Tag Archives: life

Can you think yourself well?

What if you had the ability to heal your body just by changing how you think and feel? I know it sounds radical, coming from a doctor. When people are doing everything “right”—eating veggies, avoiding red meat and processed foods, exercising, sleeping well and so forth—we should expect them to live long, prosperous lives and die of old age while peacefully slumbering, right? So why is it that so many health nuts are sicker than other people who pig out, guzzle beer and park in front of the TV…

Doctor with cerebral palsy offers hope

Dr. Jan Brunstrom-Hernandez gently but sternly admonishes a teenage cerebral palsy patient who clearly hasn't been doing his exercises, stressing the importance of keeping muscles loose and limber. “We know it's not fair, but that's the way it is,” Brunstrom-Hernandez tells 15-year-old patient Sam Ward. “Do you hear me? I know what I'm talking about.” Brunstrom-Hernandez, who founded the Cerebral Palsy Center at St. Louis Children's Hospital 15 years ago, has cerebral palsy, giving her a special empathy for the people she treats. Cerebral palsy is a broad diagnostic term referring to disorders that affect movement and posture. It is caused by injury or abnormal development of the brain, usually before birth. Many patients suffer from other afflictions, too, such as speech or hearing difficulties. Symptoms vary greatly. Brunstrom-Hernandez, 50, was surrounded by doctors from a young age as she coped with the disorder. She figures that's a big reason she knew as a small girl she wanted to be a doctor. Still, she initially balked at specializing in treating others with cerebral palsy. “I didn't want to be surrounded by more of me,” she said. “I didn't feel good about myself because of my disability.” A chat in 1997 with Dr. Mike Noetzel at St. Louis Children's Hospital changed all that. At the time, Brunstrom-Hernandez was doing research on cerebral palsy and was surprised to learn treatment hadn't progressed much beyond the treatment she received in the 1960s. He suggested she launch a cerebral palsy clinic. “All I said was, `You've got some good ideas. I think people would listen to you. Let's at least try to start something,'” he recalled. The clinic opened in May 1998. There are many clinics in the U.S. that treat cerebral palsy among many other neurological disorders, but the St. Louis center is unique in its singular focus, said Kaelan Richards of United Cerebral Palsy. Brunstrom-Hernandez and her team of doctors and therapists see patients of all ages - babies to adults - from across the world. The center has treated about 2,000 people since opening 15 years ago. Sam, at the clinic recently with his parents, is in many ways a typical teen. He wore a T-shirt, shorts and sported a sly grin as Brunstrom-Hernandez examined him - even through her motherly admonitions. “She helps me walk better,” he said. “Just be better.” Anna Marie Champion of Atlanta has been bringing her daughter, Morgan, on the 11-hour trip to the St. Louis clinic for 10 years, since Morgan was 3. Morgan uses a walker but is scholarly and motivated, a seventh-grader who already has earned a college scholarship. “We went to St. Louis and it was a whole different approach,” Champion said. “It has turned her life around completely.” Brunstrom-Hernandez stresses the need for exercise and communication. From childhood, movement was difficult for her. “If the wind was blowing hard enough, I'd fall down,” Brunstrom-Hernandez recalled. Her mother made her keep moving, even requiring her to stand in the kitchen to do dishes when it was the last thing the little girl wanted to do. “She insisted that I not be dependent,” Brunstrom-Hernandez said. “She insisted that I pull my weight. It's a good thing. It made me tough and it made me strong.” Strong, yes, but Brunstrom-Hernandez acknowledged she sometimes felt embarrassed by cerebral palsy. She recalled how she would recoil if she caught a glimpse of mirrored glass showing her struggling to walk. It wasn't until she started the clinic that she embraced who she was and what she could do to help others. “I have gotten as much or more out of taking care of these patients as they have ever gotten from me,” she said. “It changed my life. They saved my life. They taught me how to believe in myself. They taught me how to look at myself differently.” Moving around the clinic, only Brunstrom-Hernandez's gait shows any effects of her cerebral palsy, though rheumatoid arthritis causes her pain. She acknowledges it can be physically exhausting. “I have to work all the time to stay on my feet,” she said. It's a dedication that doesn't go unnoticed by her colleagues. “I think the empathy does come through,” Noetzel said. “Her line is kind of a tough one: If you really want to do best, this is what you need to do. I think there's a much greater acceptance coming from her.”source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/15/doctor-with-cerebral-palsy-offers-hope/

Hysterectomy not tied to heart risk factors, study shows

Despite evidence suggesting that women whose uterus has been removed may be more likely to experience heart troubles, a new study finds that the usual signs of heart disease risk are not more severe in middle-aged women after hysterectomy. After following more than 3,000 women for about 11 years, researchers found that heart risk factors like cholesterol, markers of inflammation and blood pressure were not significantly worse in women in the years following an elective hysterectomy, compared to women who did not have the procedure. “I think it's encouraging to women and clinicians that this is not something they have to worry about if they're considering hysterectomy (in) midlife,” said Karen Matthews, the study's lead author from the University of Pittsburgh. Hysterectomy, the surgical removal of the uterus, is the second most common surgery among U.S. women, after cesarean-section deliveries. Often the procedure is used to remove or prevent cancer, especially among younger women. But many women may elect to have the surgery for other reasons, including to treat painful benign growths in the uterine wall known as fibroids or to staunch heavy bleeding. Hysterectomies can involve removal of the uterus only, or the ovaries as well. Ovary removal in particular has been linked to increased cardiovascular risk because it takes away the main source of estrogen in a woman's body and plunges her abruptly into menopause. Even the gradual decline of estrogen following natural menopause has been linked to women's increased heart risks, so researchers have investigated whether hysterectomy raises those risks. But studies of the connection have produced mixed results. For the new study, Matthews and her colleagues used data from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation, which followed a large, multiethnic group for more than a decade to understand the experience of American women during and after menopause. The 1,952 women included in the study were between 42 and 52 years old and not yet in menopause when tracking began. They were followed from 1996 through 2008, receiving annual checkups that recorded information about their health, surgeries and whether or not they had started menopause. Specifically, the researchers looked at physical measurements that are markers for heart and cardiovascular disease. They included various components of cholesterol, blood pressure, blood clotting factors and molecules that are signals of inflammation. Overall, the researchers report in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology that none of those measurements in the 183 women who chose to have their uterus removed - with or without their ovaries - were significantly worse, compared to the 1,769 women who went through menopause naturally. Matthews said their findings apply to women who are finished having children, in their forties and are considering a hysterectomy to help with excessive bleeding or other factors that cause a quality of life problem. She said they couldn't make a conclusion for women who need to have their uterus and ovaries removed because of cancer. “Our study really couldn't examine that question because we had too few women who had gynecological cancers, and the equation changes when you have gynecological cancer,” said Matthews. But Dr. JoAnn Manson, who has researched women's health after hysterectomy but was not involved in the new study, suggested the results don't mean that women who have hysterectomies are in the clear, because past studies only saw a difference in heart risks after 10 to 15 years. Manson, who is chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, told Reuters Health that the abrupt transition to menopause after a hysterectomy may only reverberate years later because “atherosclerosis takes a while to develop… That seems to take up to 10 and 15 years for clear differences to emerge.” For that reason, “This isn't totally surprising that there wasn't a difference in risk factors during the follow up period,” Manson said. Matthews said that's one potential explanation for why their results differ from previous studies, but she said there could be other reasons, including that modern women are somehow different from women included in past research. “It may be that it's emerging much later, but I would be surprised,” Matthews said.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/15/hysterectomy-not-tied-to-heart-risk-factors-study-shows/