Therapist Unlimited Blog

 

 

There are now more reasons why people should avoid drinking liquor heavily.
A recent study has shown that binge drinking weakens the body’s ability to fight off infection for at least 24 hours afterwards.
Based on the study made by medical experts they discovered that acute alcohol exposure prevents the body from producing certain key-inflammatory cytokines.
Pro-inflammatory cytokines are signalling molecules that launch the inflammatory response to infection.

 

 

 

Better avoid heavy drinking now since it could weaken the body’s immune system.

 

The researchers noted that the "The time frame during which the risk of infection is increased might be at least 24 hours.
The team of experts revealed a persistent effect of ethanol on cells is indicated, such that inhibition of the response of some cytokines occurs even after the ethanol is cleared.
With this new discovery, it is now high time for binge drinkers to stop their habit or go slow in drinking.
Life is precious it should not be wasted by heavy drinking.

Those frequent users of acetaminophen, a known pail reliever should avoid getting hooked with the medicine.
A new study has shown that acetaminophen may be associated with an increased risk of asthma and wheezing in both children and adults exposed to the drug.
The data was taken from a recent study made by researchers from the  University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, who conducted a systematic review and metaanalysis of 19 clinical studies (total subjects=425,140) that compared the risk of asthma or wheezing with acetaminophen exposure.

Based on the study, the pooled odds ratio (odds ratio for all studies combined) for asthma among users of acetaminophen was 1.63.
The risk of asthma in children who used acetaminophen in the year prior to asthma diagnosis or in the first year of life was elevated to 1.60 and 1.47, respectively.
Moreover, the study revealed a slight increase in the risk of asthma and wheezing with prenatal use of acetaminophen by mothers.
With the relevant data they gathered, the researchers speculate that acetaminophen’s lack of inhibition of cyclooxygenase, the key enzyme involved in the inflammatory response of asthma, may be one explanation for the potential link between acetaminophen use and asthma.

 

Are you a frequent user of amphetamine in your adolescence?
Well it is time for you to stop such addiction since too much intake of amphetamine could result in memory loss upon reaching adulthood.
The findings was taken on a study conducted by medical experts on a group of rats exposed to high doses of amphetamine.
Based on the study, the experts discovered that The declines in short-term or "working" memory are most pronounced when the rats are exposed during adolescence, rather than as adults.
"Animals that were given the amphetamine during the adolescent time period were worse at tasks requiring working memory than adult animals that were given the same amount of amphetamine as adults," said psychology professor Joshua Gulley, who led the study with graduate student Jessica Stanis. "This tells us that their working memory capacity has been significantly altered by that pre-exposure to amphetamine."
Gulley and his colleagues presented their findings at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Chicago.
The researchers tested two types of amphetamine exposure: intermittent (a steady dose every other day) and "binge-escalation," in which increasing amounts of the drug were given over a period of four days, followed by a simulated binge a high dose every two hours for eight hours on the fifth day.
 

 

 

Too much intake of amphetamine should be avoided since it could lead to memory loss upon reaching adulthood.
 

 

 

The findings reveal some of the potential long-term consequences of amphetamine abuse by adolescents and also may be relevant to those taking amphetamines for therapeutic purposes, such as for the treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Gulley cautions that the doses given to the rats are on the high end of what an older, larger adolescent might receive as a therapeutic dose, and that further study is needed to tease out the implications for human health.
The concerns are most robust for adolescents who abuse amphetamines, Gulley said, as they may use much higher doses than those who are prescribed drugs that contain amphetamines.
"Adolescence is a time when the brain is continuing to develop into its mature form, so drug exposure during this critical period could have long-lasting, negative consequences," he said. "Our findings reveal that adolescents are particularly sensitive to the adverse effects of amphetamine on cognitive function and that these effects can persist well after drug use is discontinued."

 

Cellular phones had more uses aside from communication.
A recent medical study has uncovered that cellular phones could be use to help chain smokers kick their unhealthy habit.
A team of experts lead by Robyn Whittaker, a public health physician at the University of Auckland,  recently conducted four studies: two of text-message only programs and two that used the Internet along with mobile phones to keep up a stream of stop-smoking support.
"It makes a lot of sense," Whittaker said. "Mobiles are well-integrated in daily lives. The programs are using what’s in daily life rather than making people come into a clinic. They’re more proactive, delivering directly to people wherever they are."
Studies included about 2,600 smokers of all ages. After pooling study data, reviewers found that participants in text-message programs were about twice as likely not to smoke after six weeks as smokers in control groups.
People in mixed-media programs cell phone plus Web were significantly more likely to hang in there for at least six months after their chosen quit date.
"Say people are out with friends and feeling really strong cravings. They can text the word ‘crave’ directly into the program and they can get a message with suggestions for techniques to get through the cravings or other things to do to distract them such as listen to music or take a walk around the block," Whittaker said.

 

 

 

Smokers seeking to quit their habit can find solace and help from their own cellular phone.
 

 

 

Studies measured quitting success by self-report and in some cases by testing saliva samples for signs of nicotine. However, not enough people provided saliva samples to make meaningful conclusions based on those.
Two studies conducted in Norway combined e-mail contacts, a Web page and text messages. In the other studies, which took place in New Zealand and the United Kingdom, participants received a barrage of up to six messages daily for a month after their quit date and less frequent messages for up to six months.
""The text messages obviously have to be very brief, to the point; they use a lot of abbreviation but not a lot of texting lingo," Whittaker said. "Motivational messages remind people why they want to quit. Positive reinforcement message tell them they’re doing really well, that they got themselves through the day or week without a cigarette, and to keep up the good work."
Messages can be "personalized and tailored to a certain extent to include information about issues of particular concern to that person, like putting on weight when quitting," Whittaker said.
"However, a lot of information is applicable to most people."
"The problem is that it is not individualized. These are generic messages to help people not use tobacco," said Rebecca Schane, M.D., an internist and pulmonologist with the Center for Tobacco Control Research at the University of California at San Francisco. "
"It is mobile contact but not actual human contact."
"This type of intervention can’t stand alone or substitute for physician visits in any way, shape or form," said Schane, has no affiliation with the review but is familiar with the findings.
"Quitting affects other aspects of people’s health. If they have high blood pressure and they quit, their blood pressure decreases. You need to incorporate that in their treatment," Schane said.
People need a personal touch, she said: "It helps when a physician is in your corner. When you know the physician believes this is a worthwhile step in your life, you’re more likely to do better in quitting."
"For a certain proportion of the population, that’s probably right," Whittaker said, "but a certain proportion prefer not to do face-to-face interventions. Particularly, a lot of young adults preferred something confidential and anonymous."
Both Whittaker and Schane say that quitting is extremely difficult and most people will make several efforts before finding success.
"I’m glad the reviewers are trying to identify new ways to help people quit," Schane said. "What’s out there is relatively stagnant. The protocol hasn’t changed in years. But smokers are changing and our care needs to change. We’re in a bit of a rut; if this study brings to the forefront the idea that there are other ways we can treat smokers, that’s great."

 

 

A leading medical organization has warned parents around the world warned parents to be careful with the disease dubbed as acid reflux since it can cause death if not given proper and immediate treatment.
The medical name for the disease is gastroesophageal reflux. It means stomach + esophagus + backwash.
The Pediatric Adolescent Gastroesophageal Reflux (PAGER) Association has been helping families learn about acid reflux since 1992.
Beth Pulsifer-Anderson, Director of PAGER Association revealed acid reflux in children is often overlooked.
Based on medical facts some of the clues of the disease include excessive crying, ‘colic’, a burning sensation in the throat or chest, tummy aches, spitting up, a sensation of
food coming up, poor appetite, poor weight gain, trouble swallowing, night waking, ear infections, sinus problems, asthma, wheezing, tooth decay and bad breath.
Pulsifer-Anderson added untreated reflux can cause excruciating pain and serious health problems.
She explained a child with acid reflux is often miserable and this affects the whole family.
Moreover said she said PAGER Association has been contacted by more and more Spanish speaking families in recent years.
According to studies, about 6 million Hispanics in the US have acid reflux symptoms and most don’t seek treatment.
Pulsifer-Anderson says, "It is important for Spanish speaking parents to know about acid reflux so they can be sure their children can get appropriate medical attention.

 

 

 

Parents worldwide need to be careful about acid reflux since it can lead to the death of their children.

Two new studies have found that the number of heart attacks has fallen by up to a third in countries where bans on smoking in public places have been introduced.
Smoking in pubs, restaurants and other public spaces was banned in England and Wales in July 2007, a year after similar laws were introduced in Scotland.
The Scottish ban led to a 14 per cent fall in the number of people being admitted to
hospital with a heart attack the following year.
Libby Dowling, Care Advisor at Diabetes UK, said: "Diabetes UK supports the smoking ban and we are pleased to hear that it may reduce the number of heart attacks by more than a third in countries where it is implemented.

 

 

 

Studies has recently shown that smoking ban is effective in keeping humans free from any form of heart disease.

 

 

Dowling revealed people with diabetes are at increased risk.
He said smoking is harmful to everyone’s health, and in particular to the 2.5 million people with diabetes in the UK.
He added people with the condition are already at increased risk of heart disease, stroke and other circulatory problems.
Moreover, Dowling said smoking doubles the risk of these problems.
Dowling encourage those people with diabetes to give up smoking to protect their health.

 

 

Researchers have found new evidence showing that parents play a key role in whether or not their adolescent children who experiment with tobacco progress to become daily smokers before they graduate from high school.
A study published on-line and in the September issue of journal Pediatrics shows that parents can be a positive or negative influence on their children’s future smoking habit.
"If parents really don’t want their children to smoke they need to communicate that by establishing clear guidelines in their families about not smoking and discuss them with their school-age children." said Min Jung Kim, a research scientist with the University of Washington’s Social Development Research Group and lead author of the study.
At the same time, parents can increase their children’s chances of smoking by their own use of tobacco.
"If parents smoke, teens have more access to cigarettes than teens who have non-smoking parents. A second preventive measure for smoking parents is to quit smoking themselves," said Kim.
The study included 270 adolescents who had begun smoking by the eighth grade but had not advanced to daily smoking at that time.
Daily smoking was defined as smoking one cigarette a day for the past 30 days prior to annual interviews. By the time the students were in the 12th grade, 156, or 58 percent, had become daily smokers.
The children in the study were 51 percent male and 85 percent white. They were drawn from a larger study looking at the development of healthy and problem behaviours among children at 10 suburban schools in the Pacific Northwest. Information about their smoking habits was collected during annual interviews from the seventh through 12th grades.
Aside from parenting and parental tobacco use, other factors that predicted teen smoking were having friends who smoked and involvement in other problems behaviours such as skipping school, getting into fights and engaging in vandalism.

Kim said most smoking prevention programs to not directly address the role of parental smoking or the link between anti-social behaviour and smoking, which commonly occur together.
"Parents need to know that they are still important and can make their children feel good when they do something right and also know that there are consequences when they do something wrong. Many parents think adolescence is the time for children to have their independence. But it is important to maintain good supervision of your teen. Parents who smoke also need to understand that they are modeling behavior and if they quit smoking they send a strong message to their teenager," said Kim.
She recommends that parents "should not ignore children’s experimental smoking at any age because it put them at great risk of progressing to daily smoking." To do that, parents should:
    * Set and enforce clear guideline about tobacco.
    * Monitor to ensure that your children are following your guidelines.
    * Know and monitor your children’s friends.
    * Provide clear, consistent and positive consequences for following those guidelines and appropriate, consistent negative consequences for violating them.

 

Smokers who wish to undergo a medical surgery needs to stop their smoking habits now.
This developed after a recent research has shown that people who start nicotine replacement therapy at least four weeks before surgery can halve their risk of poor wound healing.
Based on the study made by German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) they found out that quitting smoking in times of stress is not easy.
Professor Peter Sawicki, the Institute’s Director revealed quitting from smoke is not easy before operation but those who smoke re more likely to have complications after surgery than people who do not smoke.
At the moment, IQWiG has now analysed current research results that show that nicotine replacement therapy can help people quit smoking and avoid complications after surgery.

 

 

 

It is time to stop smoking to those smokers who wish to undergo surgery.

 

 

The researchers said nicotine replacement therapy helps reduce withdrawal symptoms when people stop smoking by giving them nicotine through a patch or chewing gum.
The researchers revealed trials showed that only 14 percent of the patients who smoked had problems with wound healing if they had nicotine replacement therapy at least four weeks before surgery, compared to 28 percent of the patients who did not have nicotine replacement therapy.
The research team added poor wound healing is one of the most common complications after surgery.
Moreover, Sawicki said lack of oxygen can cause poor wound healing.
Sawicki said anaesthetics and surgery put a strain on the body’s oxygen supply as it is.
He said smoking reduces the amount of oxygen that is available in the blood even more, making it more difficult for wounds to heal a process which requires oxygen.

Medical experts around the world are calling on the public to avoid consuming too much sodium sulfate or salt since doing so could be disastrous to your health.
According to a recent medical study, those who love to partake salt usually suffer from high blood pressure, vascular and cardiac damage, stomach cancer, osteoporosis and other diseases.
The study also revealed that higher blood pressure is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease.
Based on the latest statistics, worldwide, approximately 1 billion adults have hypertension.
It is said that about 17 to 30 percent of these cases are caused by excessive sodium consumption.
Researchers discovered that almost 80 percent of sodium intake is from processed food in developed countries.
The experts revealed the most effective change will result from regulation of the food industry by government.
However, researcher said there is a need for immediate voluntary action.

 

 

 

Partaking too much salt is dangerous to health.

 

 

In Canada alone, the recommended intake is 1,000 mg/day sodium for people aged 1 to 3 years and 1,500 mg/day for those aged 9 to 50 years.
Dr. Kevin Willis, from the Canadian Stroke Network explained a population-wide reduction in sodium intake could prevent a large proportion of cardiovascular events in both
normotensive and hypertensive populations.
He added a population-wide decrease of 2 mm Hg diastolic blood pressure would be estimated to lower the prevalence of hypertension by 17%, coronary artery disease by 6% and the risk of stroke by 15%, with many of the benefits occurring among patients with normal blood pressure.
 

 

Moreover, the experts hoped that the national public health policy should focus on:
• Reformulating processed food
• Educating consumers
• Labeling food clearly
• Setting timelines to meet these targets

 

 

They said nongovernmental groups should also lobby the food industry to change practice.
They added these groups should work in partnership with governments to initiate public education campaigns.
The experts said health care professionals should give extra attention in guiding patients about healthy choices in reducing sodium consumption.
They said training in giving those directions should be included into curricula.

 

 

 

Those people who are not smokers but are regularly inhaling second hand smoke better do something on their situation before things got get worse.
This developed after a recent research has shown that even second-hand tobacco smoke exposure can result in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a common disease and rising cause of chronic liver injury in which fat accumulates in the liver of people who drink little or no alcohol.
A team of researchers at the University of California, Riverside has found out that fat has accumulated in the liver cells of mice exposed to second-hand cigarette smoke for a year in the lab.
The researchers explained such fat buildup is a sign of NAFLD, leading eventually to liver dysfunction.
In their study, the researchers focused on two key regulators of lipid (fat) metabolism that are found in many human cells as well: SREBP (sterol regulatory element-binding protein) that stimulates synthesis of fatty acids in the liver, and AMPK (adenosine monophosphate kinase) that turns SREBP on and off.

 

 

 

People better avoid inhaling second hand smoke since it could lead to a liver disease.

 

 

The researchers revealed based on their study they discovered that second-hand smoke exposure inhibits AMPK activity, which, in turn, causes an increase in activity of SREBP.
The team said when SREBP is more active, more fatty acids get synthesized.
The team addded the result is NAFLD induced by second-hand smoke.
Manuela Martins-Green, a professor of cell biology, who led the study revealed their study provides compelling experimental evidence in support of tobacco smoke exposure playing a major role in NAFLD development.
Green added their work points to SREBP and AMPK as new molecular targets for drug therapy that can reverse NAFLD development resulting from second-hand smoke.
She said drugs could now be developed that stimulate AMPK activity, and thereby inhibit SREBP, leading to reduced fatty acid production in the liver.
The researchers revealed their study emphasizes that discouraging cigarette smoking helps prevent not only cardiovascular disease, pulmonary disease and cancer, but now also liver disease.
Second-hand smoke is the combination of smoke exhaled by a smoker and smoke given off by the burning end of a tobacco product.
Lingering in the air long after tobacco products have been extinguished, it is involuntarily inhaled by nonsmokers in the vicinity.
According to medical facts, second-hand smoke is a major toxicant that affects children, the elderly and nonsmokers living in the household of adults who smoke.
Many state and local governments have passed laws prohibiting smoking in public facilities.
Diseases associated with second-hand smoking include cancer, heart disease, atherosclerosis, pneumonia, bronchitis and severe asthma.
Despite the large body of scientific evidence documenting the effects of passive or active smoking on the heart and lungs, reports investigating how smoking causes liver injury are scant.