Archive for September, 2009

UPDATE: Why Women Need to Maintain a Healthy Body Max Index

According to the online report published in the September online edition of the journal BMJ, researchers from Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women’s Hospital found women who were obese at midlife were almost 80 percent less likely to be healthy at age 70 compared with women who were lean in their 40s and 50s.

The study, the first to examine the effect of obesity on overall health for women who lived through 70, utilized the Nurses’ Health Study, which has gathered information from more than 1,20,000 female RNs living in 11 U.S. states since 1976. Just 10 percent of the women in the study who had lived to age 70 or beyond (their mean age was 50 when the Nurses’ Health Study began) reported being free of the 11 major chronic diseases the researchers tracked, maintaining good mental health and cognitive and physical function.

Adding body weight from the age of 18 until middle age was a predictor of how long women would live in good health, the study said. Compared with lean women who maintained a stable weight, women who were overweight (BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2) at age 18 years and gained 10 kg or more of weight had the lowest odds of healthy survival (OR, 0.18; 95% CI, 0.09 - 0.36).

The primary conclusion of the study is that it is essential to sustain a healthy weight from early adulthood to midlife, in order to have a healthy and long life. Experts consider people with a body max index (BMI) between 19-25 to be healthy, while those from 25 to 30 are considered overweight and those over 30 are obese.

Extra Weight into Middle Age Equals Bad News for Women

According to a new study, putting on weight into middle age cuts the chance of living a long and healthy life by approximately 80%.

The research, published in the British Medical Journal says women who are obese in their middle ages reduce their odds of living a long healthy life by 79 percent, compared to leaner women.

This research followed 121,700 nurses since 1976, carrying out regular and comprehensive assessments of them. All the participants lived at least until the age of 70 and were free from major chronic diseases at mid-life (their mean age was 50 in 1976, the baseline date of the study). They continued to give information on physical function, chronic diseases, cognitive function, and mental health as they approached 70 and over.

Of the women who lived until at least age 70, 1,686 (9.9 percent) met the criteria for healthy survival. Increased body mass index (BMI) at baseline was significantly associated with reduced odds of healthy survival. Compared with lean women (BMI of 18.5 to 22.9), obese women (BMI higher than 30) had 79 percent lower odds of healthy survival.

“Given that more and more Americans are surviving to older ages and, at the same time, gaining weight, our results might be particularly important with respect to clinical or public health policies and deserve further investigation and confirmation in additional studies,” the researchers wrote in the British Medical Journal.

New Study Suggests Turning in Those Heels for a Pair of Running Shoes

The study was the work of lead author Alyssa B. Dufour from the Institute for Aging Research of Hebrew SeniorLife in Boston, Massachusetts, and colleagues, and is published in the October issue of the journal Arthritis Care & Research.

The research team determined that one-quarter of participants reported generalized foot pain on most days, with 19 percent of men and 29 percent of women falling into this category.

Women who wore “good” shoes were 67 percent less likely to develop hindfoot pain — in other words, pain in the heel area of the foot — than those who wore “average” shoes, they found.

The study found that intelligent shoe selections was a good sacrifice for looking good, in the long-run: women who had primarily worn supportive footwear like sneakers or athletic shoes in their younger years cut their risk of common foot pain later in life by more than half, compared with women who had worn shoes that gave average support, like hard-soled or rubber-soled ones.

The research discovered no association between foot pain in men and the shoes they wore, mostly because they do not normally wear high heels and spend less time in sandals, the researchers concluded.

UPDATE: Is Removing a Healthly Breast Worth it?

According to a new study on how many American women are undergoing prophylactic mastectomy, a growing number of women are deciding to remove a healthy breast after being diagnosed with breast cancer. The problem is there is little data available on the prevalence of prophylactic mastectomies for preventing breast cancer among high-risk women or on the prevalence of the operation to stop tumors in the healthy breast among women whose cancer is limited to one breast.

“Although the total number of prophylactic mastectomies performed per year was small, it appears that the use of the surgery is increasing,” said Stephen Edge, the lead researcher on the study.

A large number of women who have a family history of the disease choose to be on the safe side and have the operation, and according to Edge, this is a practice that does not necessarily benefit them.

The research based on data from New York finds the surgical removal of both breasts in the absence of a cancer diagnosis is rare. However, more women are getting mastectomies of the noncancerous breast after surgery to remove the cancerous one, despite questions over the benefits of the approach. The rate of women who underwent the procedure without having any breast cancer at all only rose slightly during this period.

From 1995 to 2005, the prevalence of preventive mastectomy among women with a history of cancer in one breast more than doubled. Those with no personal history of breast cancer who had both breasts removed also increased, but slightly.

Little Evidence Double Mastectomy Improves Survival

According to new research, a growing number of women are getting both breasts removed after cancer is diagnosed in one, even though there is little evidence that a double mastectomy can improve survival.

The study appears in Cancer, the journal of the American Cancer Society and was conducted by Stephen Edge of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, NY. Edge and his team analyzed the frequency of prophylactic mastectomies in New York State between 1995 and 2005 using mandated statewide hospital discharge data and data from the state cancer registry.

In all, 69,831 women in New York had mastectomies over the 11 years from 1995 through 2005, including 63,556 for therapeutic reasons and 6,275 for prophylaxis, the research showed. The prevalence of bilateral prophylactic mastectomies among women with no personal history of breast cancer increased only slightly.

“We have about 100 women a year in New York who have prophylactic mastectomy without breast cancer,” said Dr. Stephen B. Edge. “That number hasn’t changed despite the press coverage this subject gets and despite gene testing.”

Although the number of these kinds of mastectomies continues to be small, they are growing and such surgery comes with risks. Different studies show increases in overall mastectomies, raising concerns that some women are being treated too aggressively and whether doctors are doing the right thing for patients.

UPDATE: Couple Makes Tough Choice After Fertility Clinic’s Error

Carolyn Savage, who had the wrong embryo implanted by a fertility clinic, has given birth to a healthy boy. Her and husband Sean offered their “heartfelt congratulations” Friday night to the infant’s biological parents, Shannon and Paul Morell.

The Savage family did what many might not; they chose to carry the baby to term and gave him to his biological parents to raise. She and her husband never considered aborting the pregnancy or retaining parental rights to the child. They learned in February that she was carrying the child of Shannon and Paul Morell, who live in Sterling Heights, Mich.

“I don’t think I’ve ever cried so much in my life. It was such a nightmare and, in a way, I felt violated,” Carolyn said.

Paul and Shannon Morell, said in a statement yesterday that they will be “eternally grateful” to 40-year-old Carolyn Savage for her decision to give birth to their child despite the clinic’s mistake.

“It’s been a long, difficult journey, and we’re thrilled that our family is now complete,” the Morells said in the statement.

The Savage family says a fertility clinic outside Ohio transferred the wrong frozen embryo in February. Ten days later, they got a call from a doctor at the clinic saying she was pregnant with someone else’s child.

The clinic’s identity has not been confirmed by any involved, including its attorney Paul J. Manion, who works out of Detroit. In a statement today, he wrote: “This has never happened to this medical practice before, and they are working day and night so that it will never happen again.”

The couple’s lawyers have said they were working to make sure the IVF clinic “will accept full responsibility for the consequences of their misconduct.”

Couple Makes Tough Choice After Fertility Clinic’s Error

Carolyn Savage, who was implanted with another couple’s embryo in February, delivered a healthy baby boy, who was given to his natural parents. The baby was delivered at St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center in Toledo.

Instead of taking the baby that she gave birth to home from the hospital, Mrs. Savage handed him over to another woman, all because of a terrible mistake made by an IVF mix-up, which saw her implanted with the wrong embryo. The Savages said on Wednesday they never considered terminating the pregnancy or trying to fight for custody.

Carolyn Savage, 40, of Toledo, Ohio, was implanted with the embryo in February. The doctor called to explain the situation 10 days after the procedure, explaining to her that she was pregnant, but that the clinic had made an alarming error. However where other victims of similar mistakes have aborted the foetus or fought for custody, they decided to deliver the baby and return it to its biological parents. Sadly, this pregnancy was their last chance to have another baby.

“I don’t think I’ve ever cried so much in my life,” Savage said. “It was such a nightmare and, in a way, I felt violated.”

In a statement Friday, Savage offered the Morells “heartfelt congratulations” on “their new son.”

“We wish Paul, Shannon, their twin girls and their new baby boy the best, as they move forward with their lives together,” Savage said.

Each couple has hired lawyers who say they are working to make sure the fertility clinic accepts responsibility. The clinic’s identity has not been confirmed by any involved, including the clinic’s lawyer Paul Manion, who is based in Detroit. In a statement Friday, he wrote: “This has never happened to this medical practice before, and they are working day and night so that it will never happen again.”

Allergan gets FDA approval for eyelash treatment

A cosmetic drug maker named Allergan Inc. has just gotten approval from the Food and Drug Administration for an eyelash treatment. The eye lash treatment is called Latisse.

Latisse helps to treat a condition called hypotrichosis. This condition affects the eyelashes. The treatment helps people to have fuller and thicker eyelashes. The treatment takes about four months to complete. All you have to do is apply the mediation once a day which makes the treatment very simple and easy.

The drug has an ingredient in it named bimatoprost. The ingredient was approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration in 2001.

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AIDS Research Takes Giant Step Forward

Being called a medical breakthrough, an American funded study that was carried out on 16,000 individuals in Thailand says that a combination of two vaccines has cut HIV infections by 31.2 percent.

Some people with HIV produce the antibodies that have been identified and appear to neutralize a high proportion of the many types of HIV.

The research involved 16,402 volunteers at average risk of HIV infection. Half of the participants were given the vaccine combination and the other half received a placebo. Both groups received counseling on how to prevent becoming infected with HIV at the beginning of the study and every six months after the start of the study for a total of three and a half years. Of the 8,197 volunteers who received vaccine, new infections occurred in 51 people.

The protection given by the vaccine is far too low to distribute to the public, said Dr. Alan Bernstein, executive director of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise. When all the information is analyzed the results should provide valuable information as to where to focus future efforts.

It is problematic to develop an AIDS vaccine since current vaccine’s bolster the immune system’s natural response where as the natural response to HIV is immune system failure.

The research also found that though some individuals were prevented from contracting the virus, the vaccine did not have an effect on the severity of contracted HIV infections.

UPDATE: Insufficient Data to Support PSA Testing for Prostate Cancer

Screening all men for prostate cancer using the prostate screening antigen test (PSA) may not, in some instances, be beneficial, according to a new study.

In two separate reports published on the British Medical Journal (BMJ) website, European researchers found the inability of the PSA, to differentiate between fatal and harmless prostate cancers makes it unusable as a population wide screening tool.

“Our findings strongly indicate that, in addition to PSA, further biomarkers are needed before inferring population-based screening for prostate cancer,” said Benny Holmstrom, a urologist with Gavle Hospital in Gavle, Sweden, and lead author of the first study.

In another report of past studies and current PSA guidelines published in the same issue of BMJ, a research team in the U.S. also discovered that PSA screening could not differentiate between harmless and lethal prostate cancer. They surmised that evidence about the costs and benefits of PSA screening is insufficient to support its general use.

Prostate specific antigen is a substance that is made by the prostate gland. High amounts of PSA in your blood could be a sign of cancer. However high PSA does not always mean cancer.

Prostate cancer affects 679,000 men and causes 221,000 deaths around the world annually, according to a global estimate published in 2005.