Therapist Unlimited Blog

Drinking too much liquor might be bad for the health but for some instances it is not that harmful.
A recent medical study has shown that drunk patients have better chances of surviving trauma injuries than their sober counterparts.
According to the report, trauma patients who were intoxicated before their injuries were more likely to survive than trauma patients who suffered similar injuries but were sober at
the time.
To get the result, researchers at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (LA BioMed) surveyed 7,985 trauma patients of similar age and with similar injuries to determine if the consumption of alcohol prior to injury affected
outcome.
Based on their study they discovered that 7 percent of the sober patients died compared to just 1 percent of the patients who had been drinking.

Getting drunk is not that all bad after-all.

"This study is not encouraging the use of alcohol," said Christian de Virgilio, MD, LA BioMed’s principal investigator for the study. "It is seeking to
further explore earlier studies that had found alcohol may improve the body’s response to severe injuries. If alcohol is proven to improve the body’s
response to traumatic injury, it could lead to treatments that help patients survive and recover more quickly."
Alcohol consumption is already known to be one of the leading causes of accident and injury, with a previous study finding it contributes to about
one-third of all trauma-related deaths. Previous studies found trauma patients who had abused alcohol for a long period of time had lower survival rates.
But recent studies also found alcohol consumption may protect against death by changing the chemical response to injury.
"This study adds further support to the possibility that alcohol could be altering the body’s response to injury in a way that helps ensure survival," said
Dr. de Virgilio. "Given these findings, more research is needed to determine if there is some role for alcohol in the management of trauma patients.

MEDICAL experts called on the people around the world to always use soap while doing some hand wash to get rid of bacteria and germs.
The experts said washing with the aid of soap will not at all help since it does not get rid of microbes.
They revealed to kills germs and bacteria the best thing to do is to rinse the hands after using soap.
According to their study, the experts also discovered that touching the sink faucet, which is one of the dirtiest things in a restroom people could be adding even more germs to their hands.
A poll conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of LifeBridge Health reveals that when in a public restroom without soap or towels, 74 percent of American adults who use public restrooms would rinse their hands with water and let them air dry.
"They might as well not even bother," says John Cmar, M.D., an internist at LifeBridge Health’s Sinai Hospital of Baltimore and expert on infectious diseases. "Washing with water alone does not get rid of microbes the action of working up a lather with soap, and then rinsing it off, is what washes them away. Plus, by touching the sink faucet one of the dirtiest things in a restroom these people could be adding even more germs to their hands."
The survey examined 2,257 U.S. adults aged 18+, of whom 2,208 use public restrooms.

To ensure germs and bacteria could not harm your body always use soap regularly.

The poll also revealed that only 12 percent of public restroom users would immediately go find another place to wash their hands in that situation, though that number increases to 17 percent among those aged 18 to 44 and 19 percent among females in that same age range.
Six percent of males aged 18 to 34 who use public restrooms said if there were no soap or paper towels in a public restroom then they would
give themselves a "free pass" and not wash their hands at all. This self-reported number is much lower than what past observational studies have revealed; an August 2007 study (1) conducted in four U.S. cities observed 34 percent of men (presumed to be aged 18+) neglecting to wash their hands at all in public restrooms, despite the availability of soap, towels and running water.
"To avoid getting sick, it is critical that people know how to wash their hands the right way," says Jackie Daley, director of Infection Prevention and Control at Sinai Hospital. "Many people think the water temperature kills the germs on their hands, but water from a faucet could never get hot enough to do that," she says. "The keys are the soap, the length of scrubbing time and drying your hands thoroughly with towels afterwards." Daley stresses that people need to scrub their hands with soap and water for at least 15 to 20 seconds about the time it takes to sing "Happy Birthday" through twice. If soap and water are not available, then an alcohol-based hand rub will work to destroy germs.

A recent medical study has shown that those women who are positive about their genitals find it easier to orgasm and are more likely to engage in sexual health promoting behaviours, such as having regular gynecological exams or performing vulvar self-examinations.
Debby Herbenick, associate director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion in the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation explained their findings is a positive news to women around the world.
Herbenick said our culture often portrays women’s genitals as dirty and in need of cleaning and grooming.
She added some women may have had greater exposure to such negative messages or may be more susceptible to their impact.
Herbenick’s study created a scale for measuring men’s and women’s attitudes toward women’s genitals. Such a scale, she wrote in the study, could be useful in sex therapy, in medical settings to help better understand decision-making that goes into gynecological care and treatment, and in health education settings involving women and their sexual health. The study also found that men had more positive attitudes about women’s genitals than women.
"Women are often more critical about their own bodies and other women’s bodies than men are," Herbenick said. "What we found in this study is that men generally feel positive about a variety of aspects of women’s genitals including how they look, smell, taste and feel."

To achieve orgasm and better sexual health women should feel confident about their sexuality.

Herbenick, also a sexual health educator for The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction, offers the following suggestions regarding the findings:
Body image. Parents might consider how they can help their daughters to feel more positively about their bodies, such as by teaching them accurate names for their body parts, including their genitals (e.g., "vulva" rather than "down there") and responding in supportive ways to their self-exploration. "Rather than saying, ‘don’t touch down there it’s dirty,’ parents might let their children know that it’s OK for them to touch their genitals, but in private spaces such as their own bedroom or the bathroom," Herbenick said.
Advertisements and marketing. Health educators might consider ways that they can teach women and men about their bodies in positive, sex-positive ways by openly discussing how some products or marketing campaigns make people feel about their bodies.
The survey component of the study involved 362 women and 241 men, most of whom were white/Caucasian and between the ages of 18 and 23.
"Our study builds on previous research that demonstrates that the mind and body are highly connected in regard to sex," said Herbenick."When women feel more positively about female genitals, they likely feel more relaxed in their own skin, more able to let go and thus more likely to experience pleasure and orgasm."
 

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.

Cancer patients better avoid getting depressed since doing so could reduce their chances of survival.
A recent medical study has found out that there is a need for systematic screening of psychological distress and subsequent treatments to ensure proper treatment for cancer patients.
To get the data they are looking for, graduate student Jillian Satin, MA, of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and her colleagues analyzed a total of 9417 patients and examined the effects of depression on patients’ cancer progression and survival.
Based on the study they made they discovered that an increased risk of death in patients who report more depressive symptoms than others and also in patients who have been diagnosed with a depressive disorder compared to patients who have not.
 

Cancer patients need to avoid getting depressed if they wish to be treated of their medical condition.

Satin revealed in the combined studies, the death rates were up to 25 percent higher in patients xperiencing depressive symptoms and 39 percent higher in patients diagnosed with major or minor depression.
Satin added the increased risks remained even after considering patients’ other clinical characteristics that might affect survival, indicating that depression may actually play a part in shortening survival.
Despite their findings, the researchers admitted additional research needs to be conducted before any conclusions can be reached.
The researchers explained their analysis combined results across different tumor types, so future studies should look at the effects of depression on different kinds of cancer.
Moreover, the researchers noted that the actual risk of death associated with depression in cancer patients is still small, so patients should not feel that they must maintain a positive attitude to beat their disease.
The researchers said their study indicates that it is important for physicians to regularly screen cancer patients for depression and to provide appropriate treatments.

A new medical research has shown that a diet rich in coconut oil protects against ‘insulin resistance’ (an impaired ability of cells to respond to insulin) in muscle and fat.
Based on the medical research the diet also avoids the accumulation of body fat caused by other high fat diets of similar calorie content.
The researchers said together these findings are important because obesity and insulin resistance are major factors leading to the development of Type 2 diabetes.
The researchers added the research is also interesting because it helps explain human studies showing that people who incorporate medium chain
‘fatty acids’, such as those found in coconut oil, into their diets can lose body fat.
To get the data, researchers Dr. Nigel Turner and Associate Professor Jiming Ye, from Sydney’s Garvan Institute of Medical Research, compared fat metabolism and insulin resistance in mice fed coconut oil and lard based diets.
Lead researcher Nigel Turner revealed the medium chain fatty acids, like those found in coconut oil, are interesting because they behave very differently to the fats normally found in human diets.
Turner added unlike the long chain fatty acids contained in animal fats, medium chain fatty acids are small enough to enter mitochondria the cells’ energy burning powerhouses directly, where they can then be converted to energy.

Those persons who wish to avoid type 2 diabetes better start using coconut oil now.

He said unfortunately the downside to eating medium chain fatty acids is that they can lead to fat build up in the liver, an important fact to be taken into consideration by anyone considering using them as a weight loss therapy.
According to medical facts, fat storage is determined by the balance between how much fat is taken in by cells and how much of this fat is burned for energy.
When people eat a high fat diet, their bodies attempt to compensate by increasing their capacity to oxidise fat.
The research team discovered that the medium chain fatty acid (coconut oil) diet was more effective at increasing the oxidative capacity of muscle than the long chain fatty acid (lard) diet leading to less fat storage in muscle and better insulin action.
Turner revealed, the lard-based diet used in this research is similar to the diet eaten by people in the Western world.
He explained the fatty acid composition is about 40% saturated fats, 40% monounsaturated fats and 20% polyunsaturated fats, of which the vast proportion is omega-6, rather than omega-3.
Furthermore, the researchers revealed obese humans usually eat 40-50% of their calories as fat.
The researchers said no high fat diet is good, and the normal dietary combination of long chain fats leads to an overload that our bodies can’t cope with.
With this data, the researchers concluded that high consumption of common dietary fats is contributing directly towards the global escalation of obesity and Type 2 diabetes.
They said if someone is trying to prevent weight gain, we can see they may benefit from substituting oils containing medium chain fatty acids for other oils in their diet, as long as consideration is given to the potential problem of excess fat in the liver.
The researchers added natural dietary alternatives, such as fish oil, might be helpful because the fatty acids in fish oil are thought to exert a lot of their beneficial effects through improving fat oxidation in the liver.
 

A latest medical research has shown that children with emotional difficulties are at higher risk of becoming obese when they grow up.
The researchers revealed while their findings don’t show that emotional problems like low self esteem, being overly worried or feeling less in control of one’s life in childhood actually cause obesity in adulthood, they are a significant factor, alongside parental BMI, diet and exercise.
The relevant study was undertaken by Andrew Ternouth, David Collier and Barbara Maughan from the MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London.
It is said that past studies have shown that people who are overweight or obese also have emotional problems like low self-esteem, but which causes the other is not clear.
To get the data, Ternouth and colleagues examined data from about 6,500 people who were enrolled in the 1970 British Birth Cohort Study when they were 10 years old, at which time their emotional problems, self-perceptions and BMI were assessed.

To keep your children away from obesity better help them emotional problems while growing up.
 

BMI stands for Body Mass Index, the ratio of a person’s weight in kilos to the square of their height in metres.
The participants were assessed again 20 years later, when they reached the age of 30.
The results showed that participants who scored low on self-esteem, and those who had felt less in control of their lives,
and who worried more often as children, were the ones most likely to put on weight as adults 20 years later.
The researchers also found that the link between childhood emotional problems and being overweight or obese in adulthood was slightly stronger in girls than it was in boys.
Based on the result of their research, the researchers concluded the findings are particularly important on a larger scale, as it offer hope in the battle to control the current obesity epidemic.
The researchers suggest that helping children with emotional difficulties like anxiety and low self esteem could improve their chances of being in better physical health as adults.
Moreover, the researchers said the result of their research has showed that intervention should be early, and spotting these issues in childhood could be an important step in combating obesity in adulthood.
The researchers concluded it’s not just up to doctors and health practitioners, but the job of everyone involved in the welfare of children, including parents and teachers.
 

Although alcohol consumption is known to be associated with chronic pancreatitis, new evidence indicates that a threshold of five or more drinks per day is required to significantly raise risk; however, most patients with chronic pancreatitis do not drink this amount.
In addition, based on the study it was also discovered that smoking is an independent, dose-dependent risk factor.
"Chronic pancreatitis is an inflammatory syndrome of the pancreas characterized by progressive parenchymal fibrosis scarring of the organ, maldigestion, diabetes mellitus and pain," the researchers explained.
"Recurrent acute pancreatitis [acute pancreatitis that occurs on two or more occasions and may become chronic] and chronic pancreatitis are associated with alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking.
The etiology of recurrent acute pancreatitis and chronic pancreatitis is complex, and effects of alcohol and smoking may be limited to specific patient subsets."
Dhiraj Yadav, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of Pittsburgh, and colleagues in the North American Pancreatic Study Group examined the current prevalence of alcohol use and smoking and their association with pancreatitis in patients evaluated at U.S. referral centers.
Between 2000 and 2006, 1,000 patients (540 with chronic pancreatitis and 460 with recurrent acute pancreatitis) were  enrolled in the North American Pancreatitis Study 2 (NAPS2), as were 695 healthy controls.
All participants (average age 49.7) reported their alcohol consumption and smoking habits.

About one-fourth of both controls and patients were lifetime abstainers. Among those with chronic pancreatitis, 38.4 percent of men and 11 percent of women were very heavy drinkers  (five or more drinks per day), compared with 16.9 percent of men and 5.5 percent of women with recurrent acute pancreatitis and 10 percent of men and 3.6 percent of women in the control group.
"We found the threshold drinking amount for association between alcohol use and chronic pancreatitis to be five or more drinks per day," the authors write. Compared with abstaining and light drinking (half a drink per day or less), very heavy drinking was associated with approximately triple the odds of developing chronic pancreatitis. However, fewer patients with chronic pancreatitis  than expected (about one-fourth) drank at this level. Other factors, including genetic mutations, also contribute to pancreatitis risk.
Although many heavy drinkers also smoked, cigarette use was an independent risk factor for both chronic pancreatitis and recurrent acute pancreatitis. Among smokers, those with chronic pancreatitis tended to smoke more (26.6 pack-years, vs. 19.5 pack-years for those with recurrent acute pancreatitis and 16.2 pack-years for controls; one pack-year is about 7,300 cigarettes  smoked) and had smoked for a longer period of time (a median or midpoint of 30.5 years, vs. 21.9 years for controls and 22.7 years for those with recurrent acute pancreatitis), suggesting a dose-dependent effect.
"In conclusion, only very heavy alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking are independent risk factors for chronic pancreatitis," the authors write. "Risk for chronic pancreatitis from alcohol consumption occurs above a threshold level, while risk due to smoking is dose dependent. Drinking levels in subjects with recurrent acute pancreatitis are similar to controls.
Only a minority of patients with recurrent acute pancreatitis and chronic pancreatitis currently seen at secondary or tertiary U.S. centers could be categorized as very heavy drinkers."

Medical researchers has recently discovered that men diagnosed with infertility suffer intense negative sexual, personal and social strains that might be considered typical for other medical illnesses, including cancer.
Based on the study, the researchers found out that from being a "silent disease" in men the findings makes clear, for the first time, that male infertility is a ‘disease’ like any other, silent or not, and can have a serious effect on the overall well-being of the individual, the couple, and the family.
The researchers revealed the study also shows that the diagnosis of infertility increases social strain in male partners of infertile couples.
The team who conducted the study explained male partners in couples with perceived, isolated male factor infertility have a lower sexual and personal quality of life compared to male partners of couples without perceived male factor infertility.

The family of those men suffering from infertility should provide 100 percent love to their loves ones since these people are suffering big due to their medical condition.

According to the latest statistics, about one in eight couples around 7.3 million Americans have trouble conceiving.
It is said that half of those cases have male infertility issues often easily treatable ones.
Furthermore, the statistics also shows that male infertility affects 10% to 15% of reproductive aged couples worldwide and is treatable in many cases.
The medical experts hoped the data gathered in the research should serve as driving force for the family of men facing infertility to understand and care more this person in connection with the ordeal he is facing.

Medical researchers has recently found out that vitamin C deficiency may impair the mental development of new-born babies.
According to the study made by LIFE Faculty of Life Sciences at University of Copenhagen they discovered that  guinea pigs subjected to moderate vitamin C deficiency have 30 per cent
less hippocampal neurones and markedly worse spatial memory than guinea pigs given a normal diet.
The researchers revealed like guinea pigs, human beings are dependent on getting vitamin C through their diet, they speculate that vitamin C
deficiency in pregnant and breast-feeding women may also lead to impaired development in foetuses and new-born babies.
The researcher explained several factors indicate that the neonatal brain, in contrast to other tissue, is particularly vulnerable to even a slight lowering of the vitamin C level.
 

Studies have shown that vitamin C deficiency could be bad for early brain development of babies.

They revealed the highest concentration of vitamin C is found in the neurons of the brain and in case of a low intake of vitamin C, the remaining vitamin is retained in the brain to secure this organ.
The researchers said vitamin thus seems to be quite important to brain activity.
Based on their study it was shown that mouse foetuses that were not able to transport vitamin C develop severe brain damage.
Researchers said brain damage which resembles the ones found in premature babies and which are linked to learning and cognitive disabilities later in life.
In some areas in the world, vitamin C deficiency is very common population studies in Brazil and Mexico have shown that 30
to 40 per cent of the pregnant women have too low levels of vitamin C, and the low level is also found in their fetuses  and new-born babies.
It is not yet known to what extent new-born babies in Denmark or the Western World suffer from
vitamin C deficiency but a conservative estimate would be 5 to 10 per cent based on the occurrence among adults.