WEDNESDAY, Nov. 11 (HealthDay News) — Cancer can put an enormous strain on a marriage, and couples are much more likely to fall apart if the woman is the patient.
In fact, the odds of separation or divorce are six times higher compared to when the man is the one with the illness, a new study shows.
The researchers did find that couples that have been married longer are more likely to survive the difficulties of dealing with cancer. Read More
WEDNESDAY, Nov. 11 (HealthDay News) — Eating a Westernized diet with lots of sugar and carbohydrates caused almost instantaneous changes in the gut flora of mice — changes that caused the mice to become obese, researchers have found.
These shifts in the microbial environment, reported in the Nov. 11 edition of Science Translational Medicine, might mean that experts should look more closely at the billions of microorganisms residing in human guts to better understand and perhaps even treat the epidemic of obesity plaguing the modern world. Read More
WEDNESDAY, Nov. 11 (HealthDay News) — To get down to a healthy weight, obese and overweight people often struggle to cut their daily caloric intake by a necessary 15 percent to 40 percent.
But new research suggests that a twist on alternate-day fasting may make dieting easier to tolerate and boost heart health to boot.
“This diet has been around about 20 years, but its effect on weight loss hadn’t really been studied,” Krista Varady, an assistant professor of kinesiology and nutrition who led a research team at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said in a news release. The study authors reported their findings in the Nov. 1 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Read More
WEDNESDAY, Nov. 11 (HealthDay News) — Most of the dust that coats your furniture and floors comes from outdoors and can pose a health threat, a new study suggests.
The researchers developed a computer model that can track the distribution of outdoor soil and airborne particles into homes and found that more than 60 percent of household dust originates from tracked-in soil and airborne particles from the outdoors. The remainder is from dead skin shed by residents, fibers from carpets and upholstered furniture. Read More
WEDNESDAY, Nov. 11 (HealthDay News) — The tragedy last week at Fort Hood, Texas, where an Army psychiatrist anticipating active duty has been blamed for killing 13 people and wounding 29 others in a shooting rampage, has sharpened the nation’s focus not just on the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also on another casualty of war: soldiers’ mental health.
The ruptures wrought by post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, certainly seem more pronounced in the present-day conflicts than in previous wars. But as the nation pauses to honor its soldiers past and present this Veterans Day, experts are unclear whether there is an actual increase in PTSD or just a perception of increase due to more awareness about the condition. Read More
TUESDAY, Nov. 10 (HealthDay News) — Exposure to several common pathogens may increase the risk of having a stroke, a new study shows.
Led by Dr. Mitchell Elkind, an associate professor of neurology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, the research team found that the pathogens Chlamydia pneumoniae, Helicobacter pylori, cytomegalovirus and herpes simplex virus 1 and 2 may be implicated in accelerating arterial disease, which in turn increases the risk of stroke. Read More
TUESDAY, Nov. 10 (HealthDay News) — New research on cancer patients adds to the controversy surrounding anemia drugs such as Procrit and Aranesp, concluding that they increase the risk of venous thromboembolism, potentially fatal blood clots.
These drugs, called erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs), are commonly prescribed to fight anemia associated with chemotherapy and chronic kidney disease. Recent studies have linked them with increased risk of death, stroke and new cancers. Read More
TUESDAY, Nov. 10 (HealthDay News) — Taking nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) from a young age might prevent early signs of Alzheimer’s disease, according to the results of a new study in mice.
Recent research suggests that the appearance of neuronal cell cycle events (CCEs) occurs early in the development of Alzheimer’s. In the new study, U.S. researchers looking for triggers of neuronal CCEs found evidence that suggests that neuroinflammation plays a role in the development of Alzheimer’s in mice. Read More
TUESDAY, Nov. 10 (HealthDay News) — While there are plenty of good reasons to avoid obesity in your teens, a new study now suggests that extra weight in adolescence may increase your risk of multiple sclerosis (MS) later.
Reporting in the Nov. 10 issue of Neurology, Harvard researchers found that being obese at age 18 more than doubles a woman’s risk of developing MS later in life compared to her slimmer peers.
“This is one more study that shows obesity leads to another unhealthy outcome, and obesity during adolescence may be critical in determining MS risk,” said study author Kassandra Munger, a research associate at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. Read More
MONDAY, Nov. 9 (HealthDay News) — Family doctors are now taking more time consulting with adult patients, seeing them more often and improving the quality of visits, a new study suggests.
“Patients spent more time with their primary care physicians during office visits in 2005 than they did almost a decade earlier, and overall they seemed to receive better care,” said Dr. Lena M. Chen, from the University of Michigan Health System, the lead researcher of a study reported in the Nov. 9 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. Read More
