Daily Health

Joint pain: it throbs, aches, and hurts. Quite likely, it makes you think twice about everyday tasks and pleasures like going for a brisk walk, lifting your grandchild or some grocery bags, chasing a tennis ball across the court, or driving a golf ball down the fairway. Sharp reminders of your limitations arrive thick and fast, practically every time you move.

What Causes Joint Pain?

Very often, the culprits behind joint pain are
osteoarthritis
old injuries
repetitive or overly forceful movements during sports or work
posture problems
aging
inactivity.

Segmentation of children with asthma and other wheezy disorders remains the main research challenge today, as it was when described 2 centuries ago.

Early childhood wheezy disorders follow different temporal trajectories, probably representing different underlying mechanisms (endophenotypes). Prospective identification of endophenotypes allowing accurate prediction of the clinical course is currently not possible.

The variability of the clinical course remains an enigma and difficult to predict. Three of 4 school-aged children with asthma have outgrown disease by midadulthood. The risk of persistence increases with severity, sensitization, smoking, and female sex. Genetic risk variants might help disentangle the heterogeneity of asthma and other wheezy disorders.

A recently concluded research study established that the stressful and hectic lives of the graduate  school and college girls contribute to poor oral contraceptives (OC) adherence. Because of these reasons they often miss the regularity of the oral contraceptives.

Findings of this research study were published in the online ”American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology”

The purpose of this study was to understand the relationship between daily contextual factors and oral contraceptive (OC) adherence among students who attend college or graduate school.

Data on OC adherence, demographics, contextual factors, and side-effects were collected as part of the acceptability of the NuvaRing (Merck & Co, Whitehouse Station, NJ) vs OC study, in which students were assigned randomly to the contraceptive vaginal ring or to a low-dose OC.

The researchers performed bivariate and multivariable analyses to create an explanatory model for nonperfect OC adherence (missed at least 1 pill during 3 months of use).

 In a multivariable predictive model, missing a pill was associated positively with high perceived stress (odds ratio [OR], 3.16; P = .007), having ≥10 hours per week of paid employment (OR, 2.13; P = .075), and living with a partner (OR, 9.92; P = .040).

The research study established that the stressful and hectic lives contribute to poor OC adherence. When counseling women about contraception, clinicians should consider the influence of daily life on contraceptive adherence.

The research is titled as “Hughey AB, Neustadt AB, Mistretta SQ, et al. Daily context matters: predictors of missed oral contraceptive pills among college and graduate students. Am J Obstet Gynecol 2010;203:••••.”

Women should be encouraged to achieve a healthy weight before they become pregnant and advised that there is no need to ‘eat for two’ when pregnant.

These are just two of the recommendations included in new public health guidance published by NICE on dietary and physical activity interventions for weight management before, during and after pregnancy.

The aim of this new guidance is to help health professionals support women who are pregnant or who are planning a pregnancy, and mothers who have had a baby in the last 2 years. Health professionals can help women to understand the health risks of being overweight or obese during pregnancy and the importance of achieving a healthy weight prior to pregnancy, but also advise them not to try to lose weight while they are pregnant.

Recent attacks on sunscreens by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) and the media miss the point that sunscreen continues to be one of the safest and most effective sun protection methods available. Since its inception in 1979, The Skin Cancer Foundation has always recommended using a sunscreen with an SPF of 15 or higher as one important part of a complete sun protection regimen which includes seeking shade, covering up with clothing including a wide-brimmed hat and UV-blocking sunglasses and avoiding tanning and UV tanning booths.

“We are concerned that the criticisms will raise unnecessary fears and cause people to stop using sunscreen, doing their skin serious harm,” said Dr. Warwick Morison, MD, chairman of  The Skin Cancer Foundation’s Photobiology Committee and Professor of Dermatology at John Hopkins University.  “The EWG has their own system for evaluating things which is nothing more than junk science.”

Diagnosing and treating viral hepatitis is essential because it is the main cause of cirrhosis and liver cancer. “These are very preventable and treatable diseases,” says Dieterich. “There’s a vaccine for hepatitis B, which is most often passed from mother to infant or sexually transmitted.”

There’s no vaccine for hepatitis C, which is transmitted via blood, but doctors have increasingly effective medications for treating both hepatitis B and C.

The groups at highest risk of hepatitis B are people born in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where 10% of the population is infected. “The No. 1 method of transmission worldwide is maternal fetal transmission at birth,” says Dieterich. ”

For Americans, a major risk is having received a transfusion before 1992, when effective screening for hepatitis C came into use. “Generally, it’s transmitted by blood, not by sex, but there is an outbreak of hepatitis C in HIV-positive men who have sex with other men,” says Dieterich.[Read Complete Article...  ]

For the first time a neurosurgeon has performed the laser-assisted brain surgery for a specific type of resistant brain tumor using technology so advanced that the patient went home the next day.

A patient who was diagnosed with an intracranial ependymoma, a tumor that grows from the cells that line the ventricles in the brain. While only six hospitals in the country offer laser-assisted thermal ablation, this is the first time in the nation that the treatment was used for an intracranial ependymoma, explains Dr. Danish.

Shabbar F. Danish, M.D., Director, Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery and Assistant Professor at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (RWJMS) and Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH), used the Visualase, Inc., laser-assisted thermal ablation technique to operate on a patient with a recurring brain tumor after two previous surgeries and radiation did not permanently destroy the growth.

According to a recently completed research and clinical study tested age of onset as a moderator of intervention efficacy on drinking and consequence outcomes among a high-risk population of college students (i.e., former high school athletes).

Household cleaning and pesticide products may contribute to breast cancer because many contain endocrine disrupting chemicals or mammary gland carcinogens. A  population-based case-control study investigated whether use of household cleaners and pesticides increases breast cancer risk.

Participants were 787 Cape Cod, Massachusetts, women diagnosed with breast cancer between 1988 and 1995 and 721 controls. Telephone interviews asked about product use, beliefs about breast cancer etiology, and established and suspected breast cancer risk factors. To evaluate potential recall bias, we stratified product-use odds ratios by beliefs about whether chemicals and pollutants contribute to breast cancer; we compared these results with odds ratios for family history (which are less subject to recall bias) stratified by beliefs about heredity.

Attention disorder problems can cause a marriage to suffer, mental health experts told the New York Times, as common symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder—distraction, disorganization, and forgetfulness—can look like laziness or selfishness, and a lack of concern for the partner.

At least 4 per cent of adults have ADHD, often learning coping skills to stay focused at work but struggling at home. These adults are twice as likely to be divorced, some research suggests.

In one study, high levels of distress were reported in 60 per cent of marriages where one spouse had the disorder.

Source: New York Times