What are you looking for in a potential dating partner?
Posted by on November 15, 2011 - 3:17pm

So you’re flocking to online dating sites with a wish list of ideal traits that you desire in a mate. Not so fast!     Once you actually meet a potential dating partner, those ideals are likely to fall by the wayside, according to new research from Northwestern University and Texas A&M University and reported by the NU NewsCenter.

People liked potential partners that matched their ideals more than those that mismatched their ideals when they examined written descriptions of potential partners, but those same ideals didn’t matter once they actually met in person, according to a new study by psychologists Paul W. Eastwick, Eli J. Finkel and Alice H. Eagly.

“People have ideas about the abstract qualities they’re looking for in a romantic partner,” said Eastwick, assistant professor of psychology at Texas A&M University and lead author of the study. “But once you actually meet somebody face to face, those ideal preferences for traits tend to be quite flexible.”   Say you prefer a partner who, online or on paper, fits the bill of being persistent. “After meeting in person, you might feel that, yeah, that person is persistent, but he can’t compromise on anything. It’s not the determined and diligent kind of persistent that you initially had in mind,” Eastwick said.

The idea is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, said Finkel, associate professor of psychology at Northwestern University and co-author of the study. “People are not simply the average of their traits,” he said. “Knowing that somebody is persistent, ambitious and sexy does not tell you what that person is actually like. It doesn’t make sense for us to search for partners that way.”

“Thinking about this or that feature of a person apart from taking the whole person into account doesn't predict actual attraction,” Eagly said. “While some online dating sites have video features that provide some context, generally people are matched on their answers to specific questions that do not capture the whole person.”

Scores from answers to questions such as “How much money do you earn?” or “Are you extroverted?” provide two-dimensional facts rather than three-dimensional humanness, Finkel said.

For those seeking prospective partners, don't be surprised if you end up ignoring your preconceived notions about what would make an ideal mate.

“Based on those ideals, you might end up liking a person upon meeting face to face, or you might have the opposite reaction,” Finkel said. As Eastwick notes, it is not uncommon for someone to say, ‘If you had tried to set me up with this guy, I would never have gone out with him, but I’m so glad I did!’”

The study, “When and Why Do Ideal Partner Preferences Affect the Process of Initiating and Maintaining Romantic Relationships?” will appear in the November edition of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Source:  Hilary Hurd Anyaso,  law and social sciences editor, NU NewsCenter.

Underage children join facebook----with parental help!
Posted by on November 14, 2011 - 7:31am

In a world of predators, who is responsible for keeping our children safe?    A major new nationwide study released November 1 , 2011 shows that many parents know that their underage children are on Facebook in violation of the site’s restrictions.

Parents are often complicit in helping their children join the site. These new data suggest that, by creating a context in which companies choose to restrict access to children, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which is currently under review, inadvertently undermines parents’ ability to make choices and protect their children’s data.

This study  co-authored by Eszter Hargittai, associate professor of communication studies at Northwestern University, has significant implications for policy makers, particularly in light of the discussion in Congress and at the Federal Trade Commission about COPPA and other age-based privacy laws. Based on a national sample of 1,007 U.S. parents who have children living with them between the ages of 10-14, this survey conducted July 5-14, 2011 found:

  • 12 is the mean age at which parents of current 13-and 14-year-olds reported that their child joined Facebook; Facebook’s minimum age is 13.
  • 36% of all parents surveyed knew that their child joined Facebook before the age of 13; 68% of these parents helped their child create their account.
  • 55% of parents of 12-year-olds report their child has a Facebook account; 82% of these parents knew when their underage child signed up and 76% assisted in creating the account.
  • 53% of parents think Facebook has a minimum age; 35% of these parents think that it is a recommendation and not a requirement.
  • 78% of parents reported various reasons that make it acceptable for their child to violate minimum age restrictions on online services.

The authors argue that these data call into question the efficacy of COPPA. Their findings have important implications for COPPA reform and other age-based legislation, such as the “Do Not Track Kids Act” currently being discussed in Congress:

  • COPPA is well intended but has major unintended consequences in terms of encouraging general-purpose websites like Facebook, Skype, and Gmail to limit kids under 13 from accessing educational and social opportunities.
  • Age-based restrictions imposed in response to COPPA undermine parental authority and limit parents’ freedoms to make choices about what their children do and what information is collected about them.
  • As a result of COPPA, lying about one’s age has become normal and parents often help children lie. This creates safety and privacy issues.
  • Online safety and privacy are of great concern to parents, but most parents do not want solutions that result in age-based restrictions for their children.
  • Parents are open to recommended age ratings and other approaches that offer guidance without limiting their children’s access.

The full survey results and policy implications may be found online at: http://www.firstmonday.org/ The authors may be contacted at parentsurvey@zephoria.org

Source:  Erin White for Northwestern NewsCenter

Diabetes-a worldwide challenge
Posted by on November 12, 2011 - 10:14am

November is National Diabetes Month and World Diabetes Day is Nov. 14.    Nearly 26 million Americans have diabetes, and more than one-quarter of them do not know it. Left untreated, diabetes can lead to serious complications, such as heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, blindness and amputation. An estimated 79 million adults have pre-diabetes, a condition that places them at increased risk for developing type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Some important resources to help are listed below.

Making lifestyle changes — whether to manage or prevent diabetes — is not easy. Even if you know what to do to improve your health, figuring out how to do it and fitting it into your daily routine can be a big challenge. Making changes in how you care for your health is a matter of trying and learning.

For example, people know that being physically active can help them lose weight. But do they know how to become more active and keep it up over time? In support of this effort, the National Diabetes Education Program (NDEP), is providing tools and resources to help people find ways to deal with the stress that can prevent people from achieving their health goals — whether they have diabetes or are at risk for it.

The NDEP offers the following tips for making a plan and taking small, but important steps to help you reach your goal:

Think about what is important to you and your health.
What changes are you willing and able to make?
Decide what steps will help you reach your health goals.
Choose one goal to work on first. Start this week. Pick one change you can start to make immediately.
Don't give up. It's common to run into some problems along the way. If things don’t go as planned, think about other ways to reach your goal.

The NDEP provides videos, tips sheets, and other educational materials to help people make a plan to prevent type 2 diabetes and diabetes related complications. To  access, click HERE.

 

Neuromuscular warm-up reduced girls' sports injuries
Posted by on November 11, 2011 - 2:20pm

Today’s athletic high school girls “got game” on the basketball court and soccer field, but they are at a greater risk for sports-related knee injuries than their male counterparts.

In a new study from Northwestern Medicine, focused on predominantly low-income, urban female athletes in Chicago Public Schools (CPS), researchers were able to significantly reduce common non-contact, sports-related injuries by implementing a coach-led neuromuscular warm-up routine before practices and games.

The study, published in the Nov. 7 issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, found that the neuromuscular warm-up, designed to strengthen targeted muscle groups and improve motor control of lower extremities, led to a 38 percent reduction in ankle sprains, a 30 percent reduction in knee sprains, and a 20 percent reduction in ACL injuries in female soccer and basketball players.

“Chicago public high schools don’t have athletic trainers to evaluate injuries and advise coaches about proper warm-up techniques,” said Cynthia LaBella, MD, associate professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and medical director at the Institute for Sports Medicine at Children’s Memorial Hospital. “The athletes tend to have limited access to medical care, too, so that’s another reason why it’s so important to train these coaches and try to prevent injuries in this population.”

The key components of the warm-up are: core and lower extremity strengthening exercises (e.g., squats, lunges, planks, and prone lifts), to balance strength evenly between quadriceps and hamstrings and between right and left legs, and progressive plyometric jumping exercises, to improve neuromuscular control of knee motion during landing and cutting maneuvers.

“Verbal feedback from the coach to the athlete on how to recognize and avoid unsafe knee positions was also a big part of the intervention,” said LaBella, lead author of the study. “If you repeat an exercise with bad form, it is not going to help.”   Ninety of CPS women’s soccer and basketball coaches and nearly 1,500 female student athletes completed the study during the 2006-2007 school year. Schools were randomized into control and intervention groups.

Coaches from the intervention groups attended a two-hour training session that taught them how to implement the full warm-up at team practices and an abbreviated version before games. They also received a DVD with narrated videos of the exercises and a laminated card listing the order and frequency of the exercises. Coaches in the control group were told to perform their usual warm-up and were offered the same training as the intervention group after the study was completed.

“The findings suggest that neuromuscular training should be routine in girls’ high school soccer and basketball,” LaBella said. “And implementing it is feasible in predominantly low-income, urban populations, such as the one studied. It will take some effort on the part of coaches to learn the warm-up and incorporate it into their usual practice routines, but the reduction in injury rate is worth the effort.”

The program would be cost-effective as well. To avoid one knee injury resulting in surgery, 189 athletes would need to be exposed to the warm-up, LaBella said. That equates to training approximately 13 coaches, which would cost about $1,000, substantially less than the cost for one knee surgery, which typically costs $20,000, LaBella said.

Source:   Northwestern News

Why research is sometimes trial and error: a case study
Posted by on November 9, 2011 - 9:58am

Consumers are often frustrated when they hear the results of research studies that indicate a "maybe" rather than a definitive answer.  Here's an interesting study that demonstrates the long road researchers often have to take.  On the other hand, trial and error sometimes leads to surprising results and are worth it.  This example also demonstrates how different medical disciplines can learn from each other.

A new study suggests that a common sexually transmitted virus already linked to cancer may also cause cardiovascular disease.

Women infected with the human papillomavirus, or HPV, are two to three times as likely as uninfected women to have had a heart attack or stroke, according to a report published recently in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

HPV is known to cause cancer of the cervix, vulva, penis, anus and throat, but the new study is the first to connect the virus to heart disease. The heart findings are not definitive: They show the virus may be associated with heart disease, but do not prove it caused the disease.

The senior author of the study, Dr. Kenichi Fujise, a cardiologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, said the research grew out of his quest to find out why some people have heart attacks even though they have none of the usual risk factors, like high cholesterol or high blood pressure. About 20 percent of patients with heart disease lack obvious risk factors, and researchers think those people must have other underlying problems that science has not yet figured out.

Dr. Fujise decided to study HPV because the virus can sabotage a gene called p53, which normally protects the body from cancer and may also help prevent artery disease. Inactivation of p53 occurs in a variety of cancers, and the gene is considered to be a sort of guardian of the genome. Disabling p53 may also lead to inflammation and thickening in the walls of arteries.  HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States. Scientists estimate that half of sexually active men and women have been infected and that 80 percent of women have had it by age 50. The virus has many strains, only some of which cause cancer. In most people, the immune system fights off the virus.  The infection persists and causes cancer in only a small minority. Two vaccines are approved to prevent HPV infection and are recommended for young people before they become sexually active. The vaccine does not work in people who are already infected.

Dr. Fujise studied 2,450 women, ages 20 to 59, who took part in a national health survey from 2003 to 2006. The women used vaginal swabs to provide specimens for HPV testing and reported whether they had heart disease, which was defined in this study as ever having suffered a heart attack or stroke.

In all, 1,141 women had HPV. Sixty women had heart disease; of those, 39 also had HPV. When the researchers analyzed the data and adjusted for heart risks like smoking, blood pressure and weight, they found that women with HPV were 2.3 times as likely as those without the virus to have heart disease. The risk was even higher, 2.86 times that of uninfected women, in those who had HPV strains known to cause cancer.

Dr. Fujise said the results surprised him. “I was thinking maybe there would be just a weak link or no link, but this is a strong link,” he said.   Even if further research confirms the connection, most people who contract HPV would not be at special risk for heart disease. Dr. Fujise said that if the link is real, heart disease, like cancer, would be likely to develop only in people with lingering HPV infection.

A researcher not involved with the study, Dr. Lori Mosca, director of preventive cardiology at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, said: “I’m definitely intrigued by this. The biological argument is highly plausible and deserves further investigation.”

But she emphasized that plausibility is not enough; the history of medicine is full of ideas that made sense and turned out to be wrong. The type of study that Dr. Fujise did, in which scientists look for associations in a mass of data, is good for generating ideas for more research, but it does not prove cause and effect.

Finding an association does not even tell which condition came first. In theory, heart disease could have come first and made the women more vulnerable to HPV. Or some other unknown factor could have predisposed some women to both HPV and heart disease.

“We need to proceed with caution,” Dr. Mosca said. “We need to go on and do more rigorous kinds of research that would answer the question more definitively.”She said that many researchers were studying possible links among cancer, infections and heart disease, but that so far no infection had been proved to cause artery disease.

Dr. Fujise’s work, she said, “has the potential, if it does pan out, to further inform the public about the potential benefits of vaccination for HPV.” But she added that the findings were too preliminary to be used as evidence in favor of vaccination.

Brazilian blowout--safety concerns raised
Posted by on November 7, 2011 - 11:21am

Before and after a brazilian blowout treatment used to smooth hair

FDA has received a number of inquiries from consumers and salon professionals concerning the safety of “Brazilian Blowout” and similar “professional use only” hair smoothing products. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued a Hazard Alert in April 2011 to hair salon owners and workers about potential formaldehyde exposure from working with these products. On August 22, 2011, FDA issued a Warning Letter citing Brazilian Blowout for safety and labeling violations. The following information is intended to answer questions people may have on this subject.

The Brazilian Blowout Warning Letter cites both safety and labeling violations. For example, the letter lists health risks associated with inhaling formaldehyde and reactions that have been reported when people used the product as directed. Among the reported reactions were eye problems, nervous system problems such as headaches and dizziness, respiratory tract problems, nausea, chest pain, vomiting, and rash. The letter also states that the labeling was misleading because it called the product "formaldehyde free," even though people were exposed to formaldehyde when using it as intended. The labeling also failed to reveal possible consequences of using this product under the conditions prescribed in the labels or labeling.

FDA does not have authority over the operation of salons or the practice of cosmetology.   Workplace safety in general, including air quality issues, is regulated by OSHA. Salons are also generally subject to state and local authorities, which may specify safety practices such as assuring proper ventilation.

During investigations, OSHA found formaldehyde in the air when stylists used hair smoothing products, some of which did not have formaldehyde listed on their labels or in Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) as required by law. During one investigation, air tests showed formaldehyde at levels greater than OSHA's limits, even though the product tested was labeled as formaldehyde-free. OSHA states that formaldehyde presents a health hazard if workers are exposed. It can irritate the eyes and nose; cause allergic reactions of the skin, eyes, and lungs; and is linked to nose and lung cancer.  Click here to read the full report Hazard Alert: Hair-Smoothing Products That Could Release Formaldehyde.

FDA's Advice to Consumers

Skin sensitivity can develop after repeated contact with formaldehyde-related ingredients. When formaldehyde is released into the air it can cause serious irritation of your eyes, nose and lungs. It is recommended that you limit your exposure to products that contain formaldehyde-related ingredients to reduce these health risks.    Read the label. If you're purchasing a product on a retail basis, whether at a store or by mail order, including on the Internet, the product is required to have a list of the ingredients. If it doesn't, please let FDA know. The list of ingredients is required under the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act. Here are some ingredients to look for:  formaldehyde, formalin, methylene glycol.

Ask your salon professional. Products that are marketed only to salon professionals may not have a list of ingredients, because the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act doesn't apply to them. They are required, however, to have directions for safe use, and OSHA requires them to have an MSDS. You can ask salon professionals if they know whether a product contains formaldehyde-related ingredients or other ingredients you may wish to avoid. In its Hazard Alert on formaldehyde dangers to hair salon owners and workers, OSHA addressed the information companies should provide to salon workers in an MSDS. However, as OSHA also pointed out, the MSDS for Brazilian Blowout did not contain all the required information.

Report bad reactions. Consumers are one of FDA's most important sources of information, especially because the law doesn't require cosmetics to be approved by FDA before they go on the market. To report a reaction to a cosmetic product, use one of these contacts:
1) Reporting by phone to the Consumer Complaint Coordinator at your nearest FDA district office. Phone numbers are posted on FDA's Web page, Consumer Complaint Coordinators, and in the Blue Pages of the phone book, generally under United States Government/Health and Human Services.

2) Reporting online to FDA's MedWatch adverse event reporting system. You also may call Medwatch at 1-800-332-1088 to request a reporting form by mail.

Salon workers also can file complaints about unsafe workplaces with OSHA, as stated in OSHA’s Hazard Alert.

Sex differences in heart disease
Posted by on November 5, 2011 - 7:07am

Heart disease affects men and women in different ways. In women, symptoms of burgeoning heart disease are often more insidious, but when a heart attack strikes, it is more lethal than it is in men. Roughly 25 percent of men will die within a year of their first heart attack, but among women, 38 percent will die. Women are twice as likely as men to have a second heart attack within 6 years of their first one, and women are twice as likely as men to die after bypass surgery.

Yet after a heart attack, women’s hearts are more likely to maintain their systolic function—their ability to contract and pump blood from the chambers into the arteries. According to C. Noel Bairey Merz, MD, Director of the Women’s Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles, this suggests that heart disease manifests differently in women, affecting the microvasculature (small blood vessels) instead of the macrovasculature (major blood vessels) as it does in men.

The heart is a muscle, and as with other muscles, depriving it of oxygen causes damage that diminishes its ability to function. Conventional wisdom notes that the most prevalent form of heart disease is coronary artery disease, in which atherosclerotic plaque narrows and eventually blocks the major arteries leading into the heart, thus cutting off the heart’s supply of oxygen. The damage to the heart tends to be permanent, and after a heart attack, the heart never quite regains its former power.

But when reviewing the medical literature, Dr. Bairey Merz and her colleagues found that women’s hearts were less likely than men’s to lose their ability to pump blood after a heart attack, and that female heart patients were less likely to present with obstructive coronary artery disease. Instead, the oxygen deprivation and subsequent damage to the heart is more likely to occur when small blood vessels, not major arteries, become dysfunctional.

“That is the reason women are often misdiagnosed and suffer adverse events,” said Dr. Bairey Merz. “Physicians have been looking for male pattern disease, when we need to start looking at female patterns.” Likewise, more research is needed to develop appropriate treatments and reduce risk in women, she added.

According to Dr. Bairey Merz, the good news is that it is possible to measure damage to small blood vessels objectively. “The gold standard is reactivity testing, angiograms, and other physiologic measures, rather than anatomic study.”

Dr. Bairey Merz is looking at data that  can be applied to help clinicians understand gender differences in the pathophysiology of heart disease.

 

Should you consider bisphosphonates for osteoporosis? There are risks and benefits.
Posted by on November 4, 2011 - 3:20pm

Are you or a family member at risk for osteoporosis--a serious, potentially debilitating condition more prevalent in women? Over the past decade a number of treatments have become available including bisphosphonates.   An excellent one-page summary of benefits and risks is now available from the Hormone Foundation and should be read by all who are considering treatment.

Click HERE to view the article.

Estrogen helps brain keep weight in check
Posted by on November 3, 2011 - 2:44pm

A recent UT Southwestern Medical Center study found that estrogen regulates energy expenditure, appetite and body weight, while insufficient estrogen receptors in specific parts of the brain may lead to obesity.

“Estrogen has a profound effect on metabolism,” said Dr. Deborah Clegg, associate professor of internal medicine and senior author of the study published Oct. 5 in Cell Metabolism. “We hadn’t previously thought of sex hormones as being critical regulators of food intake and body weight.”

The mouse study is the first to show that estrogen, acting through two hypothalamic neural centers in the brain, keeps female body weight in check by regulating hunger and energy expenditure. Female mice lacking estrogen receptor alpha – a molecule that sends estrogen signals to neurons – in those parts of the brain became obese and developed related diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease.

Similar results were not seen in male mice, although researchers suspect other unknown estrogen receptor sites in the brain play a similar role in regulating metabolism for males as well. Estrogen receptors are located throughout the body, but researchers found two specific populations of estrogen receptors that appear to regulate energy balance for female mice.

The findings are potentially important for millions of postmenopausal women, many of whom have decided against hormonal replacement therapy. The study could lead to new hormonal replacement therapies in which estrogen is delivered to specific parts of the brain that regulate body weight, thereby avoiding the risks associated with full-body estrogen delivery, such as breast cancer and stroke.

Doctors stopped routinely recommending long-term estrogen therapy for menopausal women in 2002 when a Women’s Health Initiative study showed the hormone did not prevent heart disease in women who already were at increased risk.

“The role of estrogen in postmenopausal women continues to remain uncertain,” Dr. Clegg said. “Current research is focused on the timing and the type of estrogen supplementation that would be most beneficial to women. Our findings further support a role for estrogens in regulating body weight and energy expenditure, suggesting a benefit of estrogen supplementation in postmenopausal women.”

Source: UT Southwestern Medical Center

 

Should hairdressers help spot cancers?
Posted by on November 2, 2011 - 6:39am

Next time you get a haircut, you might end up with a referral to a dermatologist.

A recent survey of Texas hair salons found more than a third of stylists check at least half of their customers for suspicious moles on the scalp, and most have referred people to a doctor lest the mole turn out to be skin cancer. What's more, half the hairdressers were keen to learn more about skin cancer to help extend the reach of doctors screening for the disease, according to findings in the Archives of Dermatology.

"What we would like to do in the next couple of years is to train as many hair professionals as possible," said Alan Geller, of Harvard's School of Public Health in Boston, who led the new work. "We think this holds a lot of promise."  He's not the only one hoping to spread the gospel of modern medicine through hair salons and barbershops, whose clientele might not otherwise see a health provider. There are many urban  programs that utilize barber shops and hair salons to spread preventive health messages related to breast and prostate screening,  heart disease and diabetes.

But other experts aren't convinced.   "As a rule, you should do what you're good at," said Dr. Martin Glud, a dermatologist at Bispebjerg Hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark. "If you're a hairdresser, that's cutting hair, with all due respect."    Earlier this year, Glud published a study showing that while the rates of melanoma—the deadliest form of skin cancer—have shot up recently, the disease's death toll has barely increased. That indicates that at least in some cases, the additional tumors being diagnosed wouldn't have gone on to kill the person.   "Some believe the rise in melanomas is really a sign of overdiagnosis," Glud told Reuters Health.

About one in 50 white Americans born today will get melanoma at some point during their life, according to the American Cancer Society. The group estimates that roughly 8,800 will die from the disease in 2011.   Because melanomas are so rare—particularly on the neck and scalp—and moles are very common, Glud worries that hairdressers might sound a lot of false alarms, contributing to the problem of overdiagnosis.   "It's a slippery slope," he said.

Geller acknowledged that having hair salons double as screening centers could end up taxing scarce health care resources.  "We would need to make sure that this doesn't lead to a tremendous drain for the health care system," he cautioned.  Suspicious moles are those that itch, bleed, change color or grow asymmetrically. A dermatologist may choose to biopsy such a mole and remove it if cancer is found. That can leave a scar, and may require a skin graft in the case of larger tumors.   Geller, who polled 203 hair professionals from a chain of 17 salons in the Houston area, said there is "circumstantial evidence" that screening for skin cancer saves lives. But he acknowledged there are no direct experiments to prove that point.

As a result, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a federally appointed expert panel, says there is too little data to balance the harms and benefits of skin cancer screening at the doctor's office, let alone hair salons."I certainly can't support the implication of this study that we should be training hairdressers to do skin screenings," said Dr. Michael LeFevre from the task force.   But he added that doesn't mean they shouldn't point to moles their customers might not have noticed themselves. "To raise the individual's awareness that there is something there is not inappropriate," he told Reuters Health. "That is different from referring them to the doctor."

Editor's Note:   Interesting debate, but since I really never look at my scalp, I would appreciate my hairdresser---especially someone who has been cutting my hair for years---  pointing  out anything unusual!   A visit to a dermatologist to confirm any suspicious mole could result in early and a less costly diagnosis.

 

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