Tag Archives: people

10 signs you may have obsessive-compulsive disorder

Hooked on hand sanitizer? Closet organized to a T? Quirks like this can usually be chalked up to personality or preference, but in some cases they may point to a more serious issue: obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a condition marked by obsessive thoughts and compulsions that affects about 1 percent of U.S. adults. How can you tell if OCD tendencies are symptoms that require professional help? There's no easy test, as it's usually a matter of degree, said Jeff Szymanski, executive director of the International OCD Foundation, a Boston-based advocacy organization. Still, there are certain patterns that may indicate the full-blown disorder. Here are 10 of the most common. Hand-washing Compulsive hand-washing or hand sanitizer use is so prevalent in OCD that “washers” has become a widely accepted category of OCD patient. The urge commonly stems from a fear of germs (the most common obsession seen in OCD), but it also can be rooted in fears of making others sick or of being impure or immoral. When to seek help: If you think about germs even after washing your hands, worry that you're not scrubbing well enough, or have irrational fears about disease (such as getting HIV from a shopping cart), it could be a sign that your hand-washing is compulsive, Szymanski said. Elaborate hand-washing routines—needing to wash five times and get soap under each nail, for example—are another warning sign. Health.com: Do You Have an Anxiety Disorder…

15 ways to cancer-proof your life

We're all grown-ups here—nightmares aren't a big problem anymore. We're calm, we're cool, we're mostly collected...until it comes to the C-word. For adults, cancer is the thing that goes bump in the night; that bump gets louder when family or friends are diagnosed. Whether your risk is monumental or blessedly average, we know you want to protect yourself. So we've combed through research, interrogated experts, and found cutting-edge strategies to help keep you safe. Worship a wee bit of sun People who get the most vitamin D, which lies dormant in skin until ultraviolet rays activate it, may protect themselves from a variety of cancers, including non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, breast, and colon. Ironically, it even improves survival rates of melanoma, the most serious skin cancer. But 10 to 15 minutes a few days a week is all it takes to benefit. If you're out any longer than that, slather on the sunscreen (Are you applying enough? We’ve got the recommended amount for every body part, here.) If you go the supplement route, aim for 400 IU of vitamin D a day. Eat an orange every day It just may zap a strain of the H. pylori bacteria that causes peptic ulcers and can lead to stomach cancer. Researchers in San Francisco found that infected people with high levels of vitamin C in their blood were less likely to test positive for the cancer-causing strain. (Bonus: research shows a scent of citrus can reduce stress.) Listen to Katie Couric Though colonoscopies are about as popular as root canals, if you're 50 or older, get one. Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States. Don't think you're off the hook because you got a digital fecal occult blood test at your last checkup: Research by the Veterans Affairs Cooperative Study found that the test missed 95 percent of the cases. Schedule your first colonoscopy before your 50th if you have a family history of colon cancer. Steam a little green Piles of studies have shown that piles of broccoli help stave off ovarian, stomach, lung, bladder, and colorectal cancers. And steaming it for three to four minutes enhances the power of the cancer-fighting compound sulforaphane, which has been shown to halt the growth of breast cancer cells. (Sorry, microwaving doesn't do the trick; it strips out most antioxidants.) Get more protection by sprinkling a handful of selenium-rich sunflower seeds, nuts, or mushrooms on your greens. Researchers are discovering that sulforaphane is about 13 times more potent when combined with the mineral selenium. Pick a doc with a past Experience—lots of it—is critical when it comes to accurately reading mammograms. A study from the University of California, San Francisco, found that doctors with at least 25 years' experience were more accurate at interpreting images and less likely to give false positives. Ask about your radiologist's track record. If she is freshly minted or doesn't check a high volume of mammograms, get a second read from someone with more mileage. Drink jolt-less java Drink jolt-less java. Downing two or more cups of decaf a day may lower the incidence of rectal cancer by 52 percent, finds a study from two large and long-term research projects—the Nurses' Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study from Harvard University. One theory is that coffee increases bowel movements, which helps to reduce the risk. Why decaf reigns supreme, however, remains a mystery. Drop 10 pounds Being overweight or obese accounts for 20 percent of all cancer deaths among women and 14 percent among men, notes the American Cancer Society. (You're overweight if your body mass index is between 25 and 29.9; you're obese if it's 30 or more.) Plus, losing excess pounds reduces the body's production of female hormones, which may protect against breast, endometrial, and ovarian cancers. Even if you're not technically overweight, gaining just 10 pounds after the age of 30 increases your risk of developing breast, pancreatic, and cervical, among other cancers. Make like a monkey Or a bunny. Women who ate four to six antioxidant-laden bananas a week cut their risk of kidney cancer by 54 percent, compared with those who didn't eat them at all, found an analysis of 61,000 women at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. Gnawing on root vegetables such as carrots had the same benefit. Get naked with a friend You'll need help examining every inch of your body—including your back, scalp, and other hard-to-see places—for possible changes in the size or color of moles, blemishes, and freckles. These marks could spell skin cancer. Women, take special note of your legs: Melanoma mainly occurs there. For the guys, the trunk, head, and neck are the most diagnosed spots. While you're at it, check your fingernails and toenails, too. Gray-black discoloration or a distorted or elevated nail may indicate the disease. And whether you see changes or not, after age 40, everyone should see a dermatologist yearly. (Find out 7 more things your nails can say about your health.) See into the future Go to Your Disease Risk to assess your chance of developing 12 types of cancer, including ovarian, breast, and colon. After the interactive tool estimates your risk, you'll get personalized tips for prevention. Pay attention to pain If you're experiencing a bloated belly, pelvic pain, and an urgent need to urinate, see your doc. These symptoms may signal ovarian cancer, particularly if they're severe and frequent. Women and physicians often ignore these symptoms, and that's the very reason that this disease can be deadly. When caught early, before cancer has spread outside the ovary, the relative five-year survival rate for ovarian cancer is a jaw-dropping 90 to 95 percent. Get calcium daily Milk's main claim to fame may also help protect your colon. Those who took calcium faithfully for four years had a 36 percent reduction in the development of new pre-cancerous colon polyps five years after the study had ended, revealed Dartmouth Medical School researchers. (They tracked 822 people who took either 1,200 mg of calcium every day or a placebo.) Though the study was not on milk itself, you can get the same amount of calcium in three 8-ounce glasses of fat-free milk, along with an 8-ounce serving of yogurt or a 2- to 3-ounce serving of low-fat cheese daily. Sweat 30 minutes a day One of the best anticancer potions is a half hour of motion at least five days a week. Any kind of physical activity modulates levels of androgens and estrogen, two things that can protect women against estrogen-driven cancers such as ovarian and endometrial, as well as some types of breast cancer. The latest proof comes by way of a Canadian study that found that women who get regular, moderate exercise may lower their risk of ovarian cancer by as much as 30 percent. Bonus: All that moving might speed everything through your colon, which may help stave off colon cancer. (Trouble carving out 30 minutes a day? Be ready for a fitness opportunity at a moment’s notice by keeping a perfectly packed gym bag in your car at all times.) Stamp out smoking—all around you Lung cancer is well known as one of the main hazards of smoking. But everything the smoke passes on its way to the lungs can also turn cancerous: mouth, larynx, and esophagus. The fun doesn't stop there. Smokers are encouraging stomach, liver, prostate, colorectal, cervical, and breast cancers as well. The good news: If you give up the cigs today, within 15 years, your lung cancer risk will drop to almost pre-smoking lows. Share that news with the people who puff around you, because exposure to someone else's smoke can cause lung cancer, and it may boost your chances of cervical cancer by 40 percent. Step away from the white bread If you eat a lot of things with a high glycemic load—a measurement of how quickly food raises your blood sugar—you may run a higher risk of colorectal cancer than women who eat low-glycemic-load foods, finds a Harvard Medical School study involving 38,000 women. The problem eats are mostly white: white bread, pasta, potatoes, and sugary pastries. The low-glycemic-load stuff comes with fiber. Blew through our list already

Medical breakthrough for multiple sclerosis sufferers

In a breakthrough discovery, researchers have discovered a treatment capable of reducing the debilitating autoimmune response that occurs in people suffering from multiple sclerosis (MS). When patients are diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, their bodies begin to attack the protein myelin, which insulates the body’s spinal cord, brain and optic nerves. As a result, MS patients experience symptoms such as numbness in their limbs, paralysis and sometimes blindness. However, during a phase one clinical trial of a new treatment for MS patients, researchers were able to curtail the body’s attacks on myelin by 50 to 75 percent, while sustaining the functionality of the rest of the immune system. Current treatments for MS seek to lessen the body’s autoimmune response to myelin, but this often results in decreased effectiveness of the entire immune system. “Most therapies for autoimmune diseases employ approaches broadly called immunosuppressors – they knock down immune response without specificity,” study co-author Stephen Miller, professor of microbiology-immunology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, told FoxNews.com.  “People can become highly susceptible to everyday infections and develop higher rates of cancer.” Miller and his colleagues sought a more targeted ‘tolerance’ treatment that would leave the greater immune system intact while knocking out only the autoimmune response to myelin. “In MS, the idea is to target autoreactive T-cells directed against myelin…which would (reduce) disease progression, but wouldn’t make patient susceptible to higher rates of infection,” Miller said. In a study published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, a small group of MS patients were treated intravenously with an infusion of their own white blood cells, which had been engineered to carry billions of myelin antigens. Researchers hoped the cells would teach the body to stop attacking myelin. Miller and his team needed to determine if the treatment, which was based on 30 years of previous research, could be safely applied in humans – and they were pleased to discover it could be. “It was safe to infuse as many as 3 billion autologous cells that we collected and manipulated back into the same patient and didn’t trigger exacerbations,” Miller said. “Most patients didn’t show any increased signs of disease during the six-month follow up.” Furthermore, the treatment did not seem to impede the larger immune system. Researchers tested this by analyzing whether or not each patient continued to retain their immunity to tetanus, for which all of the patients had previously been vaccinated. “Among four patients receiving the highest doses (of autologous cells),  immune response to myelin antigens had diminished or gone away - but tetanus had not gone away,” Miller said. This indicated that the immune system’s ability to fight other diseases after the procedure remained intact. Though researchers caution that the study was too small to draw any significant conclusions, they are optimistic about the outcomes of larger studies and the ability of this treatment to help halt the progress of MS – particularly among recently-diagnosed patients. “The idea is that if we’re able to intervene early enough in disease process, we can stop the autoimmune destruction and (the patient) will have little or no clinical deficit as result of earlier attacks before being diagnosed,” Miller said. Researchers hope to receive funding to begin a phase two trial soon.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/06/medical-breakthrough-for-multiple-sclerosis-sufferers/

Energy drinks no better than caffeine, study suggests

Despite the “special blend” of ingredients, energy drinks work no better than ordinary caffeine at helping us pay attention, a new study suggests. In the study, researchers examined participants' brain activity while they performed a task designed to require attention. Specifically, the researchers looked at how fast the brain responded to a change in letters appearing on a computer screen. Before the task, participants consumed 8 ounces of either water, water with caffeine, or water containing the energy drink 5-Hour Energy. The caffeinated drinks were adjusted so that they had the same amount of caffeine per pound of participants' body weight, and all drinks were colored blue. During the task, participants who drank the caffeinated drinks had faster brain responses, compared with those who drank plain water. But there was no difference in brain activity between those who consumed caffeinated water, and those who consumed 5-Hour Energy. More from LiveScience “A lot of people take the energy drinks because they think they have that extra boost over caffeine,” said study researcher Chelsea Benham, a student at Centre College in Danville, Ky. But the study shows “there's really no difference,” Benham said. In terms of boosting attention, a cup of coffee “would do you just as well,” if it had the same amount of caffeine as an energy drink, she said. A 2-ounce bottle of 5-Hour Energy contains about 215 milligrams of caffeine, the equivalent of about two cups of coffee. An advantage of 5-Hour Energy is that it contains a concentrated amount of caffeine — people need to consume a larger volume of coffee to get the same amount of caffeine. However, there has been concern over the safety of energy drinks in general because of their ability to deliver high doses of caffeine in such a concentrated form. Last year, the FDA said it had received reports of health problems linked with 5-Hour Energy, including heart attacks and death, although the reports do not prove that the energy drink was the cause of these problems. Some health experts have been concerned about the combination of compounds in energy drinks, and are calling for more research to determine what amount is safe to consume. Energy drinks can contain chemicals such as guarana, taurine, L-carnitine, ginseng and yohimbine. In the new study, researchers also did not find a difference in participants' physical reaction times (on a test that involved clicking a computer mouse when a particular letter appeared on a screen), regardless of whether they consumed a caffeinated or non- caffeinated drink. Benham said this may have been because the test took only 20 minutes. Over a longer period, she said she suspects there would be a difference. The study was presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science in Washington, D.C., on May 26. Benham conducted the work with her adviser, KatieAnn Skogsberg, an assistant professor of psychology and behavioral neuroscience at Centre College. Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/05/energy-drinks-no-better-than-caffeine-study-suggests/

Dear Kim Kardashian, read this before you eat your placenta

It never ceases to amaze me how many expectant mothers sensationalize their pregnancies for publicity. And we all know the 'mother' of all publicity seekers’ whose name starts with a “Kim” and ends with “Kardashian.” Perhaps all the bad press she’s been getting about her looks throughout her pregnancy has finally gotten to her. On Sunday's season premiere of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” the 32-year-old reality star revealed she might be interested in eating her own placenta after her baby girl is born, in order to help her look younger. Kim, I want to preface this article by reminding you of an old adage that I think applies here: Don't kill the messenger. For years, I’ve been hearing that some patients, after giving birth, request to keep their placentas — though I’ve never actually had this experience in my own practice. Some of these patients desire to keep their placentas for cultural reasons. However, a growing trend is on the rise of new moms that actually want to eat them. A couple of years ago, a feature in New York Magazine called “The Placenta Cookbook,” took an in-depth look at the placentophagia fad from the professional placenta-preparer, to the women who call on her for services. Aside from profiling some of the people who take part in this trend, the article included anecdotal recipes and tips to enjoy the afterbirth delicacy — and even shared step-by-step instructions on how to prepare placental capsules in an attempt to preserve the nutritional value thought to be contained in the tissue. Beyond this particular article, various websites exist where mothers discuss how to drain the blood from the tissue and exchange recipes ranging from roast placenta to placenta lasagne. The growing popularity of this phenomenon has to do with the belief that consuming the placenta may offer a new mother certain health benefits, although there are no scientific studies to back up these claims. For example, some people believe that the placenta can help with the treatment of postpartum depression, or “baby blues.” It has been suggested in the past that postpartum depression in some patients is spurred by the quickly shifting levels of female hormones after giving birth, and that by eating the placenta, the hormones will stabilize and postpartum depression can therefore be prevented. Another thought is that the placenta can offer some degree of pain relief due to certain chemicals contained within the tissue. In ancient Chinese medicine, placental extracts are commonly mixed with herbs taken to relieve pain, stimulate milk production, and even to cure impotence. As it turns out, humans are actually one of the only mammals that don’t regularly eat their own placentas. Some researchers believe it must be because the placenta offers some fundamental biological advantage. It is known to contain high levels of things like iron, vitamin B-12 and certain hormones. But before jumping on the placenta bandwagon, I must admit that I myself have failed to find any concrete benefits to eating your own placenta. The medical community rarely comments on this practice, to be honest. In hospitals, the placenta has always seen as a biohazardous material. Remember that this is human tissue, and in theory, it could carry infectious diseases. However, these days, many hospitals are actively looking into procedures for handling patients who request to take home their placenta after birth. Do the doctors give it to her? Do they package it neatly and present it along with the newborn baby? Surprisingly, it appears that as long as certain medical criteria are met — such as both the patient and placenta being healthy — many hospitals will comply with the growing number of requests. Now, I’m no lawyer, but I don’t think there are any legal implications that would apply to prevent a mother from taking a placenta. Certainly there have been isolated cases where patients have been denied their placentas and challenged the hospitals. In 2007, Anne Swanson took her case to court after a Las Vegas hospital refused to fulfill her request to take home her placenta and won. Actually, Las Vegas seems to be a hotbed of placental-eating activity – so much so that researchers at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas did a small survey of 200 postpartum mothers who consumed their placentas and found that 95 percent of them reported improvements in their recovery and lactation. The researchers admit that the results may be due to the placebo effect, but plan to study the phenomenon more in-depth in the future.  So this is my final take: If you want to eat your placenta because you believe in its supposed health benefits, go right ahead. Just be aware that this material has to be handled with care, and you have to protect those around you from being exposed to any tissue waste that you may find unsuitable for consumption. Finally, please, keep it away from my dinner table.  source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/04/placenta-its-whats-for-dinner/

Vegetarian diet tied to fewer deaths over time

People who limit how much meat they eat and stick to mostly fruits and vegetables are less likely to die over any particular period of time, according to a new study. “I think this adds to the evidence showing the possible beneficial effect of vegetarian diets in the prevention of chronic diseases and the improvement of longevity,” said Dr. Michael Orlich, the study's lead author from Loma Linda University in California. In 2012, a Gallup poll found about 5 percent of Americans reported to be vegetarians. Previous research has found that people who eat mostly fruits and vegetables are less likely to die of heart disease or any other cause over certain periods of time. Another study from Europe, however, found British vegetarians were just as likely to die at any point as meat eaters, so it's still an “open question,” Orlich said. For the new study, he and his colleagues used data from 73,308 people recruited at U.S. and Canadian Seventh-day Adventist churches between 2002 and 2007. At the start of the study, the participants were asked about their eating habits and were separated into categories based on how often they ate dairy, eggs, fish and meat. Overall, 8 percent were vegans who didn't eat any animal products while 29 percent were lacto-ovo-vegetarians who didn't eat fish or meat but did eat dairy and egg products. Another 15 percent occasionally ate meat, including fish. The researchers then used a national database to see how many of the participants died by December 31, 2009. Overall, they found about seven people died of any cause per 1,000 meat eaters over a year. That compared to about five or six deaths per 1,000 vegetarians every year. Men seemed to benefit the most from a plant-based diet. Orlich cautioned, however, that they can't say the participants' plant-based diets prevented their deaths, because there may be other unmeasured differences between the groups. For example, Alice Lichtenstein, director of the Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory at Tufts University in Boston, said the participants who were vegetarians were healthier overall. “It's important to note that the vegetarians in this study were more highly educated, less likely to smoke, exercised more and were thinner,” Lichtenstein, who was not involved with the new study, told Reuters Health. Those traits have all been tied to better overall health in the past. Should you go veg? Dr. Robert Baron, who wrote an editorial accompanying the new study in JAMA Internal Medicine, said the new evidence doesn't mean everyone should switch to a plant-based diet. “I don't think everybody should be a vegetarian, but if they want to be, this article suggests it's associated with good health outcomes,” said Baron, professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Instead, he writes limiting added sugars, refined grains and saturated fats trumps whether or not to include a moderate amount of dairy, eggs, fish or meat. Previous research has found that people who were on a mostly plant-based diet still had lower cholesterol while eating a small amount of lean beef. “It's like everything else, you have to think about it in terms of the whole package,” Lichtenstein said.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/04/vegetarian-diet-tied-to-fewer-deaths-over-time/

Costco recalls frozen berries linked to hepatitis outbreak

The Food and Drug Administration is investigating an outbreak of hepatitis A linked to a frozen organic berry mix sold by an Oregon company. The FDA and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that 30 illnesses are linked to Townsend Farms Organic Anti-Oxidant Blend, which contains pomegranate seed mix. Illnesses were reported in Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and California. Several of those who fell ill reported buying the berry mix at Costco, according to CDC. A Costco spokesman said Friday that the company has removed the product from stores and is attempting to contact members who purchased the product since late February. Hepatitis A is a contagious liver disease that can last from a few weeks to several months. People often contract it when an infected food handler prepares food without appropriate hand hygiene. Food already contaminated with the virus can also cause outbreaks. The government has not announced a recall, but the CDC recommended that retailers and other food service operators should not sell or serve Townsend Farms Organic Anti-Oxidant Blend. Nine of the people who have been sickened were hospitalized, according to the CDC. Preliminary tests from two cases suggest this is a hepatitis A strain rarely seen in North America, but is found in the North Africa and Middle East regions. The FDA said it is inspecting the processing facilities of Townsend Farms of Fairview, Ore., which sold the mix. Bill Gaar, a lawyer for Townsend Farms, said the frozen organic blend bag includes pomegranate seeds from Turkey, and are only used in the product associated with the outbreak. “We do have very good records, we know where the (pomegranate seeds) came from, we're looking into who the broker is and we're sourcing it back up the food chain to get to it,” Gaar said. He said Townsend Farms believes Costco is the only customer who bought the product, though they are checking to see if any other retailers may have sold it. Hepatitis A illnesses occur within 15 to 50 days of exposure to the virus. Symptoms include fatigue, abdominal pain, jaundice, abnormal liver tests, dark urine and pale stool. Vaccination can prevent illness if given within two weeks of exposure, and those who have already been vaccinated are unlikely to become ill, according to CDC. CDC said all of the victims are older than 18, ranging from 25 to 71 years old. The first illnesses were reported at the end of April. The same genotype of hepatitis A was identified in an outbreak in Europe linked to frozen berries this year, the CDC said, as well as a 2012 outbreak in British Columbia related to a frozen berry blend with pomegranate seeds from Egypt. In addition to the United States and Turkey, the agency said the Townsend Farms berries also included products from Argentina and Chile.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/03/costco-recalls-berries-linked-to-hepatitis-outbreak/

Could shedding extra pounds improve psoriasis?

Losing weight may ease psoriasis and improve quality of life for some overweight people with the chronic skin disease, new research from Denmark suggests. But the trial may have been too small to fully flesh out that link, and researchers said future studies will have to follow larger groups of patients for more time to make definitive conclusions. “The results, I would say, are promising,” said Dr. Joel Gelfand, a dermatologist from the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia. “It's still excellent advice to patients who are overweight with psoriasis to lose weight.” According to the National Institutes of Health, more than three percent of U.S. adults have psoriasis, which is characterized by itchy, painful plaques on the skin. Over the years, researchers have learned that obese people are more likely to develop psoriasis than their thinner peers and tend to have more severe disease. That could be due to more body-wide inflammation among people carrying around extra fat. “It's more than one thing that causes it, but obesity is probably one of the factors that can bring on psoriasis,” Gelfand, who wasn't involved in the new study, told Reuters Health. Genetics also plays a role. Conversely, Gelfand said there's been some suggestion that losing weight may ease psoriasis symptoms, based on reports of people who had bariatric surgery and saw their skin condition improve. For the new study, researchers led by Dr. Peter Jensen from Copenhagen University Hospital Gentofte wanted to shed more light on how weight loss influences psoriasis. They randomly assigned 30 overweight and obese people with psoriasis to go on a 4-month weight-loss diet of 800 to 1,200 calories per day and another 30 to stick to typical nutrition guidelines. By the end of the study, participants in the diet group had lost an average of 35 pounds, on average, compared to just one pound in the non-diet group. Dieters had a borderline larger improvement in their psoriasis severity and the amount of their body covered by psoriasis plaques. They started the study with an average severity score of 4.8, on a scale of 0 to 72. By 4 months, that had fallen to 2.5. Non-dieters saw only a slight drop in their psoriasis cover and severity, from 5.5 to 5.2. People in the weight-loss group also reported greater improvements in their quality of life during the study period, Jensen and his colleagues wrote Wednesday in JAMA Dermatology. The diet was tied to some mild side effects, including headaches and dizziness. One patient complained of being hungry throughout the study, the researchers reported, and another “consumed large amounts of sugar-free licorice, resulting in hypokalemia (low potassium) that normalized after he was instructed to stop eating licorice.” Gelfand said that because patients started out with mild to moderate psoriasis, they didn't have much room to improve when they lost weight. That, combined with the small group size, limits some of the conclusions that can be taken from the study. “The next step would be to do a much larger study in patients who have more severe psoriasis,” Gelfand said. In the meantime, he said weight loss can have other benefits for heavy people with psoriasis, such as improving how they respond to some medications and lowering their risk of heart disease.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/31/could-shedding-extra-pounds-improve-psoriasis/

Allergy meds can pose driving hazard, FDA says

Allergy medications may help you get through the spring and summer months, but it's important to know that the drugs could affect your ability to drive, the Food and Drug Administration is reminding consumers. These medications, which contain antihistamines, can sometimes cause drowsiness and slower reaction times, the FDA said. Consumers should read the drug facts label on their medication to see whether drowsiness is a side effect. If an allergy medication causes drowsiness, people need to be cautious about deciding to drive or operate machinery, the FDA says. People should avoid using alcohol, sedatives (sleep medications) and tranquilizers when taking allergy medication because these substances may increase drowsiness. [See Will Allergies Be Worse in 2013?] Those who switch to a new antihistamine drug should not assume they can take the same dose as they did with the older drug, the FDA says. Different allergy medications may be dosed differently, and people may need to alter the dose they take. People should not take more than the recommended dose. If the correct dosage isnt providing you the relief you expect, dont simply keep taking more and more of that product, FDA pharmacist Ayana Rowley said in a statement. Instead, people should consult a health care professional, Rowley said. Allergy sufferers should be aware that some allergy medications take longer to work than others. In addition, the drowsiness you feel after taking the medication may last some time, including into the next day, the FDA said. Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/29/allergy-meds-can-pose-driving-hazard-fda-says/

Toxic waste from Greek yogurt poses danger to waterways

Greek yogurt has become an increasingly popular low-calorie treat in the United States, as it is thicker and contains more protein than regular yogurt.  In fact, the yogurt is in such high demand that total yogurt production has nearly tripled in New York state over the last five years. But the new diet fad harbors a dark secret. When Greek yogurt is strained, a thin, runny waste product known as acid (sour) whey is left over.  According to a new report from Modern Farmer, whey acid – a liquid containing mostly water, lactose (sugar), protein and yogurt cultures – is extremely toxic to the environment, making it illegal to dump.  The substance is so detrimental to the environment that if it enters nearby streams and rivers, it robs the water of so much oxygen that fish and other aquatic life start to die off over potentially large areas. The Modern Farmer report stated that for every 3 to 4 ounces of milk used, Chobani and other manufacturers can only make 1 ounce of Greek yogurt – the rest becoming acid whey.  Chobani is so desperate to get rid of the whey, the report maintained, they pay nearby farmers to haul the whey somewhere else.  They claim that 70 percent of their excess whey winds up in livestock feed. But the yogurt industry has remained relatively secretive on the issue, as there are currently no industry-wide statistics regarding where all of this excess whey is going.. Fortunately, the Modern Farmer report noted a possible consumer of excess whey: babies.  Dave Barbano, a dairy scientist at Cornell University, believes that the tiny amount of protein left over in acid whey could be used in infant formula.  Cheese manufacturers have managed to sell similar products from sweet whey, a byproduct of cheese. Whey protein is sold as an ingredient in body building supplements and in other foodstuffs – and Greek yogurt manufacturers are eager to try the same tactics. “There are a lot of people coming in and out of New York state looking at whether this is a good opportunity for investment,” Barbano told Modern Farmer. Other researchers at the Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, are trying to figure out a way to extract the sugar from acid whey, which could be used as an ingredient in things like icing and bread.  And a farm in Scipio Center, N.Y., is hoping to convert the whey’s lactose into methane – which could ultimately be used to generate electricity. No matter what, the Modern Farmer report maintained that a solution needs to be found as soon as possible, because the development of excess whey isn’t slowing down. Click for more from Modern Farmer.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/29/toxic-waste-from-greek-yogurt-poses-danger-to-waterways/