‘Burning mouth’ syndrome hard to treat
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It’s a burning sensation that gradually spreads across the tongue through the course of the day, and it has a medical name: glossopyrosis, or more commonly, burning mouth syndrome. The condition can be frustrating to treat, but usually some relief can be found, according to the latest issue of the Mayo Clinic Health Letter.
Most often, it seems, multiple factors play a role in producing the symptoms. Disease, medications or nutritional deficiencies can all be involved, but often no single cause can be pinpointed,
The condition is most common in people over 60, and occurs more frequently in women than in men. It can last for weeks or even years. Pain, tingling or numbness may be felt in the throat, lips, gums or palate as well as the tongue, and sensations can involve a metallic taste in the mouth.
Obese men fare well after prostate cancer surgery
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Although obese men tend to have more aggressive prostate cancer going into surgery, they do just as well as thinner men in the years afterward, a study suggests.
The findings, published in the journal Cancer, suggest that obese men need not fear that their weight will add to their risk of cancer recurrence or death.
“I think this is a reassuring study for obese men,” lead study author Dr. Sameer A. Siddiqui told Reuters Health. “Even with worse cancers, their outcomes were the same.”
All forms of tobacco harmful: study
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All forms of tobacco consumption—smoking, chewing and second hand smoke—raise the risk of heart attack by up to three times, according to the results of a new study in Friday’s edition of the Lancet medical journal.
The study, covering a total of 27,000 people in 52 countries, found that tobacco use in any form—including sheesha, popular in the Middle East, and beedie, common in South Asia—were bad for health.
Compared to people who had never smoked, heavy smokers had a tripled risk of heart attack while even light smokers and people who chewed tobacco had a doubled risk.
Bangladesh worker angry at US AIDS help restrictions
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A U.S. “loyalty oath” that aims to curb prostitution and prevent sex trafficking has stymied one group’s efforts to educate sex workers in Bangladesh and left thousands of women without support, a local activist said on Thursday.
Her eyes filling with tears, Hazera Bagum said her group, Durjoy Nari Shangha, had closed drop-in centers for sex workers in the Bangladesh capital in order to win U.S. funding.
“This feeling is like a broken heart, it’s like a broken family,” she said through a translator at a news conference during the 16th International Conference on AIDS in Toronto.
When eating is sport, victory as agonizing as defeat
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Jeremiah Jimenez had just wolfed down his 11th bratwurst at an eat-off here earlier this month when he began to experience what is politely known in the competitive eating world as a “reversal in fortune.”
It was a crisis moment and the 29-year-old, who competes on the eating circuit as “El Toro,” decided to try to play through, swallowing hard and reaching for another sausage.
“But when my hand touched the 12th brat,” Jimenez says. “I just gagged. The greasiness just sent a message to my brain to stop ... I was really disappointed. My capacity is double that.”
Glaucoma can worsen during pregnancy
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For women with glaucoma, pregnancy usually has no effect on their eye condition, but in some cases it does.
Glaucoma is characterized by increased pressure within the eyeball, which can lead to vision loss or even blindness if it’s left untreated.
A study of what researchers call the largest group of pregnant glaucoma patients ever compiled is reported in the Archives of Ophthalmology. “We found that although many glaucoma patients did quite well during pregnancy, some had a significant worsening of their disease,” senior investigator Dr. Cynthia L. Grosskreutz told Reuters Health.
AIDS 2006 new studies and developments
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As part of its expanded coverage of the XVI International AIDS Conference, held through Aug. 18 in Toronto, the Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report will feature studies and initiatives released during the conference. Summaries of select publications and initiatives appear below.
Laparoscopic partial nephrectomy using the potassium titnyl phosphate laser in a porcine model
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Working with an 80 watt KTP laser delivered in a noncontact mode via a 600 micron fiber, these authors successfully completed 15 laparoscopic partial nephrectomies in pigs. This was done without clamping any renal vessels.
In only one case additional hemostatic maneuvers were needed. The zone of necrotic tissue on the renal remnant was only 1 mm. The procedure consumed only 4-17 minutes of lasing time; however the overall time to accomplish the nephrectomies averaged 42 minutes due to production of field obscuring smoke by the laser.
Chinese men harming wives by smoking too much
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Chinese men are putting their wives at increased risk of long-term illness and early death by smoking, finds a study in this week’s British Medical Journal.
Exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (passive smoking) is associated with a 15-35% excess risk of coronary heart disease and lung cancer. Environmental tobacco smoke may also be linked to stroke and other cancers, though evidence is scarce.
The rate of smoking in Chinese men is high, but most Chinese women do not smoke. This provides a good opportunity to evaluate this association in women.
Herbal sleep aids often of low quality
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Many valerian-containing herbal sleep supplements do not contain as much of the key ingredient as needed to be effective or as much as the manufacturer claims, according to a ConsumerLab.com report on the topic. And some tested supplements were contaminated with cadmium or lead.
Valerian, a popular herb used as a sedative and calming agent, “can help people with sleep problems,” Dr. Tod Cooperman, president of ConsumerLab.com said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, many marketed supplements don’t match up to products that have been shown to work,” he added.
Internal body clock dictates timing of different types of stroke
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The internal body clock, or circadian rhythm, seems to influence the timing of different types of stroke, suggests research published ahead of print in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.
The research team analysed data from almost 13,000 patients who had had one of three types of stroke for the first time, diagnosed by brain scan.
These patients’ data had been collected on a stroke register, showing that cerebral infarction, where blood flow to brain arteries is restricted, was the most common type of stroke. The rate was 89 per 100,000 of the population.
Television really does act like a painkiller for kids
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TV really does act like a painkiller when it comes to kids, reveals a small study published ahead of print in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.
The research team assessed 69 children between the ages of 7 and 12, who were randomly divided into three groups to have a blood sample taken.
One group was given no distraction while the sample was being taken. In the second group mothers attempted to actively distract their children by talking to them, soothing, and/or caressing them.
China Follows the West to Becoming Obese
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People in China are becoming overweight and obese at an alarmingly fast rate, according to an editorial in this week’s BMJ.
Numbers of people in China who are now classified as overweight and obese have risen sharply in a relatively short time, says Professor Yangfeng Wu from the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences in Beijing.
They account for one fifth of the world’s population in this condition, despite China once being seen as country with a lean population.
Lower Birth Rate and Fewer Girls Under China’s One Child Policy
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Family size, fertility preferences, and sex ratio in China in the era of the one child family policy: results from national family planning and reproductive health survey BMJ Volume 333, pp 371-3
Since the start of the one child family policy in China, the total birth rate and preferred family size have decreased, and a gross imbalance in the sex ratio has emerged, finds a study in this week’s BMJ.
The one child family policy has been in force in China since 1979 and was intended as a short term measure. To examine the impact of this policy, researchers analysed data from the 2001 national family planning and reproductive health survey.
UK hospitals not prepared for terrorism
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UK hospitals are poorly prepared to cope with a “major incident,” such as an act of terrorism, say doctors in Emergency Medicine Journal.
Prompted by the events of July 7 2005, in which 52 people lost their lives following acts of terrorism on public transport in London, the authors set out to discover if emergency care departments across the country were any better prepared than in 1996, when they were last surveyed and found severely wanting.
For the current survey the authors telephoned 179 senior doctors working in anaesthesia, emergency care, general surgery, trauma, and orthopaedics in 34 UK hospitals, to ascertain their readiness to respond to a major incident.
