Therapist Unlimited Blog

Those persons seeking to use aspirin as prevention against cardiovascular disease better abandon the plan now.
A recent medical research has uncovered that the use of low-dose aspirin to ward off heart attacks and strokes in those yet to develop obvious cardiovascular disease can cause serious medical complications.
In the medical world, low-dose aspirin is widely used to prevent further episodes of cardiovascular disease in people who have already had problems such as a heart attack or stroke.
This method known as secondary prevention is well established and of confirmed benefit.
But it is the use of aspirin in primary prevention for those without symptoms, who have not yet had, for example, a heart attack or stroke, but who may be at risk of doing so, following an analysis of the available evidence.
In 2000, cardiovascular disease accounted for two million deaths across the European Union alone, and "worldwide, many people take aspirin every day in the belief that doing so helps prevent cardiovascular disease," says the researchers.

Aspirin could be fatal if not used properly.

The researchers points to various guidelines issued between 2005 and 2008 that recommend aspirin for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease in various groups of patients. Examples include people aged 50 and older with type 2 diabetes and those with high blood pressure.
But the team explained that the current evidence does not back up the routine use of low-dose aspirin in such groups, because of the potential risk of serious gastrointestinal bleeds that accompany its use and the negligible impact it has on curbing death rates.
Doctors should review all patients currently taking low-dose aspirin for primary prevention, either as prescribed or over-the-counter treatment, says the research team.
"And the decision about whether to continue or stop treatment should be made only after fully informing patients of the available evidence", they added.
"Furthermore,  the researchers concluded that current evidence for primary prevention suggests the benefits and harms of aspirin in this setting may be more finely balanced than previously thought, even in individuals estimated to be at high risk of experiencing cardiovascular events, including those with diabetes or elevated blood pressure.
The researchers believe, that low dose aspirin prophylaxis should not be routinely used for primary prevention.

Parents who have children suffering from celiac disease could now smile a little bit despite the medical condition of their beloved angels.
Based on medical facts, a Celiac disease (CD) is an inherited intestinal disorder characterized by life-long intolerance to the ingestion of gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, and barley. Although CD can be diagnosed at any age, it commonly occurs during early childhood (between 9 and 24 months). Reduced bone mineral density is often found in individuals with CD.
Metabolic bone disease remains a significant and common complication of CD. Reduced bone mineral density can lead to the inability to develop optimal bone mass in children and the loss of bone in adults, both of which increase the risk of osteoporosis.   There also exists an additional risk of fracture in people with CD.

Those children suffering from celiac disease should engage in a gluten-free diet to be cured of their medical problem.

 

A recent medical study has shown that a gluten-free diet (GFD) promotes a rapid increase in bone mineral density that leads to complete recovery of bone
mineralization in children. A GFD improves, although rarely normalizes, bone mineral density in adults. Children may attain normal peak bone mass if the
diagnosis is made and treatment is given before puberty, thereby preventing osteoporosis in later life.
Also, nutritional supplements consisting of calcium and vitamin D seem to increase the bone mineral density of children and adolescents with CD.
"Our findings reinforce the importance of a strict gluten-free diet, which remains the only scientific proven treatment for celiac disease to date," the
researchers conclude. "Early diagnosis and therapy are critical in preventing celiac disease complications, like reduced bone mineral density", they added.

A recent study has shown that a healthy body and lifestyles keep professional athletes notably football players and even ordinary men free from heart disease after their retirement from the game or work.
Based on the research, compared to other men in a similar age range, retired National Football League players had a significantly lower prevalence of diabetes, hypertension, sedentary lifestyles and metabolic syndrome.
"Despite their large body size, retired NFL players do not have a greater prevalence of heart disease risk factors when compared to the general population,"
said Dr. Alice Chang, assistant professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern and the study’s lead author. "In fact, other factors such as age and high
cholesterol levels were better predictors for heart disease than the body size of the former athletes in our study."
When body mass index (BMI) standards are applied, more than half of all professional football players are considered overweight or obese, which is
considered an indicator for heart disease risk. Dr. Chang said although a majority of these players are not as fit and active after retirement, they still
had fewer risk factors for heart disease than men of the same age and body size from the Dallas Heart Study, a groundbreaking investigation of
cardiovascular disease that involves thousands of Dallas County residents.
 

Retirees who wish to be free from heart disease should keep their body healthy through exercise and a healthy lifestyle.

Staying physically fit earlier in life might have offset the risks associated with a large body size, said the study’s senior author, Dr. Benjamin Levine,
a professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern, and director of the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine a joint program of UT
Southwestern and Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas.
The study examined 150 former pro athletes and 150 normal counterparts from the Dallas Heart Study with an average age of 55. The median BMI for both
groups was higher than 31, which is considered to be in the obese range.
Retired NFL players didn’t get a totally clean bill of health, however. As a group they were found to have developed similar amounts of coronary
atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) as the group of non athletes. Although they were less likely to have diabetes, they had higher rates of
pre-diabetes, high fasting blood-sugar numbers that increase their risk for developing diabetes in the future.
The study authors’ scientific investigation with a high-profile group could have far-reaching implications. More than 60 percent of offensive and defensive
linemen at the high-school level, they note, also can be characterized through BMI as overweight or obese.
"The good news is that as long as you remain active and fit, even with a larger body, you can lower your risk for heart disease," Dr. Chang said. "The bad
news is that being a professional athlete doesn’t eliminate your risk for developing heart disease later in life. Even professional athletes may be at risk
for developing heart disease as they age."
Professional athletes should continue exercise regimens after their professional careers are over, Dr. Chang said. For the public at large, the study
reaffirms that exercise is an important way to decrease the risk for heart disease, Dr. Chang said.
Other UT Southwestern researchers who contributed to the study include Dr. Song Zhang, assistant professor of clinical sciences; and Amit Patel,
fourth-year medical student. Researchers from the Cooper Clinic in Dallas, the University of Washington, Emory University School of Medicine, the Baptist Cardiac and Vascular Institute, and the Living Heart Foundation also contributed to the study.

A recent medical study has shown that mangosteen juice has anti-inflammatory properties which could prove to be valuable in preventing the development of heart disease and diabetes in obese patients.
Based on the study, medical experts discovered that the juice of the exotic ’superfruit’ can lower levels of C-reactive protein.
To get the data,Dr. Jay Udani, M.D. from Medicus Research, California, worked with a team of researchers to carry out a randomized, double-blind placebo controlled trial.
He said, "For people drinking over half a liter of mangosteen juice a day, the degree of reduction in CRP levels was statistically significant a reduction of 1.33mg/L compared to an increase of 0.9mg/L in the placebo group".

Mangosteen Juice offers rewards to obese persons against heart disease and diabetes.

Inflammation, as measured here by CRP, is a predictor of cardiovascular disease and a precursor of metabolic syndrome.
Reducing inflammation in obese people is a treatment goal, and a natural treatment may be preferable to other treatments which may carry the risk of side effect. According to Udani, "Further studies with a larger population are required to confirm and further define the benefits of this juice, which was safe at all dosages tested".

 

Pregnant women around the world should avoid high fat diet during their pregnancy.
This developed after a recent medical study has shown a mother’s diet of high fat could result in a severe form of liver disease in her child.
Based on the study made by the University of Southampton it was discovered that a high fat diet during a woman’s pregnancy makes her offspring more likely to develop a severe form of fatty liver disease when they reach adulthood.
It is said that non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a condition associated with obesity and caused by the build up of fat in the liver.
The condition advances in some people and it is important to understand the factors that contribute to disease progression. Until recently, NAFLD was considered rare and relatively harmless but now it is one of the most common forms of liver disease that may progress to cirrhosis a serious life threatening chronic liver disease.

Pregnant women should avoid high fat diet since it could lead to a liver disease.

Professor Christopher Byrne, with colleagues Dr Felino Cagampang and Dr Kim Bruce, of the University’s School of Medicine and researchers at King’s College London, conducted the study, funded by the BBSRC. Prof Byrne explained: "This research shows that too much saturated fat in a mother’s diet can affect the developing liver of a fetus, making it more susceptible to developing fatty liver disease later in life.
An unhealthy saturated fat-enriched diet in the child and young adult compounds the problem further causing a severe form of the fatty liver disease later in adult life."
The next stage of this research, also funded by the BBSRC, will be to understand, more precisely, the reason why fatty liver disease develops and to intervene to prevent the fatty liver disease occurring.
The University’s School of Medicine has a worldwide reputation for its pioneering research into the relationship between mothers’ diets in pregnancy and future health problems in their offspring.

Here is a piece of good news to all those patients suffering from heart disease and cancer.
A recent medical research has shown that eating soybeans could cure and prevent heart ailments and cancer.
According to the study, soybeans contain high levels of several health-beneficial compounds including tocopherols, which have antioxidant properties.
These molecules can be used in the development of functional foods, which have specific health-beneficial properties and can be used in the treatment or prevention of diseases.
Tocopherols exist in four forms (a, ß, ?, and d) of which tocopherol is found in greatest concentration in soybeans.
However, a-tocopherol has the greatest antioxidant activity, and is the form converted to vitamin E in the human body. Thus, most interest for soybean tocopherols resides in a-tocopherol; however, certain health-properties have also been attributed to other tocopherol forms and interest for these remains. It has been suggested that all tocopherols could play a role in cardiovascular diseases and cancer prevention.
Although few studies have determined soybean tocopherols concentration in a range of genotypes or environments, none has investigated differences among several early-maturing genotypes grown in multiple environments.

Eating soybeans in a regular basis could keep you away from heart disease and cancer.

Such study allows for the determination of the tocopherols concentration range found in soybean, but also to determine how genotypes perform and compare to each other in contrasting environments. Such information is vital for both plant breeders and agricultural producers.
Researchers at McGill University, the Centre de Recherche sur les Grains, and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Quebec have investigated tocopherols concentration and stability, with an emphasis on a-tocopherol, among early-maturing genotypes grown in multiple environments, and determined the relationship between tocopherols concentration and other important seed characteristics.
Their study was funded by research grants from the Ministère de l’Agriculture, des Pêcheries, et de l’Alimentation du Québec (MAPAQ) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). Results from the study are published in the September-October issue of Agronomy Journal. The research was also presented in Beijing, China at the 8th World Soybean Research Conference in August 2009.
Philippe Seguin, who led the study, stated "The large variation observed among genotypes for a-tocopherol, the relatively high stability of genotypes performance across environments, and the lack of negative correlation with other important seed characteristics suggest that selection for high a-tocopherol will be possible. Such characteristics will also help in the development of functional foods, which requires consistency in concentrations of health-beneficial compounds." Research is ongoing to identify factors affecting soybean tocopherols concentration.
Preliminary results suggest that both specific environmental factors and management practices, such as seeding date, could significantly affect concentrations.
Getting a better understanding of factors affecting soybean tocopherols concentration will help in the development of a new value-added use for soybean and thus to diversify markets for soybean producers.

A popular saying state that the eyes is the windows to the soul.
But recent medical research has shown that eyes is more than just a window for the soul since it can also offer important clues  to your risk of heart disease and stroke.
Researchers of the Centre for Eye Research Australia (CERA) are currently doing an extensive study to prove that blood vessels in the retina at the back of the eye reflect changes in blood vessels in other parts of the body, especially the brain, kidneys and heart.
The team of medical experts believed that that blood vessels in the retina can be photographed and the images analysed by a computer to accurately determine a person’s risk of heart attack or stroke cardiovascular diseases that change the appearance of blood vessels in the eye.
Lead CERA researcher, Professor Tien Wong, explained through their study they wish to show that that combining this non-invasive retinal scan with the results from current risk assessment methods will improve precision and reliability in predicting cardiovascular disease.
Wong and his team has taken thousands of eye images and created a program that recognises common features of conditions that cause damage to be seen on the retina.

Your eyes is not only the window of the soul but also an indicator if a man suffers from a form of heart disease.

Once a person has symptoms of cardiovascular disease, damage has already been done to the body. So finding and treating high risk people early, even before they have symptoms, could minimise blood vessel damage and potentially avoid heart attack or stroke.
At present, doctors estimate a person’s statistical chance of developing cardiovascular disease by looking at individual factors such as whether they smoke, their family history, weight, blood cholesterol and blood pressure. Once you get symptoms, more extensive and sometimes invasive tests, such as angiogram are needed to confirm the result and assess severity of damage to the arteries of the heart or elsewhere.
Professor Wong said, "Results from the retinal scan would be delivered to GPs for a better picture of their patient’s health.
Dr. Christine Bennett, chair of the MBF Foundation Steering Committee and Bupa Chief Medical Officer*, went on to say, "This early assessment of the likelihood that a person will develop diseases like heart disease, stroke or even type 2 diabetes has the potential to significantly improve quality of life, reduce hospitalisations and the 50,000 deaths each year caused by cardiovascular disease."
Once a person knows their risk they may be able to delay the onset of developing cardiovascular disease by modifying their lifestyle accordingly.
"We know that smoking, too much alcohol, inactivity and poor nutrition are bad for our health but seeing the evidence not with, but in, your own eyes could be the wake-up call that triggers change," Bennett said.
 

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.

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.

If it can be avoided people should avoid breathing regularly polluted air in thier surroundings since doing so could lead you to suffer from heart disease.
According to the study made by the researchers at the University of Michican they found out that the very air we breathe can be an invisible catalyst to heart disease.
The researchers warned their study have shown that inhaling air pollution over just two hours caused a significant increase in diastolic blood pressure, the lower number on blood pressure readings.
Based on the latest medical data, nearly one in three Americans suffer from hypertension, a significant health problem that can lead to heart attack, heart failure, stroke, and other life-threatening problems.
Robert D. Brook, M.D., lead researchers and vascular medicine physician at the U-M Cardiovascular Center revealed although this increase in diastolic blood pressure may pose little health risk to healthy people, in people with underlying coronary artery disease this small increase may actually be able to a trigger heart attack or stroke.
To get the data they are looking for, eighty-three people in Ann Arbor and Toronto were utilized in testing and breathed air pollution, concentrated by a mobile air quality research facility, that was similar to what would be found in an urban environment near a roadway.

To avoid chances of suffering from heart disease better avoid constant air pollution exposure now.

Robert Bard, M.S., overall research project manager explained they looked in the participants blood vessels and then their responses before and after breathing high levels of air pollution.
The researchers revealed ozone gases, a well-known component of air pollution, were not the biggest culprit.
The researchers said small microscopic particles about a 10th of the diameter of a human hair caused the rise in blood pressure and impaired blood vessel function, tests
showed.
The blood pressure increase was rapid and occurred within two hours, while the impairment in blood vessel function occurred later but lasted as long as 24 hours.
It’s believed these fine particles deposit deep into the lungs and certain components may gain entrance to the blood stream, or cause an inflammatory response throughout the body.
There is also evidence that functions in the body’s nervous system are also disrupted.
It is said that the new research is the latest in the relatively new field of Environmental Cardiology which looks at the association between air pollution and heart disease.
Brook says that at the very least the findings support efforts to maintain current ambient air quality standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency.
He said there are practical ways to avoid exposure to high levels of air pollution, such as avoiding unnecessary travel or commutes and not exercising during rush hour, or near busy roadways.
He added in modern society, the burning of fossil fuels is the primary source for air pollution.
The researcher cited if air pollution levels are forecasted to be high, those with heart disease, diabetes or lung disease should avoid unnecessary outdoor activity.