It's Don't Fry Day! Protect your skin!
Posted by on May 25, 2012 - 6:26am

The National Council on Skin Cancer Prevention has designated the Friday before Memorial Day as “Don’t Fry Day.”  This year it is May 25.   The goal?  To make sure people stay safe in the sun and protect their skin while enjoying the outdoors—on “Don’t Fry Day” and every day.

Here’s why. Skin cancer is on the rise in the United States; the American Cancer Society estimates that one American dies every hour from skin cancer. In 2012 alone, the American Cancer Society estimates there will be more than 76,250 new cases of malignant melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer.

“Don’t Fry Day” offers simple steps that you and your family can take to prevent sun-related skin cancer, such as:

  • Slip on a shirt
  • Slop on sunscreen of SPF 15 or higher
  • Slap on a wide-brimmed hat.
  • Wrap on sunglasses.

For more information on resources available for "Don’t Fry Day" and skin safety, visit www.skincancerprevention.org.

Learn more about how to protect your skin by clicking HERE.

Some good news for diabetics
Posted by on May 23, 2012 - 4:28pm

Heart disease and stroke deaths drop significantly for people with diabetes!
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) healthier lifestyles, better disease management are helping people with diabetes live longer.   Death rates for people with diabetes dropped substantially from 1997 to 2006, according to a study published May 22 in the journal Diabetes Care. Among the most promising findings,

  • Deaths from all causes declined by 23%.
  • Deaths related to heart disease and stroke dropped by 40%.
  • Although an adult with diabetes is likely to die at a younger age than one who does not have diabetes, the difference is getting smaller.

These findings parallel other surveillance reports showing improved medical treatment for cardiovascular disease, better management of diabetes, and some healthy lifestyle changes contributed to the decline. On average, people with diabetes were less likely to smoke and more likely to be physically active than in the past. Better control of high blood pressure and high cholesterol also may have contributed to improved health among diabetics.  However, obesity levels among people with diabetes continued to increase ☹.

Heart disease in Ireland on the rise
Posted by on May 21, 2012 - 7:12am

Ireland, a land of "happy wars and sad love songs," is also a nation that  is adopting some of the bad eating habits found in the U.S.  and is trying to break those habits.

That assessment comes from Ian Graham, MD, of Dublin's Trinity College, who chairs the Irish Heart Foundation Cardiovascular Prevention Council and is co-chair of the program committee at EuroPRevent 2012, which opened with "Ireland Day," a series of presentations focusing on efforts to tame cardiovascular disease among the Irish.

To illustrate his point, he introduced Robbie Walsh, a 39-year-old Dublin postman who had an MI at age 37.    Walsh, a ruddy-faced man who seemed pleased to share his story with a room full of journalists, said he regularly walked 5 to 6 hours a day delivering mail so he had always considered himself healthy.   But Walsh also smoked about 25 cigarettes a day, "more on the weekends or if I went out for drink," regularly ate red meat, and limited vegetables to "about once or twice a week." And both his father and his brother had heart disease.

Following coronary artery bypass graft surgery for single vessel disease, Walsh entered a standard 12-week long cardio-rehab program that taught him the value of fruits, vegetables, and a life without cigarettes.   Perhaps most importantly, Walsh said, is that he knows that preventing a second heart attack is a lifelong job for him.

Graham, who pointed to Walsh as a success story, said expanding prevention efforts in Ireland, as well as the whole of the European Union and North America, will depend largely upon the buy-in from the primary care community, since all of primary prevention and much of secondary prevention is a "GP job."

New test for depression in teens
Posted by on May 19, 2012 - 11:02am

 A Northwestern Medicine scientist has developed the first blood test to diagnose major depression in teens, a breakthrough approach that allows an objective diagnosis by measuring a specific set of genetic markers found in a patient’s blood.   Diagnosing teens is an urgent concern because they are highly vulnerable to depression and difficult to accurately diagnose due to normal mood changes during this age period.   The current method of diagnosing depression is subjective. It relies on the patient’s ability to recount his symptoms and the physician’s ability and training to interpret them.

The test also is the first to identify subtypes of depression. It distinguished between teens with major depression and those with major depression combined with anxiety disorder. This is the first evidence that it’s possible to diagnose subtypes of depression from blood, raising the hope for tailoring care to the different types.

“Right now depression is treated with a blunt instrument,” said Eva Redei, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and lead investigator of the study, published in Translational Psychiatry. “It’s like treating type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes exactly the same way. We need to do better for these kids.”

The estimated rates of major depressive disorder jump from 2 to 4 percent in pre-adolescent children to 10 to 20 percent by late adolescence. Early onset of major depression in teens has a poorer prognosis than when it starts in adulthood. Untreated teens with this disease experience increases in substance abuse, social maladjustment, physical illness and suicide. Their normal development is derailed, and the disease persists into adulthood.

The study subjects included 14 adolescents with major depression who had not been clinically treated and 14 non-depressed adolescents, all between 15 to 19 years old. The depressed and control subjects were matched by sex and race.

Redei’s lab tested the adolescents’ blood for 26 genetic blood markers she had identified in previous research. She discovered 11 of the markers were able to differentiate between depressed and non-depressed adolescents. In addition, 18 of the 26 markers distinguished between patients that had only major depression and those who had major depression combined with anxiety disorder.

“These 11 genes are probably the tip of the iceberg because depression is a complex illness,” Redei said. “But it’s an entree into a much bigger phenomenon that has to be explored. It clearly indicates we can diagnose from blood and create a blood diagnosis test for depression.”

"Everybody, including parents, are wary of treatment, and there remains a social stigma around depression, which in the peer-pressured world of teenagers is even more devastating,” Redei said. “Once you can objectively diagnose depression as you would hypertension or diabetes, the stigma will likely disappear.”

The human research was funded by grants from the Research Institute of Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Animal research was supported by grants from the Davee Foundation, the RD Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

by Marla Paul, NU Health Science Editor

New report includes LGBT health disparities
Posted by on May 13, 2012 - 10:12am

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered individuals (LGBT) experience differences in receipt of health care services and are sometimes denied services according to a new report. Some of the  key findings from the National Healthcare Disparities Report (NHDR) related to health care for the LGBT population are:

  • Transgender people are more likely to be uninsured and less likely to have employer-based health insurance than the general population.
  • Half of transgender people postponed care when sick or injured and postponed preventive health care due to cost. Among uninsured transgender people, 88% postponed care due to cost.
  • About 30% of transgender people postponed care when sick or injured and postponed preventive health care due to discrimination and disrespect by providers. Female-to-male transgender people were most likely to postpone care due to discrimination.
  • One in five transgender people has been denied services by a doctor or other provider due to their gender. Racial and ethnic minority transgender people are more likely to be denied services.

Another report by the National Center for Transgender Equality and National Gay and  Lesbian Task Force can be accessed HERE.

 

 

View the Weight of the Nation on HBO
Posted by on May 10, 2012 - 12:56pm


In May 2012, an HBO Documentary Films series on obesity, “The Weight of the Nation,” premieres.  Make sure you view the trailer, it's explosive!  The four-part series—Consequences, Choices, Children in Crisis, and Challenges—highlights several NIH research advances and addresses the factors contributing to the country’s obesity problem. The films are the centerpiece to a public awareness campaign, which also includes a three-part HBO Family series for kids, 12 short films, a website and social media, and a nationwide community-based outreach effort using free film discussion guides and other tools. To visit the website and see the trailer click HERE.

 

The network, in consultation with NIH and other major health organizations, developed four documentaries focused on obesity. The project also includes a three-part HBO Family series for kids, 12 short features, a social media campaign, and a nationwide community-based campaign to mobilize action to move the country to a healthier weight.

“If we don't take the obesity epidemic seriously as individuals and as a nation, we will pay a serious price,” said NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., who appears in all of the main documentaries in the series. “It's going to take diverse and rigorous research to understand the causes of obesity and to identify interventions that work in the real world. The results from federally funded research, as seen in these documentaries, can help to prevent and treat obesity and its complications.”

More than one-third of adults in the United States and nearly 17 percent of the nation's children are obese, which increases their chances of developing many health problems, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, fatty liver disease, and some cancers. In 2008, the nation's obesity-related medical costs were an estimated $147 billion.

 

Beduin women subject to unacceptible violence
Posted by on May 10, 2012 - 9:49am

A recent visit to Israel included a drive into the desert of the Negev region.   I noticed small groups of tents  and our guide said they were Bedouin ---people who have no land and are not connected to water or electricity.  They roam whenever they need new sources of food and water for their animals and have very limited participation in the growing country of Israel.

But the bigger shock was learning that despite Israeli progressive laws related to women, the impact of those laws are absent for Bedouin women.  According to Women Lawyers for Social Justice, 85% of Bedu0in women report that they are subjected to severe physical/psychological violence.  Of these, 90% were openly battered in public.   More than 70% of all Bedouin women in Israel are wed by coercion.  The law notwithstanding, Bedouin society practices unbridled polygamy. In fact, the government's only input appears in the form of generous child allotments paid to uncontrollable outsized family frameworks where men may boost 40 or more offspring!  To make matters worse, abused women in Bedouin communities  are the least likely to enlist outside help.  Of them, 67% admitted that they do not discuss their problems with outsiders because they fear backlash to their families and potential loss of their children.

As stated in a timely editorial in the Jerusalem Post (6/6/2012) the "abandonment of these women to a cruel fate right under our noses is only one facet of the conspiracy of silence that envelopes the Bedouin enclaves.  The result is large areas to which the state opts to turn a blind eye and where is doesn't exercise its authority."

What makes this even more complicated is the fact that the Bedouin community is tightly knit making it difficult for outside interventions that are meaningful and just---one of the many challenges Israel faces as it strives to settle its political and religious debates.   On the totally opposite spectrum, I was amazed to see how well the four neighborhoods (or quarters)  of the old city of Jerusalem (Jewish, Christian, Armenian, and Muslim) seem to coexist with only few problems!  It truly is a complicated country.

 

 

Building a Bank of Life
Posted by on April 27, 2012 - 9:31am

In 1990, researchers in Britain started collecting tissues and detailed information from more than 14,500 pregnant women about their health, relationships, work and home.   Furthermore, after giving birth, the study leaders tracked the offspring development through surveys, clinical exams and biological samples. Data was collected on their eating habits, physiological development including puberty onset, and behaviors, to name a few.  In the long term, the researchers are tracing how genetic and environmental factors in the children's early years affect their later ones.

Now, this data is coming of age as the first children enrolled are turning 21 years old.    This month, the researchers behind this Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) are meeting in Bristol, England to discuss what they have learned from this study so far.   Study leaders acknowledge that most of the important findings are likely to emerge years from now even though over 700 scientific papers have already been published on data gleaned from this project.   New advances in technology especially in the field of genetics is expanding the possibilities of this rich data set in finding events that occur in pregnancy that shape gene expression early in life that could affect the individual many years after birth.

In Bristol, the team is only starting to learn the value of some of the data collected decades ago.  As one researcher cited, the placentas that were collected years ago were a 'bloody nuisance' until a few years ago when scientists  found that the size and shape of the placenta may be associated with risk of adult coronary disease.   This data will continue to build as the subjects grow older and is an excellent example how tedious yet important scientific endeavor is.

Source:  Nature, April 12, 2012.

 

 

 

Test your knowledge on the uninsured issue
Posted by on April 26, 2012 - 9:17am

With record numbers of Americans lacking health coverage, the substantial growth of the uninsured population in recent decades has been a vexing problem in the United States and served as a primary impetus for the enactment of the Affordable Care Act.  Unfortunately, there is a lot posturing on both sides of the issue and it's important for the public to have the real facts.

In order to foster greater understanding of the nature of the problem, the Kaiser Family Foundation has created an Uninsured Quiz to help people gauge how much they know about the uninsured population and the consequences of not having health coverage.  I just took it and scored 8 out of 10, not bad, but I could use a refresher, especially on the extent of the problem.

Take the quiz to test your knowledge about a range of subjects, from how many Americans are uninsured, to what happens to people who lose their employer-based health coverage when they lose their job, to what the health reform law will do to make coverage available to more people. The answers page provides links to Foundation resources for additional information on each topic covered in the 10 questions.

Can you lose weight on a gluten-free diet?
Posted by on April 25, 2012 - 8:30am

Recently Miley Cyrus has been touting a gluten free diet as a way to lose weight.   Is this true or just another celebrity fad? Gluten is a protein present in foods including wheat, rye, oats, and barley  but may also be found in everyday products such as medicines, vitamins, and even lip balms.    There's absolutely nothing wrong with eating gluten unless you have celiac disease, or gluten sensitive enteropathy (GSE), an autoimmune disease that damages the small intestine and interferes with absorption of nutrients from food. If you are sensitive to gluten, the body produces an abnormal immune response to it, attacking the lining of small intestine where digestion takes place. This leads to the symptoms of celiac disease: • abdominal bloating and pain • chronic diarrhea • vomiting • constipation • pale, foul-smelling, or fatty stool • weight loss About 1% of the population has GSE. But there may be another 9% or so who have what is called gluten sensitivity or gluten intolerance. These people may have similar symptoms to those with GSE but do not show the same damage to the bowel as those with GSE. The only treatment for celiac disease is a lifelong, gluten-free diet.  But can it cause you to lose weight?  The answer is complicated.  Studies have shown that patients with GSE who were underweight gained  weight on a gluten-free diet. Those with GSE and obesity tended to lose weight after starting a gluten-free diet. What about people who don't have GSE? Celebrities have touted a gluten-free diet as a way to lose weight. Proponents hype it as a healthier way to eat. They claim it improves sleep, increases energy, and clears skin. Some go so far as to say it helps those with autism and rheumatoid arthritis. But Dee Sandquist, MS, RD, a spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, who also happens to have celiac disease, says:   There is nothing magical about eliminating gluten that will improve your health or enhance weight loss unless you are intolerant to gluten.   The academy points out that "Research on individuals with celiac disease reports that long-term compliance with a gluten-free dietary pattern improves outcomes related to bone density, iron deficiency anemia, villous atrophy, gastrointestinal and neurological symptoms, pregnancy outcomes and quality of life." One problem is the fact that many people with GSE don't even know that they have the disease, and those with gluten intolerance are less likely to be diagnosed.  Researchers conclude that there is no scientific evidence supporting the alleged benefit that a gluten-free diet will promote weight loss and  that adherence to the gluten-free dietary pattern may actually result in a diet that is low in carbohydrates, fiber  and important vitamins. Many confuse a gluten-free diet with a low-carb diet (which can promote weight loss).     A gluten-free diet eliminates foods such as bread and pasta, it doesn't eliminate other high-carb foods such as rice, beans and corn.    The popularity of gluten-free diets has lead to an explosion of gluten-free food availability and a financially growing industry that  is expected to exceed $5 billion by 2015! This is great if you need to be on the diet. However, people need to be aware that these are not low-calorie foods! Some prepared foods have additional fat and sugar added and mixed into substitute flours such as white rice flour or potato starch to make them more palatable. A gluten-free diet is not a panacea for weight loss. It is, however, an important diet for those who suffer from GSE or intolerance.

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