Tag: Fitness

Welcome to this week’s Health and Fitness. This is an Open Thread.

(Reuters) – Easter eggs may be good for you, but only if you eat small ones made from cocoa-rich dark chocolate, according to the latest in a string of scientific studies to show potential health benefits of chocolate.

German researchers studied more than 19,300 people over a decade and found those who ate the most chocolate — an average of 7.5 grams a day — had lower blood pressure and a 39 percent lower risk of having a heart attack or stroke than those who ate the least amount of chocolate — an average of 1.7 grams a day.

But, the difference between the two groups was just under six grams (6g) of chocolate a day, less than one small square of an average 100g bar, they wrote in a study in the European Heart Journal to be published on Wednesday.

Chocolate contains flavanols, anti-oxidant flavanoids, that are found in coco, wine and vegetables. Flavanols aid the release of nitrous oxide from the cells that line the blood vessels, Nitrous oxide is a smooth muscle relaxant that once in the blood stream, causes the blood vessels to relax and widen thus reducing blood pressure. Dark chocolate containing 70% coco has also been linked to  reducing stress. Along with a healthy diet, exercise and changes in lifestyle, 100 gm of Dark chocolate a day keeps the doctor away. One word of caution, there are 500 calories in 100 gm of chocolate. Happy Easter

As is now custom, I’ll try to include the more interesting and pertinent articles that will help the community awareness of their health and bodies. This essay will not be posted anywhere else due to constraints on my time. Please feel free to make suggestions for improvement and ask questions, I’ll answer as best I can.  

Welcome to this week’s Health and Fitness. This is an Open Thread.

Drug-resistant tuberculosis killed about 150,000 people in 2008, and half of all the world’s cases are thought in be in China and India, the World Health Organization said in a report last week.

No one knows the exact number of cases of the two types of drug-resistant TB, called MDR and XDR for multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant.

A few places, like Peru and Hong Kong, have fought the disease effectively, as New York City did in the early 1990s. Progress has been made in parts of Siberia, but in another region of Russia, more than a quarter of all cases are drug-resistant. And in Africa, a vast majority of cases have probably not even been diagnosed, the report said.

Even standard tuberculosis takes six months to cure with a four antibiotic cocktail. But the drugs cost only $20 and are relatively easy to take. Drug-resistant forms can take two years and require dangerously toxic drugs that cost $5,000 or more per person; they usually emerge when public health officials fail to ensure that patients with regular TB take their drugs daily.

As is now custom, I’ll try to include the more interesting and pertinent articles that will help the community awareness of their health and bodies. This essay will not be posted anywhere else due to constraints on my time. Please feel free to make suggestions for improvement and ask questions, I’ll answer as best I can.  

Welcome to this week’s Health and Fitness.

I’m still here in Haiti winding up my stay and turning over my responsibilities to my replacement who will be here for 3 months. I still have lots to do. There are still the patients and the never ending reports that need to be done to keep the flow of supplies coming. I’m leaving Feb 13 with mixed feelings becasue there is still so much to be done.

Welcome to this week’s Health and Fitness.

A spoon, a spoon, what’s the difference? It’s a spoon. Well, in medicine, as in baking, it’s a big difference. The teaspoon and tablespoon that came with that dinner set aren’t accurate measures. When a prescription says a teaspoon, it means 5 ml, a tablespoon is 15 ml, not more not less. The reason is that too much or too little is bad for you and can be dangerous. Most over the counter cough and cold remedies come with a measured cap as a cup. If you get prescribe liquid medication, ask the pharmacist for a measured cup or spoon so you get the correct amount of medication. This especially important with children, as the article from the NYT notes, most over doses are medication errors. So just as in baking where you use a measuring spoon so the cake rises as it bakes, use a measured spoon or cup to take liquid medication.

Spooning Up the Wrong Dose

Many people still use kitchen spoons to measure a dose of liquid medication. Now new research shows that the size of the spoon influences our ability to estimate the right dose – and most of the time, we get it wrong.

A 1992 study of dosing errors reported to poison control centers found that failing to distinguish between teaspoons and tablespoons was a major cause for overdosing of cough and cold medicines and liquid acetaminophen. Although too much cough medicine is typically not a major health worry, many liquid medications contain acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol. Acetaminophen overdose is a major health concern and can lead to serious illness, liver failure and even death. And while small dosing errors may not seem like a major concern, excessive doses can add up and make it relatively easy to exceed the recommended daily limit, now four grams.

Researchers at the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab have conducted several studies showing how large plate size, oversize ice-cream bowls and wide-rimmed drinking glasses can lead to overindulgence of foods and beverages. Given that so many parents use kitchen spoons to dispense liquid medication, the researchers decided to study how the size of a spoon influenced the amount of medication poured.

As is now custom, I’ll try to include the more interesting and pertinent articles that will help the community awareness of their health and bodies. This essay will not be posted anywhere else due to constraints on my time. Please feel free to make suggestions for improvement and ask questions, I’ll answer as best I can.

This an Open Thread

Welcome to this week’s Health and Fitness.

‘Tis the season for colds and the flu. Everyone needs to take caution in how they treat themselves with over the counter medications (OTC). Some of them are expensive and it is not well studied whether any of them really work all that well. Remember there is no cure for the common cold or even the flu, just medications to reduce the symptoms of fever, cough and congestion. If you have any existing medical problems, such as Asthma, High Blood Pressure, Diabetes, any kind of Heart problems or are taking prescription medication, consult your doctor or ask the Pharmacist before taking any OTC medication.

Catching a cold or the flu may be unavoidable. You can reduce your chances by washing your hands more frequently and using a hand sanitizer with an alcohol content of great than 60%. If you do get sick, stay home if you have a fever (hopefully, you can) and cover you coughs and sneezes.

This weeks NYT has a good article on Money Tips for When the Sniffles Start that also has tips about staying well during the flu season.

As is now custom, I’ll try to include the more interesting and pertinent articles that will help the community awareness of their health and bodies. This essay will not be posted anywhere else due to constraints on my time. Please feel free to make suggestions for improvement and ask questions, I’ll answer as best I can.

Welcome to this weeks Health and Fitness.

First cancer genome sequences reveal how mutations lead to disease

The pattern of mutations in cancer could eventually be used to tailor treatments to particular patients

Scientists have reconstructed the biological history of two types of cancer in a genetic tour de force that promises to transform medical treatment of the disease.

The feat, a world first, lays bare every genetic mutation the patients have acquired over their lifetimes that eventually caused healthy cells in their bodies to turn into tumours.

The procedure gives doctors a profound insight into the biological causes of a patient’s cancer and marks a major milestone in progress towards personalised anticancer therapies and strategies to prevent the disease.

“This is a really fundamental moment in the history of cancer research. We have never seen cancer revealed in this way before,” said Mike Stratton, a co-leader of the Cancer Genome Project at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute near Cambridge.

This is a stunning breakthrough in understanding how cancer mutates, treating it and, perhaps one day, cure it.

Turkana, in his essay at the Left Coaster, provides more information and further discussion in understanding the importance of this monumental break through.

Huge Medical Breakthrough: Cancer Genome Sequenced

As is now custom, I’ll try to include the more interesting and pertinent articles that will help the community awareness of their health and bodies. This essay will not be posted anywhere else due to constraints on my time and in January it will be coming to you from Paris, Fr. for awhile. Please feel free to make suggestions for improvement and ask questions, I’ll answer as best I can.

Welcome to this weeks Health and Fitness.

Lessons From the War Zone

One morning as a medical student on the surgery service, I learned about a patient who had been hemorrhaging on the operating table the night before. The intern who had assisted during the operation took great pains to describe every detail of the failed efforts of several senior surgeons and the final, ultimately lifesaving, maneuvers of the department chairman. “He came in and just got control of the bleeding,” the intern concluded, waving his hands as if the chairman’s work had involved magic.

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“How did he manage that?” one of my classmates asked.

“He’s one of the best,” the intern answered matter-of-factly. “He was a surgeon in Vietnam.”

One of the results of the 80’s and 90’s violent carnage in NYC, ER Doctors, ER Staff, Surgeons and Paramedics got to be very good at what they do best, saving lives. The Wheel Turns.

As is now custom, I’ll try to include the more interesting and pertinent articles that will help the community awareness of their health and bodies. This essay will not be posted anywhere else due to constraints on my time and in January it will be coming to you from Paris, Fr. for awhile. Please feel free to make suggestions for improvement and ask questions, I’ll answer as best I can.

This is an Open Thread

Welcome to this weeks Health and Fitness.

An ancient disease that has ravaged the world continues into the 21st century, taking its toll in lives. Tuberculosis is once again making headlines killing 1.8 million people as the world’s 7th most deadly disease. The disease is still epidemic in many parts of the world and is common opportunistic disease in HIV and AIDS patients.

As is now custom, I’ll try to include the more interesting and pertinent articles that will help the community awareness of their health and bodies. This essay will not be posted anywhere else due to constraints on my time and in January it will be coming to you from Paris, Fr. for awhile. Please feel free to make suggestions for improvement and ask questions, I’ll answer as best I can.

This is an open thread.

More funds needed for TB tests, drugs, vaccines

CANCUN, Mexico (Reuters) – Health experts on Thursday called for more research funding to develop better diagnostic tests, vaccines and drugs for tuberculosis, which killed 1.8 million people around the world last year.

While diseases like AIDS and malaria can be diagnosed in minutes by applying a drop of blood to a rapid test kit, confirming active tuberculosis, or TB, is a laborious procedure.

It requires a patient to cough up sputum, which is smeared on a slide, stained and examined under a microscope.

And the 100-year-old test misses up to 70 percent of otherwise positive cases in some places, experts say.

In Africa, where the scourge of TB is most keenly felt, many people delay follow-up testing because of cost.

“A lot of people die before a TB diagnosis is even made,” Dr Jeremiah Chakaya of the Kenya Medical Research Institute told reporters at an international conference on lung health in Cancun, Mexico.

Welcome to this weeks review of important Health, Fitness and Nutrition news. I have been posting the links to articles about health, fitness and nutrition, along with healthy recipes in ek hornbeck’s daily news round up. Since life is now making greater demands on my time both on and off line, I thought a weekly separate essay at the end of the week would be a good idea. This essay will not be posted anywhere else due to constraints on my time and in January it will be coming to you from Paris, Fr. for awhile.

I’ll try to include the more interesting and pertinent articles that will help the community awareness of their health and bodies. Please feel free to make suggestions for improvement and ask questions, I’ll answer as best I can.

Now that the big food day is over, I’ll add healthy recipes at the end of the essay.

Be Healthy. Be Safe  

I have been posting the links to articles about health, fitness and nutrition, along with healthy recipes in ek hornbeck’s daily news round up. Since life is now making greater demands on my time both on and off line, I thought a weekly separate essay at the end of the week would be a good idea.

  I’ll try to include the more interesting and pertinent articles that will help the community awareness of their health and bodies. I thought about including the healthy recipes but this week they will appear in a different essay for Thanksgiving since there are so many.

  This essay will not be posted anywhere else due to constraints on my time and in January it will be coming to you from Paris, Fr. for awhile.

  Be Healthy. Be Safe