Americans Sleepier Than Ever

 

MONDAY, March 3 (HealthDay News) -- Americans are working later and sleeping less, a dangerous combination which can cause drowsiness at the wheel, loss of productivity and a lack of interest in sex.

And while most people know this is a problem, about two-thirds of them aren't doing anything about it, a new poll shows.

"People are actually acknowledging it's an issue and not doing any thing about it," said Mark R. Rosekind, a former board member of the National Sleep Foundation (NSF). "This can be lethal in your car."

The troubling numbers come from a new Sleep in America poll released Monday by the NSF as part of its 11th annual National Sleep Awareness Week.

This year's survey focuses much more on the workplace and issues of safety and productivity than previous surveys, said Rosekind, who was on the poll task force.

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Cold Vs. Flu Symptoms

Cold vs. Flu Tool Know the Difference Between Cold and Flu Symptoms

Can you tell the difference between symptoms of flu and the common cold? To learn more about your symptoms, if they are associated with the flu, and how TAMIFLU may help check out the Symptoms at a Glance chart below.

Symptom	Cold	Flu
Fever	Fever is rare with a cold.	Fever is usually present with the flu in up to 80% of all flu cases. A temperature of 100°F or higher for 3 to 4 days is associated with the flu.
Coughing	A hacking, productive (mucus- producing) cough is often present with a cold.	A non-productive (non-mucus producing) cough is usually present with the flu (sometimes referred to as dry cough).
Aches	Slight body aches and pains can be part of a cold.	Severe aches and pains are common with the flu.
Stuffy Nose	Stuffy nose is commonly present with a cold and typically resolves spontaneously within a week.	Stuffy nose is not commonly present with the flu.
Chills	Chills are uncommon with a cold.	60% of people who have the flu experience chills.
Tiredness	Tiredness is fairly mild with a cold.	Tiredness is moderate to severe with the flu.
Sneezing	Sneezing is commonly present with a cold.	Sneezing is not common with the flu.
Sudden Symptoms	Cold symptoms tend to develop over a few days.	The flu has a rapid onset within 3-6 hours. The flu hits hard and includes sudden symptoms like high fever, aches and pains.
Headache	A headache is fairly uncommon with a cold.	A headache is very common with the flu, present in 80% of flu cases.
Sore Throat	Sore throat is commonly present with a cold.	Sore throat is not commonly present with the flu.
Chest Discomfort	Chest discomfort is mild to moderate with a cold.	Chest discomfort is often severe with the flu.

DISCLAIMER:
This isnot a substitute for a professional, on-site medical diagnosis. However, you can use the printable symptoms results for discussion with your doctor or other healthcare professional during your visit to aid in a professional diagnosis.

 

Colonoscopies Could Miss Dangerous Lesions: Report

More Than 9 Percent of Dangerous Lesions May Be Missed

New research suggests colonoscopies may often miss a certain type of potentially dangerous lesion. (AP Photo)

Mar 5, 2008

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The most dangerous types of pre-cancerous lesions in the colon could be missed by colonoscopies, researchers cautioned on Wednesday.

More than 9 percent of the growths that could become tumors are flat and difficult to see, the team at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System in California found.

Colonoscopies are examinations of the colon that use an endoscope -- a little camera on a flexible tube. The doctor doing the examination can see and remove polyps, the small growths that can become tumors.

But not every pre-cancerous lesion stands up. There is a type called a flat, non-polypoid colorectal neoplasm and the California team found they are both more common and more dangerous than previously thought.

Dr. Roy Soetikno and colleagues examined the results of 1,819 colonoscopies among patients at their hospital.

They found 170 of these flat lesions, or 9.35 percent of all growths detected.

Once removed, they were 10 times as likely as the more obvious growths to contain cancerous tissue, Soetikno's team reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

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Rare Gene Mutation Plays Role in Longevity

 

TUESDAY, March 4 (HealthDay News) -- A rare gene mutation that restricts a particular growth factor may be one of the keys to living to 100 and beyond, a new study suggests.

This mutation, which seems to decrease the activity of insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), results in short stature but longer life. Exactly why this might lengthen someone's life isn't known, but the researchers say the finding might prove useful in developing anti-aging drugs.

"We found that people of a hundred years old have mutations in a gene that is related to the growth hormone pathway," said lead researcher Dr. Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. "We think this is important, because that's what now happens in nature. The pony lives longer than the horse, the small dog lives longer than a large dog. Apparently, it's true for humans also."

Interestingly, this particular mutation has been found mostly among women, he added.

It might be possible, given these findings, to develop drugs that can prevent aging and age-related disease, Barzilai noted. "There are drugs being developed to decrease growth hormone in patients with tumors, because sometimes cancer is dependent on growth hormones," he said. "Maybe we can adopt the strategy to slow aging."

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Perceptions: Watch Your Weight, Sure, but Don’t Worry About It

Worrying about weighing too much may be bad for you, no matter how much you actually weigh.

 

Using results from a telephone health survey run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers analyzed data on more than 170,000 men and women nationwide. Among other information about health and lifestyle, all reported height and weight, how much they would like to weigh and how many days in the past month they had felt physically or mentally unhealthy.

The study, to be published in the March issue of The American Journal of Public Health, found that men who wanted to lose 1 percent, 10 percent and 20 percent of their body weight reported 0.05, 0.9 and 2.7 unhealthy days a month, respectively. Women with the same weight-loss desires reported 0.1, 1.6 and 4.3 total unhealthy days a month. The results held even after controlling for age and body mass index.

The authors acknowledge that their findings depend on self-reports, and that women tend to say they weigh less than they do, while men claim to be taller than they are. But controlling for many variables — like diabetes, hypertension and smoking — did not significantly alter the conclusions.

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Hormone users face new cancer risks years later

 

CHICAGO - The first follow-up of a landmark study of hormone use after menopause shows heart problems linked with the pills seem to fade after women stop taking them, while surprising new cancer risks appear.

That heart trouble associated with hormones may not be permanent is good news for millions of women who quit taking them after the government study was halted six years ago because of heart risks and breast cancer.

But the new risks for other cancers, particularly lung tumors, in women who’d taken estrogen-progestin pills for about five years puzzled the researchers and outside experts. Those risks “were completely unanticipated,” said Dr. Gerardo Heiss of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, lead author of the follow-up analysis.

The analysis focused on participants’ health in the first two to three years after the study’s end. During that time, those who’d taken hormones but stopped were 24 percent more likely to develop any kind of cancer than women who’d taken dummy pills during the study.

“There’s still a lot of uncertainty about the cause of the increased cancer risk,” said analysis co-author Dr. JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

The cancers included breast tumors, which also occurred more frequently in hormone users during the study.

The researchers noted that the increased risks for all cancers amounted to only three extra cases per year for every 1,000 women on hormone pills, compared with nonusers.

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Blood Thinner Might Be Tied to More Deaths

 

By WALT BOGDANICH

Published: February 29, 2008

Amid indications that more people may have died or been harmed after being given a brand of the blood thinner heparin, federal drug regulators said Thursday that they had found “potential deficiencies” at a Chinese plant that supplied much of the active ingredient for the drug.

Baxter International, which makes the brand of heparin associated with the problems, and buys supplies from the Chinese plant, announced that it was expanding a recall to include virtually all its heparin products. Though Baxter produces much of the heparin used in the United States, regulators said the other major supplier would be able to meet the demand.

The Food and Drug Administration said the number of deaths possibly associated with the drug, made from pig intestines, had risen to 21 from 4. But it cautioned that many of those patients were already seriously ill and that the drug might not have caused their deaths.

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Fruit, Vegetable-Rich Diet Halves Lung Disease Risk

 

Date updated: May 15, 2007
Content provided by Health Day

TUESDAY, May 15 (HealthDay News) -- People who follow a "Mediterranean" diet rich in fruit, vegetables, whole grains and fish cut their risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) by half, researchers report.

COPD, a lethal combination of emphysema and bronchitis, is expected to become the third leading cause of death worldwide by 2020.

Smoking remains the primary cause of COPD, according to the report in the May 14 online edition of the journal Thorax.

Therefore, "The first message is that people have to stop smoking," said lead researcher Dr. Raphaelle Varraso, from INSERM, Villejuif, France. "And then, that a diet rich in fruits, vegetables and fish may help to reduce risk of COPD."

And, if healthy food can cut the odds for COPD, unhealthy eating could do the opposite, he said. "In smokers and ex-smokers, a diet rich in refined grains, cured and red meats, desserts and French fries may increase the risk of COPD," Varraso said.

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Curry Ingredient May Cut Cardiovascular Risks

 

Date updated: February 27, 2008
Content provided by Health Day

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 27 (HealthDay News) -- Curcumin, an ingredient in the curry spice tumeric, can reduce heart enlargement and may lower the risk of heart failure, Canadian researchers say.

The scientists at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre of the Toronto General Hospital tested the effects of curcumin in mice with enlarged hearts (hypertrophy) and found it could prevent and reverse the condition, restore heart function, and reduce scar formation. The study was published in the February issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

If human clinical trials support these findings, curcumin-based treatments may provide a safe and inexpensive new option for patients with heart enlargement, according to the researchers.

They said curcumin works directly in the cell nucleus by preventing abnormal unraveling of the chromosome under stress and preventing excessive abnormal protein production.

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