When Good Bananas Go Bad!

I've found that Laughter is indeed the best medicine. Enjoy!

God's Pharmacy

Even if you don't accept the religious aspect, the descriptions are very interesting. So, read and enjoy!

It's been said that God first separated the salt water from the fresh, made dry land, planted a garden, made animals and fish... All before making a human. He made and provided what we'd need before we were born.

These are best & more powerful when eaten raw.

We're such slow learners.....

God left us a great clue as to what foods help what part of our body!

A sliced Carrot looks like the human eye. The pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye... And YES, science now shows carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes.

A Tomato has four chambers and is red... The heart has four chambers and is red. All of the research shows tomatoes are loaded with lycopine and are indeed pure heart and blood food.

Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart. Each grape looks like a blood cell and all of the research today shows grapes are also profound heart and blood vitalizing food.

A Walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles or folds on the nut are just like the neo-cortex. We now know walnuts help develop more than three (3) dozen neuron-transmitters for brain

Kidney Beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and yes, they look exactly like the human kidneys.

Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb, and many more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are 23% sodium. If you don't have enough sodium in your diet, the body pulls it from the bones, thus making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.

Avocados, Eggplant and Pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female - they look just like these organs. Today's research shows that when a woman eats one avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight, and prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this? It takes exactly nine (9) months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (modern science has only studied and named about 141 of them).

Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow. Figs increase the mobility of male sperm and increase the numbers of Sperm as well to overcome male sterility.

Sweet Potatoes look like the pancreas and actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics.

Olives assist the health and function of the ovaries

Oranges, Grapefruits, and other Citrus fruits look just like the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts.

Onions look like the body's cells. Today's research shows onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells. They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes. A working companion, Garlic, also helps eliminate waste materials and dangerous free radicals from the body.

The Metabolically Challenged

If you’ve been reading this blog from the beginning, you know I’ve had my difficulties losing weight (like most other Americans!)

About eighteen months ago, I started a program through my insurance company and had good success to begin with. The first five months showed successful weight loss, but then in October of last year, I hit a wall.

It began when I got tired of being on a diet. It didn’t matter that I kept telling myself it wasn’t a diet, but a new way of eating. I was bored and tired of watching and recording everything I put in my mouth and having to exercise. I am apparently somewhat lazy by nature, but there were other problems too. I had little motivation to do anything I didn’t “have” to do. And if motivated to exercise, I soon lost interest.

All this was reflected in my weekly weigh-ins. I’d lose a couple of pounds then gain them back. I knew that I wasn’t working the plan as I had been, so I accepted that the fault was mine. But, even though I wanted to lose the weight, it was getting harder and harder to motivate myself to work the plan as I needed to work it to achieve the weight loss I really wanted.

In January I started a walking program and got back into “working the program”. I was lucky that I was in an office that had a microwave, so I took my breakfast and lunch to work, microwaved as necessary, ate at my desk and then walked during my break times. My supervisors knew I was on this program (in fact, one was on the same program) and didn’t say anything thing about eating at my desk. I began to see some changes in my body, and some in my weight. My weight didn’t really change much because I was building (and rebuilding) muscle. So, while I may have lost actual weight, I also gained because I was gaining muscle weight. My counselor was aware and wasn’t too concerned because she realized why the weight loss wasn’t showing much success.

The doctor decided that I might be diabetic or insulin resistant, and if not diabetic, then pre-diabetic and sent me for an A1C blood test. I wasn’t sure about being insulin resistant, but I knew I wasn’t diabetic and I was proved right on that score. I also wasn’t insulin resistant. No one could explain why I wasn’t showing more weight loss.

In March, I was still walking and my body was showing results. My legs were looking good, starting to show a nice shape and toned muscle. Then disaster struck.

I have had plantar's fasciitis for several years, but no problems for about three years. Well, all the walking I was doing caused the plantar's fascii to revolt. My heel began to hurt while walking. I was coming up on some vacation time, so I decided to stop my daily walking and during my vacation I would rest the foot as much as possible.

While the pain lessened somewhat, I still had trouble walking. I could do the “normal” walking, but trying to maintain any walking for exercise was out of the question. There were times when my heel hurt so bad, especially on standing, that I had to just stop whatever I was doing until the pain lessened. That’s not really feasible in my work. Without saying much about what I do (my company has put out an order stating that we not say where we work or what we do. It’s not so much that what I do is classified – it’s not, although we do have to maintain certain security levels- but more about company image), I have to be able to move about freely and quickly – lives could possibly be endangered if I can’t move fast.

Anyway. In April, I finally went to the podiatrist and had my foot strapped. I knew that would do the trick. Except this time it didn’t work as well as it had in the past. After being re-strapped a couple more times, the doctor decided to put me in orthodics to give my foot the support it needed. That’s helped, but even today, I still have some daily pain. Aleeve helps. I usually take one in the morning and another in the afternoon if I need it.

Now, from March on, I haven’t been able to do my walking program. My weight fluctuated, on average, three or four pounds, gain or loss, from one week to the next. The doctor in charge of the weight program understood that my lack of walking (my chosen form of exercise) wasn’t my fault, it was due to a physical condition. Apparently, because of my foot problem, and the fact that I was following all the requirements, and went for the blood tests when they wanted, I was allowed to continue the program.

I completed the program in April, the only one in my work group who did so, by the way, but didn’t achieve the weight loss expected. So, there was joy and sadness in my “graduation”. I learned the lessons, lost nearly 50 pounds, and learned that I could do it. I was sad because I hadn't reached the goal set by the program or my personal goals.

Since I’ve been off the program, and unable to walk I’ve regained some of the weight. I knew it would happen, so it wasn’t unexpected. I knew in my heart that there was something else going on. I know as you age, losing weight is harder. I also know that my lack of motivation was a part of the problem. I stayed on the program very well for about five months. I didn’t deprive myself of anything. I learned early on that I could eat whatever I wanted; I just had to learn moderation and portion control. I knew that exercise had to be part of any weight loss program; diet alone doesn’t do it any more than exercise alone. And especially at my age and my weight.

I saw something the other day that got me wondering. Now, I know, everyone who wants to lose weight wants either an excuse why they can’t lose weight, or a magic bullet that will allow them to continue to eat and exercise (or not) as they want and still lose weight. If we’re all honest, we know that you can’t eat in excess, not exercise, and still lose weight, and that the excuses are just that: excuses to not even try.

What I saw was something called Metabolism B. This is apparently a metabolic disorder I had never heard of. I mentioned it to a friend who is also “weight challenged” and she told me it was all over the Internet. Well, that might be true, but it wasn’t where I had seen it, so I decided to do some looking around. I still haven’t done enough reading, but I seem to fit the pattern for this particular disorder.

Now, I’m not saying this is an excuse or a magic bullet, but from what I’ve seen so far, it might be something worth looking into if you have difficulty (and you’ve honestly worked “diet” and exercise programs) and struggling to lose that fat you’ve been carrying around for years.

Diane Kress, RD, CDE is the author of the best-selling book on this subject, The Metabolism Miracle. The blurb below is from the webpage for the book.

Do you keep gaining weight, despite your efforts to diet?

Do the pounds accumulate around your tummy?

Do you feel tired, irritable, and unable to focus?

Unlock the Secret of Metabolism B:

The Key to a Leaner and Healthier You

For over twenty years, weight loss and diabetes specialist Diane Kress, RD CDE, has worked with thousands of people in their quest to lose weight, get healthy, and feel their best. Over the years she became aware that a group of people (what turned out to be over 45% of people who struggled to lose weight and keep it off!) had a very similar story to tell. They dieted like anyone else, but didn’t get the results they deserved for their efforts. Even increases in exercise didn’t make a real difference in their weight loss efforts and a stubborn roll of fat around the middle became source of frustration. Not only did their weight yo yo, they began to feel less energetic, less healthy, and felt a lesser quality of life.

I read those three questions and said:

1. I lose weight, but after a while, it gets harder to lose. I get bored and lose motivation, true, but even when I’m really working a diet, it gets harder.

2. Not just yes, but HELL yes! I lost 50 pounds, but lost only two sizes and most of the weight is in my torso – including the belly.

3. I am tired all the time, no matter how sleep I get (or don’t get). I can sleep four hours or ten (or more) and I don’t feel much different. I’m generally upbeat, but little things can certainly irritate me that really shouldn’t. Unable to focus? Well, maybe, but not nearly so much a problem as the tiredness and irritability.

I found another page on the site that had more questions, and while some of them weren’t true of me, others were, and some in spades! About 45% of people who struggle to take off weight fall into this group of the metabolically challenged.

Now, I’m not saying this is the answer to my weight problems. I don’t know, I haven’t tried the program yet, but I think I will. I’m going to do more research, get the book and see what this is all about. If it works for me, I’ll let you know. I’ll also let you know if it doesn’t.

You have to be honest with yourself when on a diet/exercise plan. Are you really working the program or goofing off? If you’re really working it and not losing, there might be a reason why it’s not working for you. It could be the program isn’t right for you. Try something else. Maybe you need to mix up your exercise. If you really think about it, you’ll know the truth: you’re not working the program, or that there might be another reason for your lack of success.

New blood pressure findings from University of Cambridge published

NewsRx.com

7/23/2009

Researchers detail in 'Antihypertensive drugs and central blood pressure,' new data in blood pressure. "Recent evidence suggests that central blood pressure is a more important determinant of cardiovascular risk than brachial pressure. Interestingly, antihypertensive drugs exert different effects on brachial and central pressure," scientists writing in the journal Current Hypertension Reports report (see also Blood Pressure).

"Traditional beta-blockers, such as atenolol, appear to have an adverse impact on central pressure, despite lowering brachial pressure. This may help to explain the results of recent large outcome studies using atenolol," wrote C.M McEniery and colleagues, University of Cambridge.

The researchers concluded: "Further research is required to clarify whether other antihypertensive agents lower central pressure beyond the effects observed on brachial pressure."

McEniery and colleagues published their study in Current Hypertension Reports (Antihypertensive drugs and central blood pressure. Current Hypertension Reports, 2009;11(4):253-9).

Additional information can be obtained by contacting C.M. McEniery, Addenbrooke's Hospital Box 110, Clinical Pharmacology Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB20QQ, UK.

The publisher of the journal Current Hypertension Reports can be contacted at: Springer, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA.

Keywords: United Kingdom, Cambridge, Atenolol, Blood Pressure, Cardiology, Cardiovascular, Cardiovascular Risk, Drugs, Hypertension, Pharmaceuticals, Therapy, Treatment.

This article was prepared by Blood Weekly editors from staff and other reports. Copyright 2009, Blood Weekly via NewsRx.com.

To see more of the NewsRx.com, or to subscribe, go to http://www.newsrx.com .

Pregnant women front of line for swine flu vaccine

Associated Press

7/29/2009

ATLANTA - Pregnant women, health care workers and children six months and older should be placed at the front of the line for swine flu vaccinations this fall, a government panel recommended Wednesday.

The panel also said those first vaccinated should include parents and other caregivers of infants; non-elderly adults who have high-risk medical conditions; and young adults ages 19 to 24.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted to set vaccination priorities for those groups Wednesday during a meeting in Atlanta. The panel's recommendations are usually adopted by federal health officials.

The recommendations are designed to address potential limits in vaccine availability this fall if there is heavy demand and limited supplies.

The government estimates that about 120 million swine flu vaccine doses will be available to the public by late October. Roughly 160 million people are in the priority groups considered most vulnerable to infection or most at risk for severe disease.

Although the number recommended to get doses exceeds the projected supply, health officials don't think everyone will run out and get vaccinated. Traditionally, less than half of the people recommended to get seasonal flu shots get them. Only about 15 percent of pregnant women get seasonal flu vaccinations.

If there is ample vaccine, vaccinations also would be recommended for all non-elderly adults, the panel also voted. And if there's still plenty of vaccine, the swine flu shots and spray doses should be offered to people 65 and older. Fewer illnesses have been reported in the elderly, who appear to have higher levels of immunity to the virus, health experts say.

However, the elderly should be pushed to get shots against seasonal flu, which is a significant health risk to older adults.

Panel members say they hope swine flu vaccinations will be opened up quickly. "The only sin is vaccine left in the refrigerator," said Dr. William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University flu expert, in a comment to the panel.

The panel also said if vaccine is scarce, the government could require that a much tighter group be at the front of the vaccination line, numbering about 40 million. That would include pregnant women and household contacts of small children, just like in the general priority recommendation. But the others would be children ages 6 months through 4 years, children with chronic medical conditions and only health care and emergency services workers who have direct contact with patients.

It's a worst-case scenario that officials aren't expecting, but they wanted to have a plan for it just in case, said officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the federal agency that reviews the panel's recommendations.

The range of recommendations reflects how hard it is to plan for swine flu, officials said. Some health officials have compared the exercise to predicting a hurricane. The storm - or virus - is itself unpredictable; it could grow more dangerous or suddenly weaken. The availability of lifesaving supplies or vaccine can also affect survival.

"It's better to prepare and have the storm fizzle than to be sitting there with no way off the island when the tsunami rolls in," said Kristine Sheedy, a CDC communications specialist.

Variables with the swine flu virus can range from whether it mutates into a form that is more deadly, spreads more efficiently, or is better at fighting off current antiviral medications.

Variables with the vaccine include potential production problems. Production of the vaccine will be a prodigious feat: The government has already purchased 195 million doses for the coming fall and winter, which far eclipses the 125 million or so doses generally produced for seasonal flu vaccine.

Four vaccine manufacturers are wrapping up seasonal flu vaccine production and have begun production of swine flu vaccine. But another company, Sanofi Pasteur, has been more delayed and may not finish seasonal vaccine production until September, a company spokeswoman said. Sanofi is among the largest producers of flu vaccine, so those delays could have a significant ripple effect.

Packaging, distribution and other steps can take a month or more. For those reasons, the government's best guess at the moment is 40 million doses will be available in September and 120 million by around mid-October.

Health officials are pushing for the work to done quickly. There are also clinical trials taking place over the next few months to check the vaccine's safety and effectiveness, but it's possible the government will begin a public vaccination campaign before that work is complete, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, who oversees the CDC's flu vaccination programs.

Why the rush? Vaccines work when given to a patient before they're exposed to the vaccine-targeting virus, and cases may explode not long after kids get back in school, CDC officials said.

Another reason for not waiting for testing data: Health officials are thinking of the swine flu vaccine as a variation of seasonal flu vaccine, which comes out annually and does not undergo the kind of safety and effectiveness testing that new drugs and other new vaccines do.

First identified in April, swine flu has likely infected more than 1 million Americans, the CDC believes, with many of those suffering mild cases never reported. There have been 302 deaths and nearly 44,000 laboratory-identified cases, according to CDC numbers released last week.

It's not clear whether the virus in its current form is much worse than seasonal flu in terms of overall threat to the U.S. population, but it is causing more severe illness in some younger adults and children. It has a dangerous genetic characteristic that allows it to infect the lower lungs, whereas seasonal flu tends to infect the upper respiratory tract, CDC officials said.

Stop For A Heart Attack-Before it Gets Started

7/26/2009

Sunday, July 26 (Benjamin Rose Institute ) -- Cleveland, OH

Your heart is an amazing organ. It’s about the size of your fist and sits in the middle of your chest. Three times every minute the hard working heart pumps 6 quarts of blood throughout your body. Over a lifetime that’s about 1 million barrels of blood.

Most people don’t pay much attention to their heart until something goes wrong with it -- like a heart attack.

HEART DISEASE FACTS

Heart disease is a major cause of death in the United States. More than 80 percent of people who die of a heart attack are 65 or older. Older men are more likely to suffer a heart attack than older women although older women are more likely to die from it sooner than men. If you have a parent with heart disease you are at greater risk of developing heart-related illnesses yourself.

WARNING SIGNS OF A HEART ATTACK

• Common signs of heart attacks in men and women include:
• Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
• Pressure, fullness, discomfort in the center of the chest
• Pain radiating to the shoulders, back, neck, arms or jaw
• Pounding heartbeats or extra heartbeats
• Sweating, nausea, vomiting, indigestion
• Dizziness, weakness, lightheadedness
• Sudden extreme fatigue or panic
• Abdominal pain.

However women may have only a few of these symptoms and may not experience chest pain at all.

WHAT CAUSES HEART ATTACKS?

Heart attacks happen when the arteries that supply the heart with blood become blocked with fatty deposits called plaque. Over time these plaques rupture and cause blood clots to form. The clots block the artery and prevent it from supplying the heart muscle with oxygen. Without prompt treatment to remove or dissolve the clots, parts of the heart muscle begin die and are replaced by scar tissue. When a damaged heart can no longer pump blood effectively, irregular heartbeats develop that can lead to heart failure and death.

HEART DISEASE RISK FACTORS

Some heart attack risks can’t be changed although they can be reduced. At greater risk are people with a family history of heart disease, African Americans, Mexican Americans, American Indians, native Hawaiians, and some Asian Americans.

STOP A HEART ATTACK IN ITS TRACKS!

The good news is that the risk of having a heart attack can be reduced. If you older parent has a family history of heart disease both of you should have regular medical checkups to detect and treat the disease in its early stages.

Changing lifestyles and habits can significantly reduce the chances of having a heart attack for your family member – and for you. Join your older parent to:

• Stop smoking. Smokers’ risk of heart disease is 2 to 4 times greater than nonsmokers. Exposure to “second hand smoke” also increases heart attack risk.
• Lower blood cholesterol and blood pressure.
• Control diabetes by keeping blood sugar levels as normal as possible
• Get some exercise – every day. Even moderate walking can help control blood sugar and cholesterol levels, blood pressure and weight.
• Manage stress
• Reduce alcohol drinking
• Lose weight if your relative is overweight

Schedule regular appointments with your parent’s doctor to monitor your parent’s heart health, check weight and blood pressure and determine if any additional medical or lifestyle changes should be made. A variety of medications are available to reduce the risk of future heart attacks.

HEART ATTACK – IT’S A FAMILY AFFAIR

Caregivers are important helping an older relative prevent heart attack and recognizing heart attack signs and symptoms so he or she receives prompt medical attention. Families can also encourage him or her make important lifestyle changes to help prevent future heart attacks. You’ll also find that many of these prevention strategies can also benefit your own health!

What to do when out-of-line legs worsen achy knees

Associated Press

8/17/2009

WASHINGTON - Exercise your hips to help achy knees? If you've got knee arthritis, your whole leg starts subtly shifting out of alignment as you favor the sore spot.

Now scientists are testing ways to strengthen the entire leg so it stays straighter, in hopes of slowing the knee's deterioration.

"People with knee arthritis have kind of a bow-legged appearance," notes Laura Thorp of Rush University Medical Center.

An assistant anatomy professor, Thorp thinks that misalignment is a big key to the painful condition. She's not alone. Specialists now agree the more out of alignment a leg is, the faster arthritis in the knee worsens.

"You start with a little pain, then everything north and south of it has to compensate," explains Dr. John J. Callaghan of the University of Iowa, a knee and hip specialist with the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. "It's not enough to concentrate on the knee."

The question is what to do about it. At issue is how your knee handles its load. Being even a little bow-legged puts extra pressure on the knee, especially the inner side. It has to carry a higher-than-normal load each time your foot strikes the ground.

Weight adds to the knee's load, too. Being 15 pounds or more overweight is a key risk factor for developing knee arthritis. So is having had a knee injury earlier in life, and the one unavoidable risk factor - getting older. About 27 million Americans have osteoarthritis, the wear-and-tear that breaks down the cartilage that cushions joints, causing pain and stiffness as the ends of bones rub on each other. Hundreds of thousands eventually turn to knee replacement for relief.

Even when researchers account for weight, Thorp says a misaligned leg compounds the extra load.

Exercise has long been prescribed for knee arthritis, mostly exercises that strengthen the hamstring and quadriceps - muscles that support the knee. Stronger muscles do in fact alleviate some knee pain, but they don't slow the inevitable worsening of arthritis. An Australian study last year showed quad strengthening had no effect on knee load. Interestingly, people with more misaligned legs also got less pain benefit from those exercises.

Rush's Thorp is trying a different, top-down approach - exercising not muscles that support the knee but those that support the hip.

Knee arthritis sufferers tend to have weak muscles on the outside of the hip, muscles that are key for gait, she found. Every time you take a step, the hip muscle on the standing side has to keep your pelvis level. If it's weak, it changes your pelvis alignment in a way that magnifies the already misaligned leg and adds even more twisting pressure to the knee.

The exercises themselves are similar to what patients are prescribed after a hip replacement. In a handful of knee patients who underwent a month of physical therapy to learn those exercises, Thorp measured a drop in knee load. Now she's enrolling 30 people with mild to moderate arthritis in a more formal study. They get not only the physical therapy, but are told to do the exercises at home six days a week for a second month, too.

If the exercises do reduce knee load, it would take far larger - and years longer - studies to see if that in turn slowed the arthritis, both Thorp and Callaghan caution.

Thorp's is among a handful of studies getting under way to look at hip exercises. Swedish researchers saw some drops in knee pressure when people who did exercises affecting both the knee and hip climbed stairs.

Other doctors are focusing on the south end, the foot and ankle. Repositioning the leg's alignment with custom-measured shoe inserts, called orthotics, sometimes helps.

The challenge: Finding people who agree to stick with exercise. People with painful joints tend to become sedentary if they weren't already.

Iowa's Callaghan already prescribes whole-leg exercises, including the hip, for knee patients - but he praises the Rush study for hunting proof of which specific activities truly help, information long missing when doctors give the exercise pep talk. He advises the newly diagnosed to try to keep in shape and suggests consulting a good physical therapist about how to work the whole leg, saying it can't hurt.

"It's hard for people to buy off on that, especially people who are out of shape," Callaghan says. "There's just not that much data out there."

---

EDITOR's NOTE - Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.

Study Finds Weight-Loss Surgery Safer Than Thought

SOURCES: Bruce Wolfe, M.D., professor, surgery, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, Ore.; Malcolm K. Robinson, M.D., assistant professor, surgery, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston; July 30, 2009, New England Journal of Medicine

7/29/2009

WEDNESDAY, July 29 (HealthDay News) -- For those considering bariatric surgery to combat significant obesity, a new study suggests the risk of complications may be much lower than what has previously been reported.

The study, which looked at both gastric bypass surgery and laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding (lap-band surgery), found that the risk of death for these surgeries was 0.3 percent and the risk of a major adverse outcome was 4.3 percent.

"Bariatric surgery is safe," said study co-author Dr. Bruce Wolfe, a professor of surgery at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland. "Certain factors [such as a history of blood clots, obstructive sleep apnea or impaired functional status] increase the risk of complications, but you can discuss these risks as well as the potential benefits with your surgeon."

Results of the study appear in the July 30 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

As obesity rates have risen, so, too, has the popularity of bariatric surgery. Although it is a major surgical procedure, the benefits to the severely obese generally far outweigh the risks. In fact, the risk of death over time is about 35 percent lower for someone who's had the surgery compared to someone who remains extremely obese, according to background information in the study.

However, the surgery isn't for everyone. "If you're five or 10 pounds overweight, bariatric surgery isn't for you," said Dr. Malcolm K. Robinson, an assistant professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School, and the author of an accompanying editorial in the same issue of the journal.

"Basically, when I or my colleagues advise surgery, it's because the benefits of surgery outweigh the risks. In general, that's the case for someone with a BMI [body-mass index] of 35 and weight-related health problems like diabetes or high blood pressure, or someone with a BMI of 40 or more," said Robinson, who added that as the risks of the surgery keep dropping, those BMI numbers may get even lower in the future.

The current study included 4,776 people who underwent one of the following types of bariatric surgery: lap-band surgery (1,198 patients), laparoscopic gastric bypass (2,975 patients), open gastric bypass (437 patients) or another procedure (166 patients). All of the surgeries were done by surgeons specifically qualified for this study. All of the surgeries took place between March 2005 and December 2007.

The average age of the study participant was 44.5 years old, 22 percent of the study volunteers were male and 11 percent were nonwhite. The average BMI in the study was 46.5. More than half of the study group had at least two coexisting medical conditions, the study authors noted.

In his editorial, Robinson points out that these procedures may represent "best-case scenarios" because they were done by experienced surgeons in high-volume bariatric centers. However, he said that because the field of bariatric surgery has advanced so much in the past few years, he believes these results are a "generally achievable phenomenon."

Both Robinson and Wolfe recommend that any person considering bariatric surgery should choose a facility that's been designated as a "Center of Excellence" because that means that the surgeon and the whole health-care team are qualified and experienced.

More information

Learn more about bariatric surgery from the U.S. government's Weight-control Information Network.

Midlife Heart Risk Factors Linked to Later Dementia

SOURCES: Rachel Whitmer, Ph.D, research scientist, epidemiologist, Kaiser Permanente division of research, Oakland, Calif.; Alvaro Alonso, M.D., assistant professor, epidemiology, University of Minnesota School of Public Health, Minneapolis; Michelle Mielke, Ph.D, assistant professor, psychiatry, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore; August 2009 Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry; Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders, online

8/4/2009

TUESDAY, Aug. 4 (HealthDay News) -- The things that are bad for your heart in the middle years of life -- high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes -- are bad for your brain in later years, new research indicates.

High cholesterol levels in midlife were associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia many years later, according to scientists in California and Finland, who tracked almost 10,000 men and women for four decades.

"We found an association not only with high blood cholesterol, but also borderline high levels," said study senior author Rachel Whitmer, who is a research scientist and epidemiologist at the Kaiser Permanente division of research in Oakland. Researchers at the University of Kuopio in Finland also participated in the study.

Total cholesterol levels of 240 milligrams per deciliter or higher in middle age were associated with a 66 percent higher incidence of Alzheimer's disease decades later, the researchers found.

"But that wasn't a cutoff point," Whitmer said. "Around a level of 200, the risk of Alzheimer's disease started to go up."

For those in midlife with borderline-high readings between 200 mg/dl and 239 mg/dl, the increased incidence was 52 percent, according to the study, which was published online in the journal Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders and funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

The Californians in the study were more ethnically diverse than the Finnish participants, and included blacks, Latinos and Asians, but "the association between high cholesterol and dementia was the same across all ethnic groups," Whitmer noted.

The other research, reported in the August issue of the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, followed more than 11,000 American participants in a study of atherosclerosis, the hardening of the arteries that can lead to heart attack, stroke and other major cardiovascular problems.

Researchers from the University of Minnesota, the University of North Carolina, John Hopkins and the University of Mississippi Medical Center measured smoking, high blood pressure and diabetes among the participants from 1990-1992. They then tracked them until 2004 to see how many were hospitalized for dementia.

Smokers were 70 percent more likely to develop dementia than nonsmokers; those with high blood pressure were 60 percent more likely, and those with diabetes were twice as likely as those without diabetes to develop dementia. However, there was no link between midlife obesity and later dementia.

The idea behind the study was that "if we find risk factors for dementia, maybe we can develop new treatments, preventive programs to reduce the risk of dementia later in life," said study author Dr. Alvaro Alonso, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health.

Post-mortem studies of brains of people who had dementia often show damage to small arteries, he said. "Maybe there have been small strokes, which are not great enough to cause clinical symptoms, but in time can lead to dementia," Alonso said.

Measures against dementia now usually start when its first signs are detected, Alonso said. "Showing that cardiovascular risk factors earlier in life have an impact on dementia later in life gives another reason why we need to intervene with those cardiovascular risk factors," he said.

The findings of both studies "are an extension of what already has been found," said Michelle Mielke, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, who has done research on the causes of dementia.

"Both papers really point out the need to intervene in vascular factors in midlife," Mielke said. "They are as important in the risk of dementia as they are in the risk of heart disease and stroke."

No new approach is needed, she said, just a renewed emphasis on "exercise, diet, that kind of stuff."

More information

Risk factors for dementia are described by the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

Ovarian Cancer Tests Flawed, in Need of New Design, Says Stanford Study

NewsRx.com

8/6/2009

Current diagnostic tests for ovarian cancer are woefully ineffective for early detection of the disease, say researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine. A new study finds that in order to make a significant dent in the mortality rate for the deadly cancer, the tests would have to be able to detect tumors of less than 1 cm in diameter, or about 200-times smaller in mass than those currently used to assess potential new tests. Still, if that hurdle can be overcome, there is good reason to believe that testing could make a big difference: The window of opportunity for treating these clinically undetectable cancers before they become life threatening is surprisingly long: about four years (see also Stanford Medicine).

"We are miles away from detecting the most deadly ovarian tumors at this early stage," said Stanford biochemistry professor Patrick Brown, MD, PhD, "but now we have a chance of actually designing an effective test that will allow us to treat them before they become deadly." If a blood test is to be effective, said Brown, it will likely require identifying new markers that are never produced by normal cells-rather than testing for abnormally high levels of proteins detectable in normal blood, as current tests do. Other possible strategies might rely on new molecular imaging methods or fluid samples from the uterus or vagina-in which tumor markers are likely to be more concentrated.

The research will be published in the July 28 issue of the open-access journal PLoS Medicine. The article will be freely available to anyone after publication.

Ovarian cancer is particularly feared by women and their physicians because the disease is so difficult to detect in its early stages. Symptoms are vague, and often don't occur until the tumor is already several centimeters in diameter. At this point it may have already spread to surrounding organs and tissues. What's more, several published studies have indicated that the current screening tests deliver many false positive results and don't reduce mortality from the disease.

"Reliable early detection would save so many more lives than many new blockbuster anticancer drugs," said Brown, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and a member of the Stanford Cancer Center, who collaborated with the non-profit Canary Foundation to conduct the research. The foundation is dedicated to the early detection of many types of cancer. "If we can do this, which is no small challenge, the potential to go from a less than 20 percent chance of surviving five years to a relatively minor surgery that would have a very high cure rate is huge," he said.

Part of the difficulty in designing an effective test lies in the fact that there is more than one type of ovarian cancer. The most deadly, known as serous ovarian cancer, accounts for about 50 percent of all cases of ovarian cancer, but it is responsible for at least 80 percent of deaths from the disease. In contrast to other types of ovarian tumors, which can grow to be quite large before spreading to other locations, serous ovarian tumors usually metastasize before they are diagnosed.

Cancers are classified, or staged, in part according to the degree of involvement of other organs; the less-deadly forms of ovarian cancer are usually diagnosed at an earlier stage of progression. Because researchers designing the diagnostic tests have assumed that these seemingly early cancers would eventually go on to become more invasive, they considered them to be good models for designing diagnostic tests aimed at detecting ovarian tumors in their infancy. However, these tumors are actually intrinsically different from the tumors that are diagnosed at a lethally advanced stage.

"It dawned on me at some point that we were being somewhat glib about what it was we were trying to detect," said Brown. "What we really needed to know is what the more-dangerous tumors looked like before we knew they were there."

Brown and his co-author, Chana Palmer, PhD, of the Canary Foundation, realized that it was possible to get just such a sneak peak at these tumors by looking at tissue from women carrying a genetic misstep called the BRCA-1 mutation. Because women with the mutation are very likely to develop breast or ovarian cancer, many elect to have their ovaries and Fallopian tubes removed as a preventive measure. Although these women appeared healthy at the time of their surgeries, close examination of the removed tissue indicated that some-about 8 percent, according to Brown and Palmer's analysis of previously published studies-had early, undiagnosed serous ovarian tumors.

The researchers combined the results of several previously published studies to estimate the prevalence, location, size and stage of the tumors. By comparing this information with the incidence of diagnosed serous ovarian tumors in a similar group of women, they calculated that the window of opportunity for early detection and possible successful treatment is about 4.3 years. During most of this time, the tumors were less than 1 cm in diameter; by the time the tumors reached 3 cm in diameter, more than half had advanced to stages III or IV (spread beyond the pelvis). As a comparison, the average diameter of an ovarian cancer tumor at the time of diagnosis is about 10 cm.

Brown estimated that most serous ovarian tumors in the study had progressed to an advanced stage almost a year before diagnosis. In order to halve the number of deaths from serous ovarian cancer, it will be necessary to have an annual screening test capable of detecting tumors about 0.5 cm in diameter-far beyond the capability of any currently available tests.

"This doesn't make me feel gloomy at all," said Brown, who is now studying whether it might be possible to detect ovarian cancer-specific markers in fluids sampled from the vagina or cervix. Such an approach may avoid the extreme dilution that interferes with detection of such a marker in blood samples. Based on the current research, Brown is also pursuing the Holy Grail of a truly cancer-specific molecular marker-a novel protein or DNA sequence that occurs only in cancer cells. Many current cancer-screening tests rely on changes in levels of particular markers that also occur, albeit at lower levels, on non-cancerous cells. It may also be possible to devise imaging techniques that could be useful screening tools, somewhat like mammograms for breast cancer.

Said Brown, "I was much more disheartened before we did this study, when we had no idea what we were looking for."

The Canary Foundation and Howard Hughes Medical Institute funded this study, which will be available after the embargo lifts at:

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000114 The Stanford University School of Medicine consistently ranks among the nation's top 10 medical schools, integrating research, medical education, patient care and community service. For more news about the school, please visit http://mednews.stanford.edu. The medical school is part of Stanford Medicine, which includes Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. For information about all three, please visit http://stanfordmedicine.org/about/news.html.

Keywords: , Women, Education, University, Health, Hospitals, Oncology, Research, Consumer, Science, Nanotechnology, Biochemistry, Chemicals, Chemistry, Emerging Technologies, Molecular Imaging, Nanotech, Anticancer Therapy, Biochemistry, Diagnostics, Gynecology, Oncology, Ovarian Cancer, Ovarian Carcinoma, Surgery, Therapy, Treatment, Women's Health, Stanford Medicine.

This article was prepared by Telemedicine Law Weekly editors from staff and other reports. Copyright 2009, Telemedicine Law Weekly via NewsRx.com.

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Good News for Elderly: Happiness Keeps Growing

SOURCE: American Psychological Association, news release, Aug. 7, 2009

8/13/2009

THURSDAY, Aug. 13 (HealthDay News) -- The longer you live, the happier you're likely to be, a growing body of research shows.

Researchers who spoke at the recently concluded annual convention of the American Psychological Association in Toronto said that mental health generally improves with age. Given that the world population of people over 65 is expected to nearly triple by 2050, according to U.S. officials, this should come as good news.

Reporting on several studies of aging and mental health, Susan Turk Charles, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, said the findings indicate that happiness and emotional well-being improve with time.

Older adults exert greater emotional control, said Charles. Studies show they learn to avoid or limit stressful situations and are less likely than younger adults to let negative comments or criticism bother them.

Charles added that "we know that older people are increasingly aware that the time they have left in life is growing shorter. They want to make the best of it so they avoid engaging in situations that will make them unhappy. They have also had more time to learn and understand the intentions of others, which helps them to avoid these stressful situations."

Another study conducted over a 23-year period examined three groups of people at three different life stages and concluded that emotional happiness grew with age, she said.

These findings may not apply to older adults who feel trapped in distressing situations and those with forms of dementia, Charles said. "We know that older adults who are dealing with chronic stressors, such as caregiving, report high rates of physical symptoms and emotional distress," she added.

In separate reports, Charles and Laura Carstensen, a psychology professor at Stanford University, also noted that social relationships -- or lack of them -- influence how older people respond to stress. Carstensen cited a Swedish study that concluded that people with strong social connections were less likely to suffer cognitive impairment than others. It seems social relationships influence the way that the brain processes information, she said. "These changes have a profound impact on health outcomes," Carstensen said.

To make the most of the coming years, Carstensen offered these tips:

• Think of ways to enjoy the time ahead and try to imagine living 100, healthy, happy years.
• Provide daily routines that reinforce your goals, both in your home and in your social life.
• Develop new activities and relationships, and don't invest all of your emotional energy in a job or a single relationship.

More information

For more about positive aging, visit the American Geriatrics Society.

Stem cells not the only way to fix a broken heart

NewsRx.com

8/6/2009

Researchers appear to have a new way to fix a broken heart. They have devised a method to coax heart muscle cells into reentering the cell cycle, allowing the differentiated adult cells to divide and regenerate healthy heart tissue after a heart attack, according to studies in mice and rats reported in the July 24th issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication. The key ingredient is a growth factor known as neuregulin1 (NRG1 for short), and the researchers suggest that the factor might one day be used to treat failing human hearts (see also Research).

"To my knowledge, this is the first regenerative therapy that may be applicable in a systemic way," said Bernhard Kuhn of Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School. For instance, he added, people might one day go to the clinic for daily infusions of NRG1 over a period of weeks. "In principle, there is nothing to preclude this going into the clinic. Based on the all the information we have, this is a promising candidate." He emphasized, however, that further studies would be required to demonstrate safety before such treatment could be tested in human patients.

The heart had long been considered an organ largely incapable of repairing itself. Heart muscle cells, also known as cardiomyocytes, do proliferate during prenatal development. Soon after birth, however, the cells become binucleated, meaning that they have two nuclei, and withdraw from the cell cycle, giving rise to the notion that adult cardiomyocytes are terminally differentiated and incapable of further proliferation.

However, recent evidence has shown that adult heart muscle cells can replace themselves at some low level, with perhaps half of the cells in the heart turning over in the course of a lifetime, Kuhn said. The new study provides multiple lines of evidence for this turnover ability - including video of the cells in action - and shows that neuregulin1 can ramp up the process.

In the current study, the researchers first tested the ability of various molecules to spur cell division in cultured cardiomyocytes. If cardiomyocytes are to reenter the cell cycle along the border zone of injury, the researchers surmised that there must be an extracellular signal that triggers the response, Kuhn explained.

They looked to several factors known to drive cardiomyocyte proliferation during prenatal development. Of those, NRG1 had the most significant effect, inducing the division of those cardiomyocytes with one nucleus instead of two.

By manipulating the NRG1 receptor up or down, the researchers showed they could increase or decrease cardiomyocyte proliferation in living animals. Moreover, injecting NRG1 in adult mice sparked cardiomyocyte cell-cycle activity and promoted the regeneration of heart muscle, leading to improved function after the animals suffered a heart attack. That regeneration could not be traced to undifferentiated progenitor cells, they report.

The researchers say they aren't sure whether NRG1 is responsible for the natural repair process, but their findings show that it clearly can enhance it. They also note that the NRG1 receptor and NRG1 itself are always present in the adult heart, though it is not clear if they are in the right place or in sufficient quantities.

"Collectively, we have identified the major elements of a new approach to promote myocardial regeneration," the researchers wrote." Many efforts and important advances have been made toward the goal of developing stem-cell based strategies to regenerate damaged tissues in the heart as well as in other organs. The work presented here suggests that stimulating differentiated cardiomyocytes to proliferate may be a viable alternative that could be developed into a simple strategy to promote myocardial regeneration in mammals."

Before making the leap to the clinic, Kuhn's group intends to further explore how the treatment works at the fundamental level. They will also characterize the regenerative response in pigs, which have more in common with humans than rodents do, before testing the approach in human patients. Ultimately, such a treatment might serve as a useful alternative or complement to treatments designed to seed damaged hearts with regenerative stem cells, Kuhn said.

Keywords: Cardiology, Cardiomyocyte, Heart Attack, Stem Cell Research, Therapy, Treatment.

This article was prepared by Hospital Business Week editors from staff and other reports. Copyright 2009, Hospital Business Week via NewsRx.com.

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Sea food = 'see' food for elderly

United Press International

7/24/2009

BETHESDA, Md., Jul 24, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- U.S. researchers suggest diets high in omega-3 fatty acids may help prevent blindness linked to aging.

A report, published in the American Journal of Pathology, finds a high omega-3 fatty acid diet not only slows the progression of macular degeneration -- retinal damage that is a leading cause blindness among the elderly -- but may also contribute to protection against this disease.

Dr. Chi-Chao Chan of the National Eye Institute in Bethesda, Md., examined the direct effect of omega-3 fatty acids on a mouse model of macular degeneration and found a diet with high levels of omega-3 fatty acids resulted in slower lesion progression -- with improvement in some lesions.

Chan says the mice with slower disease progression had lower levels of inflammatory molecules and higher levels of anti-inflammatory molecules, which may explain the protective effect of omega-3 fatty acids.

Omega-3 fatty acids are found in high levels in cold water seafood -- especially oily fish such as herring, mackerel, anchovies and sardines.

URL: www.upi.com