Surgical lip makeovers, super-efficient workouts, one key to stronger bones, and good news for those who took the Pill early on.
March 17, 2010
Pucker Up!
Want a sexier smile? A team of cosmetic surgeons in Naples, Florida has devised a way of plumping up lips by implanting tissues from a patient’s neck muscles and connective tissue. Two years after the procedure, according to a report in the Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery, the test subjects’ lips were 1 mm. plumper and 23% redder. The surgery would typically be done at the same time as a facelift.
Read BusinessWeek
Why Fat Makes Some Fat
Chefs and nutrition researchers have long considered the “mouth feel” of fat the key to its popularity. Now a group of Australian researchers think there’s another factor at work: People have the ability to detect the taste of fat simply from its chemical composition when it’s served up with no texture. The lucky ones who are exquisitely sensitive to the taste tend to eat less fat, and end up on the thinner side. The less sensitive folk need more fat to feel satisfied, and tend to land on the more obese side of the scale.
Read The Sydney Morning Herald
Birth Control Pill=Longevity
If you took birth control pills during the late 60s, when the formulations were much stronger than they are today, you can stop worrying. In a British study that followed 46,000 women for almost four decades, women who used the pill had a 38% lower chance of dying from bowel cancer and a 12% lower risk of fatally succumbing to any disease.
Read USA Today
Want to Work Out Less and Benefit More?
Exercise sorts have long championed interval training, which intersperses higher-intensity bouts of endurance activities with longer stretches of moderate aerobic workouts. But now Canadian researchers are pinpointing the incredible efficiency of what’s known as short-term high intensity interval training (HIT). In this protocol, the intense intervals are really intense (you work at 95% of your max heart rate) and the rest sections are fairly short. "Doing 10 one-minute sprints on a standard stationary bike with about one minute of rest in between, three times a week, works as well in improving muscle as many hours of conventional long-term biking less strenuously," said McMaster University scientist Martin Gibala.
Read Medical News Today
Why Calcium May Not Be Enough
Increasing calcium intake does not always work in preventing bone fractures, and a new study done at the Jean Mayer USDA Research Center on Aging suggests that the amount of calcium necessary for good bone mineral density is dependent on your blood levels of vitamin D.
Read the USDA Agricultural Research Service
However: A Wake Forest University study indicates that while supplementing vitamin D can improve atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) in whites, it might actually be harmful to African-Americans.
Read Eurekalert
March 9, 2010
Best Diet? Check Your Genes
Can’t lose weight? A genetic test may tell you if you’ll have better results with a low-fat or a low-carb diet, according to a preliminary study done at Stanford University. Researchers there found overweight women with a predisposition to succeed on a low-carb diet lost 2 ½ times more weight than women with a different genetic make-up. Similarly, those with a low-fat inclination fared better on that kind of eating plan than other women. The test, which is available to consumers, is based on three genes involved in the metabolism of fat and carbohydrates.
Read Businessweek
Read the Wall Street Journal
Surprise! Red Wine Good for Your Weight
Dieters are routinely cautioned to avoid alcohol. But a Harvard study that followed 19,000 women for 13 years found that those who drank moderately (one to two drinks a day) were 30 percent less likely to become overweight or obese in midlife than women who abstained. The relationship was most strong when red wine was the drink of choice. One possible explanation: Women who drink tend to consume less carbohydrates than others.
Read Portfolio.com
Read Reuters
Make it Oatmeal for Breakfast
The soluble fiber found in foods like apples, nuts and oats can reduce the inflammation that’s associated with obesity and can strengthen your immune system. "Soluble fiber changes the personality of immune cells -- they go from being pro-inflammatory, angry cells to anti-inflammatory, healing cells that help us recover faster from infection," said Gregory Freund, of the University of Illinois. His results came from lab tests with rats.
Read UPI
February 20, 2010
Drugstore Anti-ager Pans Out
For the first time, an over-the-counter skin product has been shown to reduce wrinkles as well as the prescription drug retinoic acid. In an eight-week study, women who used Proctor & Gambles’ Olay Pro-x, an OTC regimen of three creams, experienced the same diminishment of wrinkles as did subjects who followed a retinoic acid routine. The Olay women were also less likely to complain of skin irritation. "I think these studies will raise the bar, because they show that you can trial these products in the same way that you trial a drug, and the cosmetics industry has never had to do that before," said Christopher Griffiths of the University of Manchester, in the United Kingdom.
Read the New Scientist
February 8, 2010
Let’s Drink to That!
If you need an excuse to quoff a cold one tonight, consider this: Studies show that moderate beer drinking is linked to good bone mineral density. That’s because beer is rich in silicon, a chemical element. But a University of California, Davis study reports that different kinds of suds differ in the silicon content considerably. Best bets are pale ales; least bone-healthy are low-alcohol beers, stouts and wheat beers.
Read the New Scientist
Plus: Need another way to chill out? In a trend that’s not making doctors (or the FDA) happy, beverage manufacturers have put the hormone melatonin and other sedating chemicals into soft drinks that are sold in drug stores.
Read the New York Daily News
The Diet That Helps You Keep Your Wits
In a Columbia University study, people who followed a Mediterranean diet—which emphasizes olive oil, fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, grains, fish and moderate amounts of wine—were less likely to have infarcts (areas of dead tissue) in parts of the brain associated with thinking. “In this study, not eating a Mediterranean-like diet had about the same effect on the brain as having high blood pressure,” the study author said in a press release. This relationship helps explain why earlier studies found an association between eating a Mediterranean diet and slower cognitive decline in older adults.
Read Eurekalert
Another Reason to Work Out
Exercise, and especially tons of it, cuts your risk of developing painful gallstones. Gallstones, which are much more common in women than men, most often don’t cause symptoms, but in some people lead to extreme abdominal pain, infection and inflammation. A British study of 25,000 men and women found that upping your daily exercise level can reduce your odds of experiencing gallstone trouble. The most active subjects—people who worked out over an hour a day—had a 70 percent lower risk of developing gallstone symptoms than others.
Read the BBC News
February 4, 2010
Good News for Size-12s
If you’re overweight (not obese) and you make it to 70-75, your odds of living another 10 years are greater than if you are at what’s considered a “healthy” weight, according to an Australian study of 9000 men and women. People with a BMI between 26 and 27 (well within the overweight range of 25 to 29.9) had the best chances of survival of any group in the research.
Read Reuters
Your Boss Wants Your Kids to Eat Their Carrots
Prompted by the success of corporate wellness programs—a recent study says medical costs fall an average of $3.27 for every dollar companies spend on employee wellness—big companies are now expanding their attention to employees’ spouses and kids. For instance, JP Morgan Chase is offering health coaches to family members who join their stay-healthy plan.
Read Business Week
Plus: Whole Foods, the country’s biggest organic supermarket chain, plans to vary how much it charges employees for groceries based on how healthy the company deems them to be. Workers who get the highest discount on food purchases—30 percent—must have a BMI of less than 24 (a BMI of 25 is considered overweight), not smoke, have a cholesterol count below 150 mg/dL (200 is considered normal) and blood pressure of 110/70 (the American Heart Association calls 120/80 normal). Employees with less desirable measures will get smaller discounts, depending on where their health measures fall.
Read the Financial Times
Safer Mammograms?
A study comparing digital mammography to the more conventional sort determined that the newer version exposes women to radiation doses that are 22 percent lower per view. The reduction is even more significant in women with larger and denser breasts.
Read Healthday
Vitamin D Benefit Du Jour
Today’s discovery: Taking vitamin D supplements might protect you against the inflammatory bowel condition known as Crohn’s disease, which is particularly likely to strike people in northern, sunlight-short locations. Researchers at McGill University in Montreal discovered that vitamin D activates genes that help protect the intestines against invading microbes.
Read EurekAlert
January 20, 2010
Simple Truths
When it comes to diet plans, easier does it, says a study published in the journal Appetite. Researchers discovered that dieting women were much more likely to stick with a program that spells out menus and shopping lists than one that requires calculating the points in foods and aiming for a certain total every day. The difficulty involved in the second type of diet caused many women to give up.
Read Healthday
Worried About Wine?
A moderate wine intake (one glass a day) is associated with a reduced risk of heart disease but it also ups your odds of getting certain cancers, including bowel. That’s why the World Cancer Research Fund is suggesting that oenophiles switch to wines with a lower alcohol content. Wines from the southern hemisphere (Australia, Chile and Argentina) tend to contain higher levels of alcohol than European versions, while all sparkling wines tend to come in on the lower end. To find out the alcohol content of different wines, go here.
Read the BBC News
Surgery That Might Be Unnecessary
In the late 19th century, doctors began removing all appendixes that were inflamed in order to prevent them from bursting and spreading infections. Now a report in the Archives of Surgery suggests that many appendectomies—specifically, those done on organs that are inflamed but not perforated—are not medically necessary. The researchers believe that these cases could be treated with antibiotics, which were not available when the protocols on appendectomies were first developed.
Read USA Today
Want More Brain Cells?
Then take up running. A study reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports that mice who ran on exercise wheels grew new gray matter in the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for memory and learning, and increased their spatial memory. In humans spatial memory helps you, for instance, find where you parked your car.
Read WebMD
Plus: The first study done with humans shows that drinking antioxidant-rich blueberry juice improves the memory of older people.
Read Eureka Alert
An Apple a Day…
Really might keep the doctor away. Turns out that the pectin (a kind of fiber) in apples increases levels of “good” bacteria in the gut, at least in rats tested in a lab. These bacteria improve intestinal health.
Read Healthday
January 13, 2010
Turn off the Tube!
That’s the advice Australian researchers have for couch potatoes. In their study, adults who watched four or more hours of television a day were 46 percent more likely to die of any cause, and 80 percent more likely to die from cardiovascular disease, than those who sat in front of the set for less than two hours a day. The relationship, which was tracked over a period of six and a half years, held even for those who exercise in their spare time.
Read: ABC News
Plus: Moderate exercise in midlife may help prevent cognitive impairment, and high-intensity aerobic activity in older people seems to reverse that impairment, according to two new studies reported in Newswise.
Stealth Health Moves
Some food manufacturers have been silently lowering the salt content of their products, including V8 juice and Chef Boyardee, without announcing the fact on their labels. Why the secrecy? Americans think low-salt foods don’t taste good, and those called “low-sodium” tend not to sell well.
Read the Wall Street Journal
Natural Hemorrhoid Treatment
Taken orally or applied topically, a pine bark extract called Pycnogenol reduces hemorrhoid symptoms in sufferers, says an Italian study.
Read UPI
January 5, 2010
A Fruit That Thwarts Breast Cancer?
Stock up on pomegranate juice! In a lab study reported in Cancer Prevention Research,
phytochemicals from the fruit suppressed the production of the estrogen that fuels hormone-dependent cancer. The phytochemicals, called ellagitannins, inhibit an enzyme necessary for making estrogen. Results, of course, are quite preliminary.
Read WebMD
How Menopause Affects Your Heart
Women who are close to menopause should get their LDL cholesterol checked out. A University of Pittsburgh study determined that this harmful form of cholesterol increases dramatically in the year before and after menopause—just as estrogen levels plummet. In the study group of over 1000 women, LDL stabilized three to five years after menopause at the borderline high mark of 130.
Read the Wall Street Journal
Who Benefits Most from Antidepressants
If you’re suffering from mild depression, antidepressants may not be the best way to start treatment, suggests a University of Pennsylvania study. Researchers there found that antidepressants worked extremely well on people with severe depression but provided little help to those with more moderate problems. We didn't know this before because these people are generally excluded from trials used to test the efficacy of depression medications. For the more modestly troubled, psychotherapy might be more effective, say the Penn researchers.
Read Medpage Today
Why Lack of Sleep Makes You Gain
Here’s another thing to keep you awake at night: Chronic shortfalls in the sleep department have been linked to weight gain, diabetes and heart disease. A small study reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition has come up with a possible explanation: Subjects deprived of sleep are too tired to move around a lot the next day. Over time, the lack of exercise could contribute to an increase in girth and other health issues.
Read Reuters
Toss Out This Supplement
You can forget the ginkgo: This purported memory aid did little to slow the cognitive decline in older adults in a six-year-long study of 3000 people over 70. It had been hoped that the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of this tree extract might prevent mental deterioration.
Read TIME
December 16, 2009
Youth Springs Eternal
If others say you look young for your age, you’re in luck. People with a youthful appearance tend to live longer than others, according to a Danish study that followed sets of twins. The study found that baby-faced folks tend to have longer telomeres (endings) in their DNA, an indication that their bodies are aging slowly.
Read BBC News
Big Increase in Near-Sightedness
We are doing a lot more squinting that we used to. In 1971 to 1972, about a quarter of Americans aged 12 to 54 were near-sighted; by 1999 to 2004, this number had jumped to 42 percent. The increase was even higher for African-Americans. One possible explanation is that the proliferation of close-up work, as on computers, causes eye strain.
Read Reuters
Good News for Coffee (and Tea) Lovers
Three to four daily cups of joe—especially the decaffeinated kind—helps protect you from developing type 2 diabetes, reports a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine. So does a similar amount of tea. The healthy ingredients seem to be magnesium and a type of antioxidant called lignans.
Read ABC News
December 3, 2009
Going Gray? Don’t Blame Stress
Nope. It wasn't your divorce or problems with your kids. A study of identical and non-identical twin sisters found that it's your genes that determine when and how you go gray. Stress, diet and smoking play little to no role in natural hair color changes.
Read BBC News
Read how one woman decided to go back to her gray roots
Mammogram Radiation Risky for Some
Women under 30 who are at high risk for breast cancer may become more likely to develop the disease if they undergo numerous mammograms and chest X-rays, apparently as a result of exposure to radiation, according to a Dutch researcher. In response to this study, the American Cancer Society’s director of screening said: "We know that breast tissue is susceptible to the harmful effects of radiation when women are at a young age, and that this risk diminishes as women age."
Read Reuters
Plus: Almost 85 percent of American women aged 35 to 49 say they will get mammograms before age 50 despite a government panel's recommendation that women avoid the screenings until they reach the half-century mark, says a USA Today/Gallup poll.
Read USA Today
Plus: How do you feel about the new guidelines? Join the conversation at MORE's forum.
November 19, 2009
What’s the Deal with Mammograms?
On Monday, a government panel came out with recommendations on mammograms that flew in the face of conventional wisdom—and generated a tidal wave of protest.
Instead of the annual breast screenings after age 40 promoted by organizations like the American Cancer Society, the Preventive Services Task Force of the Department of Health and Human Services suggested that women with normal breast cancer risk need not bother with testing until they reach 50. For most women aged 50 to 74, the panel recommended mammograms only every other year. And once women reach 75, they could take mammograms permanently off their to-do list. The recommendations were based on statistical analyses of the effectiveness of mammograms in finding cancers that need to be treated.
On television’s The View, Elisabeth Hasselbeck called the new guidelines “gender genocide.” Other people charged that the government was trying to ration medical care. The Internet was flooded with postings from alarmed women who felt that annual mammograms had, or could, save their lives.
At MORE.com, for instance, veteran health writer Sheryl Kraft wrote about the mammogram she had at age 34 that spotted what turned out to be intraductal carcinoma, the most common form of non-invasive breast cancer. She writes, “Yesterday’s news on new mammogram recommendations made me scream. You might have heard me from where you were.”
There was a lot of screaming going on--and a lot of listening, too. News source after news source reported that a slew of local and national organizations, including the Federal government (see CNN’s report), announced that they had no intention of changing their recommendations for annual mammograms.
“How should women respond to this news?” asked Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the foundation that brought pink ribbons into the world, on its web site. “Calmly,” it answered. Although the advocacy group is still recommending annual mammograms, Nancy G. Brinker, its founder, told the Washington Post that the government report provides an opportunity to push for research into screening that works better than mammography, especially for younger women. "We need 'tomorrow technology' and we need people to invest in it," she said.
In the meantime, plenty of doctors are telling women, in effect, to ignore the new guidelines.In an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, Dr. Otis W. Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, questioned the interpretation the Task Force made of the data on hand. So did three doctors convened by Good Morning America.
Yet all the experts agree on one piece of advice: Before you make or cancel any screening appointments, talk to your doctor about whether or not you should get a mammogram, and how often. In her personal blog, Dr. Susan Love, a well-known breast cancer research advocate, writes: "What I hope these guidelines will do is push doctors to have a conversation with their patients about the risks and benefits of mammography so that women can make a decision that is right for them. If, knowing the risks, you want to have a mammogram, that should be your choice. But you should also know that mammograms are not all that good at detecting breast cancer in women under 50, so that you [should still] be alert for any changes you see in your breasts."
More:
USA Today polls insurance companies and finds that they are not planning on changing their reimbursement for mammograms.
New York Times political humorist Gail Collins talks about the perils of “evidence-based” medicine and decides the last 10 years should be called the “Decade of Medical Backtracking.”
Our Bodies, Our Blog recounts why the new mammogram guidelines might actually make sense.
The LA Times reports on the large number of medical organizations that have repudiated the new recommendations
Have you been helped by mammograms? Or do you think they’re a waste of time? Weigh in on the mammogram controversy at MORE’s forum.
November 17, 2009
Are Bacteria Making You Fat?
A high-fat, high-sugar diet changes the composition of bacteria in your gut so that you gain weight more easily. This kind of diet favors a type of bacteria that’s better at processing indigestible food. Result? More calories become available to your body (and belly).
Read the LA Times
November 11, 2009
Forget the Fasting! It’s Not Necessary for a Cholesterol Test
One of the most difficult parts of getting your blood cholesterol checked is the overnight fasting that’s been required before the exam. Now you can get tested without having to forgo your morning joe—the results are accurate whether or not your bloodstream has cleared the fats from your meals, according to an analysis of 300,000 people in 21 countries reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Read the BBC News
Why You Need Chocolate Milk Every Day
You’ve already been given permission from heart researchers to drink a glass of red wine a day. Now they’re extolling the virtues of drinking skim milk with flavonoid-rich cocoa. In a study done in Barcelona, Spain, people who drank this combo twice a day for four weeks showed reduced levels of inflammation in their bodies, which should lower their risk of developing atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. But the inflammation-reducing effects of chocolate milk are not--sorry!-- nearly as strong as for red wine.
Read The New York Times
Mammogram Conundrum
MORE reported last week that several researchers were questioning the value of mammograms, mostly because they appear to catch a lot of small tumors that may not really need treating. The New York Times weighed in today, asking experts to define who benefits the most from periodic screenings. While the American Cancer Society officially recommends those tests begin when women turn age 40, an increasingly louder faction believes the exams are unnecessary (and may lead to false positives) below age 50 except for women with a family history of the disease. For women 50 to 70, there is strong evidence that regular mammograms can reduce breast cancer deaths by 20 to 30%. And after age 70? The tests might not help because breast cancers that develop at that age tend to be slow-growing, non-lethal ones, say some experts.
October 28, 2009
For Firmer Arms, Spread Out Your Protein
Americans tend to eat most of their daily protein at dinner. But if you’re trying to build more muscle (and who isn’t?), you’re better off consuming 4 ounces of protein with each meal of the day, according to research by Douglas Paddon-Jones, PhD, of the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.
Read the LA Times
Pants Tight? Check Your Medicine Chest
Proton pump inhibitors are an effective way to treat acid reflux, but a new Japanese study suggests they can make long-time users gain weight. During the two-year research period, people who took the drug every day blew up, on average, by 6.2 percent, significantly more than the control group.
Read Medical News Today
The Sex Tax
Women pay up to 50 percent more in individual health insurance premiums than men, says an analysis by the National Women’s Law Center. Eleven states already ban this practice of what’s known as “gender-rating.”
Read the Denver Post
October 21, 2009
Could a Virus Cause Obesity?
For years, people scoffed at the notion that a bacteria could cause ulcers, but now it is accepted that the germ H. pylori is responsible for most cases of the ailment. Operating in a similar vein, a researcher named Nikhi Dhurandhar, who works at a biotech firm in Richmond, Virginia, is looking into a cold virus that is associated with obesity in animals.
Read the New Scientist article