doctors say.
"Migraine isn’t headache. That is a prevalent misconception. It is a state of the brain. Headache is one of many symptoms that reflect that brain state," said Dr. Robert Shapiro, professor of neurology at the University of Vermont College of Medicine.
Throbbing or pulsing in one area of the head typically comes with a migraine. But other symptoms may include nausea and vomiting. Also, people often find that light, sound, movement, touch, taste or smell become magnified or distorted, Shapiro said. There may also be disturbances in thinking or communication.
Sometimes the pain of a migraine can become so severe that it lasts for hours to days, and you just want to lie down in a quiet, dark place.
Time: Can high heels trigger migraines?
You may experience "aura," or symptoms that come before the migraine such as flashes of light, blind spots or tingling in the arm or leg.
Research has shown that $20 billion in wages is lost because of migraines, Shapiro said. And some people try to work through their migraines, but most sufferers are about half as productive when in the throes of an attack.
"It remains an enormous source of hidden disability," Shapiro said.
The physiological cause of migraine is still somewhat mysterious, although there seems to be a swelling of the brain’s blood vessels, which press on nearby nerves and incite pain.
"Pain itself doesn’t come from the brain," Azizi said.
Migraines are also related to genes, and the condition can run in families. Waters, her mother and — to a lesser extent — her brother all get migraines.
Medications, both over the counter and prescription, reportedly help a lot. Resting in a dark room can also help.
Going to the hospital may be necessary if the migraine persists for a whole day despite oral medicines. Hospital staff can provide intravenous pain medications and nausea treatments if needed, but it is rare that hospitalization is required, said Dr Ausim Azizi, chairman of the department of neurology at Temple University School of Medicine.
There are specific triggers for migraines but they vary according to the individual person.
Stress can bring them on. A healthy diet, regular exercise, relaxation and good sleep can all help prevent stress that may lead to migraines.
Many women also have migraines right before, during or after their periods.
Particular foods and smells can also trigger migraines, Azizi said. Red wine and chocolate are problematic for some people, as is the smell of perfume.
For Waters, the smell of Asian food is enough to make her start to feel sick. And she knows from experience that eating a lot of salty foods around her period can also lead to problems, so she tries to limit salt intake and doesn’t eat at restaurants two nights in a row.
Waters, one of few women pursuing a Ph.D. in theoretical mathematics at her school, feels as though people around her don’t really understand how serious migraines are.
Once, at a mandatory teacher training, the smell of cheap pizza was enough to make her feel nauseated, and she asked to be excused. The woman running the training said she would have thought Waters was lying, but knew about migraines because the department secretary also gets them.
"People that know me really well know that I’m not making it up, but I don’t think it’s a very accepted condition," she said.
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Originally Published On: www.cnn.com – Original Article Here