Curative vs. Palliative Surgery

Mesothelioma has a complex growth pattern that makes complete surgical removal a very difficult task, which is why surgery that aims to remove all cancer cells is more accurately described as “potentially curative” rather than “curative”.

Part of what makes cancer such a stubborn malady is that it’s very difficult for surgeons to remove all cancer cells, and any cells that are left behind can grow, divide and lead to the cancer’s return.

To try and prevent this from happening, the surgeon removes as much tissue as the patient can safely tolerate.

More extreme surgeries attempt to remove visible cancerous tissue as well as tissue that is a likely site for metastasis.

Not all patients are healthy enough for more invasive mesothelioma surgeries, however, and sometimes the cancer is too widespread to be removed completely. In these instances, “palliative surgery”—or surgery meant to ease cancer symptoms instead of potentially curing the cancer—may be performed.

Palliative mesothelioma surgery can extend a patient’s life and improve their quality of life.

Multimodal Therapy

Whether surgery is performed for curative or palliative purposes, it is rarely performed in isolation. Surgery is almost always accompanied by the other standard treatments for mesothelioma: chemotherapy and radiation.

Neoadjuvant therapy for mesothelioma is chemotherapy or radiation administered to a patient before surgery in order to shrink mesothelioma tumors and make their removal more manageable.

Adjuvant therapy is chemotherapy or radiation administered post-surgery to help prevent the recurrence of tumors.

Mesothelioma Surgery

For patients who are in the process of being diagnosed or have just been diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma, surgery is typically one of the standard treatment options doctors will want to consider.

Depending on your health and the stage of your cancer, mesothelioma surgery may be used to prolong your life, prevent symptoms or ease your pain.

Typically, surgeries are divided into three types:

Diagnostic Surgeries: As soon as a doctor suspects a person is showing symptoms of mesothelioma, diagnostic surgery techniques may be used to explore the chest or abdominal cavities to check for definitive signs of the cancer.

Some examples of diagnostic surgeries for mesothelioma are thoracoscopy, laparoscopy, thoracotomy and laparotomy. A biopsy is usually done during this surgery to test for mesothelioma cells.

Potentially Curative Surgeries: Mesothelioma has a complex growth pattern that makes complete surgical removal a very difficult task, which is why surgery that aims to remove all cancer cells is more accurately described as “potentially curative” rather than “curative.”

Part of what makes cancer such a stubborn illness is that it’s very difficult for surgeons to remove all cancer cells, and any cells that are left behind can grow, divide and lead to the cancer’s return.

To try to prevent this from happening, the surgeon removes as much tissue as the patient can safely tolerate. More extreme surgeries attempt to remove visible cancerous tissue as well as tissue that is a likely site for metastasis.

Some examples of potentially curative surgeries for mesothelioma are extrapleural pneumonectomy and pleurectomy/decortication.

Palliative Surgeries: Not all patients are healthy enough for very invasive mesothelioma surgeries. And sometimes the cancer is too widespread to be removed completely.

In these instances, “palliative surgery” — or surgery meant to ease cancer symptoms — may be performed. Palliative mesothelioma surgery can ease a person’s pain and improve the quality of life.

Some examples of palliative surgeries for mesothelioma are pleurocentesis, paracentesis and pleurodesis.

Vitamin B causes cancer in men?

Feeling tired out? Want to boost your energy level in a fast and allegedly healthy way? A lot of us turn to vitamins, which explains why 50 percent of people in the United States take some form of dietary supplement, as the Atlantic reported.

Unfortunately, a recent study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology suggests that taking vitamin B6 and B12 supplements in high doses seems to triple or almost quadruple the risk of lung cancer in men. So far there has been no evidence of a heightened risk for women.

The Ohio State University research found men who take too much of these two popular vitamins greatly increase their cancer risk, particularly if they smoke.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is deliberating whether vitamin supplements make any difference in the average person’s risk of heart disease or cancer.

“What we found was that men who had used dietary supplements, in particular B6 and vitamin B12, at high doses for 10 years, were at significant increased risk of developing lung cancer,” said Dr. Theodore Brasky, who led the study at OSU’s Comprehensive Cancer Center, according to Newsmax.
“In fact, all men who used these supplements in high doses for a decade had approximately double the risk developing lung cancer, and in men who smoked, the risk was three to four times as great.”

The recommended daily allowance for vitamin B6 for men is only about one and a half milligrams, and for vitamin B12, it’s less than two and a half micrograms per day. The trouble there is way more than than packed into the average vitamin pill. Let the buyer beware.
“But if you look at these supplement bottles, they’re being sold in pill form at up to 5,000 micrograms per dose, which is much, much higher than the daily recommended amount,” said Brasky, as Newsmax noted. “It’s very easy to get all the vitamin B you need in this country, from eating meats, chickpeas and foods like cereal that are fortified with them, so there really is no reason to supplement your vitamin B intake at these levels, and certainly not for years on end.”

Why Pregnant Women Are More Susceptible to Zika Virus

We know that Zika virus can be especially risky for pregnant women, increasing the risk of birth defects. But a new study from the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine may have insight as to why.

Researchers looked at how the virus affected the blood of healthy men, pregnant women, and non-pregnant women aged 18 to 39. Much like HIV, researchers found that Zika targets the white blood cells that typically swallow up viruses, bacteria, and debris to keep the body healthy.

In expectant mothers, though, virus strains only had to infect 4% of white blood cells to increase immune suppression: An African Zika strain increased suppression by 10% and an Asian strain by 70%.

“Pregnancy naturally suppresses a woman's immune system so her body doesn't reject the fetus — essentially it's a foreign object," said senior study author Jae Jung, professor and chair of Keck's department of molecular microbiology and immunology. “Zika exploits that weakness to infect and replicate."

Prior research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that one in ten pregnant women who contracted the virus gave birth to children with birth defects. And the risk for pregnancy complications is reportedly highest for women who contract the virus during their first or second trimester.

Interestingly, pregnant women are not involved in trials testing possible Zika vaccines, said Jung.

"The Zika virus vaccines in development seem to be highly effective, but they're being tested among non-pregnant women with different body chemistry compared to pregnant women," Jung said.

The mosquito-borne virus is still prevalent in Central and South America, the Caribbean, Central Africa, and Southeast Asia. The CDC maps countries with Zika and is still offering travel warnings and safety guidelines to consider for visits.

Precautions against the virus include preventing mosquito bites and practicing safe sex, but pregnant women and couples trying to conceive should not travel to areas with risk of Zika, according to the CDC.

The healthiest part of an avocado may get thrown away

The avocado has become synonymous with trendy cuisine and numerous health benefits. The yellow-green flesh inside the fruit is packed with essential vitamins and nutrients and is a good source of healthy fats.

But new research suggests a part of the avocado that’s normally thrown in the trash may actually be the most valuable.

According to a study presented at a meeting of the American Chemical Society this week, the husks of avocado seeds are “hidden gold mines” packed with a previously unrecognized array of chemical compounds. While the husks and seeds are not edible, researchers say the compounds they contain could one day be used in medicines to treat a host of diseases.
“It could very well be that avocado seed husks, which most people consider as the waste of wastes, are actually the gem of gems because the medicinal compounds within them could eventually be used to treat cancer, heart disease and other conditions,” researcher Debasish Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D., said in a statement.

He added, “Our results also suggest that the seed husks are a potential source of chemicals used in plastics and other industrial products.”

Across the globe, nearly 5 million tons of avocado are produced annually, with Americans consuming 1.9 billion pounds each year.

Guacamole lovers devour the “meat” or flesh of the avocado, while the seed is thrown in the trash. While certain manufacturers extract avocado oil from the seed, they remove the husk surrounding it and discard it before processing.

For the study, Bandyopadhyay and his team wanted to see exactly what that part of the avocado was made of. They ground about 300 dried avocado seed husks into 21 ounces of powder and then further processed the powder into three teaspoons of seed husk oil and about an ounce of seed husk wax.

An analysis showed 116 compounds in the oil and 16 in the seed husk wax — many of which do not appear to be found in the seeds themselves.

Some examples of the compounds researchers found in the oil include behenyl alcohol, an important ingredient used in anti-viral medications; heptacosane, which might inhibit the growth of tumor cells; and dodecanoic acid, which increases high density lipoprotein (known as HDL, or “good” cholesterol) and, as a result, could potentially reduce the risk of clogged arteries.

In the wax, Bandyopadhyay and his team identified a “plasticizer” compound used to promote flexibility in synthetic products such as shower curtains and medical devices, and compounds used in cosmetics.

Much more research is needed, but Bandyopadhyay says in the future he hopes to be able to modify these natural compounds to help create better medicines with fewer side effects.

Can poor sleep lead to Alzheimer’s or dementia?

One in three Americans doesn’t get enough sleep, and 45% of the world’s population doesn’t either.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls that a “public health problem,” because disrupted sleep is associated with a higher risk of conditions including diabetes, stroke and cardiovascular disease.

What about Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia?

It’s well known that people with Alzheimer’s suffer sleep issues. Insomnia, nighttime wandering and daytime sleepiness are common for them, as well as other cognitive disorders such as Lewy body dementia and frontal lobe dementia.

But could poor sleep earlier in life actually cause dementia?

 

REM sleep and dementia

A new study in the journal Neurology, the journal for the American Academy of Neurology, finds that people who get less REM, or dream-stage sleep, may be at higher risk for developing dementia. REM is the fifth stage of sleep, when the eyes move, the body heats up, breathing and pulse quicken and the mind dreams.

Researchers followed 321 people with an average age of 61 for a dozen years, as part of the famous Framingham Heart Study. Sleep cycles were measured for each person, and their cognitive skills were assessed in person at regular intervals. Over the duration of the study, 32 people developed dementia. Of those, 24 were determined to be Alzheimer’s disease.

The study found that people who took longer than the typical 90 minutes to enter REM were more likely to get dementia. They also spent only about 17% of their sleep dreaming, compared to 20% in those who did not develop dementia.

No association with dementia was found for any of the other four stages of sleep.

“Our findings point to REM sleep as a predictor of dementia,” study author Matthew P. Pase, of Swinburne University of Technology in Australia, said in a news release. “The next step will be to determine why lower REM sleep predicts a greater risk of dementia. By clarifying the role of sleep in the onset of dementia, the hope is to eventually identify possible ways to intervene so that dementia can be delayed or even prevented.”

Sleep and Alzheimer’s plaques

A growing body of research in both mice and humans shows that disturbed sleep leads to higher levels of soluble beta amyloid, the protein that folds and forms the sticky plaques that kill brain cells and bog down information processing.

Depositing amyloid in brain tissue is the first known preclinical stage of Alzheimer’s and happens well before any obvious symptoms of dementia begin.

A few studies in cognitively normal people and one in mice have shown a connection between chronic sleep disruption and the development of amyloid plaques. The research in mice was particularly interesting because it showed that mice who slept well reduced their levels of beta amyloid, effectively clearing the toxin from their brains.

A study in Neurology looked at the relationship between sleep quality and levels of various proteins and inflammatory markers in the cerebrospinal fluid of 101 cognitively healthy adults with an average age of 63.

All participants had known risk factors for Alzheimer’s, such as family history or evidence of the APOE gene, which is associated with a greater chance of developing the disease. Their sleep quality was rated on a standard scale that measured amount, quality and trouble sleeping, along with daytime drowsiness and naps.

“Participants in our study were willing to undergo a lumbar puncture to move research on Alzheimer’s disease forward,” said co-author Barbara Bendlin of the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. “Analyzing this fluid allowed us to look at markers related to Alzheimer’s disease such as plaques and tangles, as well as markers of inflammation and nerve cell damage.”

Tangles and cell damage

Tangles are created by damaged tau, a protein responsible for cell stability and structure. Recent research points to tau-tangle accumulation as a possible step beyond amyloid plaques in the development of actual signs of Alzheimer’s disease.

By comparing the spinal fluid against self-reported sleep problems, Bendlin and her colleagues found that the subjects who had sleep issues were more likely to show evidence of tau pathology, brain cell damage and inflammation, even when other factors like depression, body mass, cardiovascular disease and sleep medications were taken into account.

“Our findings align with the idea that worse sleep may contribute to the accumulation of Alzheimer’s-related proteins in the brain,” Bendlin said. “The fact that we can find these effects in people who are cognitively healthy and close to middle age suggest that these relationships appear early, perhaps providing a window of opportunity for intervention.”

That’s important, Bendlin added, because delaying the onset of Alzheimer’s in those at risk by a mere five years “could reduce the number of cases we see in the next 30 years by 5.7 million and save $367 billion in health care spending.”

“Another new finding in this study is that daytime sleepiness, and not just disrupted nighttime sleep, is associated with early changes of Alzheimer’s disease,” said Dr. Yo-El Ju, an assistant professor of neurology at Washington University’s Sleep Medicine Center.

Ju co-wrote an accompanying editorial for the study and just published research of her own in the journal Brain in which she found that healthy middle-age adults who slept badly for just one night produced an abundance of beta amyloid. A week of disrupted sleep increased the amount of tau, another protein responsible for the tangles associated with Alzheimer’s, frontal lobe dementia and Lewy body disease.

“Overall, these studies confirms the relationship between early Alzheimer’s disease and sleep disturbance,” Ju said, “and expand — in terms of both time and symptoms — the window in which sleep-wake problems can be assessed for and treated, with the hope of reducing the risk of dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease.”

One of the limitations of Bendlin’s study was that the sleep problems were self-reported. Bendlin and her colleagues are recruiting people at risk for Alzheimer’s to be studied in a sleep lab, where objective measurements can be taken.

“If it turns out to be the case that an intervention which improves sleep also results in less amyloid being deposited in the brain, that would provide strong support for implementing interventions before people start to show cognitive decline associated with Alzheimer’s disease,” she said.

Dr. Rudolph Tanzi, who directs the genetics and aging research unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, agreed.

“Increasing amounts of evidence indicate that getting at least seven to eight hours of sleep is essential for brain health and function,” Tanzi said. “In the deepest stage of sleep, the brain cleans itself out of plaque and other toxic materials that trigger Alzheimer’s disease. This reduces brain inflammation and is entirely consistent with this exciting new study.”

Which problem came first?

Not everyone with sleep problems in Bendlin’s study had abnormalities in their spinal fluid. For example, those with obstructive sleep apnea showed no association. With over 18 millions Americans diagnosed with the condition, obstructive sleep apnea is one of the most common sleep disorders. It’s characterized by loud snoring and waking by gasping or choking, which occurs when throat muscles relax and constrict the airway during sleep.

But research presented in July at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in London found a connection between obstructive sleep apnea and buildup of amyloid and tau proteins in the brain.

Researchers looked at 1,639 adults in their mid-70s who either were normal cognitively or had mild cognitive decline. The research found an association between obstructive sleep apnea and an accelerated increase of amyloid and tau deposits in both normal and cognitively impaired adults.

Bendlin stresses that much remains to be discovered about the link between sleep and dementia.

“Not everyone who experiences sleep problems should now worry about developing dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease,” she said, adding that therecnn & is not yet a clear cause and effect relationship.

“Animal studies suggest sleep affects development of brain changes, but brain changes in turn also affect sleep,” Bendlin said. “In terms of figuring out which comes first, brain changes or sleep problems, that will be difficult to tease apart, because the effects really do appear to be going in both directions.”

“In experimental studies, there does seems to be evidence of both chicken and egg,” said neuroscientist Jeffrey Iliff of Oregon Health and Sciences University. “You can drive it either direction. So there may be a bio-directional interaction.”

That’s good news if true, he said, because it means we have may have some control over whether we develop dementia.

“No, the public can’t remove amyloid plaque,” Iliff said. “But if sleep disruption is promoting this process, then improving sleep is half of the solution to slowing the process of dementia as it develops over one’s life.”

Keith Fargo, director of scientific programs and outreach for the Alzheimer’s Association, agreed: “There may be an opportunity to improve cognition and possibly reduce dementia risk through early diagnosis and effective treatment of sleep disorders.”

Baby boomer women 'drinking heavily'

Problem drinking among the young may be declining, but those over 50 are drinking more - and taking more drugs. say researchers.

Baby boomers are suffering the effects of easy access to cheap alcohol, experts say

More and more women over 50 are drinking heavily, prompting fears for their health, experts have said.

While risky drinking is in decline among other age groups, there is a "strong upward trend for episodic heavy drinking" among baby boomers.

Rahul Rao, visiting researcher at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and Ann Roche, director of the National Centre for Training and Addiction at Flinders University in Australia, have published their research in The British Medical Journal.

They were particularly concerned about women whose drinking is prompted by retirement, bereavement, change in home situation or social isolation.

"Alcohol misuse in the older population may increase further as baby boomers get older because of their more liberal views towards, and higher use of, alcohol," the researchers wrote.

"A lack of sound alcohol screening to detect risky drinking may result in a greater need for treatment, longer duration of treatment, heavier use of ambulance services, and higher rates of hospital admission."

Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, chairman of the Alcohol Health Alliance UK, said that, while much had been made of a decline in youth drinking, not enough attention had been paid to the growing problem among older people.

He said: "The over 50s have seen a time when alcohol has become increasingly affordable and have been bombarded with sophisticated alcohol marketing messages telling them they can't live a fulfilling life unless alcohol is at the centre of it.

"What they haven't been told is that alcohol is linked to over 200 types of illness and injury, including seven types of cancer.

"If we are to turn the tide of alcohol harm we need measures which tackle the affordability, availability and promotion of alcohol, starting with the introduction of a minimum unit price which would reduce rates of death, illness and hospital admission numbers caused by alcohol."

Katherine Brown, director of the Institute of Alcohol Studies, said: "This is the first generation in living memory that has had easy access to cheap alcohol in shops and supermarkets and now we are seeing the consequences in later life.

"We need to take stock of this situation and prevent future generations from developing alcohol problems in older age through price increases and stricter controls on alcohol promotions."

Mr Rao and Ms Roche also warned that doctors will need extra skills to cope with a "rapidly growing problem" of drug misuse among baby boomers.

They said doctors would need "improved knowledge and skills" in assessing and treating older people at risk of misusing opiate prescription drugs, cannabis, and, increasingly, gabapentinoid drugs used to treat neuropathic pain and anxiety.

Vaginal seeding after Caesarean 'risky', warn doctors

New mothers should not embrace the trend of "seeding" their babies with vaginal bacteria, say doctors.

It exposes children born by Caesarean section to bacteria that could have coated their bodies if they had been born vaginally.
The idea is bacteria help train the immune system and lower the risk of allergies and asthma.
But doctors in Denmark and the UK said there was too little evidence and it may be doing more harm than good.
Being born by Caesarean section is linked to a higher risk of some immune-based diseases.
And there is growing medical interest in the role of the microbiome - the microorganisms that call our bodies home - in preventing disease.
Swabs
Seeding involves taking a swab of vaginal fluid and rubbing it into the newborn's face, skin and eyes.
A report, published in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, said more than 90% of Danish obstetricians (pregnancy and birth doctors) had said they had been asked about vaginal seeding.
It said there was no evidence of any benefit to seeding as there was only one proper study of the technique and it involved just four babies.

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However, it warned of clear risks to the baby, including infections such as group-B streptococcus, E. coli and a range of sexually transmitted infections.
Dr Tine Clausen, the report author and a consultant at Nordsjaellands Hospital in Denmark, said: "We know that women and their partners are increasingly speaking to their doctors about vaginal seeding."
She told the BBC News website: "I really understand, it's a fascinating thought that you're able to mimic nature by doing the seeding, but it's based on some theoretical thoughts and we don't have evidence to support it."
Dr Clausen said a swab may not contain the same bacteria as those transferred during a vaginal birth and any bacteria were more diluted because of blood and amniotic fluid in the vaginal tract during labour.
Her advice to women is to "avoid unnecessary [Caesarean] sections, aim for breast feeding for at least half a year and to have early skin-to-skin contact".
Each of which does have a beneficial impact on a child's microbiome.
In the UK, about a quarter of babies are born via Caesarean section
Dr Patrick O'Brien, from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said: "There is no robust evidence to suggest that vaginal seeding has any associated benefits.
"We would therefore not recommend it until more definitive research shows that it is not harmful and can in fact improve a child's digestive and/or immune system."

High doses of vitamin B tied to lung cancer risk, study says

Men who took high doses of vitamin B6 and B12 supplements had a higher risk of lung cancer, and the association was highest among current smokers, according to a study published Tuesday.

The study found a 30% to 40% increased risk of lung cancer among men taking these vitamins from individual supplements -- not from multivitamins or diet alone. But the effect seemed to be driven by current smokers who far exceeded the recommended daily amounts of the vitamins, according to study author Theodore Brasky, an epidemiologist in the division of cancer prevention and control at the Ohio State University College of Medicine.
"I think these results point to a synergism" between high-dose B vitamins, smoking and lung cancer risk among men, Brasky said.
Current male smokers taking the highest levels of vitamin B6 had triple the risk of lung cancer over six years, compared with those who didn't take supplements. For vitamin B12, that risk nearly quadrupled. These levels were more than 11 times the recommended daily amount of B6 and 23 times that of B12.
"If you look at B-vitamin supplement bottles ... they are anywhere between 50-fold the US recommended dietary allowance (to) upward of 2,100-fold," Brasky said. B12 injections have also become "in vogue" in recent years, he said.
In smaller quantities, these vitamins are involved in several vital processes in the body, including DNA replication. But many high-dose supplements, he said, claim to boost energy and provide other unproven benefits.

"That's marketing. That's not science," he said.
The study was limited to roughly 77,000 Washington state adults, ages 50 to 76. This included 139 cases of lung cancer among more than 3,200 current male smokers. Over 93% of participants were white.
There were too few cases of lung cancer among nonsmokers to include them in the full analysis. An increased risk of lung cancer was not seen among women or with the vitamin B9, also known as folate.
Other researchers have found different results. Some studies linked vitamin B6 with lower lung cancer risk, and another found that B12 had no impact on risk. The authors of the new study said that the discrepancy could be because some of these studies measure B vitamins in the blood and not through dietary surveys, like they did. Or it may be that lung cancer itself raises levels of these vitamins in the body.
"I think it's hard to say" why these studies contradict each other, said Elizabeth Kantor, an epidemiologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center who has studied dietary supplements and cancer risk. She was not involved in the latest research. "Is it the disease process that affects the blood levels? I think that the door remains open on that."
A focus on B vitamins may not be the most effective way to protect against lung cancer, experts warn.
"Combustible tobacco smoke is the No. 1 most important factor, not just only in lung cancer but in many cancers," Brasky said.
Cigarette smoking is a factor in 80% to 90% of lung cancers in the United States, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Smokers are 15 to 30 times more likely to get lung cancer or die from it than nonsmokers. Lung cancer kills more Americans than any other kind of cancer.
"When we're talking about what to be concerned about most: If you're a male smoker and you want to take B vitamins, you can stop smoking," Brasky said.
"Smoking is the most important thing here, and that's preventable."

To B or not to B?

"In the average person in this country, it's tough to be deficient" in B vitamins, Brasky said.
Those who are -- those with anemia or celiac disease, for example -- will feel tired and run down. For them, supplements might help.
But taking "megadoses" of these supplements doesn't do much for the average healthy person, Brasky said, nor does it cause immediate harm. The body tends to get rid of excess vitamin, he said.
"There's always this black box between what people say they eat or take and what is actually absorbed," said Regan Bailey, an associate professor of nutrition science at Purdue University and a former nutritional epidemiologist with the National Institute of Health's Office of Dietary Supplements. She also was not involved in the new study.
Stomach acid and digestion, Bailey said, are able to "rip out" B12 from food so that the body can absorb it. Some synthetic supplements, however, may be more easily absorbed.
Vitamin B12 is found in animal products like meat, eggs and milk. Americans get most of their B6 from fortified cereals, beef, chicken, fruits and starchy vegetables.
Too little of these vitamins is thought to carry cancer risk, too. Errors can happen when building new strands of DNA, causing them to break. And genes responsible for cell division may be thrown off by these changes, the study authors said.
In high concentrations, however, the exact relationship between the vitamins and lung cancer is unclear. If the vitamins are indeed responsible for increasing the lung cancer risk, Brasky said, another question would be whether B vitamins are hastening the development of a lung cancer that's already there or leading to new cancers.
Bailey warned that we are nowhere close to claiming that these high-dose supplements cause cancer. She added that the dietary survey the researchers used -- which calculated the average daily intake over the prior 10 years -- can be imprecise. But Brasky said that adults generally recall which supplements they've taken, allowing researchers to get a good idea of their average doses.
People mostly take dietary supplements because they think they will make them healthier, not because they are trying to add nutrients to their diet, Bailey showed in a 2013 study. And those who take vitamins may be hard to study, she said, because they fall into two very different categories.
"In my mind, people take supplements because they're sick and trying to get better or because they're healthy and want to stay that way," she said.
In a study in October, Kantor showed that about half of American adults have consistently taken dietary supplements over the years. The use of B12 grew 40% from 1999 to 2012, while the use of B6 dropped by a smaller amount.
"There might be one reason why somebody takes something, but it can have other effects on our bodies," Kantor said. "We don't know the whole host of effects."
The good news, Bailey said, is that most people aren't taking the single-vitamin, high-dose supplements that go far beyond recommended levels.
"Most people are taking multivitamins," she said, "and for that, there's really been no (cancer) association, which I think is a success story."

Does Baby Powder Cause Cancer? A Jury Says Yes. Scientists Aren't So Sure

If you're a woman, there's a good chance you've used Johnson's Baby Powder at some point. It smells good, and it can keep you dry.

But is it dangerous?

Dr. Daniel Cramer says yes. He's a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. He says talc — the mineral in talcum powder — can cause ovarian cancer.

"Overall, women may increase their risk in general by about 33 percent by using talc in their hygiene," Cramer says.

On Monday, a California jury awarded Eva Echeverria $417 million in a case against Johnson & Johnson. Echeverria, who is suffering from terminal ovarian cancer, claimed it was caused by Johnson's Baby Powder, which she used on her perineum for decades.

Hers wasn't the first jury award against the company. And thousands more cases are pending.

It has opened a long-simmering question about whether talcum powder used in the genital area can cause cancer.

Cramer, who has served as a paid consultant on several ovarian cancer cases against Johnson & Johnson, published one of the first studies noting an association between talc and ovarian cancer in 1982.

"This story goes back a long, long way, back into the '70s when people noted that ovarian cancer had many similarities to asbestos exposure," he says. "Meanwhile another group in England found talc that was deeply embedded in ovaries and said there might be a story here."

In fact, talc is a mineral that is sometimes mined alongside asbestos. And asbestos, a known carcinogen, was found in the past in some talc products.

After his first study on the talc-cancer association, Cramer followed up with an article in 1985 calling on companies like Johnson & Johnson to put warning labels on their talcum powder products.

Johnson & Johnson declined to be interviewed for this story. The company said in a statement that it plans to appeal the California verdict.

"We are guided by the science, which supports the safety of Johnson's Baby Powder," wrote company spokeswoman Carol Goodrich in a statement. "In April, the National Cancer Institute's Physician Data Query Editorial Board wrote, 'The weight of evidence does not support an association between perineal talc exposure and an increased risk of ovarian cancer.' We are preparing for additional trials in the U.S., and we will continue to defend the safety of Johnson's Baby Powder."

Some researchers agree that the link between talc and ovarian cancer isn't all that clear.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, in 2010 called talc a possible carcinogen.

"It's not proof positive," says Joellen Schildkraut, a professor of public health at the University of Virginia. "These studies are suggestive. They support the idea."

Her research shows there's a stronger link between talc and ovarian cancer among African-American women than there is among white women. But to her, even that link isn't proof.

"I would not call this conclusive. It's consistent with other reports in the past. It's suggestive of a stronger association, but it is not conclusive," she says.

There are theories about how talcum powder could cause cancer. If women put it on their underwear or on feminine products, it could get into their reproductive system. Then, talc particles could make their way to the ovaries — research has already shown that can happen, and talc has been found in ovarian tumors. The talc could then cause irritation and inflammation that, over time, could lead to cancer.

"We can say that it is associated with an increased risk [of cancer]," says Shelley Tworoger, a cancer epidemiologist at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla. "And there are biologic mechanisms by which we think that talc could actually impact ovarian cancer. But I would stop short of saying that it necessarily causes ovarian cancer."

But she says there's certainly enough information out there to guide women.

"Why use it?" she says. "I don't know if I should say this or not, but ... why not just be safe and not use it?"

The symptoms of whiplash and how to claim compensation for an injury in the UK

There are lots of ways to you can suffer a whiplash injury, but car accident is the most common

Whiplash is suffered by hundreds of road accident victims every single day. If it happens to you, the law says you are entitled compensation

Many of us don't realise the severity of whiplash and the impact leave on a person's life.


There really are quite a few different ways to suffer from this elusive injury. Some can leave you feeling the pain for days, others months, and some never really go away.

What is whiplash?

Whiplash is often referred to as a neck sprain or neck strain. It is an injury to the soft tissues of the neck and back and is defined as an injury caused by a severe jerk to the head, typically in a car accident. It's common in urban traffic accidents, and while symptoms can take 6-12 hours to develop, they could keep getting worse for several days.

What is the most common cause of whiplash?

The most common cause of whiplash is a rear shunt car accident where one vehicle runs into the back of another. Whiplash can occur at an accident of any speed, and even happen at speeds as low as 5 to 8.

Greater injury can occur if a person’s head is turned at the time of impact or if they are surprised and unprepared for the collision. A history of neck injury may also contribute to increased whiplash pain. The amount of pain a person suffers after an accident is complicated by that individual’s susceptibility to injury-which can be difficult to predict.

What are the symptoms?

Stiffness in the neck- soreness and difficulty moving the neck, especially when trying to turn the head to the side.
Blurred vision- a lack of sharpness of vision resulting in the inability to see fine detail.
Headaches- a tightening around the head and neck, followed by aches.
Lower back pain- any pain between the bottom of your ribcage down to the top of your legs.
Dizziness- a sensation of spinning and losing one's balance.
Ringing in the ears (tinnitus)
Sleep disturbances
Irritability
Tingling or numbness in the arms
Difficulty concentrating

How to treat whiplash?

If you’ve been injured, you should seek the advice of a medical professional. Most whiplash symptoms of the back and neck can be treated with ‘over the counter’ painkillers and ice to reduce pain, swelling, and muscle spasms.

In some cases a short course of spinal mobilization can help in restoring normal positioning of the muscles and joints to allow for an active therapy program. Physical therapy helps to increase circulation, restore range of motion, and promote healing.

How long does whiplash last?

Whiplash generally only lasts a few days, but can last more than a year in severe cases.

Can whiplash come back?

Like any injury, whiplash pain can reoccur. However, with the right treatment and care you should expect to make a full and permanent recovery.

What is the average whiplash payout?

There are many factors which are taken into account when whiplash compensation is being calculated.

The severity of the injury dictates the level of general damages paid, but financial losses and how the injury has impacted your way of life can also make up a significant part of the claim.

The majority of whiplash injuries are classified as minor, with an average recovery time of around 4-5 weeks. 90% of people fully recover within three months. For these cases, the approximate range of compensation payouts is between £1,000 and £5,000. For most of the other 10% or so, where there is neck pain that lasts for a few years, the range is around £5,000 to £8,700, escalating to around £16,000 where there is permanent or recurring pain.

At the other end of the scale, a small minority of patients suffer permanent cervical spine damage, resulting in chronic pain or headaches and a variety of other symptoms, which are frequently exacerbated by long-term depression. For these people, compensation up to £95,000 can be paid.

Looking to claim?

If this is sounding all too familiar to you because you’ve been involved in an accident that wasn’t your fault, Accident Advice Helpline can assess your case and see if you can make a personal injury claim by calling:

Freephone: 0800 740 8782

Why Some Say the Eclipse Is Best Experienced in a Crowd

Right about now, maybe you’re looking at your bank account and reports of unprecedented traffic and wondering why you thought it was a good idea to experience the eclipse in the particular spot you chose.

You felt original, planning to watch near a mountain of cars (Carhenge, near Alliance, Neb.) or along the moon’s limb (Glendo, Wyo.). But then you saw that thousands of other people had the same idea.

Some are warning of a “zombie apocalypse,” as hordes of befuddled sky-gazers strain the resources of towns more accustomed to hosting pancake breakfasts than managing Coachella-size gatherings.

Don’t worry. Here are four reasons human behavior researchers say that you made the right decision to experience the eclipse in a crowd — even if the portable toilets overflow.

Achieving Maximum Emotional Intensity

Why is it that excitement can feel so much more intense when we’re in a group with others feeling the same emotion? Fergus Neville, a social psychologist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, believes this results from seeing our own emotions reflected in the faces of others around us, which validates our own experience and amplifies the intensity of our feelings.

Using a variety of tools, including surveys and heart rate measures, he has tried to assess this magnification process.

“I think that you can have the experience with small groups, but that the more people you see in your group who are sharing your experience, then the stronger the validation effect and thus the stronger the experience,” he said in an email.

Perhaps this is worth keeping in mind the day before the eclipse, as you drive around trying to find a store that hasn’t yet sold out of water.

Connecting with Strangers

If you asked people, “What’s missing in your life?,” it’s unlikely that many would respond, “Emotional intimacy with strangers.”

But if you ask soccer fans what they like about watching a match with a crowd, Dr. Neville has found, intimacy turns out to be a favorite part of the experience.

Given the macho, aggressive reputation that some sports fans have, Dr. Neville said people are often surprised by that finding. What it hints at is something other researchers have found as well: Many of us who seem not to want to interact with strangers — actually do. We just don’t know how to make it happen in normal life.

So why is it much easier to do in some crowds than others? The critical ingredient, researchers say, is a sense of shared social identity. That’s something that is pretty much guaranteed in a field full of people in matching glasses, waiting for the moon to cover the sun— regardless of whether you hang out in the same kinds of places normally.

Chris Cocking, a social psychologist at the University of Brighton, recalled standing amid a sea of friendly strangers during the total eclipse in his hometown, Cornwall, England, in 1999. He was there to enjoy the spectacle, not to study the group, but it was clear to him that something special was transpiring as the shadow zoomed across the Atlantic.

“It gave you a sense of psychological connection,” he said. “It was amazing.”

No Need to Fear the Crowd

Many places in the path of totality — the approximately 70-mile-wide strip across America where the moon will obscure 100 percent of the sun — have never facilitated a crowd anywhere near as large as the those expected on Aug. 21. Reports of towns of 200 swelling to 20,000 and national parks surpassing visitor records can incite anxiety.

This past weekend in Charlottesville was a tragic reminder of how group dynamics can go awry. But a crowd that gathers to protest something, researchers say, operates differently than a crowd that gathers to enjoy an experience. And in either case, more people doesn’t necessarily translate into more danger.

“The fear of crowds flows from the idea that crowds are irrational and that they need to be controlled,” said Clifford Stott, a social psychologist at Keele University in Britain.

But a large body of research from the past decade, he said, has shown that “people don’t panic — people self-regulate.”

That’s not to say that local officials are off the hook. Helping ensure that there’s sufficient water and emergency services requires planning. It’s also crucial that even when authorities feel like their resources are strained, they continue to remind themselves that people are there for something positive and capable of responding to thoughtful communication.

Yes, this may sound absurd, but the way a large group is perceived has been found to have an impact on how it’s managed, which in turn affects how the people within it behave.

“Treating crowds as dangerous and antagonistic can be a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said Stephen Reicher, a social psychologist at the University of St. Andrews who has written extensively about crowd dynamics.

It’s Like Nothing Else

Birds go silent. Spiders start dismantling their webs. What happens to the humans at totality?

“From a physiological point of view, if you took someone from bright sunlight and put them in a dark closet, the effects of just being in darkness could potentially be the same,” said Dr. Norman Rosenthal, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine, who helped discovered seasonal affective disorder, a dramatic example of the sun’s impact on human behavior.

But just because there’s no research to show how we’re affected beyond that, that doesn’t mean we’re not, he said.

Based on his own experience of totality in 1998, he said, “The adrenaline rush you get must be similar to parasailing or coming down in a parachute.”

And it’s that feeling, amplified by the enthusiasm of strangers, that is inspiring him to travel to a hub of clogged wireless networks to experience it yet again.

In Tennessee, Promoting Enrollment in Tenuous Health Care Plans

NASHVILLE — Sharon Barker isn’t used to recruiting new health insurance customers in deepest summer, long before the enrollment season for the Affordable Care Act. But this year, everything is different.

Despite surviving Republican efforts to repeal it, the law known as Obamacare remains vulnerable. President Trump has repeatedly threatened to end billions of dollars in payments to insurance companies, but his administration decided this week to continue them for another month.

An even more crucial question is whether administration officials who openly detest the law will lead a vigorous nationwide push to persuade the uninsured to buy policies sold under its banner, and existing customers to keep their coverage, when open enrollment for next year starts on Nov. 1.

The evidence so far suggests they won’t. The administration recently ended $23 million worth of contracts with two companies that helped people sign up for coverage. It also is cutting the enrollment period in half in most states, to 45 days. A number of advocacy groups that worked closely with the Obama administration to get the word out about open enrollment have heard nothing from the Trump administration about re-upping the partnerships this year.

Continue reading the main story
All of this has Ms. Barker and other Obamacare enrollment counselors around the nation, many of whom rely on federal grants to carry out their work and to keep their jobs, revving up earlier than usual, and bracing for the strange new challenge of promoting coverage that the president is attacking at the same time. They are not even certain the law’s mandate that most Americans have health insurance or pay a tax penalty will be enforced.
A recent sticky Friday found Ms. Barker passing out fliers about open enrollment at a back-to-school fair in East Nashville. To every parent and grandparent who strolled past, she asked, “You have health insurance?” Nearby was her favorite prop: a wheel that passers-by could spin with a dial that landed on terms like “deductible” and “penalty,” which she cheerfully explained to those willing to listen.

For the law’s first four enrollment seasons, the Obama administration spent heavily on advertising, recruited celebrities like Katy Perry and companies like Uber to spread the word and scrutinized data to pinpoint potential customers. But this year, community-based enrollment groups, known as navigators, may be largely on their own.

“This is going to be the heaviest lift we have ever tried to undertake,” said Jessie Menkens, navigator program coordinator for the Alaska Primary Care Association. “We will be shouting out for people to recognize this really is not over — that regardless of what deliberations are happening in Washington, this is still truly the law of the land.“

The approximately 100 navigator groups around the country, which received $63 million in federal grants last year, are not sure the Trump administration will renew those grants, which are supposed to be awarded next month. Matt Slonaker, executive director of the Utah Health Policy Project, said he had had encouraging conversations with officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (known as C.M.S.), but “no one will know for sure until the grants are finalized.”

Mr. Slonaker also said that at a conference that C.M.S. held for navigators in June, employees of the agency said the federal government would not run any ads to promote open enrollment this year. A spokeswoman for the agency would not confirm whether that was true or answer other questions about the administration’s plans.

Other open questions include whether the Trump administration will automatically re-enroll people who did not actively cancel or change their plan, as Mr. Obama’s did, and whether it will increase staffing at call centers that help people sign up, given the compressed enrollment time frame.
Insurance companies had asked for the shorter enrollment period, saying it would allow them to collect a full year’s worth of premiums from Obamacare customers and reduce the number of people who wait until they are sick to sign up. The Obama administration had planned to cut the enrollment period to six weeks starting in 2018, but the Trump administration moved it up to this year.

Leaders of the state-based marketplaces say they feel largely in the dark.

“By this time in prior years, the states would have a really good sense of what the federal government was planning so we could plug the holes or leverage what they were doing,” said Mila Kaufman, executive director of the D.C. Health Benefit Exchange Authority. “We just haven’t seen any details.”
It seems clear that Mr. Trump won’t be using his powerful Twitter account to encourage sign-ups. Nor are he and Tom Price, his health and human services secretary, likely to be visiting enrollment sites around the country like Mr. Obama and his health secretaries, Kathleen Sebelius and Sylvia Burwell, did.

Mr. Obama visited Nashville to promote the health law in 2015, going to the home of a breast cancer survivor who had benefited from the law, then taking her in his motorcade to an elementary school, where the two of them talked up the law to a cheering crowd.

Last year, Tennessee became a symbol of the law’s growing problems. Insurers sought some of the steepest premium increases in the country after posting major losses they blamed on their Obamacare customers’ high medical costs. Then BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee decided to stop offering plans in Nashville, Memphis or Knoxville. Statewide enrollment dipped to 200,401 by February 2017, from 231,705 in March 2016.

The state became something of a poster child for the repeal-and-replace effort this year, when Humana announced it was pulling out of the Obamacare markets nationally. That left 16 Tennessee counties with no insurers for next year, a situation Mr. Trump seized on at a rally here in March. (BlueCross BlueShield has since agreed to offer coverage in those counties.)

An Imperiled Indonesian Lizard May Hold The Key To Fighting Superbugs

Komodo dragons, the 10-foot, 300-pound lizards found in Indonesia, do not bite humans unless attacked, but when they do, it can prove deadly. Not only is the venom in their teeth potentially fatal, they may also harbor bacteria in their mouths that is dangerous to their prey (typically, deer and pigs).

The question of whether Komodo dragons deliver fatal bacterial infections to their prey when they bite has been somewhat controversial: A 2013 study, refuting previously accepted common wisdom, swabbed the mouths of 16 captive Komodo dragons and found they had less bacteria than other predators, such as lions.

Nonetheless, Komodo dragons in the wild eat carrion and live in environments rich in bacteria yet rarely become infected, though local prey such as water buffalo do. And one reason may be because of a special resistance to dangerous bacteria in the form of cationic antimicrobial peptides, a type of protein that fights off harmful bacteria and that researchers have found in the animals’ blood.

“Komodo dragons are known to harbor high levels of bacteria in their mouths. They don’t suffer from negative effects of bacteria in their own mouths,” said Barney Bishop, one of the study’s authors and an associate professor at George Mason University’s chemistry and biochemistry department.

Using the peptide in the dragon’s blood as inspiration, the researchers designed a synthetic chemical called DRGN-1, which imitates Komodo dragon blood.

As superbugs become more resistant to antibiotics, scientists are turning toward bioprospecting ― or looking to nature for potential medicines. In a recent study published in Biofilms and Microbiomes, researchers from George Mason University found an answer in Komodo dragons, which are native to Indonesian islands.

“We thought the best place to look was animals that are known to thrive under adverse conditions,” Bishop said.

Since the 1940s, antibiotics have reduced deaths from infectious diseases, but they’ve become so widespread that the bacteria the antibiotics are supposed to kill have adapted. Now, every year, at least 2 million people become infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and at least 23,000 people die from their infection.

The military’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency funded this research, hoping the team could look to “extreme animals” to find new ways to defend against infections. This could possibly lead to new drugs to fight superbugs and protect people from bacterial bioweapons.

“We’re in an age of emerging antibiotic resistance,” said Monique van Hoek, one of the study’s authors and an associate professor at George Mason University’s National Center for Biodefense and Infectious Diseases. “We think it’s very important to take these new approaches to discover new ways to kill bacteria. By going into nature, we’re finding a new starting point for this.”

The team found that when DRGN-1 was used to treat infected wounds, these wounds healed significantly faster than untreated wounds or wounds treated with other peptides. That’s in part because DRGN-1 breaks down biofilms, a film of bacteria that sticks to a wound’s surface, which is not addressed by conventional antibiotics.

“It both clears the bacteria out of the wounds and it helps the wounds to heal,” van Hoek said.

The Komodo dragon is currently a vulnerable species with about 6,000 animals remaining, but the researchers collected less than four tablespoons of blood for testing from Tujah, a captive Komodo dragon that lives in the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park in Florida. Tujah was not harmed in this process.

“This allows us to test endangered animals or very small animals because we don’t need a very large sample,” van Hoek said.

Bishop and van Hoek, who have been collaborating on antimicrobial discovery research since 2009, have also studied American alligators, Chinese alligators, Siamese crocodiles and saltwater crocodiles for possible treatment.

Right now, the DRGN-1 research is still in the preclinical phase, and the team is at the early stages of trying to commercialize the peptide. But down the road, DRGN-1 may help fight the superbugs of the future.

“When we started this project, it was a high-risk project. The DTRA took a gamble on us,” Bishop said. “The fact that we saw a complexity of peptides from the animals we’re testing on, there’s still a lot to learn. It’s very enriching.”

Don't cotton swabs to clean your ears, It's very Dangerous.

The docs' advice hasn't changed much, however it is nevertheless so unsatisfying: you ought to not use cotton swabs to easy your ears.

Up to date clinical suggestions published tuesday within the journal otolaryngology-head and neck surgical treatment say they are not suitable for earwax elimination. In reality, information for patients within the guidelines say no to setting some thing "smaller than your elbow in your ear."

Regardless, most folks hoard a stash of the gentle-tipped paper sticks; they seem so perfectly suited to that dirty task.

So the authors of the suggestions -- an advisory panel of the yankee academy of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery -- have injected a bit little bit of freshness into the usual recommendation, giving more rationalization as to "why not?" they even "we sincerely have come to realize that clinicians are not the handiest users of (the tips), that patients are absolutely inquisitive about their very own care and those are clearly taking possession of their own care," stated dr. Seth schwartz, chairman of the guideline update organization for the academy.

Study extra

Here's why now not: cotton swabs, hair pins, residence keys and toothpicks -- the many smaller-than-our-elbow-items we adore to install our ears -- can cause cuts in our ear canals, perforate our eardrums and dislocate our hearing bones. And any of this stuff should cause listening to loss, dizziness, ringing or different signs and symptoms of ear harm.

Alternatively, the general public can just permit nature do its activity. Our our bodies produce earwax to keep our ears lubricated, clean and guarded: dirt, dirt and something else that might enter our ears receives stuck to the wax, which continues such a debris from transferring farther into the ear canal. Our normal jaw motions from talking and chewing, in conjunction with skin increase within the canal, normally allows flow vintage earwax from inside to the outside the ear, wherein it is washed off throughout bathing. The pointers published in 2008 have been overdue for an update. Whilst new randomized trials were included, "not anything very dramatic" has modified, apart from an improvement within the technique itself, said schwartz: "the procedure has turn out to be a touch extra transparent in the way we without a doubt write the pointers now. We're extra clean about why the choices we made are made and what statistics there is to aid it."

Patient are apparently interested by the nitty-gritty of ear care: more than 50,000 humans downloaded the antique guideline, schwartz stated.

"it is sort of brilliant how many humans were interested by studying that," he stated.

The do's and don'ts

To be "a little bit extra affected person-friendly," the tips now consist of lists of "do's and do not's" for everyone and a listing for people who have had troubles with cerumen impaction, the reliable term for earwax buildup, a circumstance that is extra common a few of the elderly, in step with dr. James battey, director of the country wide institute on deafness and other communication disorders.

Impaction can occur whilst the ear's self-cleaning method would not work very well. The resulting waxy buildup blocks the ear canal, causing trouble hearing. For people with impacted ear wax, the usage of cotton-tipped swabs can also push the earwax deeper into the ear canal and harm the eardrum," battey stated. He introduced that "about 2% of adults with impacted earwax may match the health practitioner with listening to loss as their symptom."

"impacted earwax is nice addressed via a health care expert," he said.

Within the all-essential "don't" section, you may find warnings against "overcleaning" your ears. Excessive cleansing may additionally boom earwax impaction, in step with the authors.

"it's cultural" to want clear ears, schwartz said, however "wiping away any extra wax in relation to the out of doors of the ear is enough to keep it easy."

Any other warning within the new hints: do no longer use ear candles. Now not best can they cause "critical damage" for your eardrum, "there is no proof that they eliminate impacted cerumen," wrote the authors.

"domestic treatments are pretty effective," schwartz said, including that the "whole host" of over-the-counter wax-softening drops in addition to home-use irrigators are effective and safe. "even drops of water inside the ear can be powerful to soften the wax," he added.

Still, some of the items on the "do" listing is to ask your health care issuer approximately a way to treat earwax impaction at home, seeing that "you can have sure medical or ear conditions which could make some alternatives dangerous."

"it is no longer a terrible component to have wax in your ears. Anybody does and need to. It is extra of an problem when it will become too much," schwartz said. The rule definition of "an excessive amount of" is an operational one: if you have signs and symptoms -- inclusive of pain, drainage, bleeding or hearing loss -- then you definitely have a problem.

"if it's causing symptoms, sincerely go to your physician," schwartz said, repeating what is likely the maximum essential "do" listing recommendation. Nonetheless, a few people attribute their symptoms to wax buildup while it's simply not the case.

Amongst older humans, "listening to loss will become very, very not unusual," stated schwartz.

In fact, getting older, together with infections and exposure to loud noise, is one of the maximum common reasons of obtained hearing loss, consistent with battey.

Yet many humans can not imagine that they've started to lose their listening to, and due to this disbelief, schwartz stated, "a patient has wax cleared, and then their doctor desires to look deeper."

Is A Fitness Downside to Statin Drugs?

Taking ldl cholesterol-reducing statin pills appeared to make exercise more tough and much less beneficial, a new look at in mice shows. Mice aren't human beings, obviously, however the observe does improve interesting questions about whether or not and the way statins may affect physical health in anybody.

Inside the experiment, statins had been very powerful in lowering cholesterol levels. However animals moved less if they had been taking statins than if they were now not taking the medicine. And when they did move, mice on statins developed fewer wonderful bodily adjustments inside their muscles than animals that have been now not given the drugs.

Statins are already one of the most widely prescribed drugs on earth, and their use is possibly to grow still greater in coming years. Last november, in an article published in jama, a group of scientists proposed that any adult past the age of forty with even a single chance factor for cardiovascular ailment begin taking a statin that allows you to lessen his or her chance of eventually developing heart disorder.

However statins are not with out dangers. They have been observed to boom the hazard for kind 2 diabetes. They also can bring about muscle aches and fatigue. In a few studies of humans taking statins, as many as 20 percent record good sized muscle ache, with the incidence rising even higher among folks who exercise whilst taking statins.

Such muscular pain and fatigue may be specifically consequential if they result in human beings being much less active. Different research suggest that cardio fitness, which depends to a massive diploma on how a good deal human beings move, may be a better predictor of existence span and even of dangers for coronary heart disorder than levels of cholesterol.

However many questions stay unanswered about how statins affect someone’s willingness and capacity to workout and additionally whether or not workout whilst on statins exacerbates any muscular issues.

So for the new examine, which was published in december in plos one, researchers on the university of illinois at urbana-champaign got down to systematically examine what happens to mice, animals that evidently love to run, in the event that they commenced taking statins.

The mice they chose to use had been bred to develop extremely excessive levels of cholesterol. (they used only male mice in this test, because the girl reproductive cycle can have an effect on cholesterol and pastime ranges. The scientists desire to take a look at ladies in later research.)

At the start of the test, the scientists checked the animals’ modern cholesterol profiles, as well as their capability to dangle horizontally to a wall while being lightly tugged, a widespread way to decide muscular electricity and health. The scientists extensively utilized light electrical stimulation to measure how speedy the animals’ massive leg muscle tissues grew tired and not able to settlement, and that they executed tissue biopsies to gauge the underlying, mobile fitness of the muscle mass themselves.

Then the animals were assigned to an expansion of businesses.

Some have been injected with a statin drug, whilst others, serving as controls, were given a shot of salt water.

Some of the animals in each of these groups then were given get entry to to strolling wheels and allowed to exercise as they selected. Typical in their species, they all started out out enthusiastically walking, at the same time as the researchers tracked their mileage.

Others had been not given jogging wheels and remained sedentary throughout the examine.

After a month, the researchers repeated the tests from the study’s begin.

As could be expected, the animals on statins had lower levels of cholesterol now, not like the unmedicated mice, whether or not they exercised or no longer.

However the animals on statins also had spoke back to workout pretty in a different way than the alternative mice.

Maximum distinctly, they had run far fewer miles, with their interest ranges consistently declining during the experiment.

In addition they had lost grip energy, which, in keeping with the observe authors, can suggest no longer only muscle weakness however also pain or tenderness; in impact, if muscle tissues ache, it hurts to try and keep on.

Their large leg muscle mass also fatigued plenty earlier than the muscular tissues of walking animals no longer on statins.

Curiously, those statin-associated muscular problems have been no greater among the runners than many of the sedentary animals taking statins, the researchers discovered. Exercise itself had not made the muscle aches and fatigue worse.

However the statins had blunted a number of the expected exercising effects under the pores and skin, it became out. The runners now not taking statins had advanced large muscle fibers, in addition to ideal modifications inner muscle cells that caused more green manufacturing of electricity. They were more fit, at a cell stage.

Inside the runners taking statins, in the meantime, muscle fiber length had now not improved as an awful lot and cells had been slightly more efficient than on the start.

Whether those medicated mice were much less muscularly healthful because they had run less than the other mice or due to the fact the statins had come what may without delay made their muscle mass less in shape is not possible to tell from this look at, says marni boppart, a professor of body structure at the college of illinois who oversaw the experiment.

The take a look at additionally manifestly involved mice, no longer people.

But the effects are well worth bearing in thoughts in case you are taking statins or are advised to begin taking them.

“the outcomes from this take a look at endorse that statins may additionally lessen the choice to take part in a voluntary or prescribed exercise training program,” dr. Boppart says.

So speak on your medical doctor at period about the probably blessings and disadvantages of statins, she says, and let your doctor realize in case your muscle mass hurt otherwise you discover your self skipping exercises after starting the drug.

Is it true that prolonged use of Lipitor-type drugs can cause diabetes?

It’s actual. All medicines have side results, and severa research have shown that cholesterol-lowering statin tablets are linked to a small boom in the threat of type 2 diabetes, while they reduce the threat of coronary heart attacks.

The higher the dose of a statin, the extra the diabetes threat, said dr. Eric topol, director of the scripps translational technological know-how institute and chief academic officer at scripps health. However many coronary heart docs, which includes dr. Mary norine walsh, president-go with of the yankee college of cardiology, say situation approximately diabetes ought to now not deter patients from taking statins “in case you fall into the higher danger class” for coronary heart sickness.

Then again, a person who has in no way had coronary heart ailment and who has high cholesterol but no other threat elements is less in all likelihood to derive gain from a statin drug at the same time as still facing the hazard of diabetes, dr. Topol said, adding, “there you've got a totally tight gain-to-threat ratio.”

The meals and drug administration up to date its advisory about statins in 2012 to encompass warnings approximately the marginally expanded chance of better blood sugars and type 2 diabetes, primarily based in element on two huge analyses of earlier studies that controlled for diabetes risk elements like being overweight or being older. One found a nine percent increase within the threat of diabetes amongst statin customers, and the other a 12 percent growth, with a extra risk for the ones on extensive as opposed to mild doses of the medication.

Can Statins Cause Diabetes?

The 2012 f.D.A. Advisory additionally warns of other aspect results of statins, along with muscle harm, rare instances of liver harm and reports of memory loss and confusion.

“you and your medical doctor want to be aware of dangers,” stated dr. Walsh, and you can need to be assessed for diabetes. But she said, “it isn't always a reason no longer to take a statin in case you fall into the higher hazard category. The general benefit of statins for individuals who want them because of their cardiovascular threat a ways exceeds the danger of diabetes.”

Do Statins Cause Erectile Dysfunction?

Erectile dysfunction (ed) is a situation marked by using the incapability to acquire or keep an erection. The threat increases with age, affecting 12 percentage of men beneath 60, 22 percentage of men among 60 and sixty nine, and 30 percent of men over 70, in line with the country wide institute of diabetes and digestive and kidney diseases (niddk).

Sure conditions, inclusive of melancholy and low testosterone, are feasible causes of ed. There has even been debate that statins — a popular type of ldl cholesterol medicinal drug — can every now and then be responsible.

While researchers have regarded into the opportunity of statins as a motive for ed, different evidence has cautioned otherwise. The identical 2014 have a look at located that over the years, ed definitely stepped forward amongst men who were taking statins for high ldl cholesterol.

Moreover, the niddk says that clogged arteries can cause ed. If your medical doctor prescribes statins to take away plaque in the arteries, it is able to no longer be the medicine inflicting issues. Rather, the clogged arteries themselves can be the reason.

Blocked blood vessels (atherosclerosis) can also cause ed. It may be a sign of destiny coronary heart issues. In truth, a 2011 report found that ed is on occasion a warning signal that a patient may want to have a coronary heart assault or stroke inside the next five years.

Erectile Dysfunction

Erectile dysfunction (ED)—also known as impotence—is a condition where a man has difficulty achieving or maintaining an erection.

Erectile dysfunction (ED)—also known as impotence—is a condition where a man has difficulty achieving or maintaining an erection. It is a condition that affects at least 30 million men to some degree. It is most common in men 40 years and older, but experts believe statistics regarding erectile dysfunction are low because many men do not report the condition to their doctor.
Erectile dysfunction can lead to relationship problems, as well as depression and distress in men. It can be a symptom of larger health problems, particularly cardiovascular diseases. Other factors that can increase the risk of ED include:

• smoking tobacco
• excessive alcohol consumption
• obesity
• an inactive lifestyle

Diagnosing ED

In diagnosing erectile dysfunction, a doctor will examine a man's sexual, medical, or psychosocial history to determine possible sources of the dysfunction—side effects of medication, substance abuse, current sexual practices, or other special circumstances.

A physical examination for erectile dysfunction normally doesn't differ much from a standard physical examination from a doctor. The doctor will check for abnormalities in the testicles and other deformities, as well as the presence of other problems that could lead to erectile dysfunction:

• low blood pressure
• hypertension
• high cholesterol
• heart disease
• diabetes
• depression

A rectal exam may also be needed to check the prostate. Blood tests may also be done.

Treating ED

A doctor will most likely tell a patient with erectile dysfunction to curb bad habits, including smoking and excessive alcohol or caffeine consumption, if applicable.

Erectile dysfunction is treated with medications such those that block PDE-5—an enzyme that affects erections. Those medications include Viagra or Cialis, apomorphine, or the herb yohimbine. Other less common treatments include prostheses, surgery, and injections to promote blood flow to the penis.

Omega-3 fatty acids have been shown to improve blood flow to the penis and may be a useful adjunct to treatments established by your physician.

Statins and Your Sex Life For Better Life

The technology on statins and sexual function is inconclusive, however it does seem that taking a statin may also occasionally have an effect on someone’s intercourse existence.

On the plus side, some men document progressed erections when their excessive ldl cholesterol became treated with statins, stated dr. Steven nissen, chairman of the department of cardiology on the cleveland clinic. It's far practicable that lowering ldl cholesterol improves the characteristic of the cells that line blood vessels, which can help erectile function, he stated.

But a 2008 report from the college of california, san diego, tells a unique story. Researchers looked at statin use and sexual characteristic in 1,000 males and females, 1/2 of whom have been given a statin and half of whom took a placebo. Over all, guys on statins were approximately two times as in all likelihood as those taking placebos to document that their ability to acquire orgasm had emerge as “truly worse” or “an awful lot worse.”

Dr. Beatrice golomb, a professor on the university of california, san diego, scientific college, who helped behavior that study, says docs don’t always take patients seriously after they communicate about aspect consequences, sexual or otherwise. In other studies, dr. Golomb observed that once patients complained approximately the maximum usually identified facet consequences of statins, their docs denied the possibility of a connection extra than 1/2 the time.

Clinical issues that lead to a statin prescription may also be in charge for adjustments in sexual function, stated dr. Natan bar-chama, director of male reproductive medicinal drug at mount sinai health center in big apple. Statins are typically prescribed for humans with ailments inclusive of diabetes or heart disease, which could motive erectile disorder. If the underlying sickness improves while a person takes statins, then erectile feature is possibly to enhance as properly, he said.

At the flip side, statins can motive side effects along with fatigue and muscle weak spot. All of us with the ones situations could be more likely to go through sexual problems, he said.

Due to the fact the technological know-how on statins and sexual function is so inconclusive, dr. Golomb stated, patients who do observe sexual problems have to speak to their medical doctors approximately whether the possibly advantages of statins are really worth the trade-off. Research has certainly shown that men under 70 with pre-existing coronary heart disorder live longer if they take statins, but the advantages are much less clear for girls, the ones without disorder and people over 70, she said.

“doctors want to be informed about and conscious of affected person issues,” dr. Golomb said. “make certain you've got a medical doctor who listens to you.”