Home Care Tips to Help Wounds Heal
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A slip with a kitchen knife, a spill off a bike or a fall on the sidewalk. It’s not uncommon to have a mishap that breaks the skin. When a wound occurs, your body quickly begins regeneration and repair. You can facilitate healing with proper home care.
The December issue of Mayo Clinic Women’s HealthSource offers these tips:
Daily dose of Vitamin D cuts cancer risk
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According to cancer prevention specialists, taking vitamin D3 daily appears to lower the risk of cancer by up to as much 50 percent.
The specialists at the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Medical Center, say that 1,000 international units (IU) of vitamin D3 daily protects against colon, breast, and ovarian cancer.
Behavioral therapies aid elderly with insomnia
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Therapies focused on changing sleep habits may be a good alternative to sleeping pills for older adults with insomnia, a research review suggests.
The review of 23 clinical trials found that behavioral therapies aimed at changing people’s habits and attitudes regarding sleep were generally effective in helping older adults get a better night’s sleep.
Altered cells deliver Parkinson’s therapy to brain
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Genetically modified nerve ‘progenitor’ cells can be used as mini-pumps to deliver nerve growth factor to the brain, a new study in animals shows.
The results suggest such an approach could be used to treat Parkinson’s disease and other brain diseases in humans, Dr. Clive D. Svendsen of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and colleagues report.
Later bedtime after meal may ease heartburn
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If you suffer from acid reflux disease, you may be going to bed too soon after your evening meal.
A shorter dinner-to-bed interval is significantly associated with an increased risk of gastro-esophageal reflux disease, or GERD, according to researchers in Japan.
After Gastric Bypass Surgery, Important to Check Vitamin B1 Deficiency
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A deficiency in vitamin B1 can be a serious complication following a popular surgery to treat obesity, according to a case study published in the December 27, 2005 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. If untreated, vitamin B1 deficiency can lead to Wernicke encephalopathy, a severe neurological condition.
In the study, a 35-year-old woman developed many difficulties after gastric bypass (bariatric) surgery for obesity. Difficulties included nausea, anorexia, fatigue, hearing loss, forgetfulness, and ataxia, or an inability to coordinate muscle movements. By the 12th week following surgery, she had lost 40 pounds and had difficulty walking and concentrating.
Milk thistle ineffective for liver disease
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Milk thistle, an herbal remedy used worldwide for liver disease, does not appear to be effective, and there is not enough evidence to conclude that it is safe, an international team of researchers has concluded.
“We can’t see beneficial effects, we can’t exclude harmful effects, and in order to know more we need to do more randomized trials to find out do they actually help,” said Dr. Christian Gluud of Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark, the study’s lead author.
The market for milk thistle is enormous, Gluud noted, given that as many as 1 billion people around the world have liver disease due to alcoholism or hepatitis B or C. It could even be larger, he added, because some people may decide to take milk thistle for prevention.
New Neurons Take Baby Steps in the Adult Brain
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In experiments with mice, scientists from Johns Hopkins’ Institute for Cell Engineering have discovered the steps required to integrate new neurons into the brain’s existing operations.
For more than a century, scientists thought the adult brain could only lose nerve cells, not gain them, but in fact, new neurons do form during adulthood in all mammals, including humans, and become a working part of the adult brain in mice at the very least.
Want to stop snoring? Try the didgeridoo
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Kept awake at night by a snoring partner? The answer to your woes could lie—believe it or not—with the Australian didgeridoo.
Researchers in Switzerland examined 25 patients who suffered from snoring and moderate obstructive sleep apnea syndrome, both common sleep disorders.
Potter magic helps accident-prone children
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Boy wizard Harry Potter has already cast his spell on millions worldwide, but new research shows his magic has a hitherto unimagined effect.
He has been shown to protect accident-prone children.
Trend of earlier puberty continues among US girls
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The age at which girls in the U.S.A. reach puberty is continuing to dip, with heavier weights and changing national demographics playing important roles, according to a new study.
Research over the years has documented a gradual decline in the average age at which U.S. girls have their first menstrual period - from the age of 12.75 in the 1960s to about 12.5 in the early 1990s.
College students not alone in dangerous drinking
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Though getting drunk is often seen as a traditional college pastime, other young adults, particularly men, have similarly high rates of potentially hazardous drinking, new research shows.
In a study of nearly 2,000 young adults who’d been followed since high school, researchers found that by the age of 24, both college graduates and those with no more than a high school diploma had comparably high rates of heavy drinking.
College students not alone in dangerous drinking
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Though getting drunk is often seen as a traditional college pastime, other young adults, particularly men, have similarly high rates of potentially hazardous drinking, new research shows.
In a study of nearly 2,000 young adults who’d been followed since high school, researchers found that by the age of 24, both college graduates and those with no more than a high school diploma had comparably high rates of heavy drinking.
Successful aging may be partly in the genes
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If you make it to a ripe old age with all your marbles, credit might go to the gene you inherited.
Researchers have identified genes related to reaching age 90 with preserved brain function. Their study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and reported at a medical conference in Hawaii, is among the first to identify genetic links to long-lived mental powers.
Fish oil curbs heart trouble linked to pollution
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Daily supplementation with omega-3 fatty acid (fish oil) prevents a potentially-deadly decline in heart rate variability (HRV) associated with exposure to indoor air pollution, researchers from the US and Canada report.
HRV measures the variability in the intervals between heartbeats, with lower variability being associated with higher risks of heart disease and death.
