Therapist Unlimited Blog

Old men who have breathing problems in sleep more likely to suffer from irregular heartbeats.
This was the findings of a latest research conducted by medical experts who discovered that increasingly severe sleep-related breathing disorders in older men appear to be associated with a greater risk of abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmias).
It is said that sleep-disordered breathing is a common condition that causes a number of physiologic events that could be stressful to the cardiovascular system, including inadequate blood oxygen levels at night and activation of the sympathetic nervous system (associated with the body’s fight-or-flight response).
Reena Mehra, M.D., M.S., of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, and colleagues studied 2,911 men who underwent sleep testing by polysomnography between 2003 and 2005.
The number of times they experienced apnea (brief pauses in breathing) or hypopnea (shallow breathing) during sleep was recorded, as were any periods of time in which the oxygen level of blood in their arteries dipped below 90 percent (hypoxia).
The researchers said having more episodes of paused or shallow breathing was associated with increased odds of two types of arrhythmias-one involving the heart’s upper chambers (atria) and one involving the heart’s lower chambers (ventricles).
The team revealed obstructive sleep apnea-the most common type, involving a partial or complete blockage of the airways-was associated with irregular heartbeats caused by a problem with the lower chambers or ventricles.

Old men who have breathing problems in sleep need to go to the doctor fast to determine if they are also suffering from irregular heartbeats.

The researchers also discovered that lower blood oxygen levels also appeared to be associated with this type of arrhythmia.
However, central sleep apnea, involving a malfunction in brain signals controlling breathing muscles, was more strongly associated with arrhythmias in the atria or upper chambers.
Furthermore, the researchers explained more severe cases of sleep-disordered breathing were associated with higher odds of arrhythmia.
The researchers added there also seems to be a threshold effect such that moderate-to-severe sleep-disordered breathing confers the greatest increased odds of clinically significant arrhythmias independent of self-reported heart failure and cardiovascular disease.
The team concluded that the line of investigation also identified hypoxia as the possible culprit pathophysiologic characteristic of sleep-disordered breathing that may serve as the trigger of ventricular cardiac arrhythmia development in older men.
With this, they said the strong associations between central sleep apnea and atrial fibrillation [arrhythmia originating in the heart's upper chambers] suggest that central sleep apnea may be a sensitive marker of underlying abnormalities in autonomic or cardiac dysfunction associated with atrial fibrillation.
 

According to medical experts, constant texting would not only result in sore thumbs, but would also affect the neck, arms and hands of the texters.
In a study conducted by the  Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden they discovered that some persons who are text addicts ends up having problems with their neck, arms and hands.
To get the result of the study, Ergonomist Ewa Gustafsson studied mobile phone habits among 56 young adults who text message on a daily basis.
Gustafsson said half of the subjects reported problems with the neck, arms or hands, while the other half had no such symptoms.
He said considering how much we use the small mobile phone keypads, it is important that we learn how they affect our bodies.
He added there is a need to identify factors related to mobile phone usage that may affect our health and ability to work.

People should stop texting too much since such an activity could affect your neck, arms and hands.

Gustafsson also interviewed 25 young adults who use mobile phones and computers extensively to communicate.
The medical expert said these people use the technology as a tool to be and act in the present, to be social, effective and independent with almost unlimited possibilities.
He said that there are also risks.
He revealed those interviewed related health risks to long-term usage, bad work posture and reduced physical activity.
To avoid injuries and pains while texting, Gustafsson recommended these tips:

A. Avoid sitting in the same position while texting and trying different position instead. He said it would be best to use the chair’s backrest in order to relieve forearms by resting them against a desk on your thighs.
B. He also recommended the use of both hands in texting and to refrain from hunching for a long time.
C.  Gustafsson also advised to allow the thumbs a break when typing long messages and not to type too fast.
 

Parents around the world need to be careful since a recent medical study revealed that some stimulant drugs used to treat  attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) resulted in a sudden cardiac death in healthy children.
In the data gathered by Dr. Madelyn S Gould of Columbia University, New York, New York, and colleagues, they found out that some 564 healthy children suddenly died after taking some stimulants such as methylphenidate (better known in the US under its brand name of Ritalin).
Gould and her team studied the children aged 7 to 19 from across the US who died suddenly and most likely due to sudden cardiac disturbance after taking stimulant drugs.
She said parents of children facing ADHD should always be careful in the use of stimulants as treatment since it could be deadly for their children.
Meanwhile, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned parents who have children with ADHD to discuss concerns with the treatment of their children to the prescribing doctor to avoid any risk.
To dig deeper into the report, the FDA is already co-sponsoring another larger study that is looking at the link between increased risk of heart attack, stroke and other cardiovascular problems and use of stimulant medication by children, the results of which are expected to come out later this year.

Parents should be careful in using stimulant drugs used for ADHD treatment since it offers health risk to their children.

The federal agency also urged doctors to follow the current prescribing information that accompanies the product label, which recommends that young and adult patients being considered for ADHD treatment.
The FDA said parents of children facing ADHD should work with their health care professional to develop a treatment plan that includes a careful health history for cardiovascular disease in the child and his or her family.
The FDA added such preparation should include a physical exam that pays particular attention to the cardiovascular system, and should consider screening tests such as electrocardiogram and echocardiogram, depending on the patient’s history and whether it suggests possible risk factors for heart disease.

According to a recent medical study, gaining weight during pregnancy is not only normal but also necessary as well among women.
Based on the data gathered by the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) it was discovered that gaining weight in pregnancy is not only normal, it is necessary.
The mother’s body has to nourish the growing baby. Her body needs to take on more fluid to support the extra circulation the placenta and baby need.
Some of this added weight will usually be lost as soon as the baby is born.
Institute’s Director, Professor Peter Sawicki said often, the extra effort women have to make to look after a new baby and breastfeed after giving birth means the kilos just melt away without effort.
Sawicki added about half of all women; the weight will not go away as quickly.

Pregnant women do not need to worry about their weight gain since it is necessary during pregnancy.

The Institute analysed recent evidence and new US national guidelines on weight gain in pregnancy, and the message is clear: women who have become overweight or more overweight during pregnancy have a higher chance of ongoing weight problems if they are not back to a normal weight within six months or a year after having a baby.
The institute director explained avoiding weight problems after birth means already being careful about balanced and healthy eating during pregnancy.
The institute director added it is not a good idea to ‘eat for two’ in pregnancy and forget about your weight until after the baby is born if you are at all overweight - or prone to overweight - already. He added women need to eat well enough for themselves and their baby, but pregnancy is not a time to overeat.
Moreover, Sawicki said exercise is important when people are overweight, but after pregnancy, a lot of exercise does not necessarily help a great deal.
Sawicki and his team concluded that the best ways to lose weight after childbirth is balanced diet with or without extra exercise.
The researchers said very strenuous exercise programmes soon after childbirth did not lead to extra weight loss.
This means that women do not need to have a bad conscience if they take it easy in the busy weeks after giving birth.
However, Sawicki stresses that even though the birth of a baby can throw life completely out of kilter, it is important for women not to leave it too long before they start looking after themselves again.
 

Pregnant women around the world need to be careful since they are at higher risk of being inflicted with the deadly H1N1 A influenza virus.
Based on the research conducted by the Motherisk Program at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto and the Japan Drug Information Institute in Pregnancy in Tokyo,
Japan researchers discovered that those in the third trimester are at high risk of serious complications from the H1N1 A influenza virus.
To treat and prevent pregnant women from suffering the deadly  H1N1 A influenza virus, medical experts recommended the intake of oseltamivir, which appears to be the drug of choice because there are more data on its safety in pregnancy.
Dr. Shinya, Head of the Division of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology at SickKids revealed the groups at high risk of flu-related complications from the novel H1N1 influenza are the same as those for seasonal flu consisting of pregnant women, children under 5 years, the elderly and others such as those with chronic lung conditions.

Pregnant women need to be extra careful these days since they are at higher risk in the deadly H1N1 A Influenza virus.

Meanwhile, medical experts said only small amounts of oseltamivir are excreted into human milk.
The researchers said if an infant is breastfed by the mother on these drugs and needs treatment, the recommended dose of oseltamivir should be given to the infant.
To avoid being inflicted with the deadly disease it would be best for pregnant women to engage in healthy activities such as eating nutritious foods and having enough sleep.

Recent studies have shown that there is no truth to claim to some men that when they get drunk they could not anymore guess the exact age of a woman.
Based on a data gathered in the research it was discovered that that drinking alcohol and use of make-up had a minimal effect on the men’s perception of the ages of the photographed women.
Dr. Vincent Egan who wanted to determine if there is truth to the defence of those men accused of having unlawful sex with a minor that they were not aware that the girl was underage did the study.
To ensure truthfulness, Egan also look into other factors that may influence his perception would also be taken into account, such as how much alcohol he had drunk or how much make-up the girl was wearing.
To get the data, he wanted Egan asked 240 people to look at photos of women and then comment on their age and attractiveness.
All the participants were heterosexual, aged between 18 and 70 with an equal split between men and women. Half of the participants had consumed alcohol before the task.

According to a latest study, most drunk men could still recognize the age of women despite their drunkenness.

The participants looked at photographs of ten young women (aged 17). Some of the photographs were digitally altered to give the faces a younger or older appearance and in both some make-up was applied digitally.
After looking into the photographs, Egan said he found out majority of them could still recognize the age of the women in the photographs.
Egan explained the study suggests that alcohol consumption and make-up use do not interfere with how old we perceive someone to be.
He said another interesting finding was that overall participants who drank alcohol actually rated all the women in the photos as less attractive (compared to the participants who had not drunk alcohol).
He said this seemingly flies in the face of the commonly held notion of ‘beer goggles’.

A recent study has shown that those older adults who found their greater purpose in life tend to live longer than other older people do in this planet.
Based on the data gathered by medical experts from the Rush University Medical Center it was discovered that those senior citizens who found their purpose in life tend to live longer than those who do not find true meaning in their continued existence.
To get the data, Patricia A. Boyle, PhD, and her colleagues from the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center, studied 1,238 community-dwelling elderly participants from two ongoing research studies, the Rush Memory and Aging Project and the Minority Aging Research Study.
Boyle and her team used baseline evaluations of purpose in life and up to five years of follow-up were used to test the hypothesis that greater purpose in life is associated with a reduced risk of mortality among community-dwelling older persons.
She said purpose in life reflects the tendency to derive meaning from life’s experiences and be focused and intentional.
Boyle explained after adjusting for age, sex, education and race, a higher purpose of life was associated with a substantially reduced risk of mortality.
Thus, a person with high purpose in life was about half as likely to die over the follow-up period compared to a person with low purpose. The association of purpose in life with mortality did not differ among men and women or whites and blacks, and the finding persisted even after controlling for depressive symptoms, disability, neuroticism, the number of medical conditions and income.
It was noted that during the study period, 151 participants died.

To live longer the older generation in this world need to find their true purpose in life.

She said the finding that purpose in life is related to longevity in older persons suggests that aspects of human flourishing particularly the tendency to derive meaning from life’s experiences and possess a sense of intentionality and goal-directedness contribute to successful aging.
She added significant associations with mortality were found with three specific items on the purpose of life questionnaire to determine the study participants’ agreement with the following statements: "I sometimes feel as if I’ve done all there is to do in life;" "I used to set goals for myself, but that now seems like a waste of time;" and "My daily activities often seem trivial and unimportant to me."
Furthermore, Boyle said she and her team are excited about the findings because they suggest that positive factors such as having a sense of purpose in life are important contributors to health.
She and her team noted that knowledge of the relationship of purpose of life with other demographic characteristics is limited and future studies are needed to examine whether the association of purpose of life with mortality might be modified by other variables not measured in this study, such as how religious a participant may be.
They added that future studies should examine whether purpose in life can be enhanced in older persons with interventions.
 

Green Tea drinkers around the world had reasons to smile these days.
This developed after medical experts found pieces of evidence that shows that green tea can effectively slows down the growth of prostate cancer among the male population.
In a study recently published at the Cancer Prevention Research, an American Association for Cancer Research journal it was discovered that green tea had an active compounds that effectively reduce serum markers predictive of prostate cancer progression.
According to James A. Cardelli, Ph.D., professor and director of basic and translational research in the Feist-Weiller Cancer Center, LSU Health Sciences Center-Shreveport the investigational agent used in the trial, Polyphenon E (provided by Polyphenon Pharma) may have the potential to lower the incidence and slow the progression of prostate cancer.
Cardell explained green tea, the second most popular drink on the planet, has shown health benefits, which included a reduced incidence of prostate cancer.
Despite the positive trial result, Cardelli said some human trials had come up with conflicting results citing that the medical inquiry so far had only looked at the clinical efficacy of green tea consumption, rather than evaluating the change in biomarkers, which may predict prostate cancer progression.
In the experiment conducted by Cardelli and his team, they carried out an open-label, single-arm, and Phase II clinical trial to find out what effect short-term supplementation with green tea’s active compounds might have on serum biomarkers in patients with prostate cancer.

Studies have shown that green tea can effectively slow down the growth of prostate cancer among patients worldwide.

Accordingly, the biomarkers include HGF (hepatocyte growth factor), VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) and PSA (prostate specific antigen). HGF and VEGF are good prognostic indicators of metastatic disease.
Twenty-six men, 26 men, aged 41 to 72 years were included in the trial. They had all been diagnosed with prostate cancer and scheduled for radical prostatectomy.
The patients were given four capsule containing Polythenon E daily up to the day of surgery. Four capsules are equivalent to about 12 cups of green tea.
The study for 25 of the 26 patients took 12 to 73 days, with a median time of 34.5 days.
The researcher then found considerable reduction in serum levels of HGF, VEGF, and PSA after treatment.
They observed that some of the patients had reductions of over 30%,
It was also discovered that liver function remained normal, other biomarkers were also positively affected, and side effects were minimal.
In fact, a 12-month clinical trial carried out in Italy found that consumption of green tea polyphenols lowered the risk of developing prostate cancer in men with high-grade prostate intraepithelial neoplasia (HGPIN).
Cardelli said their studies are just the beginning and a lot of work remains to be done.
Meanwhile, William G. Nelson, V., M.D., Ph.D., professor of oncology, urology and pharmacology Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, believes the reduced serum biomarkers of prostate cancer may be due to some kind of benefit relating to green tea components.

According to a recent study, men are prone to cancer than women are as far as statistics from United Kingdom revealed.
Based on the records from the National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN) and Cancer Research UK it was discovered that men are 40 per cent more likely to die of cancer than women are and 16 per cent more likely to get it in the first place.
According to their records, it was also discovered that after excluding breast cancer and cancers that only affect one sex, the difference between men and women was even greater, with men being about 70 per cent more likely to die from cancer than women and over 60 per cent more likely to develop it in the first place.
The researchers revealed even when they excluded lung cancer, which removes the counfounder introduced by the fact more men smoke than women, the underlying figures were the same.
The remaining cancers that were included in the analysis were cancers of the oesophagus, stomach, colorectal, liver, pancreas, kidney, bladder, brain and central nervous system (CNS), non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, malignant melanoma, multiple myeloma and leukaemia.
The team of experts explained more research was needed to understand the gap, but speculated it could be behavioural: perhaps men have unhealthier lifestyles and they do not notice early cancer symptoms, or they are more reluctant to deal with them, whereas women tend to notice them earlier and do not delay in going to the doctor about them.

Men need to be careful since they are more prone to cancer than women according to a study done in the United Kingdom.

For, Alan White, Professor of Men’s Health at Leeds Metropolitan University and Chair of the Men’s Health Forum, the evidence shows that men are generally not aware that, as well as smoking, carrying excess weight around the waist, having a high alcohol intake and a poor diet and their family history all contribute to their increased risk of developing and dying prematurely from cancer, adding that more research needs to be done before we can be sure exactly why this gender gap exists.
White added the report clearly shows that we need to try much harder to get the public, health professionals and the people who make the policies to understand the risks that men face.
He said many of these deaths could be avoided by changes in lifestyle and earlier diagnosis.
Moreover, Professor David Forman of the NCIN said for many of the types of cancer we looked at that affect both sexes, there’s no known biological reason why men should be at a greater risk than women, so we were surprised to see such consistent differences.
Forman said after taking out the effect of age, men were significantly more likely than women to die from every one of the specific types of cancer considered and, apart from melanoma; they were significantly more likely to develop the disease.
He revealed men have a reputation for having a ’stiff upper lip’ and not being as health-conscious as women do.
To get the data, the researchers looked at cancer deaths in the UK for 2007 and new cases categorized by cancer type for 2006.
They summed cancer cases that were not sex-specific and then looked at male and female ratios in each category.
 

Children as early as seven years old who are obese are also most likely to suffer from heart disease and stroke later in their lives.
This was the result of a study, conducted by researchers at Nemours Children’s Clinic and Dr. Charles DelGiorno, an Endocrine trainee from the Mayo Clinic of Jacksonville, Fla., which demonstrates that the unhealthy consequences of excess body fat start very early.
Principal investigator and senior author Nelly Mauras, MD, Chief of Pediatric Endocrinology at Nemours Children’s Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida explained obesity alone, the study shows, is linked to certain abnormalities in the blood that can predispose individuals to developing cardiovascular disease early in adulthood.
Mauras said their study finding suggests that there is a need for more aggressive interventions for weight control in obese children, even those who do not have the co-morbidities of the metabolic syndrome.
He said the metabolic syndrome is a cluster of risk factors that raise the risk of developing heart disease, stroke and diabetes.
He added it is increasingly being diagnosed in children as overweight becomes a greater problem.
The lead researcher said that although debate exists as to its exact definition, to receive a diagnosis of metabolic syndrome, in general you must have at least three of the following: increased waist
circumference (abdominal fat), low HDL ("good") cholesterol, high triglycerides (fats in the blood), high blood pressure and high blood glucose (blood sugar).
To get the data they are looking for the team screened more than 300 individuals ages 7 to 18 years and included just those without features of the metabolic syndrome.
The researchers even included 202 subjects in the study: 115 obese children and 87 lean children as controls - half were prepubertal and half-in late puberty. Obese children had a body mass index (a measure of body fat) above the 95th percentile for their sex, age and height.
To be eligible to participate in the study, the children and adolescents had to have normal fasting blood sugar levels, normal blood pressure and normal cholesterol and triglycerides.
Lean controls also could not have a close relative with type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure or obesity.
The latter group proved very difficult to find.

 
Obese children need to careful since their condition could lead to a heart disease later in their lives.

All study participants underwent blood testing for known markers for predicting the development of cardiovascular disease.
These included elevated levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker of inflammation, and abnormally high fibrinogen, a clotting factor, among others.
Obese children had a 10 fold higher CRP and significantly higher fibrinogen concentrations, compared with age- and sex-matched lean children, the authors reported.
These abnormalities occurred in obese children as young as 7-year-olds, long before the onset of puberty.
Moreover, based on their study, the lead researcher said the results were striking since the children were entirely healthy otherwise.
She said that although it is not yet known whether early therapeutic interventions can reverse high CRP and fibrinogen, she said it would be prudent for health care providers to advise more aggressive interventions to limit calories and increase activity in "healthy" overweight children, even before the onset of puberty.