Doctor HealthHealth Tips

It appears that stroke patients who receive both intravenous thrombolysis - a minimally invasive treatment that dissolves abnormal blood clots - and endovascular interventions - such as drugs and implanting medical devices - are much more likely to recover and have lower chances of dying, according to new research by the Zeenat Qureshi Stroke Research Center at the University of Minnesota Medical School. Read the rest of this entry »

Exercise Tip for Parents No. 8: Be a Role Model

Whether they admit it or not, kids look to their parents as role models.

“What you do has a huge effect on what they do,” says Chipko, who works with youth from 9 to 18.

If you’re a couch potato, you may pass that trait on to your children. On the other hand, if kids grow up in a family where they walk the dog, hike, or go for bike rides, they will emulate that behavior, says Keller.

“When trying to teach kids discipline,” says Chipko, “you as a parent should have some as well.”

Calcium and vitamin D supplements may do more than strengthen bones in older women. These vital nutrients may also help younger, active women reduce their risk of stress fractures.

To illustrate that point, many bone health experts refer to a recent study of more than 5,200 female U.S. Navy recruits that found that women who didn’t take additional calcium and vitamin D were about 25 percent more likely to suffer a stress fracture than women who took the vitamin and mineral combination.

“The most common time for a stress fracture is when you’re increasing your exercise levels — when you’re going from doing nothing to doing a whole lot. It’s too much, too fast, and the bone can’t handle it,” explained Dr. Sabrina Strickland, an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in sports medicine at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City.
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Postmenopausal women who have lost interest in sex may be able to bring their libidos back to life with a testosterone patch, according to new research published this week in The New England Journal of Medicine.
However, the use of the male hormone to boost sex drive in women may not be risk-free. Out of the 814 women in the study, four women who were taking testosterone developed breast cancer, but none of the women on placebo did. It’s not clear whether this was a statistical blip or a warning sign that excess testosterone could cause or spur the growth of a malignancy. Some women also reported excess hair growth, although none stopped using the hormone for this reason.
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Cold weather conjures up many images: snowball fights, cuddling by the fireplace, drinking hot cocoa.

Perhaps the image of an inspired workout is best left for sunnier days — which is why you are lacking the motivation to get out from under the warm covers actually do anything, much less exercise.

No worries, though, FOXNews teamed up with Manhattan’s Crunch Fitness and New York City’s WPLJ 95.5 FM to put together an invigorating winter workout playlist.

Hopefully, these songs will have you burning a steady stream of calories by the end of December, so that you can toss back an extra glass of champagne on New Year’s Eve without the guilt.

1. Song: “Rock ‘N Roll Train”
Artist: AC/DC

Why it’s great: “This is No. 1 in 29 countries,” said WPLJ’s Race Taylor, who hosts the “Afternoon Drive” show. “It’s classic vintage AC/DC with a twist for the modern era. If you are pumping anything, this should motivate you.”

Suggested workout: “Any AC/DC song should be used to lift some major, heavy weights,” said Marc Santa Maria, regional group fitness director at Crunch. “They just make you wanna kick butt and pump that weight.”
2. Song: “So What”

Artist: Pink
Why it’s great: “This is great to bust out your rock moves and blow raspberries at the end,” Taylor said. “And, it’s probably the best use of the word ‘tool’ in a song. You wouldn’t think it, but Pink really does love her ex-husband.”

Suggested workout: “This song is hot,” Santa Maria agreed. “All attitude for stairmaster or a high-incline treadmill walk. We’re talking incline 15 power walk time.”

3. Song: “Keeps Getting Better”

Artist: Christina Aguilera

Why it’s great: “This song says it all,” Taylor said.

Suggested workout: “Picture doing 100’s or teasers in your Pilates mat class to this song,” Santa Maria said. “Keep your breaths steady and your abs as fierce as Christina’s voice.”

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In a puzzling twist, women who have a history of migraine headaches are far less likely to develop breast cancer than other women, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

The study is the first to look at the relationship between breast cancer and migraines and its findings may point to new ways of reducing a woman’s breast cancer risk, they said.

“We found that, overall, women who had a history of migraines had a 30 percent lower risk of breast cancer compared to women who did not have a history of such headaches,” said Dr. Christopher Li of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, whose findings appear in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.

Li said the reduction in risk was for the most common types of breast cancers — those driven by hormones, such as estrogen-receptor positive breast cancer, which is fueled by estrogen, and progesterone-receptor positive breast cancer, which is fueled by progesterone.

Hormones also play a role in migraines, a brutal type of headache often accompanied by nausea, vomiting and heightened sensitivity to light and sound. Women are two to three times more likely than men to get migraines.

While it is not exactly clear why women with a history of migraines had a lower risk for breast cancer, Li and colleagues suspect hormones are playing a role.

“Women who have higher levels of estrogen in their blood have higher levels of breast cancer,” Li said in a telephone interview.

And he said migraines are often triggered by low levels of the hormone estrogen, such as when estrogen levels fall during a woman’s menstrual cycle.

Women who get migraines “may have a chronically lower baseline estrogen. That difference could be what is protective against breast cancer,” Li said.

For the study, Li and colleagues analyzed data from two studies of 3,412 post-menopausal women in the Seattle area, 1,938 of whom had been diagnosed with breast cancer and 1,474 of whom had no history of breast cancer. Women in the study provided information on their migraine history.

They found women who had reported a clinical diagnosis of migraine had a 30 percent reduced risk of developing hormonally sensitive breast cancers.

“Migraines are typically most severe among pre-menopausal women,” Li said. “This study was all post-menopausal women.”

He said that suggests the protective effect seen in women who get migraines may have a lasting effect at reducing breast cancer risk.

“While these results need to be interpreted with caution, they point to a possible new factor that may be related to breast-cancer risk,” Li said in a statement.

Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among women worldwide, with an estimated 465,000 deaths annually, according to the American Cancer Society.
By: Reuters

Giving young women educational materials about the risks of indoor tanning helps them find healthier alternatives for changing appearances, a study says.

Six months after 430 college-age women received a booklet focused on the damaging effects of tanning and ultraviolet radiation, specifically related to indoor tanning, on the skin’s appearance, about 35 percent of the women reduced their time in tanning booths from the previous year. Similar changes in attitude toward future intentions to tan were also noted.

However, the researchers found the participants’ perceptions of susceptibility to skin damage or skin cancer from indoor tanning did not change.

The booklet also emphasized tanning abstinence and recommended other appearance improving alternatives, such as exercise, sunless tanning products and choosing fashions that do not require a complimentary tan.

The study, conducted by a team from the School of Public Health at East Tennessee State University, was expected to be published in the Dec. 1 issue of Cancer.

The authors concluded that their effort “supports the use of intervention messages to change young people’s ultraviolet risky behaviors and ultimately reduce skin cancer morbidity and mortality.”

More than 1.3 million skin cancer diagnoses, resulting in more than 10,000 deaths, are made annually in the United States.
By HealthDay

Health Tip
Baby teeth usually begin to appear between 5 months and 7 months of age. Infants may continue to get baby teeth until they are about 2 1/2 years old.

The Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital offers a list of common symptoms of teething, and some warning signs that something may be wrong.

Normal signs:

* Additional drooling.
* Frequent chewing or sucking on the fist or fingers.
* Swelling or puffiness of the gums.
* Being unusually fussy.

Unusual symptoms:

* While some discomfort is normal, teething shouldn’t cause your baby to have a high fever.
* Teething also shouldn’t cause cold-like symptoms or diarrhea.
By HealthDay

They survive cold season without a sniffle. They fly in germ-packed airplanes unscathed. And they somehow avoid stomach bugs that decimate the office. Wish you could be one of these women who never get sick? Try one or — even better — all of these seven secrets, and you may join this club come flu season.
1. Get a massage
For the past three years, Mindy Hardwick, 38, of Lake Stevens, Washington, has dodged all the major bugs while volunteering at schools and a juvenile-detention center. Her secret weapon: a monthly massage. Hardwick even sailed through a move (selling her first house) without the post stress blahs. “It’s got to be the massage,” she says. “I’m convinced it’s like taking medicine.”

Most studies show that massage can reduce anxiety, blood pressure, and heart rate — and lowering these is likely to cause your stress level to drop, one key to building immunity. Health.com: What kind of massage is best for you?

“Decreasing stress increases your immune cells,” says Tiffany Field, PhD, director of the Touch Research Institute of the University of Miami School of Medicine.

Make massage work for you: Any type of rubdown is fine, as long as you ask for moderate pressure, Field says. The therapist’s touch should be vigorous enough to move or indent skin but not so hard that it causes pain. How often do you need one? There’s no science on that, but experts say once a month (or more) is worthwhile. Check with your insurance provider to see if massage therapy is covered. If cost is an issue, check out massage schools, which sometimes offer discounted services.

You can take matters into your own hands, too, by showering with a stiff, natural-bristle brush; like moderate-pressure massage, this stimulates pressure receptors under the skin, Field says. A brush we like: Earth Therapeutics Far Reaching Back Brush ($7; www.mothernature.com) And couples who massage each other for 10 minutes a few times a week can reap significant benefits, Field adds. Tune up your technique with Gaiam’s Massage Practice: Acupressure DVD ($10; www.gaiam.com).
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Everybody has heard about the great benefits of green tea, but still we drink beer! Green tea has a lot of great benefits and contains a lot of medicinal and nutritional properties. These really deserve to be known because it can save your life one day!

For thousands of years, the Chinese have been drinking green tea and enjoying excellent health benefits. They even used to drink green tea for its medicinal properties, as the Chinese were able to avoid and even treat different kinds of illnesses. It is also linked to the long life that the Chinese have enjoyed and became renown for. They have the highest rate for people living over the age of a hundred. That should be enough proof! Although the Chinese have been drinking this kind of tea for centuries, it was only recently that green tea has been introduced and became popular throughout the planet. I have to through the blame on Coke on this one!

Scientists and nutritionists have found that this incredible drink does indeed have medicinal properties that can help prevent several types of illnesses including this age’s plague, cancer. In fact, there are even doctors who recommend green tea for any kind of illness and insist that drinking it regularly plays a great role in maintaining good health. What is it exactly that makes this magical drink such a miracle that it even perplexed health professionals from all over the world?

First, this tea contains high levels of antioxidants, which are called Polyphenols or Flavonoids. Why do we need antioxidants anyway? We need to understand that the body does millions of processes that are happening at all times. Even when you are asleep, the brain, cells, organs and every part of our body is active building and repairing. This magnificent building operation requires oxygen in order to be done properly. Somebody might ask, what’s wrong with Oxygen? The oxygen that we breathe isn’t hundred percent pure and clean and can contain a lot of oxidants like dust particles, smoke, pollutions, germs, viruses and all kind of harmful micro particles. These oxidants or commonly known as free radicals and are penetrating our system every single day. These free radicals are known to be one of the main stimuli in the growth of cancer cells.

So, in order to fight or reduce the effect of oxidants or free radicals, we will need to introduce antioxidants in our body, very powerful ones in the case of some people! And guess what, green tea has a lot of them. Although some other natural herbs and fruits do have antioxidants, you will see that green tea has a lot more. In fact, the antioxidants found on green tea are much higher than that found in grape juice and red wine.

Second, this amazing drink also contains vitamins, such as vitamin B6, which plays a vital role in the metabolism of the body. That’s why everybody drinks green tea to lose fat and weight. Additionally, vitamins B1 and B2, which are essential for releasing energy from food, which is actually good because it converts directly into energy that you can use in your daily exercises and your work. Another great thing about this tea is that it has key minerals such as magnesium, which is essential for bone growth and body development as well as potassium, which helps in keeping the heart pumping normally and maintain the body’s fluid levels. I thought only milk has such minerals and bone supporting nutrition!

Green tea has caffeine though just like coffee. You may put it as a “disadvantage” but compared to coffee and other teas, it is the best caffeine you can put into your body system! Let me explain, the caffeine that we get from coffee and regular teas has immediate effects on our nervous system. It can raise blood pressure and make our heart beats faster than normal due to its instant stimulating effects. Surprisingly, caffeine in green tea is more beneficial than the caffeine taken from coffee. It works through the body in a different mechanism. It alerts our system, but in a prolonged kind of and effect so we don’t experience sudden spikes in blood pressure, heart beat rate and nervousness. And again, it helps you lose that extra fat in your body, without the harmful caffeine effects!

To experience the utmost health benefits, green tea is preferably brewed rather than fermented. Fermentation is most likely used in black tea but never in green tea. There are basically three important reasons why brewing is used in green tea.

Reason # 1 – Brewing doesn’t eliminate the important nutrients, vitamins and components that comprise green tea. On the other hand, fermentation wastes a lot of the nutritional tea components leaving more and less an enjoyable beverage.

Reason # 2 – Brewing can bring out the best in Catechin and Theanin, the two elements that contribute to a lower level of caffeine in your green tea.

Reason # 3 – Brewing enhances taste and aroma. Indeed, brewing has a very enticing smell that can’t be found in fermented beverages.

Brewing green tea is easier contrary to what people might think. Here are the tips for the best brewed green tea:-

Tip 1 – The type of water Choosing what kind of water to use is a very important detail that you have to take note of. Ideally, manufacturers would prefer brewing green tea using soft mineral water or natural water. If you can’t afford purchasing bottled water daily, you can take into consideration tap water. If you’re planning to use European bottled water, don’t. It’s because this kind of water is considered hard water that is not suitable for brewing green tea.

Tip 2 – Chlorine free water Chlorine must not be mixed with the process. To remove it, just leave your water in your pot for a couple of hours before finally boiling it.

Tip 3 – The boiling process Depending on how much water you have put, it will be the time that you have to boil. Whenever the water starts to boil, take off the lid of the pot and let it boil continuously for a few more minutes.

Tip 4 – Temperature It is said that correct temperature of boiling water will vary on the kind of tea that you are about to use. This is the moment when the extraction of Polyphenols takes place. When you buy green tea, usually there will be there some instructions on the temperature to use.

Tip 5 – Steep Let your tea steep for about three to five minutes. With longer steeping time, the Polyphenol level increases while if steeping time takes only a couple of seconds, it will result in more caffeine content in the tea.

Tip 6 - Tea leaves Research shows that it is better to brew green tea leaves that are smaller because of the fast infusion. Choosing large leaves or ones that are tightly curved can have a longer infusion time.

Tip 7 - Teabags or loose leaves? It is more advisable to use loose green tea than green tea teabags. Loose green tea enables Polyphenols to freely float inside your cup of green tea instead of locking them inside teabags.
by YOUSEF JULAIDAN