Posts tagged health news
Sleeping pills may kill you early: Study
Feb 29th
Taking sleeping pills frequently can increase the risk of premature death more than five-fold a new study has warned.
The study published in the British Medical Journal Open found that patients who even take fewer than 18 pills a year more likely to die early than those not on medication.
The higher the dose the greater the risk. And those on higher doses also have an increased risk of cancer said the researchers at the Jackson Hole Centre for Preventive Medicine in Wyoming and the Scripps Clinic Viterbi Family Sleep Centre in California.
The commonly prescribed drugs that may raise such
risks included benzodiazepines newer sedative hypnotics zolpidem zopiclone and zaleplon and barbiturates and antihistamines.
However experts said worried patients should not stop taking the pills but talk to their doctors first the Daily Mail reported.
Eat nuts daily for healthy heart
Nov 7th
Scientists have for the first time found a link between eating nuts and higher levels of serotonin in the bodies of patients with metabolic syndrome (MetS), who are at high risk for heart disease.
Serotonin is a substance that helps transmit nerve signals and decreases feelings of hunger, makes people feel happier and improves heart health.
Cristina Andres-Lacueva and colleagues from the Biomarkers and NutriMetabolomics Research Group of the University of Barcelona in collaboration with the Human Nutrition Unit of the Rovira i Virgili University explained that the rise in obesity around the world means more and more patients have MetS.
Symptoms of MetS include excess abdominal fat, high blood sugar and high blood pressure, which increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
To check the biochemical effects of nut consumption, the researchers put 22 MetS patients on a nut-enriched diet for 12 weeks and compared them to another group of 20 patients who were told to avoid nuts.
The scientists analysed the broad spectrum of compounds excreted in the patients’ urine and found evidence of several healthful changes.
One surprise was evidence that nut consumption had boosted patients’ levels of serotonin metabolites in urine.
They point out that the study provides the first evidence in humans of the beneficial effects of nut consumption in reducing levels of substances in the body associated with inflammation and other cardiovascular risk factors in patients with metabolic syndrome.
Drinking tea daily as good as water
Aug 8th
A new study has found that drinking four to six mugs of tea daily is as good as a litre of water for keeping yourself hydrated.
The finding disproves the idea that regular tea drinking can dehydrate the body because of itscaffeine content.
The research also found no negative health effects from drinking that amount of tea.
In the high quality UK clinical trial, 21 volunteers drank either four 240ml mugs of tea over a 12-hour period – equivalent to just under one litre of tea in total – or a similar amount of plain, boiled water served warm.
The tea included 20ml of semi-skimmed milk but no sugar.
The test was also repeated using six cups of tea or plain water, equivalent to nearly 1.5 litres of fluid, to investigate the effect of intakes.
Blood samples were taken before consumption and at regular intervals to check hydration levels. Analysis found no significant differences between drinking tea and water.
“Tea is an excellent way to maintain healthy fluid levels. In addition, tea is a rich source of flavonoids, which have been associated with a reduced risk of heart disease and stroke,” the Daily Mail quoted Carrie Ruxton, nutritional advisor to the panel, as saying.
Eating chocolates, sweets as kids may help you stay slim
Jul 2nd
LONDON: Parents, please note — contrary to nutritional wisdom, a new study says that eating sweets and chocolates are good for children as it may actually stop them from getting fat in later life.
Researchers have found that youngsters who regularly eat chocolate bars and other sugary treats are significantly less likely to be overweight or obese than those who do not, the ‘Daily Mail’ reported.
The effect apparently extends to adolescence, when those who eat sweets are even more likely to be thinner, say the researchers at Louisiana State University. For their study, the researchers monitored more than 11,000 children and young people between the ages of two and 18 from 1999 to 2004.
The data showed kids who ate sweets were 22 per cent less likely to be obese than those who didn’t.
Among adolescents, even more — 26% — were likely to weigh less than their counterparts who did not eat sweets. Across all ages there were also lower levels of C-reactive protein in sweet-eating children. The researchers said that children who were fed the right portions of sweets from an early age learned the vital skill of “food discipline”.
Chicken pox spreading in Chennai
May 26th
CHENNAI: The chicken pox virus is on the prowl. Clinics and hospitals across the city have reported the infectious disease caused by varicella zoster virus, characterised by fever, body ache and rashes.
“Being an airborne disease, this can infect anybody, but children are more prone,” says Dr L Venkatesh of Apollo Hospitals. Summer is the season for such infectious diseases. Most children with chicken pox have headache, high fever, tummy ache and loss of appetite. These symptoms last for two to four days before the rashes break out.
Dr Priya Chandrasekar of Indira Child Care says the number of cases may this time is larger than last summer. “I have had about 10 cases in the last two weeks,” she says. Dr M Jayakumar of Apollo Children’s Hospital says he has seen 20 children with the infection in one month.
The viral infection spreads quickly and can affect adults also, generally parents of infected children. Treatment is limited to bringing down the symptoms as chicken pox is essentially a self-limiting disease that runs its course. Preventive vaccines are available in the market.
Dr S Geetha from Muthu Pharmacy says, “Antiviral tablets and vaccination are the two best ways to make sure a child or patient with chicken pox doesn’t suffer major complications.” Dr V Ramasubramanian, senior consultant of infectious diseases at Apollo Hospitals underscores the need for precaution. “Everyone above the age of ten should get vaccinated to prevent chicken pox and such infections during summer,” he says. Dr T Rajagopal, a general physician, says chicken pox, measles and a host of other communicable diseases occur during summer since the viruses find the heat optimum to thrive.
Minor irritations such as prickly heat, rashes, itching, boils are common in summer, but can also be easily avoided by maintaining a good personal hygiene.
Anti-viral drugs administered within 72 hours prevent the formation of scars. Dr Rajagopal says the course of the disease can be shortened with drugs. Treatment and care for the rashes must also be taken as those can cause secondary infections post recovery.
Bathing Secrets for Softer Skin
Mar 26th
Nothing beats the feeling of standing under a shower after a long day outdoors and letting the sweat and grime drain away with the water. But there’s a lot more to bathing than just the cleansing process.
Here are some tips that will help change your bath experience from a cleansing ritual to a refreshing and beautifying one!
1) Use a shower gel, not soap.
“Soaps have a tendency to make your skin dry as most of them are alkaline in nature,” says Dermatologist Dr Abhijeet Desai.
Shower Gels being more sensitive give a thorough cleansing and refreshing feel to the skin. They also lather more quickly and lavishly than soap and you can thus pamper yourself more with every shower! Pick a good quality, tried and tested shower gel from the Fiama Di Wills range. These shower gels have ingredient-rich suspended beads that work on your skin to leave it soft and silky smooth.
Check out the varieties and then take your pick:
Mild Dew- Enriched with soft beads, peach and avocado extracts for soft moisturized skin.
Clear Springs- Enriched with Jojoba Beads, Sea Weed and Lemongrass extracts for clear healthy skin.
Exotic Dream- Enriched with glitter beads, bearberry leaves and black currant extracts for stimulating freshness.
2) Pick the right loofah.
A very harsh loofah will only rob your skin of its moisture. So pick one that gently works the shower gel into a foamy lather to cleanse your skin. For that invigorating after-bath feeling, try the Fiama Di Wills Exotic Dream shower gel. It is enriched with glitter beads as well as bearberry leaves and black currant extracts for stimulating freshness.
If you really feel the need, use an effective body scrub once a week to take off the dead skin cells that get accumulated on your body. Another option is the Fiama Di Wills Clear Springs shower gel that has jojoba Beads, sea weed and lemongrass extracts for clear healthy skin.
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Dieting can lead to aggressive behaviour
Mar 23rd
London: Those cutting out the calories are more irritable and angry than those who eat what they like, according to researchers.
Their study revealed that the effort involved in exerting self-control over food can even lead to aggressive behaviour towards other people.
Those on diets are more likely to prefer anger-themed movies, were more interested in looking at angry facial expressions, and expressed more irritation at a message that used controlling language to convince them to change their exercise habits, it found.
“We set out to examine whether exerting self-control can indeed lead to a wide range of angry behaviours and preferences subsequently, even in situations where such behaviours are quite subtle,” a newspaper quoted US authors David Gal of Northwestern University and Wendy Liu of the University of California, as saying.
“Research has shown that exerting self-control makes people more likely to behave aggressively toward others and people on diets are known to be irritable and quick to anger.”
‘Poor Quality’ Job as Mentally Harmful as No Job
Mar 16th
March 14, 2011 — Finding a “poor quality” job that’s overly demanding and where one feels a lack of job control or job security can be at least as harmful for a person’s mental health as being unemployed, a study shows.
Study researcher Peter Butterworth, PhD, an associate professor at the Australian National University in Canberra, tells WebMD that although having a job has been shown to have positive effects on both mental and physical health, moving from unemployment to a bad job can take a toll on your mental health.
“It seems in our study that the adverse effects of moving from unemployment into a poor quality job outweighed the benefits of no longer being employed,” Butterworth says in an email to WebMD.
He and other researchers studied 7,155 people in seven waves, coming up with more than 44,000 observations.
Questionnaire on Mental Health and Jobs
Every year, respondents’ mental health was assessed based on answers to a series of “psychosocial” questions about their jobs. The assessment reflected, among other things, the level of employee control, work schedules, job complexity, and perceived job security.
The respondents also were asked if they felt they received a fair wage for the work performed.
People who were unemployed, as expected, had poorer mental health scores overall than those who had jobs. But the researchers’ analysis found evidence that having a job didn’t automatically result in happiness.
Over time, people in jobs determined to be of the poorest quality experienced the sharpest declines of all in mental health scores.
“We looked at four different aspects of work in our study: whether people were working in highly complex and demanding jobs, whether they had a say in how they did their work, whether they considered they received fair pay for their efforts, and whether they felt secure in their job,” Butterworth says. “While these conditions will often be found in jobs in the service sector, call centers, or casual sales jobs, they can also be found in more ‘prestigious’ jobs.”
The researchers say a direct association was found between the number of unfavorable working conditions on a job and mental health difficulties, with each additional adverse condition reducing the person’s score on a mental health survey.
Finding a high-quality job after being unemployed improved mental health by an average of 3 points on the researchers’ scale. But getting a poor quality job was more detrimental to mental health than remaining unemployed; people in this category showed a loss of 5.6 points.
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