Medical Hints

Archive for the ‘Conditions & Diseases’ Category

Arthritis is the single most cause of disability in the United States and according to the Center for Disease Control one out of every five adults are afflicted with the condition. It is such a cost to the nation and a priority that in 2010 the CDC and the Arthritis Foundation have teamed up to promote a national prevention initiative.

The initiative’s purpose is to increase awareness in the prevention and management of arthritis. To focus more research on understanding the disease and risk factors, and promote availability of the present intervention strategies.

This fall a bill was introduced in the U.S. Congress called the Arthritis Prevention, Control, and Cure Act. This legislation passed the House of Representatives on September 30, 2010. It is now in the Senate for review, and the hope is that in the next year the bill will become law.

At present the CDC receives about $1.3 million. It distributes some of this money to 12 states by a competitive grant process. The Arthritis Foundation and the CDC have been campaigning Congress to increase the CDC funding for 2011 by ten million dollars. This would allow the CDC to fund an additional 14 states and increase prevention programs.

Additional funding or not there are several things you can do as an individual to prevent arthritis or lessen the impact of the condition if you all ready have it. Avoiding joint injuries avoids arthritis. If you are athletic, use the proper equipment and cautions. In daily living, practice routine safety precautions to prevent falls. Weight management and good nutrition help avoid the condition or lessen it. The single most effective treatment for the pain of arthritis is physical activity. So even if it hurts, it is best to move your body. Low impact aerobics and muscle strengthening exercises are recommended for less severe cases.

Look for programs at YMCA or local community colleges to support you in this endeavor.

Entering an assisted living facility can be a scary experience. There are so many preconceived notions out there about assisted living facilities that when it comes time for you to enter one it can be very scary. One of the most common concerns expressed by those entering an assisted living facility is what will happen when it comes to their medical care.

Nothing is more important to an elderly person than their medical care. Unfortunately when it comes to understanding about the type of medical care that a person receives while in an assisted living facility this is where the most inaccurate type of information is.

To clear up some of the confusion behind receiving medical care while in an assisted living facility center here are two facts about assisted living centers and health care that many people do not know about.

You can chose your own doctor. Many people believe that you have to use the assisted living facilities appointed doctor. That is not true. You have the right to see whatever doctor you wish, whether they are associated with the assisted living center or not. However, if the doctor will not come to the assisted living center you might have to arrange for your own transportation to get to the doctor’s office.

You are not completely responsible for your own medical treatments. Many people worry that when they enter an assisted living facility they are still responsible for their own medical treatments such as taking pills or administering shots. Assisted living centers encourage you to take charge of this type of care but they will monitor your health care so that you don’t forget to take a pill or give yourself an important shot. The medical staff is there as a bit of a buffer in case you should forget something important.

The Importance of a Healthy Body

Our bodies respond to whatever we do to them, good or bad. In order to enjoy good health and a quality life, we must take care of how we treat our bodies.

• Exercise at least three to four times a week for the best results. Doing some type of cardiovascular workout, like walking or jogging, is beneficial. Also, adding weight lifting or strength training to your routine will help you grow lean and long muscles, which will help your body burn fat while it gets stronger.

• Get sufficient rest. This is important for good health. The amount of necessary rest can vary from person to person, but doctors recommend at least a minimum of six to seven hours each night to keep your body feeling energetic, rejuvenated, and in control.

• Eliminate bad habits from your lifestyle. Stop drinking alcohol or smoking. If you have tried to quit smoking, you can use the mini electronic cigarette as an alternative. This gives you the full enjoyment of smoking without the harmful effects of nicotine.

• Drink water frequently. This helps the body to effectively eliminate toxins and other materials. Water aids the body in clearing the skin for a more youthful appearance and helps tone and define the muscles in the body.

Developing Healthy Habits

Healthy habits are not at all difficult to incorporate into your lifestyle if you concentrate on the most important areas. To be successful, introduce one habit or step at a time. This will help you slowly get used to the new habit while giving your body time to adjust. Practicing habits for at least thirty days or more gives you a better chance of making the new activity a part of your routine than if you only do them on occasions.

When has health ever been your top priority? Hopefully the answer to that question is that it has always been a priority. But if you are a younger person, you may not take care of your health as well as you should. There is a sense of invincibility that young people feel that causes them to make decisions that aren’t always in their best interest. But it’s when you are young that starting a good health program is essential. No one is telling you that you need to restrict the way you eat completely or that you have to spend hours in the gym everyday but just some simple maintenance would go a long way in keeping you healthy down the road.

You want to make sure that you practice good portion control. Simply making sure each meal is at a size that is no bigger than your fist will meet this requirement. In the United States, overeating and portion control are very difficult to manage but they can be done. Making sure you spend four days a week at the gym or doing some sort of physical activity each day is important. Even if it’s just making sure you take a walk for an hour each day, then you could be giving your body the cardiovascular exercise it needs to maintain proper working order.

Something else to consider is investing in a blood pressure machine or a pulse oximeter. It is a great way to keep tabs on your heart function and oxygen levels. Any sort of monitoring you can do yourself is helpful in making sure that everything in your body is doing well. And if you haven’t recently, you should certainly get yourself to a doctor for routine blood work and to have a conversation on what you can be doing to keep yourself in the best health of your life.

Obesity is not merely the tendency of the United States of America; it is the great preoccupation. About sixty percent of its population declares that it wants to lose weight. However, weight loss is never so simple as achieving an “ideal weight,” and tools like the Body Mass Index can be misleading when it comes to a person’s actual health. After all, with differing body structures, varying amounts of muscle mass, and fluctuations in other lean mass, two people of the same height and weight can have very different levels of healthiness when it comes to their body fat.

So, what is healthy when it comes to body fat percentage? The answer will vary somewhat depending on a variety of factors, including who is being asked. The age of the person in question, as well as their gender, are also important factors. There is a general consensus when it comes to body fat, however. Here are some simple figures to keep in mind.

For a male under the age of thirty, a “healthy” body fat percent is anything under fifteen percent. For a male under fifty but over thirty, under seventeen percent is ideal. For a fifty year old or older man, anything under nineteen percent is seen as ideal. For any of these age categories, a minimum of six percent body fat is seen as healthy.

For women under age thirty, anything twenty-two percent or lower is seen as ideal. For women over thirty but under fifty, the figure is below twenty-three percent. For any woman over fifty, anything under twenty-five percent is excellent. For women, a minimum of twelve percent or higher body fat is recommended.

Many of the people who are seen as having “perfect bodies” go well below the minimum requirements for an ideal body fat percentage. This includes athletes and celebrities, whose typical body fat ranges anywhere from five percent to fifteen percent for men and ten percent to twenty-five percent for women. Rather than using these as the ideal, it’s best to aim for reasonable, healthy objectives, like the ones outlined above.

It is a well known fact that men over fifty should get a colonoscopy for early colon cancer detection. Doing so immediately upon reaching that age can do more than provide some astute medical examination, it can save your life. However, the discomfort, both physical and mental, involved in the procedure has led many men to avoid undergoing it. A new study conducted online survey software may give some good news for those who aren’t quite to that age yet.

The study is taking place in UNCG (or the University of North Carolina). Scientists there are trying to decide for certain whether or not an alternative test could be used for early colon cancer detection. This non-invasive test, a simple urine analysis, would negate the need for the current colorectal screenings. The benefits don’t stop there, however. This examination would also be far more cost effective, less complicated, and have a lower possibility of error, if the study manages to prove that this alternative works appropriately.

The research is based on a concept known as metabolomics, or the study of metabolites on their smallest level (the molecular). Researchers examined the urine of sixty-three patients who had colon cancer and sixty who did not, looking for metabolite differences and patterns. Among the sixty-three cancer patients, sixteen metabolite substances were consistently abnormal. This included tryptophan levels, an easy to detect amino acid located inside protein strands. Researchers are hopeful that further study may be able to identify cancer through this simpler and less invasive method. There are also some hopes that the metabolite study will lead to a greater understanding of colon cancer in general, and may open doors to new treatments.

If the tests are successful, then a precise urine test would begin development. The date that this process begins to the date when it is available in standard clinics would likely span several years, and possible just over a decade. Even if successful, colorectal screening may remain the preferred method due to its proven accuracy. Regardless of the discomfort, men over fifty should get appropriate screening to catch and treat this curable cancer in the early stages.

We are all bound to suffer from an unpleasant stomachache from time to time. This broad term covers a number of different ailments which impact the digestive system, including problems with various phases of the standard digestion process. There are many causes of the stomachaches as well. These range from minor to life threatening, from brief to chronic, and have a number of treatments dependent on the exact cause.

Ongoing stomach issues may be related to a disease. There are several diseases that affect the gastrointestinal system, including Crohn’s disease and IBS (irritable bowel syndrome). Ulcers are another common cause of persist stomach pain. However, for ongoing pain, a disease is not the only possible answer. Individual who are consistently in emotional distress may also be suffering from stomach pains due to their anxiety. A strong link has been found between anxiety disorders, depression, or abnormal levels of stress, and stomach problems.

For women, a number of gynecological issues may be present that are causing or worsening stomach issues. These include those that are standard for women (such as premenstrual syndrome) and less common occurrences such as ovarian cysts and fibroids.

Some strain put on the digestive system due to what is being eaten may also be of note. Eating food that you have minor or major allergies to, shifting your diet abruptly, or taking medications that are harsh on the stomach may all cause some form of stomachache or another. Being overweight can also cause long term issues due to fat deposits straining the abdominal walls.

The worst case scenario for consistent stomachaches is cancer. There are a number of cancers which can cause stomach pain, including ovarian, colon, liver, stomach, and pancreatic cancer. If the pain is persistent and cannot be treated through normal methods, be certain to seek screening for these possibilities. Consult with a physician in order to determine the appropriate form of treatment for your individual stomach issues, as different diets and medications will impact users in diverse ways.

Anxiety and depression are prevalent amongst the modern American population. Whether this is due to our diet, work, lifestyle, entertainment, or some other factor is an argument for another day. What is important is treating anxiety; something that countless Americans are actively seeking to do with lifestyle changes, workbooks, and expensive medications. For those who are seeking to avoid costly medicine and improve your health, there are several treatments that can avoid medication entirely.

Music is one of the most well established methods of treating anxiety. Numerous scientific studies have shown a decrease in anxiety in both short term and long term for patients who listen to calming music. Even music that is not necessarily “calming,” but is “well liked” will have a typically positive impact on the patient’s anxiety and depression levels. Focus and performance increase as well, meaning that tasks are less stressful to do and are done more effectively.

2010 studies show that massage may also belong in that category. A research study that provided anxiety patients with ten single hour massages over the course of ten weeks. Nearly half of these patients reported a decrease in their anxiety by the end of the study, while a full half of them were less anxious in a follow-up interview twelve weeks later. In addition to a decrease in anxiety, many of the patients also reported less general worry, stress, tension, and depression in their lives.

Physical exercise is also an excellent way to approach anxiety. It balances out the body and soothes the mind while improving the body’s general health. While any number of exercises may be beneficial in this area, yoga and walking are two of the most well studied. As little as twenty minutes of yoga or walking as part of a regular routine can have a dramatic impact on the anxiety and depression levels in most patients.

Appropriate diet and nutrition, as well as sleep, are also valuable. It is important to remember that anxiety represents mental strain on your body, so eliminating the present physical strains alleviates general tension levels.

You’ve all seen them. People who eat and eat, taking in fatty foods and high calorie meals, and who nonetheless never gain a pound. These people sometimes don’t even have to exercise in order to keep the weight off. There’s just something about how they’re wired that allows them to stay skinny no matter what they do. On the other side, there are those of us who are unable to lose weight, and seem to gain weight just by looking at fatty foods! Well, recent evidence suggests that this is more than our imagination; there really is a genetic predisposition for obesity.

The study took place at the Yale School of Medicine, and involved advanced neurobiological study of a large group of rats. The rats were bred so that their genetic predispositions, and previous patterns from parents, would be known factors. The rats were then put on high calorie and fat diets that should, scientifically, lead to obesity. However, some of the rats became obese while others remained at a healthy weight.

The brain patterns of the rats were then examined at length. There is a specific area of the brain which relates to feeding, and which saw a dramatic difference in these rats from birth. The rats who became obese did not have the correct cues hardwired into their genetic structure that would tell them when to burn calories and when to stop eating. Inflammation in this area was also noted, which worsened when the animal became obese.

Scientists note that this inflammation may be one of the reasons that those who become obese without the genetic predisposition tend to stay obese. They also acknowledged that the genetic predisposition was not the only factor in obesity, as the mental stimuli and inhibitors alone would fail to explain the growing problems with obesity in the United States. Other facts, including environmental and psychological components, also play their role in obesity. Nonetheless, this early phase study does demonstrate a direct genetic impact on obesity, weight gain, and weight loss.

Lower back pain is a problem faced by almost one in seven Americans today. The prevalence of this issue is connected to a number of factors, including growing problems with obesity and a sedentary lifestyle, but there are many other causes as well. The treatments are no less diverse than the causes, and it seems that doctors around the globe all favor different approaches, types of treatment, short term solutions, long term plans of action, and more. A recent collaborative approach to back pain may change that, however.

The approach is known as “systems science,” and first became a method of use in the scientific community in the early 1900s. This method is advantageous because it allows scientists to share their thoughts, opinions, and research more readily and more accurately. “Systems science” is a term used to describe the approach whereby scientists study individual parts of a structure within the context of the system, paying special attention to how the part interrelates to the whole. In the past, much of spinal research has been following the “reductionist” method, wherein scientists look at small parts in an isolated fashion in order to find a problem. While this has had benefits and aided in advancing the industry, it has also provided a barrier in sharing research and doing collaborative study.

This collaborative method was much of the center of the International Back Pain Symposium that took place in Brisbane, Australia earlier in 2010. With more than a dozen of the world’s most highly respected spine researchers present, the idea of collaborative study was more than a little appealing. Each of the researchers made a presentation that included their model of the spine system and their conclusions through research. The remainder of the conference was used attempting to find agreements between the scientists on the fundamental causes of back pain. This “root of the problem” understanding can then be used to develop more effective treatments as well as preventative care. Immediately after the conference, many of the scientific groups present began plans for additional research studies to validate their agreements and conclusions.