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Featured InfoMedLinks

ADHD, conduct disorder and smoking most strongly related to dropping out of high school

Advice to rest in bed versus advice to stay active for acute low-back pain and sciatica (Cochrane Reviews 2010)

Age of Onset Influences Prognosis in Bipolar

Age, Alzheimer's disease and dementia in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Ageing. (Brain. 2010)

Are you sitting down? It's slowly killing you “More leisure time spent sitting was associated with higher risk of mortality, particularly in women. Women who reported more than six hours per day of sitting (outside of work) were 37 percent more likely to die during the time period studied than those who sat fewer than three hours a day. Men who sat more than six hours a day (also outside of work) were 18 percent more likely to die than those who sat fewer than three hours per day. The association remained virtually unchanged after adjusting for physical activity level. Associations were stronger for cardiovascular disease mortality than for cancer mortality. When combined with a lack of physical activity, the association was even stronger. Women and men who both sat more and were less physically active were 94 percent and 48 percent more likely to die during the study period, respectively, compared with those who reported sitting the least and being most active. "Several factors could explain the positive association between time spent sitting and higher all-cause death rates," Patel said. "Prolonged time spent sitting, independent of physical activity, has been shown to have important metabolic consequences, and may influence things like triglycerides, high density lipoprotein, cholesterol, fasting plasma glucose, resting blood pressure, and leptin, which are biomarkers of obesity and cardiovascular and other chronic diseases."

Darker Skin Doesn't Mean Melanoma Immunity

Dementia May Differ in Those With and Without Diabetes “Vascular disease, which affects blood flow in brain vessels, appears to be a common cause of dementia in some people with diabetes, new study findings suggest. That's in contrast to dementia in people without diabetes, which the researchers say is more likely to be linked to the brain plaque deposits commonly seen in people with Alzheimer's disease.”

Medications Found to Cause Long Term Cognitive Impairment of Aging Brain, Study Finds “"Simply put, we have confirmed that anticholinergics, something as seemingly benign as a medication for inability to get a good night's sleep or for motion sickness, can cause or worsen cognitive impairment, specifically long-term mild cognitive impairment which involves gradual memory loss. As a geriatrician I tell my Wishard Healthy Aging Brain Center patients not to take these drugs and I encourage all older adults to talk with their physicians about each and every one of the medications they take," said Malaz Boustani, M.D., IU School of Medicine associate professor of medicine, Regenstrief Institute investigator and IU Center for Aging Research center scientist.”

More Than Half of All ACL Reconstructions Could Be Avoided, Swedish Study Finds

No Pap Smears for Women Under 21: Guidelines “Pap smears in women under 21 do more harm than good, new guidelines from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) say. In most cases such tests reveal only human papillomavirus (HPV) infections, which rarely lead to cervical cancer in women under 21, said Dr. Mark Einstein of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (no relation) in the Bronx, New York.”

Peripheral Neuropathy Fact Sheet

Tea May Contain More Fluoride Than Once Thought, Research Shows “Fluoride is known to help prevent dental cavities, but long-term ingestion of excessive amounts could cause bone problems. The average person ingests a very safe amount, 2 to 3 milligrams, daily through fluoridated drinking water, toothpaste and food. It would take ingesting about 20 milligrams a day over 10 or more years before posing a significant risk to bone health. Whitford discovered that the fluoride concentration in black tea had long been underestimated when he began analyzing data from four patients with advanced skeletal fluorosis, a disease caused by excessive fluoride consumption and characterized by joint and bone pain and damage. While it is extremely rare in the United States, the common link between these four patients was their tea consumption -- each person drank 1 to 2 gallons of tea daily for the past 10 to 30 years. "When we tested the patients' tea brands using a traditional method, we found the fluoride concentrations to be very low, so we wondered if that method was detecting all of the fluoride," Whitford said, noting that the tea plant, Camellia sinensis, creates a quandary when measuring fluoride. Unique among other plants, it accumulates huge concentrations of fluoride and aluminum in its leaves -- each mineral ranges from 600 to more than 1,000 milligrams per kilogram of leaves. When the leaves are brewed for tea, some of the minerals leach into the beverage.”

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Healthy Living

Antioxidants Do Help Arteries Stay Healthy “Long-term supplementation with dietary antioxidants has beneficial effects on sugar and fat metabolism, blood pressure and arterial flexibility in patients with multiple cardiovascular risk factors. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access journal Nutrition and Metabolism report these positive results in a randomized controlled trial of combined vitamin C, vitamin E, coenzyme Q10 and selenium capsules.”

Benefits of the Mediterranean Diet

Cognitive function and tea consumption in community dwelling older chinese in singapore. (Nutr Health Aging. 2010) “Conclusions: Tea consumption was associated with better cognitive performance in community-living Chinese older adults. The protective effect of tea consumption on cognitive function was not limited to particular type of tea.”

Those Who Exercise When Young Have Stronger Bones When They Grow Old “The researchers have therefore established that there is a positive link between exercise while young and bone density and size. The connection is even stronger if account is taken of the type of sports done. "The bones respond best when you're young, and if you train and load them with your own bodyweight during these years, it has a stimulating effect on their development," says Nilsson. "This may be important for bone strength much later in life too, so reducing the risk of brittle bones."”

Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and Reduced Odds of MCI: The Mayo Clinic Study of Aging. (J Alzheimers Dis. 2010) “In this study, higher intake of PUFA and MUFA was associated with a reduced likelihood of MCI among elderly persons in the population-based setting.”

Potassium Power

Vitamin D Levels Associated With Parkinson's Disease Risk “Vitamin D is known to play a role in bone health and may also be linked to cancer, heart disease and type 2 diabetes, according to background information in the article. "Recently, chronically inadequate vitamin D intake was proposed to play a significant role in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease," the authors write. "According to the suggested biological mechanism, Parkinson's disease may be caused by a continuously inadequate vitamin D status leading to a chronic loss of dopaminergic neurons in the brain."“

Vitamin E–Rich Foods May Reduce Long-Term Risk for Dementia “Vitamin E may play a modest role in altering the course of dementia, say researchers. Compared with participants with the lowest intake, investigators found that those patients with higher vitamin E intake were 25% less likely to develop dementia. "When beta-amyloid — a hallmark of pathologic Alzheimer disease — accumulates in the brain, an inflammatory response is likely evoked that produces nitric oxide radicals and downstream neurodegenerative effects," report investigators led by Elizabeth Devore, ScD, from the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. "Vitamin E is a powerful fat-soluble antioxidant that may help to inhibit the pathogenesis of dementia."”

Walnuts-rich diet improves memory deficits and learning skills in transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease

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Inflammation and Oxidative Stress

Association of C-Reactive Protein With Cognitive Impairment (Arch Neurol. 2010) “Conclusions High hsCRP may be a marker of memory and visuospatial impairment in the elderly.”

Association of vitamin B-6 status with inflammation, oxidative stress, and chronic inflammatory conditions: the Boston Puerto Rican Health Study (Am J Clin Nutr 2010) “Conclusions: Low vitamin B-6 concentrations are associated with inflammation, higher oxidative stress, and metabolic conditions in older Puerto Rican adults. Our data suggest that vitamin B-6 may influence cardiovascular disease risk through mechanisms other than homocysteine and support the notion that nutritional status may influence the health disparities present in this population.”

CRP is risk factor for heart disease “CRP (C-reactive protein) is a protein made by the liver which is known to be a ‘marker’ for a state of inflammation in the body. In recent years, there has been growing interest in the role CRP might play in heart disease. For instance, CRP is present in the atherosclerotic plaque that is the hallmark of heart disease. Raised CRP may indicate a state of inflammation in the coronary arteries that may set the scene for heart disease. So should doctors be measuring CRP as a risk factor, as they do cholesterol and blood pressure? A report from the Emerging Risk Factors Collaboration, led by doctors at the University of Cambridge, UK, suggests that we should, indeed, take CRP seriously as a risk factor in heart disease.”

C-Reactive Protein (CRP)

C-Reactive Protein and Risk of Lung Cancer (Journal of Clinical Oncology 2010) “Conclusion Elevated CRP levels are associated with subsequently increased lung cancer risk, suggesting an etiologic role for chronic pulmonary inflammation in lung carcinogenesis.“

C-Reactive Protein Concentration and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease, Stroke, and Mortality: An Individual Participant Meta-Analysis “Perspective: There is debate about the clinical utility of CRP for risk assessment in cardiovascular disease as well as whether it is a causal relationship or simply a biomarker of risk. This study adds to the abundant literature supporting CRP as a risk marker for cardiovascular events and mortality. And the JUPITER trial provided clinical evidence that it may be useful to risk stratify persons with relatively normal lipid profiles for deciding statin therapy. CRP binds to low-density lipoprotein, and is found in atherosclerotic plaque, suggesting causality. However, this study showing attenuation of attributable risk when corrected for fibrinogen, and recent studies showing no relationship between genetic polymorphisms associated with a higher level of CRP and cardiovascular disease imply that CRP is a risk marker, but not a risk factor for cardiovascular events. And the important saga continues. “

Defending Against Disease With an Anti-Inflammation Lifestyle

Inflammation and the Incidence of Type 2 Diabetes (Diabetes Care 2010)

Inflammation in Atherosclerosis: (Circ J. 2010) “Thus, accumulating experimental evidence supports a key role for inflammation as a link between risk factors for atherosclerosis and the biology that underlies the complications of this disease. The recent JUPITER trial supports the clinical utility of an assessment of inflammatory status in guiding intervention to limit cardiovascular events. Inflammation is thus moving from a theoretical concept to a tool that provides practical clinical utility in risk assessment and targeting of therapy.”

Magnesium, inflammation, and obesity in chronic disease. (Nutr Rev. 2010)

Persistent low-grade inflammation and regular exercise.Inflammation (Biosci (Schol Ed). 2010) “Visceral adiposity contributes to systemic inflammation and is independently associated with the occurrence of CVD, type 2 diabetes and dementia. We suggest that the anti-inflammatory effects of exercise may be mediated via a long-term effect of exercise leading to a reduction in visceral fat mass and/or by induction of anti-inflammatory cytokines with each bout of exercise.”

Researchers link inflammation to illness in overweight people “Normally, inflammation is healthy, a part of the body's fight against infections. But when it happens in response to obesity, it can contribute to numerous ills, such as fatty liver disease, type 2 diabetes and atherosclerosis, says Anthony Ferrante, a medical professor at Columbia whose research focuses on obesity's affects. The inflammation appears to happen because macrophages, white blood cells that attack and eat infection, congregate in fat tissue. Why is a mystery. "Are the fat cells getting big, bursting and then the macrophages are going in to clean up the mess? Or is it that the macrophages are killing the fat cells?" asks Carey Lumeng, a pediatrician who studies obesity and inflammation at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. A few years ago, Ferrante's lab discovered that in lean people, only 5% of fat tissue is made up of macrophages, while in the severely obese it can be more than 50%. And why do they cause an immune response? One hypothesis is that higher concentrations of fat could trigger macrophages to go into inflammatory mode.”

Waist circumference is related to low-grade inflammation in youth. (Int J Pediatr Obes. 2010) “Conclusions. Low grade systemic inflammation is already present in youth with high waist circumference. CRP, HGF and PAI-1 may be related to the adverse overall metabolic risk profile observed in these children and adolescents.”

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Patient Safety

Emergency Department Wait Times Continue to Rise

Wet Breathing System Filters Transmit Harmful Bacteria and Yeast, Hospitals Warned

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