Therapist Unlimited Blog

 

Proper design  is everything to make sure children are safe from harm.
Keeping children safe from injuries is a must since injury is the leading cause of death for children over the age of 1 in industrialized countries and improving the safety of the man made (built) environment will benefit children’s health.
Based on the recent study,injury accounts for about 40% of childhood deaths in industrialized countries and is even higher in developing countries.
It often involves failure to negotiate a manmade environment. Death rates from injury in affluent countries is 15.3 per 100,000 boys and 10 per 100,000 for girls among children 14 and younger. In developing countries, the rates are 50.5 per 100,000 boys and 43.5 per 100,000 girls.
In 2002, 371,000 boys and 289,000 girls worldwide died of injury, with more than 180,000 mostly pedestrians killed by traffic.
In addition to causing injury and death, unsafe environments are barriers to physical activity that is important to life long health. Changes such as speed control, traffic light phasing, fencing spaces and enhancing pedestrian visibility can reduce injuries by 50 to 75% in specific locations and 25% in wider areas. By making traffic safer for children, it increases the likelihood they will walk to school and can derive health benefits from physical activity.
In fact, 50% of Canadian children never walk to school compared with only 17% who do most of the time.
"By giving priority to automotive over pedestrian transportation we have allowed road traffic to become the leading cause of death among our children,"
 writes Dr. Andrew Howard of the University of Toronto and The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids). "North American children are increasingly sedentary," and urban sprawl is linked to higher rates of traffic injury and obesity.

 

 

 

Keep your children safe from harm by making their environment free from danger through proper design.

 

 

Other ways to modify the built environment include appropriate playground equipment that minimizes injuries while encouraging activity. Falls from climbing
equipment are 5 times more likely to result in severe fractures than falls from a standing height. Evidence shows that playgrounds that did not comply with standards from the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) had twice the rate of injury of compliant playgrounds, although these standards are voluntary without regulatory authority for most Canadian playgrounds.
Fencing around pools to limit deaths from drowning and modification of homes and apartments to prevent falls from windows are other examples of changes to physical surroundings that can save children’s lives.
"Our built environment influences our children’s levels of activity, their physical health and their risk for injury," writes Dr. Howard. "Intelligent planning, particularly with consideration for urban design and traffic engineering to emphasize safe walking and cycling, has enormous potential to improve the health and safety of children now and across the lifespan."

 

 

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.

 

 

 

Who says drinking too much coffee is bad for the health?
A recent medical study has shown that patients with chronic hepatitis C and advanced liver disease who drink three or more cups of coffee per day have a 53% lower risk of liver disease progression than non-coffee drinkers.
Based on the research made by Neal Freedman, Ph.D., MPH, from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) it was discovered that that patients with hepatitis C-related bridging fibrosis or cirrhosis who did not respond to standard disease treatment benefited from increased coffee intake.
Freedman explained an effect on liver disease was not observed in patients who drank black or green tea.
It is said that hepatitis C virus (HCV) infects approximately 2.2% of the world’s population with more than 3 million Americans infected. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cites HCV as the leading cause of liver transplantation in the U.S. and accounts for 8,000 to 10,000 deaths in the country annually. Globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates 3 to 4 million persons contract HCV each year with 70% becoming chronic cases that can lead to cirrhosis of the liver and liver cancer.
This study included 766 participants enrolled in the Hepatitis C Antiviral Long-Term Treatment against Cirrhosis (HALT-C) trial who had hepatitis C-related bridging fibrosis or cirrhosis and failed to respond to standard treatment of the anti-viral drugs peginterferon and ribavirin.

 

 

 

It is time to drink coffee for chronic hepatitis C patients.

 

 

 

At the onset of the study, HALT-C patients were asked to report their typical frequency of coffee intake and portion size over the past year, using 9 frequency categories ranging from ‘never’ to ‘every day’ and 4 categories of portion size (1 cup, 2 cups, 3-4 cups, and 5+ cups). A similar question was asked for black and green tea intake. "This study is the first to address the association between liver disease progression related to hepatitis C and coffee intake," stated Freedman.
Participants were seen every 3 months during the 3.8-year study period to assess clinical outcomes which included: ascites (abnormal accumulation of fluid in the abdomen), prognosis of chronic liver disease, death related to liver disease, hepatic encephalopathy (brain and nervous system damage), hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer), spontaneous bacterial peritonitis, variceal hemorrhage, or increase in fibrosis. Liver biopsies were also taken at 1.5 and 3.5 five years to determine the progression of liver disease.
Results showed that participants who drank 3 or more cups of coffee per day had a relative risk of .47 for reaching one of the clinical outcomes. Researchers did not observe any association between tea intake and liver disease progression, though tea consumption was low in the study. "Given the large number of people affected by HCV it is important to identify modifiable risk factors associated with the progression of liver disease," said Freedman. "Although we cannot rule out a possible role for other factors that go along with drinking coffee, results from our study suggest that patients with high coffee intake had a lower risk of disease progression."

 

 

 

 

 

Those persons suffering from rhinosinusitis has a high tendency to also suffer from depression due to their medical condition.
This was the result of a new study conducted on 73 patients wherein some 9.6 percent of these people suffered depression due to their condition.
The research also showed that 20.5 percent scored in the range of a major depressive disorder using an objective screening instrument with high sensitivity and specificity for diagnosing depression, the Patient Health Questionnaire-9.
Additionally, the disease-specific and general health-related quality of life (QOL) in these patients was worse than those who did not exhibit signs of depression.

 

 

 

 

Patients inflicted with rhinosinusitis better be careful since their medical condition could also result in depression.

 

 

Patients with depression and CRS scored significantly worse in most QOL measures, including bodily pain, and physical and social functioning. The authors believe this casts particular light on the impact of depression on diseases of the head and neck, which is to this point little is understood.
They contend that if physicians are to optimize their patients’ health, screening for both CRS and depression is warranted.

 

 

 

A recent study done in Japan has shown that cancer can be transferred from mother to unborn child.
The study was the work of first author Takeshi Isoda from the Department of Pediatrics and Developmental Biology at Tokyo Medical and Dental University, and colleagues.
The researchers discovered that cases of mother to offspring transmission of cancer are rare and few have been recorded over the last 100 years, wrote the authors, and there is barely any evidence that shows the mother’s cancer cells match the baby’s.
In the paper, Isoda and colleagues describe a case where a 28-year old mother was diagnosed with leukemia shortly after giving birth to a baby girl who developed similar symptoms when she was nearly a year old.

 

 

 

 

Pregnant women should keep themselves healthy and away from cancer since they can transmit this deadly disease to their kids.

 

Using various methods, Isoda and colleagues were able to show that the cancer cells in the baby were a genetic match to those of the mother.
First they generated clones of the cancer cells from both mother and baby and found that they "shared the same unique BCR-ABL1 genomic fusion sequence, indicating a shared, single-cell origin", and then they showed that "microsatellite markers in the infant cancer were all of maternal origin".
They also found that the baby’s cancer cells had inherited a pattern of missing genes (notably a "major deletion on one copy of chromosome 6p that included deletion of HLA alleles") that probably helped the cells avoid detection and destruction by the placental barrier and the baby’s immune system.

 

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.

Aside from the family the community also plays a crucial role in keeping kids fit and healthy and away from obesity.
According to a latest study the community and the government play a crucial role in keeping children away from obesity.
To ensure that the children will not suffer from obesity the government can impose zoning restrictions on fast-food restaurants near schools and direct community to improve safety around public recreational sites.
Researchers discovered that if the community will play an active role obesity in children can easily be avoided.

 

 

 

To ensure children are fit and healthy the community should do its task of keeping them away from obesity.

 

 

Here are some tips on what the community can do to keep kids away from obesity.

A. Provide incentives to lure grocery stores to under-served neighborhoods.
B. Require nutritional information on restaurant menus.
C. Implement "Safe Route to School" programs for walkers and bikers.
D. Ensure publicly run after-school programs limit video game and TV time.

 

Moreover, the researchers revealed the solutions boil down to increasing access to healthy foods and opportunity for active play and exercise.

 

 

Recent medical studies has shown that being circumcise will not protect gay men from Human Immuno Virus (HIV) if ever they engage in sex with another men.
Based on the research conducted by CDC researchers involving 4,900 men who had sex with HIV-positive men, it was discovered that the infection rate, about 3.5 percent, was approximately the same whether
the men were circumcised or not.
Peter Kilmarx, chief of the epidemiology branch in the CDC’s HIV division, explained that circumcision is not considered beneficial in preventing the spread of HIV among men who have sex with men.
Kimarx concluded CDC is still considering recommending it for other groups, including baby boys and high-risk heterosexual men.

 

 

Gay men who engage in sex with another men better be careful since circumcision is no protection against HIV.

 

Aside from CDC, the Boston Globe editorial also discussed circumcision and HIV.
According to the editorial, there is no evidence that circumcision protects against male-to-male transmission of the virus, or from men to women.
Still, a technique that reduces the prevalence of the disease will ultimately benefit all groups.
Furthermore, the popular US newspaper revealed while a majority of U.S. parents already circumcise their babies, rates are lower among two groups that suffer disproportionately from HIV/AIDS: African-Americans
and Hispanics.
The  Globe concluded, no one should be forced to circumcise a son.