Cranberry Juice May Help Ward Off Kids' UTIs

A recent study showed that after getting a urinary tract infection, kids had fewer recurring infections over the next year when they had a daily glass of cranberry juice.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - After getting a urinary tract infection, kids in Finland had fewer recurring infections over the next year when they drank cranberry juice every day in a new study.

Because the infections can damage the kidneys, along with being uncomfortable, both children and adults who get repeated UTIs may be prescribed long-term antibiotics for prevention. But those drugs can have side effects, and may breed resistant bacteria -- so researchers have wondered if cranberry products, long used by women as an alternative therapy, might be an option for kids.

"For children who have recurrent UTIs, I think that this study provides some preliminary suggestion that...supplementing with cranberry juice could reduce the number of recurrences," said Dr. Brett White, a pediatrics and family medicine specialist at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland.

"It's not super-strong evidence, but it's a possibility, and I don't think there would certainly be any harm" in giving kids cranberry juice, said White, who has studied the infections but wasn't involved in the new research.

The study included 255 kids ages one to 16 treated for a UTI at seven different Finish hospitals. The youngsters were randomly split into two groups: half of them drank a cup of cranberry juice daily for six months, while the other half downed berry-free drinks instead.

Over the next year, a similar number of kids getting each drink—20 out of 126 in the cranberry group and 28 of 129 non-cranberry kids—had at least one additional UTI, Dr. Jarmo Salo of Oulu University Hospital and colleagues report in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

But among kids who did have additional infections, the ones who drank daily cranberry juice had fewer total UTIs over the course of the study and spent less time taking antibiotics.

Participants on cranberry juice had 27 new infections combined and spent an average of 12 days each over the year taking antimicrobial drugs for UTIs, compared to 47 new infections in kids not prescribed cranberry and an average 18 days on antibiotics.

Dr. Nader Shaikh, who has studied UTIs at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, said that parents of kids with recurrent UTIs should consider cranberry juice as a possible add-on preventive measure, but not as a substitute for antibiotics if they're prescribed.

"If it has a chance of helping, and it looks like it does help a little bit, then a small amount of juice is okay," Shaikh, who wasn't involved in the new research, told Reuters Health. "I would stick to four ounces (a day). As long as parents don't overdo it, I think it's a reasonable treatment."

Shaikh added that too much cranberry juice could lead to cavities and diarrhea.

Researchers noted that 27 kids dropped out of the study—half of them because they were reluctant to drink the juice. And in the cranberry juice group overall, kids drank less than two-thirds of the "doses" researchers gave them.

Both juices in the study were provided by Ocean Spray, which also gave the researchers a grant that partially covered other study expenses.

White said that while little prior research has examined the effect of cranberry juice on UTIs in kids, cranberries have been shown to decrease the number of symptomatic UTIs in women.

"There is something in the cranberry fruit that specifically prevents bacteria from adhering to the walls lining the urinary bladder," he explained in an interview with Reuters Health. "One can assume that would probably apply to other populations as well, including children."

One recent study did find that cranberries weren't as good as antibiotics at preventing UTIs in women (see Reuters Health story of July 25, 2011). Smith and Shaikh both noted that there's limited evidence treating kids with long-term antibiotics can actually ward off the infections—but that approach probably will raise the risk of bacteria becoming resistant to the drugs.

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Get Your Custom Bones Printed on 3D Inkjet Printer

The marvels of modern medicine meld with cutting-edge technology in creating scaffold-like material to repair injured bones.

Technology has brought about a new “bone fide” approach to repairing bone injuries. The marvels of modern medicine have come together with cutting edge technology, resulting in the use of a 3D printer to create bone-like material that can be added to injured natural bone, acting as a scaffold for new cells to grow.

Researchers from Washington State University say that the substance eventually dissolves and causes “no apparent ill-effects.” Better yet, within just a few years, they claim that physicians will likely have the ability to custom-order replacement bone tissue, and serve up new bones for the bone-weary.

The report on the new process, recently published in the Dental Materials journal, was co-authored by Professor Susmita Bose who pointed out, “You can use the bone-like ceramic powder as a feed material and it can make whatever you draw on the computer.” She went on to explain, “It is mostly [suitable for] low load bearing applications. However, what we are trying to develop is the controlled degradation of these scaffolds where as the scaffold dissolves in the body the bone tissue grows over it.”

The printed material not only looks and feels like an actual human bone, but even acts like bone. This bone-growing substance has been in the making for four years. The perfecting of the miraculous printing process came when the researchers discovered that they could double the strength of calcium phosphate, the main ceramic powder in the mix, by adding in silica and zinc oxide.

By customizing a printer originally intended for creating three-dimensional metal objects, the research team was able to create scaffold shapes by using the printer to spray a plastic binder over the loose powder in thin layers of 20 microns, which is just half the thickness of the width of a human hair. After the layering process, the scaffold was dried, cleaned and baked for two hours at 1250C (2282F).

Then it was time for lab testing. When the substance was used on immature fetal bone cells, new bone-cell growth began over the scaffold within just one week of being attached. Further testing on live rats and rabbits has also shown great promise.

Because the printer can print just about anything that can be drawn on the computer, the procedure could be used in many applications ranging from orthopedics to orthodontics, and even help in the treatment of osteoporosis.

Dr. Bose speculates, “The way I envision it is that ten to twenty years down the line, physicians and surgeons should be able to use these bone scaffolds along with some bone growth factors, whether it is for jawbone fixation or spinal fusion fixation.” She further noted, “If a doctor has a CT (computer tomography) scan of a defect, we can convert it to a CAD (computer-aided design) file and make the scaffold according to the defect.”

However, such a leap forward in medical technology does not come without a custom price. Even so, the numbers are encouraging. While it may an arm and a leg to replace the printer cartridges, Dr. Bose said that the process will actually cost only about one-tenth of more traditional techniques.

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When Cameras Are Watching, More Doctors Wash Up

Cameras and timely feedback increase rate of hand-washing compliance in hospital settings, possibly lowering the rate of serious infections.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A new study found that more doctors and nurses washed their hands when video cameras were installed in every room in their unit and the staff was continuously informed about rates of hand-washing compliance.

While the hand-washing turnaround was "pretty amazing," one of the study's authors said, it's unclear whether the measure helped achieve the ultimate goal—preventing infection transmission in the hospital—and whether it would be cost-effective in other settings.

"Hand washing is an integral part of infection control," said Dr. Bruce Farber, from North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, New York. But, "rates of hand washing among health care workers are less than perfect."

Cameras and timely feedback seem to be a strategy that can address that, he told Reuters Health. "It's certainly one tool that can be used. I certainly don't think it's ever going to be used by everyone, everywhere."

Farber and his colleagues conducted the new study in their intensive care unit between 2008 and 2010. They installed $50,000 worth of cameras in hallways and patient rooms—pointing at every sink and hand sanitizer dispenser—as well as motion sensors in all doorways.

Off-site reviewers monitored those videos and checked whether any doctor or nurse who came through a patient's door washed their hands within ten seconds, and if they did the same on the way out. Doing that earned workers a "pass," while waiting too long to wash up or not doing it at all counted as a "fail."

Then, the system sent compliance rates by room to electronic boards in the ward's hallways and to supervisors, so all staff could see how well they were doing as a unit.

Before health workers started getting that constant feedback, less than seven percent of them washed their hands immediately when entering or before leaving a patient's room, according to video records.

That shot up to 82 percent in the weeks after the hallway messages started, and reached an average high of 88 percent over the next year and half of monitoring.

The researchers acknowledged in their report published in Clinical Infectious Diseases that the monitoring didn't take into account the quality of hand washing, and Farber said the criteria for adequate hand hygiene were "very strict and very difficult to adhere to."

It's possible, the researchers added, that there are some cases when hand-washing isn't necessary, for example when a doctor is going into a patient's room but doesn't plan on touching the patient.

Or, if a patient is falling out of bed or needs immediate pain relief, heading to the sink first might not be the best choice, added Dinah Gould, who has studied hand-washing interventions as a researcher at City University in London, but wasn't involved in the new study.

Still, many studies have documented generally low rates of hand washing among health care workers.

"Logically, according to common sense hand hygiene is a good thing to do because if you do it properly it removes bacteria from the skin," Gould said. "Doctors and nurses should do it and patients in their care should expect it's going to be done."

Whether it definitely prevents infection, she said, hasn't been proven.

Farber said that he and his colleagues were starting to see a trend of fewer hospital-acquired infections, including those caused by drug-resistant bugs like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Clostridium difficile. But more time is needed to determine if that has anything to do what hand hygiene, he cautioned.

Gould said the study shows that the video-taping method for encouraging better hand hygiene is possible. But she questioned whether installing cameras and analyzing videos would be feasible on a day-to-day basis outside of research studies. "I think that the cost would probably preclude it," she told Reuters Health.

In addition to the up-front cost for installing the cameras, the CEO of the company that provided the feedback services, Arrowsight, Inc., said those services cost about $3,000 per month for a single ICU. For the current study, monitoring and feedback were funded by the hospital, and the equipment was bought with a state grant.

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Better Ovarian Cancer Screening, Still No Answers

While ovarian cancer screening still falls short, screened women survive longer after a cancer diagnosis than women who aren't screened.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - After disappointing results earlier this year, researchers say new study findings from Kentucky offer a bit of hope for ovarian cancer screening.

But they still fall short of answering the important question: does ovarian cancer screening save lives?

One in 72 women will get ovarian cancer at some point, usually when they are older, according to the National Cancer Institute. But in most cases symptoms don't start until the cancer has spread, making the disease harder to treat.

Doctors have hoped that screening women regularly might save lives by catching ovarian cancer earlier. Yet a large trial published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in June found that wasn't the case.

Now, researchers say the previous disappointment may have been due to problems with the screening method used.

"Maybe some of the existing trials were started a little bit prematurely," said Dr. John Rensselaer van Nagell Jr., who heads the division of gynecologic oncology at the University of Kentucky Medical Center in Lexington.

For the past quarter century, van Nagell has been part of a study screening thousands of Kentucky women for ovarian cancer. The women were at least 50 years old or had family members with the disease, but none of them had symptoms at the outset of the study.

Out of more than 37,000 screened annually with ultrasound, 76 women had ovarian cancer diagnosed by a biopsy and 47 cases were invasive.

On the other hand, 447 women had a false alarm that ended up not being cancer, while 12 tumors were missed by the screening.

The researchers refined the screening method over time. In the end, one out of every five positive tests turned out to be cancer. Van Nagell said that over the past five years, doctors did an average of five operations per cancer they found.

While that may not sound impressive, an editorial published along with the new findings in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology notes it's better than previous studies. One of those studies, published in 2008, found that among more than 78,000 women, ovarian cancer deaths were not reduced when doctors offered a blood test known as CA-125 and ultrasound.

The Kentucky team also found that screened women survived longer after a cancer diagnosis than women who weren't screened.

Overall, 75 percent of women with invasive cancer detected by screening survived at least five years, compared with just 54 percent of women whose disease was found because they had symptoms.

"The fact is that in Kentucky if you were in this screening trial your survival was significantly higher than if you were from the same geographical area and you weren't screened," van Nagell said.

An ultrasound costs about $50, he added, whereas treatment for advanced ovarian cancer may be as much as $300,000.

He said more research needs to be done before screening can be broadly recommended. But women with a family history of the disease or genetic susceptibility "might consider trying to become a participant in a screening trial like this," he said.

"Screening as a method to obtain early detection is imperfect, but it is far better than just clinical examination," van Nagell told Reuters Health.

But he acknowledged that in fact his study doesn't prove that.

One problem is that simply because screening finds cancer earlier, screened patients automatically survive longer with the disease than people who don't get diagnosed until they notice something is wrong.

As a consequence of this so-called lead-time bias, survival differences don't necessarily mean screening has prolonged anyone's life.

What's more, it's possible that the volunteers in the Kentucky study may have been healthier to begin with.

In an editorial, Dr. Ian Jacobs and Dr. Usha Menon of University College London note that no report so far has showed ovarian cancer screening saves lives, despite the new findings.

"These figures sound encouraging but simply may reflect a combination of lead time of screen detection and a healthy-volunteer effect rather than an effect on the natural history of ovarian cancer, which will translate to a mortality reduction," they say.

The government-backed U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends against routine screening for ovarian cancer.

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Study Reports How Many Times a Day We Think About Sex

The average college male thinks about sex 19 times a day, while their female counterparts log an average of 10.

If you are the average college-aged male, a new study debunks the myth that sexual thoughts creep into consciousness thousands of times per day. In actuality, it is more like 19. Their female counterparts, however, only averaged 10 thoughts per day, less than the average male thinks about food!

Researchers out of Ohio State University had 283 students track their thoughts over the course of a day for 7 days. The 72 men and 91 women were randomly assigned a topic to track; either food, sleep or sex.

Logs reported that men averaged 19 thoughts about sex per day, while women had 10. Food was a close second, where men had 18 thoughts per day and women 15. Sleep, not a high priority for studying, partying college students, averaged 11 thoughts per day for males and 8 for females.

“Males did think more about sex but they also thought more about food and sleep,” said Terri Fisher, professor of psychology at Ohio State University’s Mansfield campus and lead author of the study. “It’s not clear whether they’re just more focused on need-related states than females or whether they simply recall thoughts more often or are more willing to report them.”

There was a high degree of variability when it came to sexual thoughts and/or reporting them. Students reporting ranged from one per day to 388 per day. Those students who were more comfortable with their sexuality tended to report more frequency, based on a companion sexual opinion survey.

"People who always give socially desirable responses to questions are perhaps holding back and trying to manage the impression they make on others," Fisher explains. "In this case, we're seeing that women who are more concerned with the impression they're making tend to report fewer sexual thoughts, and that's because thinking about sexuality is not consistent with typical expectations for women."

College-aged males are considered in their prime sexual years, while women do no achieve the same level until their early thirties. Fisher intends to do further research into the topic, gauging sexual thoughts on women during their prime as well.

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Low Calorie Diet Improves Heart Function Among Diabetics

A low-calorie diet cannot only improve obesity in type 2 diabetics, but may also allow for discontinued use of insulin.

Consuming a low-calorie diet can significantly improve heart function in people who suffer from type 2 diabetes. According to a new study recently presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, following a calorie-restricted diet for just four months allowed obese diabetics to successfully discontinue the use of insulin.

In fact, 75 percent of these diabetes patients were able to remain insulin-free for more than one year, despite having returned to consumption of their regular diets.

In a news release, lead study author Dr. Sebastiaan Hammer, of Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, acknowledged, “Our results show that 16 weeks of caloric restriction improved heart function in these patients…. More importantly, despite regain of weight, these beneficial cardiovascular effects were persistent over the long term.”

For their study Dr. Hammer and colleagues measured the body-mass index (BMI) of 15 obese, type 2 diabetes patients, and then used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to evaluate the heart function and pericardial fat of each. (Previous studies have linked pericardial fat to cardiac function, especially among patients having metabolic disease).

The group of study participants included seven men and eight women who followed a 500-calorie-per-day diet for a period of four months. Marked improvement was seen in the patients’ diabetes immediately after starting the diet.

Dr. Hammer noted that the patients were able to discontinue their insulin use on the first day of the diet due to the reduced load of carbohydrates. He stated, “For the first days, coming off insulin is an effect of the diet itself.” He then added, “But afterward, it is an effect of losing weight.”

After the four-month study period, the participants once again had BMI measured and underwent MRIs. The findings revealed that on average, pericardial fat decreased from 39 milliliters (ml) to 31 ml, and BMI dropped from 35.3 to 27.5, a measurement that is below the level of statistical obesity, which begins at a BMI of 30.

Findings also indicated that diastolic heart function decreased to more healthy levels. Having poor diastolic heart function, which refers to the point of the heart beat during which the ventricles are filling with blood, can lead to the development of congestive heart failure.

The heart healthy benefits continued even after an additional 14 months of follow-up, during which time the study participants had returned to consuming a regular diet.

While the average BMI had increased to 31.7, the pericardial fat had only increased to 32 ml. Only four of the patients had returned to insulin use by the end of the 18-month study period.

Dr. Hammer pointed out that although the results of the study indicate that an extremely calorie-restrictive diet for the short term could be more beneficial to the heart health of diabetes patients than medication, people who are obese are not advised to attempt such a dietary change without medical supervision. He also cautioned that such a calorie restriction diet is not recommended for those with kidney disease, cardiovascular disease, or other disorders.

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Fewer Babies Get Chicken Pox When Kids Are Vaccinated

Although babies under one year old are too young to get a chickenpox vaccine, far fewer of them got the itchy rash after routine vaccination began in 1995.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Even though babies under one year old are too young to get the chicken pox vaccine, far fewer of them got the itchy rash after the U.S. started routinely vaccinating older children in 1995, according to a new study.

Researchers said that infants are now largely protected against chicken pox if their older siblings and daycare peers have been vaccinated, due to "herd immunity" -- the idea that if enough people are immune to a disease, it won't be able to spread.

"It is a measure of the success of the (vaccination) program and the fact that we should encourage all parents to fully vaccinate their children," said Dr. Eugene Shapiro, who studies infectious diseases in kids at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven.

"If all children got vaccinated, then the small proportion who are still developing chicken pox would become even smaller, and so the risk to these infants who aren't yet vaccinated would be even lower," added Shapiro, who wasn't involved in the new study.

Sixteen years ago, the U.S. began a program to vaccinate all kids against chicken pox -- which usually just leaves them itchy for a few days but can cause serious complications, especially in pregnant women and babies.

Having chicken pox as a kid also increases the risk that someone will get shingles, which is caused by the same virus, when they're older.

Now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that all kids between 12 months and 12 years of age -- and older kids and adults who haven't yet been vaccinated or had chicken pox -- should get two doses of the vaccine, and many states require that kids be immunized before starting school.

Babies aren't vaccinated because many acquire some of their mom's immune defenses against chicken pox, and the vaccine won't work until those have faded with age. The vaccine's safety also hasn't been tested in infants.

Researchers from the CDC tracked the number of chicken pox cases in babies under one year old from the start of the vaccination program through 2008 in two communities in Los Angeles County and West Philadelphia, including more than 600,000 people.

They found that as the number of one-, two- and three-year-olds vaccinated against chicken pox increased, the number of cases in babies fell—from 16 out of every 1,000 infants in 1995 to fewer than 2 in every 1,000 by 2008.

All in all, the number of new infections in the youngest age group dropped almost 90 percent during the study, researchers reported in Pediatrics on Monday.

"During the pre-vaccine era...infants were at big risk of severe disease," said Adriana Lopez, from the CDC, who worked on the study.

The finding, she told Reuters Health, "shows that the impact of this vaccination program has been great, in terms of not only decreasing disease in those who have been vaccinated, but protecting those who can't get vaccinated."

"It makes sense, it's not surprising," Shapiro told Reuters Health. "The point is that the incidence of chicken pox has gone down dramatically."

Even in infants who are too young to get the vaccine, he added, "If there's less chicken pox around, if you're susceptible, you're less likely to become exposed."

Shapiro said that parents should still take the proper precautions, including going to see their pediatrician, if their baby is exposed to someone who has chicken pox. In some cases, doctors can give those infants a high dose of antibodies targeted at the chicken pox virus to prevent them from getting sick.

Lopez added that moms and dads shouldn't get complacent about vaccinating just because chicken pox is much less common that it used to be.

"We still see disease circulating," she said. "Even though the number of cases has continued to go down, it's still important to have those who can get vaccinated, get vaccinated."

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Laptop Wi-Fi Said to Nuke Sperm, But Caveats Abound

The digital age has left men's nether parts in a squeeze, if you believe the latest science on semen, laptops and wireless connections.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The digital age has left men's nether parts in a squeeze, if you believe the latest science on semen, laptops and wireless connections.

In a report in the venerable medical journal Fertility and Sterility, Argentinian scientists describe how they got semen samples from 29 healthy men, placed a few drops under a laptop connected to the Internet via Wi-Fi and then hit download.

Four hours later, the semen was, eh, well-done.

A quarter of the sperm were no longer swimming around, for instance, compared to just 14 percent from semen samples stored at the same temperature away from the computer.

And nine percent of the sperm showed DNA damage, three-fold more than the comparison samples.

The culprit? Electromagnetic radiation generated during wireless communication, say Conrado Avendano of Nascentis Medicina Reproductiva in Cordoba and colleagues.

"Our data suggest that the use of a laptop computer wirelessly connected to the internet and positioned near the male reproductive organs may decrease human sperm quality," they write in their report.

"At present we do not know whether this effect is induced by all laptop computers connected by Wi-Fi to the internet or what use conditions heighten this effect."

A separate test with a laptop that was on, but not wirelessly connected, found negligible EM radiation from the machine alone.

The findings fuel concerns raised by a few other research teams.

Some have found that radiation from cell phones creates feeble sperm in the lab, for example. And last year urologists described how a man's sitting with a laptop balanced on his knees can crank up the temperature of his scrotum to levels that aren't good for sperm. 

So between the heat and the radiation from today's electronic devices, testicles would seem to be hard-pressed.

But that is not at all clear, said Dr. Robert Oates, who has managed to father two kids despite having both a laptop and an iPad.

The president of the Society for Male Reproduction and Urology, Oates told Reuters Health he doesn't believe laptops are a significant threat to male reproductive health.

"This is not real-life biology, this is a completely artificial setting," he said about the new study. "It is scientifically interesting, but to me it doesn't have any human biological relevance."

He added that so far, no study has ever looked at whether laptop use has any influence on fertility or pregnancy outcomes.

"Suddenly all of this angst is created for real-life actual persons that doesn't have to be," said Oates, also of Boston Medical Center.

According to the American Urological Association, nearly one in six couples in the US have trouble conceiving a baby, and about half the time the man is at the root of the problem.

While the impact of modern technology is still murky, lifestyle does matter, researchers say.

Earlier this month, a report in Fertility and Sterility showed that men who eat a diet rich in fruit and grains and low in red meat, alcohol and coffee have a better shot at getting their partner pregnant during fertility treatment.

"You should be keeping yourself healthy," including staying lean, eating healthy foods, exercising, not taking drugs and not smoking, agreed Oates.

And for those laptop worries, he mused, "I don't know how many people use laptops on their laps anyway."

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Childhood Obesity Warrants Removal of Child to Foster Care

An Ohio mother has lost her 200-pound eight-year-old son to foster care, after failing to get his weight under control.

The controversy over childhood obesity has heated up after social workers removed an eight-year-old boy from his mother’s home due to her inability or inaction to reduce his obesity.

The child, from Cleveland Heights, Ohio, weighs in excess of 200 pounds. The average weight of a male child of that age should be in the neighbourhood of 55-60 pounds, with the high end tipping the scale at 78 pounds, according to growth charts from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Even accounting for the upper end of the spectrum, the child was more than 250 percent overweight.

Earlier this year I wrote an editorial on just this topic: Losing parental rights due to obesity. It was in response to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which suggested that severe sanctions should be imposed on parents in cases where their children are morbidly obese and there is an unwillingness to make dietary and lifestyle changes to address the issue. In essence, it calls this type of parenting “child abuse.”

This particular case is a good example of a morbidly obese child, where the mother did not take sufficient steps to reduce the weight, and county officials felt there was medical neglect. According to reports, the case was monitored for more than one year before social workers went to Juvenile Court to remove him from his mother’s care.

Childhood obesity can lead to a host of medical problems, both in youth and adulthood, most notably diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and sleep apnea. Currently the child only suffers from sleep apnea, which is remedied with a CPAP device (continuous positive airway pressure).

Given the age of the child, the only way for him to have gained this much weight was with food purchased and/or prepared by his mother. In many cases, the lack of education or funds can lead to obesity, as starches are usually significantly cheaper than proteins and fresh fruit and vegetables.

But the mother is a substitute teacher and clearly has an education. The child was under a doctor’s care, so lack of medical insurance or money to see a doctor was not the problem. There was clear incentive to help the child reduce weight, given the pressure and visits by social services, and yet it did not happen.

While there are surely facts about this case that have not been revealed, and we do not sit in judgment, this is a clear warning to parents about the consequences of their actions. Losing your child to the system due to an inability or unwillingness to control their obesity is a real threat.

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Women Who Drink Coffee Lower Their Risk of Endometrial Cancer

Women who appreciate their morning cup of java have yet another reason to continue indulging: reduced risk of endometrial cancer.

Women who appreciate their morning cup of java have yet another reason to continue indulging. Harvard researchers have discovered that coffee consumption can cut the risk for developing endometrial cancer by as much as 25 percent. The details of the study were recently published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

The study adds to the fast-mounting evidence that the health benefits of drinking coffee far outweigh the risks posed by downing the miraculous, golden nectar.

While too much coffee can lead to nervous jitters and heart palpatations for some, previous studies have shown the powers of the almighty coffee bean help protect against a growing number of maladies including brain tumors, multiple schlerosis, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and type 2 diabetes.

In addition, research has shown that women who drink a moderate amount of coffee can expect to lower their chances of gout, depression, stroke, and certain types of breast cancer.

Endometrial cancer forms in the tissue that lines the uterus, where a fetus develops. The majority of endometrial cancers develop in the cells that make and release mucus and other fluids, known as adenocarcinomas. According to the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute, an estimated 46,470 new cases of endometrial cancer will be diagnosed this year in the United States alone, with 8,120 women losing their lives to the disease.

For their study, Harvard School of Public Health researchers analyzed data on 67,470 women who were a part of the Nurses’ Health Study. Findings showed that over the 26-year study period, a total of 627 cases of endometrial cancer occurred among the study participants. However, women who consumed four or more cups of coffee daily were shown to have reduce their risk for developing the disease by 25 percent when compared to those who drank an average of less than one cup per day. Women who drank two to three cups of java a day had a seven percent reduction in risk.

The results remained true even for the few women in the study who preferred drinking decaffeinated coffee versus caffeinated, although the association was not quite as strong for those who consumed decaf.

This could be due to the small number of study participants who consumed the decafeinated version. No such health benefit was revealed for caffeinated tea drinkers during the study.

The reasoning behind the apparent disease-preventing properties of coffee is believed to be associated with how the substance alters the function of estrogen and insulin in the body, since both are linked to the risk of chronic disease.

While the study authors acknowledge that the best defense against endometrial cancer includes getting a sufficient amount of exercise and keeping body weight in check, they noted that drinking a moderate amount of coffee may provide a beneficial health boost. However, they warned that the addition of cream and sugar to coffee could go a long way to negate the positive effects.

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Many Parents Request Delays in Vaccine Schedule

Recent studies have shown that more parents are delaying or skipping certain vaccines, typically citing safety concerns, such as a link between vaccines and autism.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - More than three quarters of pediatricians said they sometimes or often get asked by parents to use an "alternative" vaccination schedule that strays from national recommendations, according to a new survey of Washington State doctors.

And while almost all of them agreed with the current vaccination schedule for babies and young kids, and would follow it for their own child, most paediatricians were willing to give in to parents' wishes to delay vaccines for infections like chicken pox, hepatitis B and measles.

"I was a little surprised at the high level of pediatricians who reported having parental requests for (alternative schedules)," said Dr. Amanda Dempsey, who studies immunization and infectious diseases in kids at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, but wasn't involved in the new study.

"This seems to indicate that this is an ever-increasing problem."

Recent studies have shown that more parents are delaying or skipping certain vaccines, typically citing safety concerns, such as a link between vaccines and autism -- a theory which scientists now agree holds no water.

Researchers worry that with an increasing number of kids unvaccinated or under-vaccinated, diseases like measles or whooping cough could spread through schools and communities, putting at risk even those who do get recommended vaccines on time.

For youngsters under six, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recommended vaccination schedule includes MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) shots, and vaccines to protect against whooping cough, chicken pox, hepatitis and seasonal flu, among others. (The full schedule is on the CDC website here: 1.usa.gov/k23A6d).

For the current study, researchers led by Dr. Aaron Wightman from the University of Washington in Seattle surveyed more than 200 pediatricians in their state about how often parents ask them for an alternative vaccination schedule -- and how likely they are to agree to one.

In the online questionnaires, 77 percent of the doctors said parents "frequently" or "sometimes" asked to skip or delay certain vaccines. And six out of ten said they were comfortable using an alternative schedule if parents asked for it.

Pediatricians were more likely to budge from the recommended schedule for certain vaccines over others -- for example, most said they would feel comfortable delaying hepatitis B or chicken pox vaccines, whereas fewer would consider straying from the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine (DTap) recommendations.

That suggests doctors are more adamant about going through with vaccines that prevent potentially dangerous bacterial infections that hit infants and young kids, researchers wrote in their Pediatrics report on Monday.

Still, "it's kind of a slippery slope," Dempsey told Reuters Health. Delaying any vaccine "undermines the importance of the schedule in general."

Her own research has suggested that more than 10 percent of parents use an alternative vaccination schedule, and two percent refuse vaccines altogether (see Reuters Health story of October 3, 2011).

But there's no evidence that any alternative schedules are safe or effective, she emphasized. What's more, because no vaccine gives 100 percent protection, even kids who have been vaccinated are put at risk when many of their school or community peers skip or delay their vaccines, Dempsey added.

She said that pediatricians should talk to every parent and try to help them make the safest decision for their child -- but that may become increasingly difficult if the popularity of alternative vaccination schedules continues to grow.

The new study, Dempsey added, "suggests to me that it's possible that this may become more the norm in the future, as more and more pediatricians are being asked to do this."

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Pre-Pilates Flexibility & Exercises for the Upper Back

Pilates instructor Jennifer Gianni walks through several upper back exercises that will help keep you flexible and limber, and less prone to injury.

What It Is:

A flexible and limber body that is capable of moving in all directions is much less likely to experience any kind of injury.

As we discovered in our last instalment on upper back strength, we must have proper posture in order to work the strength of the upper back. Posture means length, which in turn means flexibility.

The hunching of the shoulders and the slumping in our seats that we all tend to sink into during the day can cause back pain, headaches, tension and tightness in the back, neck and shoulders. These problems are painful, uncomfortable, and avoidable.

Our Goal:

The following Pre-Pilates upper-back stretches target the upper back, neck, and shoulders. Taking time to do these stretches throughout the day can help increase flexibility and reduce tension and stress. This is also a great way to take a much-needed break so that you can continue your activities with a renewed energy.

Here’s How:

Exercise – Thread the Needle

This first exercise may not be the best one to do in the middle of the day at the office but it is one of the best upper back openers I've found. This would be a great way to start or end your day, or both.

• Start on all fours. Line your wrists up under the shoulders with your knees lined up under the hips.
• Lift your right hand slightly and turn the palm up to the ceiling.
• Now, reach across your body and thread the right arm under the left bent arm.
• The right arm and right side of the face should rest on the floor.
• Feel the shoulder blades stretch away from each other.
• Hold for twenty to thirty seconds.
• Gently switch sides.
• Repeat three to four times.

Exercise – Roll Down at the Wall

• Stand with your back against the wall with the feet six to eight inches away from the wall.
• Your feet should be parallel.
• Soften (bend) the knees a bit.
• Align your neutral spine against the wall.
• Try to rest the middle of the sacrum and mid back ( at the bra line) and back of the head against the wall.
• On an exhale, start with your head and slowly peel the spine away from the wall from top to bottom. Imagine that your head,
• arms, shoulders and upper back are filled with sand as you curl forward.
• It’s okay to bend the knees more to accomplish the roll down.
• Stop the roll down at the top of the pelvis just before the fingers touch the floor.
• Imagine that you are hanging over a railing and hold for a few seconds.
• Keep the upper body and arms heavy and then allow the arms to circle freely at the top of the arm bone.
• After 5 circles in each direction, inhale and roll back up the wall slowly- one vertebra at a time.
• When you reach the top, find your anchors and neutral spine.
• Repeat three to four times.

Exercise – At the Desk Stretch

This is a simple, anytime, anywhere stretch that opens your upper back, shoulders and neck.

• While seated, bring the left arm across the chest.
• Hook the inside of your right elbow above the left elbow and use your right arm to help stretch the left shoulder by pulling
• the left arm to back and to the right.
• Drop the right ear to the right shoulder and turn the head so the eyes are looking toward the floor.
• Hold for ten to thirty seconds.
• On an exhale turn the eyes forward and gently bring the head back up.
• Release the arm and switch sides.
• Repeat.

HOT TIP---

To intensify Thread a Needle, lift the top arm so the fingers reach to the ceiling or behind the torso.

To intensify Roll Down at the Wall, use 2 lb weights in the hands to increase the downward pull. Remember to keep the upper
body, head and arms heavy and relaxed.

To intensify the At Your Desk Stretch, add a rotation in the spine. Try to look behind yourself as you stretch the opposite arm across your chest and down toward the side your rotating to.

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Posted in: HEALTH