The Best Ways to Get the Right Diagnosis by Dr. Sierzenski and NSPF

To get the most accurate possible diagnosis if you’re sick, Dr. Sierzenski and NSPF advises these steps:

• Tell your story well. The more clearly you can describe your symptoms—including when they started, what makes them better or worse, and if they occur after exercise, eating, taking medication, or strike at a certain time of day—the easier it will be for your doctor to figure out what is wrong. For example, it’s relatively common for people to develop tendon injuries after taking certain antibiotics, Dr. Sierzenski points out. 

Continue

The First Patient to be Fitted with Artificial heart has died:

The 76-year-old man, who has not been named, died 75 days after the operation in Paris.
The bioprosthetic device, made by French company Carmat, is designed to replace the real heart for up to five years.
It is intended to help patients who are in the advanced stages of heart failure.

Continue

Smoking at Home Damage Children's Blood Vessels:

Passive smoking causes lasting damage to children's arteries, prematurely ageing their blood vessels by more than three years, say researchers.

The damage - thickening of blood vessel walls - increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes in later life, they say in the European Heart Journal.
In their study of more than 2,000 children aged three to 18, the harm occurred if both parents smoked.
Experts say there is no "safe" level of exposure to second-hand smoke.

Continue

Is it Necessary to Urinate after Sexual Intercourse?

It is often said that urinating after sex is very important. Some women may not feel as though they need to urinate after sex, while others simply may feel lazy to do it before they fall asleep or may be in too big of a rush in the morning to urinate before leaving the house. So, is this true or nothing more than just another medical myth? Is it necessary to urinate after having sex? Here are some of the things that you should know about why urinating after sexual intercourse is important.

Continue

7 Surprising Predictors for your life expectancy:

Which of these factors has a greater impact on your life expectancy: smoking or how fast you can push a button? A startling new study reports that a slow reaction time is linked to higher threat of both premature death and cardiovascular disease (CVD, the no. 1 killer of Americans), with an impact as great as such well-known risk factors as smoking.
The research, which included 5,134 adults, ages 20-59, was published in PLOS ONE. Participants were asked to press a button when the number “0” was displayed on a screen at random intervals, then they were tracked for 15 years.
Those with the slowest reaction times had a 25 percent higher death rate when all causes of mortality were combined, and were 36 percent more likely to die from  CVD, compared to those with faster reaction times.
Here’s a look at six other surprising predictors of longevity.

Your Personality

In a 90-year study of more than 1,500 Americans, those who lived the longest were frugal, persistent, hardworking, and somewhat obsessive in their youth. The study also found that a certain amount of worry was beneficial, since it encouraged healthy habits.  

Your Blood Count

A simple blood test known as a complete blood count (CBC) may predict life expectancy, researchers from Harvard and other centers reported at the 2013 American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in November. In a study that included more than 17,000 people from 26 countries who were tracked for up to give years, those with a high CBC score were twice as likely to die as those with low scores. People whose scores fell in the middle of the range had a 50 percent rise in mortality risk, compared to those with low scores.
28 Tips for a Healthier Heart
Your Education
Four years of college could add a decade to your lifespan, according to a study published in Health Affairs. The researchers found that in women, having 16 or more years of education raised life expectancy by up to 10.4 years, while men gained up to 12.9 years, compared to people with less than 12 years of schooling.  The study also found that people who didn’t complete high school had life expectances comparable to adults in the 1950s and 1960s. 

Your Dental Care

Taking excellent care of your teeth can add years to your life, according to a 2012 study of 5,611 seniors who were tracked over a 17-year period. During that time span, those who never flossed had a 30 percent higher death rate than did people who flossed daily. Not brushing at night raised mortality risk by 20 to 35 percent, versus brushing every night. And people who hadn’t seen a dentist in the previous 12 months were up to 50 percent more likely to die than those who received dental care two or more times a year.
10 Easy Ways to Improve Your Smile
Your Walking Speed
An analysis that pooled the results of 9 studies that included 34,485 people ages 65 or older—followed for 6 to 21 years--found a strong correlation between a brisker walking pace and longer life. In fact, predictions based on the person’s age, sex and walking speed alone were equally accurate as predictions that also included such health data as chronic disorders, smoking history, blood pressure, body mass index (BMI), and hospitalizations. The speed associated with longer than average lifespan in seniors was 1 meter per second or higher (about 2.25 miles per hour). 

How Easily You Can Stand Up

People who have the most difficulty sitting on the floor and then standing up again are 6.5 times more likely to die in the next six years as those who can perform these actions easily, researchers report. The study included more than 2,000 people ages 51 to 80 who were asked to sit and stand with as little support as possible (to see a video of the sitting test, click here). For example, those who needed to touch a hand or knee to the ground or push off with a hand on their knee got a lower score than those who didn’t need support to sit and stand up
Source: http://health.yahoo.net/experts/dayinhealth/7-surprising-predictors-how-long-you-will-live

Continue

Hearing Loss Contribute to Mental Decline:

Older adults with impaired hearing may have a faster rate of brain shrinkage as they age, a new study suggests.
A number of studies have found that older people with hearing loss tend to have a quicker decline in their memory and thinking skills, compared to those with normal hearing.
"We've known that common, age-related hearing loss is associated with cognitive [mental] decline. The question is, why?" said Dr. Frank Lin, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and the lead researcher on the new study.
The findings, he said, offer one potential explanation: Older adults with hearing problems lose brain volume more quickly than their peers with normal hearing.
The precise reason is not clear, and the real-life impact is unknown. The study did not test participants' actual mental ability.
But the "biggest question," Lin said, is whether treating hearing impairment can slow changes in brain structure and, more importantly, delay dementia.
He and his colleagues are now planning a trial to test that idea.
The current findings are based on 126 adults aged 56 to 86 who underwent yearly MRI scans to track brain-tissue changes for up to a decade. At the time of the first scan, they also had a physical and a hearing test. Of participants, 51 showed some degree of hearing loss -- mostly the mild variety where people have trouble hearing soft voices, for instance.
Lin's team found that older adults with hearing problems showed a faster decline in brain volume over the years -- especially in brain regions involved in processing sound and speech.
The study, published online Jan. 9 in the journal NeuroImage, cannot prove that hearing loss directly causes brain-tissue loss. But the basic "use it or lose it" principle may apply, according to Lin.
"The ear is no longer sending clear messages to the brain," he said. Without that input, sound-processing brain regions may change in structure.
What's more, Lin said, those brain areas have other jobs, too. Among other things, they play a role in memory and processing information other than sounds.
A hearing expert not involved in the study said it's "interesting," and raises the question of whether treating hearing impairment can prevent brain-tissue loss or slow mental decline.
"But we need a study to test that, and that study has yet to be done," said Dr. Ian Storper, an otologist at Lenox Hill Hospital, in New York City.
Even though researchers have found a link between hearing loss and mental decline, Storper noted, "that doesn't prove causation." Both hearing loss and brain-volume loss are common parts of aging, and there are many other variables that may be related to both, Storper added.
Lin's team did account for some other health factors -- like whether people smoked, or had high blood pressure or diabetes. And there was still a connection between impaired hearing and greater brain-volume loss.
But Lin agreed that what's ultimately needed is a trial testing whether hearing loss treatment slows mental decline.
"In the end," Lin said, "what everyone cares about is, what can we do about it?"
There are, of course, already reasons to treat hearing loss, Storper said. In some cases, treatment can be as easy as removing impacted ear wax, he noted.
But often, older adults need a hearing aid or assistive devices that make it easier to hear in specific situations -- while talking on the phone or watching TV, for example.
According to the U.S. National Institute on Aging, almost one-third of Americans aged 65 to 74 have at least mild hearing loss -- as do nearly half of those aged 75 and older.
If impaired hearing is one contributor to mental decline and dementia, Lin said, then treating it could have a big impact on public health.
Read more from: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2014/01/28/hearing-loss-tied-to-faster-brain-shrinkage-with-age

Continue

Effective HIV vaccine comes closer to reality

Washington: Scientific have discovered how the immune system makes a powerful antibody that blocks HIV infection of cells by targeting a key site, paving way for an effective vaccine for the deadly virus.
Researchers believe that if a vaccine could elicit potent antibodies to a specific conserved site in the V1V2 region of the virus, one of a handful of sites that remains constant on the fast-mutating virus, then the vaccine could protect people from HIV infection.
Analyses of the results of a clinical trial of the only experimental HIV vaccine to date to have modest success in people suggest that antibodies to sites within V1V2 were protective.

The new findings point the way towards a potentially more effective vaccine that would generate V1V2 directed HIV neutralising antibodies, researchers said.

The new findings point the way towards a potentially more effective vaccine that would generate V1V2 directed HIV neutralising antibodies, researchers said. The study led by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) scientists began by identifying an HIV-infected volunteer who naturally developed V1V2-directed HIV neutralising antibodies, named CAP256-VRC26, after several months of infection.
Using techniques similar to those employed in an earlier study of HIV-antibody co-evolution, the researchers analysed blood samples donated by the volunteer between 15 weeks and 4 years after becoming infected.
This enabled the scientists to determine the genetic make-up of the original form of the antibody; to identify and define the structures of a number of the intermediate forms taken as the antibody mutated towards its fullest breadth and potency.
It also allowed them to describe the interplay between virus and antibody that fostered the maturation of CAP256-VRC26 to its final, most powerful HIV-fighting form. The study showed that after relatively few mutations, even the early intermediates of CAP256-VRC26 can neutralise a significant proportion of known HIV strains.
This improves the chances that a V1V2-directed HIV vaccine developed based on the new findings would be effective, according to scientists, who have begun work on a set of vaccine components designed to elicit V1V2 neutralising antibodies and guide their maturation.

Continue