Statin use tied to cataract development: study

The risk of developing cloudy lenses in the eyes may be linked to the use of cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins, according to a new study.

While the researchers can’t prove the drugs caused the eye condition, they found that people who took statins – such as Zocor and Lipitor – were more likely to develop cataracts, compared to people who didn’t take the medication.

“The results were consistent that there was a higher risk of being diagnosed with cataracts among statin users,” Dr. Ishak Mansi, the study’s senior author from UT Southwestern Medical Center and the Dallas VA Medical Center in Texas, said.

Statins are popular drugs that block a substance the body needs to make cholesterol, which can get trapped in arteries and ultimately lead to heart attacks and strokes.

About one-quarter of U.S. adults aged 45 and older take statins. The drugs are especially recommended for people with diabetes or a history of cardiovascular problems.

Researchers have looked at the link between statins and cataracts before with mixed results. While some studies found that taking statins lowered the risk of developing cataracts, other studies found the drugs increased the risk.

For the new research, Mansi and his colleagues used data collected from the medical records of people between the ages of 30 and 85 years old who were enrolled in one healthcare system in San Antonio, Texas, and received care between 2003 and 2010.

In one analysis, they compared about 7,000 people who were on statins for at least 90 days to about 7,000 people who were not on statins but were similar in about 40 other characteristics, including other health conditions, medications and healthcare use.

About 36 percent of statin users were diagnosed with cataracts, compared to about 34 percent of people not taking statins, for a 9 percent higher risk.

In a second analysis, the researchers looked at people with no other known health conditions. It included 6,113 statin users and 27,400 people who did not take statins.

Before adjusting the results for the participants’ age, sex, weight, medications, healthcare use, other vision conditions and cigarette, alcohol and drug use, the researchers found about 34 percent of statin users were diagnosed with cataracts, compared to about 10 percent of people not taking statins. After adjusting for those factors, statin use was linked to about a 27 percent increased risk of cataracts.

What’s more, the researchers found that the risk of developing cataracts increased with the length of time a person took the medication.

While Mansi and his colleagues can’t say how statins may affect the formation of cataracts, they write in JAMA Ophthalmology that there are a few possible explanations.

One is that the body needs high levels of cholesterol to maintain a clear lens and statins may interfere with the cells that control that process.

Dr. Jack Cioffi, head of ophthalmology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, said the study is very well done, but has some limitations, including that the researchers used billing data rather than medical records, so they can’t say how severe the cataracts were.

“I don’t think we should overstate the significance of this. It goes back to if there is a good reason for you to be on that statin, it outweighs the risk of a mild increase in risk of cataract,” Cioffi, who was not involved in the new study, said.

He added that the treatments for cataracts have evolved over time. The National Institutes of Health says the procedures to remove cataracts are some of the most common and safest surgeries performed in the U.S.

“For patients themselves, my advice is to discuss what your benefit and risk ratio is for you with your doctor,” said Mansi, who added that he hopes the results will also encourage people to improve their cholesterol levels through lifestyle changes.

“This should motivate patients to do their part. Quit smoking, eat healthy and be active so doctors don’t have to give you a tablet that may have some side effects,” he said.

Source: Reuters.com

4 Bad Habits Keep You away from Fitness Goals

If you don’t properly fuel your body, you won’t be able to push it during tough gym sessions

You may think you’re right on track with your fitness regimen, but if you’re not seeing the results you expect, these surprising bad habits may be to blame. Sure, there’s something to be said for a steady schedule, but do you remember to switch it up every once in a while? From unreasonable goals to dull solo workout sessions, here are four bad patterns to avoid if you’re hoping to improve your fitness routine.

  • You make unrealistic gym plans: If you don’t have the time or physical energy to run for an hour, then don’t try to force it. Remember that every little bit counts and making yourself do too much can be the quickest way to get injured — or make you give up altogether.
  • You only exercise solo: Including friends in your fitness routine can be a great way to stay motivated. Not only will they keep you accountable, but they can also share tips and tricks of their own. Hesitant to reach out? Learn the benefits of a workout buddy and ask pals to join your plan.
  • You stick to what you know: Stepping outside your comfort zone and surprising your body with new, challenging exercises helps you to break through plateaus and stay in shape. It’s important to mix up your fitness routine: fresh workouts keep you from getting bored, and you’ll have the chance to work different muscle groups for a well-rounded routine.
  • You ignore hunger signals: If you don’t properly fuel your body, you won’t be able to push it during tough gym sessions. Learn what to eat before working out so you have plenty of energy to maximize your fitness potential.

Source: http://www.fitsugar.com

 

Tips to slow hair loss

For men with receding hairlines, baldness can be a major concern. And although there is nothing you can do to prevent going bald, there are some things you can do now to slow your hair loss.

Male pattern baldness is related to genes, and nothing can be done to prevent this common condition.

According to the American Academy of Dermatology two out of three men develop some form of balding during their lifetimes.

And heredity is not the only cause. Other factors include:
• Certain medications
• Deficiencies in your diet
• Stress

Managing stress levels will help to stop hair loss as major life stressors can actually cause your hair to die.

Look at your prescriptions, too. They could be making you go bald. Certain blood thinners and psychiatric drugs have been known have been known to have this side effect.

You can also eat foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids like salmon and walnuts.

These foods are packed with protein and minerals, which has been linked to hair loss prevention in chemotherapy patients. Also, try incorporating foods high in iron and vitamin B if you are deficient.

You can always visit a dermatologist for more solutions if you are concerned about hair loss.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/07/27/tips-to-slow-hair-loss/#ixzz2fUwTrEM0

 

18-month course in Emergency Medicine for AYUSH practitioners

The state health and family welfare department has recommended Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) to start an 18-month course in modern (emergency) medicine for Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (AYUSH) practitioners to practice allopathy.

The department is also looking at roping in more private medical universities for this course. “We have requested other private medical universities too for the same 18-month course in modern (emergency) medicine,” said Madan Gopal, principal secretary, Karnataka Health and Family Welfare Department.

Following the shortage of doctors, people residing in rural areas do not have access to proper healthcare facility. Hence if AYUSH practitioners are legally allowed to take up integrated practice, then it will help improve the primary healthcare system in the state, Gopal added

Source: IndiaMedicaltimes.com

Key to healthy brain: Exercise

     A new study has discovered that exercising regularly can reduce one’s chances of getting Alzheimer’s disease, by keeping the brain healthy.

Dr Maree Farrow, co-author of the paper released by Alzheimer’s Australia and Fitness Australia, said that about half of Alzheimer cases are potentially attributable to risk factors one can change, News.com.au reported.

The study showed that a little boost in the number of physically active people could have a dramatic impact on the number of dementia cases.

Source: Deccan chronicle

Eating avocados can reduce food cravings and diabetes risk

Avocados

A new research has suggested that addition of fresh Hass Avocado to a meal may help to reduce hunger and the desire to eat in overweight adults.

The study also showed that including avocado to a meal resulted in smaller post-meal rises in insulin compared to eating a meal without avocado.

Findings were based on a Hass Avocado Board (HAB) supported clinical study conducted by researchers at Loma Linda University that investigated the effects of incorporating fresh Hass Avocado into a lunch meal on satiety, blood sugar and insulin response, and subsequent food intake.

“While more studies are needed, this research provides promising clues and a basis for future research to determine avocados’ effect on satiety, glucose and blood insulin response,” said Nikki Ford, Nutrition Director, HAB.

Ford said that this research will contribute to a deeper knowledge on Hass avocados’ potential positive role in weight management and diabetes.

The study was presented at the IUNS 20th International Congress of Nutrition, in Spain

Source: truthdive.com

Gene map helps trace spread of MERS virus

Researchers in Britain and Saudi Arabia said on Friday that gene profiling of the MERS virus had provided insights, but no answer, as to how the mysterious microbe spreads.

Reporting online in The Lancet, the scientists said they had assembled a family tree of the corona virus causing Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), using samples taken from 21 patients in Saudi Arabia.

With the exception of a cluster of cases in the eastern town of al-Hasa, the focal point of the outbreak is the Saudi capital, they said.

“These results suggest the circulating virus in Saudi Arabia is centered on Riyadh, with sporadic excursions to other centers,” they said.

The probe reiterated the theory that the virus — called MERS-CoV by scientists — probably leapt to humans from animals.

The genetic history of the virus suggests repeat infections may have occurred since then, but what the animal source was, or is, remains unclear, it said.

Tests are being carried on mammals in Saudi Arabia ranging from camels and bats to goats.

The cluster in al-Hasa, in contrast, shows that viral strains there were closely related, which is consistent with spread from human to human.

The samples in Riyadh have a broad genetic diversity, the paper said.

This could mean that the virus is being transmitted through an animal source that is continuously being brought in from elsewhere, it said.

Alternatively, it may be down to the fact that the capital is the country’s biggest population centre, which makes it more vulnerable to human-to-human transmission of the virus.

“Transmission of this virus appears to be more complicated than anticipated,” Alimuddin Zumla, a professor at University College London, who helped lead the Lancet study, said in a press release.

An “intermediary” source may also be possible, as most of the known cases have had no known direct contact with animals, he added in a phone conversation with AFP.

Asked what this source could be, he said this was unclear. Theoretical avenues to explore would include food.

Zumla said the use of gene profiling could be a vital tool for monitoring the virus.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday it had been informed of 132 lab-confirmed cases of MERS, including 58 deaths.

Forty-nine fatalities have occurred in Saudi Arabia, according to official Saudi figures also issued on Thursday.

One of the world’s biggest movements of people, the annual hajj pilgrimage, is to due to take place next month.

Authorities have urged the elderly and chronically ill to avoid the event this year and cut back on the numbers of people they will allow to perform the pilgrimage. Around two million people are expected.

Zumla called for health authorities to keep up their guard, but also noted that there had been no MERS outbreaks at the October 2012 hajj or the July 2013 Ramadan Umrah season.

“The reassuring news is that two mass gatherings events, attracting over eight million pilgrims have occurred in Mecca, Saudi Arabia since the discovery of MERS-Cov 12 months ago… yet no major outbreaks of MERS-CoV cases have been reported from these events to date,” he said.

Source: onenews page

AIDS epidemic’s end by 2030 seen: UN official

A top UN official said the global AIDS epidemic could be over by 2030 because of progress made in treatment and control of the disease.

“I think that 2030 is a viable target to say that we have reached the end of the epidemic,” said Luis Loures, a deputy executive director of UNAIDS, the UN agency leading the fight against HIV/AIDS.

“HIV will continue existing as a case here or there but not at the epidemic level we have today,” he told journalists yesterday.

Three million new HIV infections are reported each year and the disease, which attacks the immune system, kills 1.7 million people a year.

“We can get to the end of the epidemic because we have treatments and ways to control the infection,” said Loures, who is in Panama to discuss AIDS strategy with UN agencies in Latin America. “We are making progress, without a doubt.”

Two decades ago the average annual cost of treatment per person with HIV was USD 19,000 while today it is USD 150 thanks to generic drugs.

Moreover, people with HIV are getting treatment earlier, which retards the disease’s development.

According to UNAIDS, the annual incidence of new infections has fallen 20 per cent over the past decade, and in 25 countries, including 13 in sub-Saharan Africa, it has fallen by 50 per cent.

Over the past two years, the number of people who have obtained treatment for HIV has increased by 60 per cent.

“The challenge is now for the most vulnerable groups,” like homosexual males, sex workers and drug users who do not seek treatment for fear of being stigmatised or criminally prosecuted, Loures said.

“If we do not succeed in controlling the epidemic among these groups, AIDS will stay with us,” he warned.

At the end of 2011, there were 34 million people living with HIV, 69 percent of them in sub-Saharan Africa where one in 20 adults have the disease.

“Today, there are a number of cases where we have evidence of a cure and that gives us great hope,” Loures said.

Source: Zee News/health

Studies confirm colon cancer screening reduces deaths

Studies confirm colon cancer screening reduces deaths

A new analysis suggests that it’s worth it to follow screening recommendations and have the test done every 10 years (or every five for those at high risk.)

Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday, Harvard researcher Reiko Nishihara and co-authors assessed colonoscopy use, colorectal cancer cases and colorectal cancer deaths among participants in the multi decade Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-up Study.

Following 88,902 subjects over 22 years, they found that people who underwent endoscopic screenings were less likely to develop colon cancer than people who didn’t. Subjects who had clean colonoscopies, sigmoidoscopies and polypectomies were, respectively, 56%, 40%, and 43% less likely to develop the disease than subjects who were not screened.

The team estimated that 40% of the colon cancers that developed over the study period would have been prevented if all participants in the studies had went in for colonoscopies.

In a separate study in the same journal, Dr. Aasma Shaukat of the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Heath Care System and co-authors wrote that a different screening test — the fecal occult blood test, which detects blood in a stool sample — is also effective in reducing deaths from colorectal cancer.

In that report — a 30-year follow-up on earlier work involving more than 46,000 participants — scientists who reviewed death records through 2008 found a 32% reduction in the risk of death from the disease among patients in the trial who underwent annual screening during the periods of 1976 to 1982 and from 1986 to 1992.

In an editorial also published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Theodore R. Levin and Dr. Douglas A. Corley of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Centers wrote that the studies showed that fecal occult blood tests as well as colonoscopies were effective screening measures, and suggested that current guidelines make sense for patients.

Because the data sets can’t be compared directly, they cautioned against concluding that colonoscopies are necessarily better than the blood test on the basis of the findings. Studies have found that more patients choose to get blood tests in addition to colonoscopies if they are offered — one reason why the Kaiser system in Northern California, where both co-authors work, uses a “combined approach.”

Randomized trials that are already underway may help determine what testing approach prevents the most cancers and deaths, they wrote.

Source: LasAngelestimes

Man diagnosed with brewing beer in his stomach

The Texas man had a rare disease called “auto-brewery syndrome” that made him frequently drunk without ingesting alcohol.

A case study details why an unnamed 61-year-old Texas man was often drunk throughout the day, even on days when he insisted that he had not had a drink. He was eventually diagnosed with “auto-brewery syndrome,” a rare disease that has only a few confirmed cases in the last 30 years.

People with the syndrome have too much yeast in their intestinal tract. When they eat carbohydrates, the yeast turns the carbohydrates into ethanol and they become intoxicated from the inside out

“The physicians were not aware of any way that a person could be intoxicated without ingesting alcohol and therefore believed he must be a ‘closet drinker.'” Dr. Barbara Cordell and Dr. Justin McCarthy, study authors

Doctors — and even the man’s wife, who is a nurse — didn’t believe him for a long time when he said he wasn’t drinking. His wife regularly made him take a Breathalyzer test and he would consistently register a blood alcohol level (BAL) of 0.33% to 0.4%, or 5 times the legal driving limit.

In 2010 the man was placed under strict observation for 24 hours, after which he still had a high BAL. Doctors determined his condition was likely due to medication he had because of a 2004 surgery that destroyed helpful bacteria in his gut. As a result, yeast built up.

The man was placed on a low-carb diet, given antifungal medication and recovered. The study suggest that physicians consider the possibility of the rare condition if confronted with a case of someone claiming they become drunk without drinking.

Source: cir.ca.news