Facts About Eggs And Food Safety In Oven

http://todaynewspak.blogspot.com/

Age-Related Decrease In Physical Activity And Functional Fitness Among Elderly Men And Women

http://todaynewspak.blogspot.com/

Mindfulness therapy works for recurrent depression

LONDON: For people with recurring depression, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy may be more helpful than other treatments, according to a new analysis.

Cognitive therapy focuses on substituting constructive patterns of thinking for maladaptive thought processes. Mindfulness meditation focuses on being aware of incoming thoughts and feelings and accepting them without reacting to them.

Combining mindfulness techniques with cognitive therapy should be an option for patients, according to study leader Willem Kuyken of the University of Oxford in the UK.

“It is about choice for patients and adding another choice for people at high risk of depressive relapse to stay well in the long-term,” Kuyken told Reuters Health in an email.

“When mindfulness is combined with cognitive therapy, one of the things we see is people being trained to regard their thoughts as just thoughts and not to get ensnared by them,” said Richard Davidson, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study.

The research team analyzed data on 1,258 participants from nine randomized controlled trials that compared mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) to other treatments for recurring depression among people who were fully or partially in remission.

Overall, people receiving MBCT were about 31 percent less likely to have depression again after 60 weeks, compared to people who received other treatments, including self help.

After excluding self help, the researchers found that people who received MBCT were still 21 percent less likely to have depression again after 60 weeks, compared to people on other treatments.

MBCT worked equally well regardless of age, sex, education, relationship status, age at onset of depression and previous episodes.

However, in people with more severe depressive symptoms, MBCT worked especially well, compared to other treatments.

“Depression is a recurrent illness,” said Davidson, of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Relapse is a very significant problem with depression, and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy may be particularly valuable in reducing the risk of relapse.”

The researchers write in JAMA Psychiatry April 27 that MBCT teaches skills that help people with recurrent depression to stay well.

Davidson said there is no one-size-fits-all approach to depression. MBCT may be a good choice for some people, but not all.

“We need to better understand it and that’s one of the important tasks of future research,” he told Reuters Health.

Lizards may have sleeping patterns like humans

WASHINGTON: A research has revealed that reptiles including lizards may have sleeping habits and patterns similar to humans.

The research in a German laboratory involving five lizards called Australian-bearded dragons indicates that these reptiles may dream and could prompt a fundamental reassessment of the evolution of sleep. The research was published in the Science journal.

Scientists have documented for the first time that reptiles, like people, experience rapid eye movement or REM, sleep and another sleep stage called slow-wave sleep. Until now, only mammals and birds were known to experience these.

Because REM sleep is when dreaming occurs in people, the findings suggest that these lizards dream, too. But, what would bearded dragons dream about?

“If you forced me to speculate and to use a loose definition of dreaming, I’d speculate that those dreams are about recent notable events: insects, maybe a place where there are good insects, an aggressive male in the next terrarium, et cetera,” said neuroscientist Gilles Laurent, director of the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Germany.

“If I were an Australian dragon living in Frankfurt, I’d be dreaming of a warm day in the sun.”

When REM and slow-wave sleep first evolved has remained a mystery. The discovery that reptiles share these important sleep stages with mammals and birds, sister groups among the land vertebrates, suggests the sleep traits emerged far earlier than previously suspected in the common evolutionary ancestors of the three groups.

In human REM sleep, the eyes move rapidly, the heart rate and blood pressure rise, limb muscles become incapacitated and dreams flourish. Slow-wave sleep, also called deep sleep, is the most restful sleep period, marked by slow brainwaves and little dreaming.

These stages are thought to be useful for consolidation, storage and erasure of memories and other purposes.

The researchers placed probes inside the brains of five bearded dragons, which can reach 24 inches (60 cm) in length, to measure electrophysiological activity during sleep. While people experience four or five long slow wave/REM sleep cycles nightly, the lizards averaged 350 80-second-long cycles.

Some of the telltale signs of these sleep stages, seen in the brain’s hippocampus in mammals, were found in a more primitive brain region, the dorsal ventricular ridge, in the lizards.

Some scientists had hypothesized REM and slow-wave sleep might be linked to warm-bloodedness and evolved independently in birds and mammals.

No need to fast before cholesterol test

Most people don’t need to fast overnight before getting their blood drawn for a cholesterol test, according to a group of experts.

Cholesterol test results obtained one to six hours after a meal were not significantly different from results obtained after a fast, researchers found.

“It could be implemented tomorrow with no problems at all,” said lead author Dr. Borge Nordestgaard, of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. “Today, the key players for keeping the fasting procedure are the laboratories drawing the blood. They simply could change the procedure tomorrow, and then nobody would fast anymore. That is what we did in Denmark – and patients, clinicians and laboratories were all happy with the change.”

Nordestgaard told Reuters Health in an email that doctors essentially just always had patients fast before a cholesterol test. “So people got used to it without questioning the fasting procedure,” he said.

Typically, blood is drawn for a cholesterol test – known as a lipid panel – after a person has fasted for at least eight hours, the researchers write in the European Heart Journal.

In 2009, Denmark began using non-fasting cholesterol tests. One advantage, the researchers say, is that forgoing fasting simplifies the process for patients, doctors and laboratories. Also, patients are more likely to get the test.

For the new analysis, the international team of researchers met twice in person to look at data from a number of large studies, such as the Nurses’ Health Study, the Copenhagen General Population Study and the Heart Protection Study.

The researchers found that not fasting, compared to fasting, didn’t significantly change the levels of substances typically measured during a cholesterol test, including triglycerides, total cholesterol, LDL (or bad) cholesterol and HDL (or good) cholesterol.

“To improve patient compliance with lipid testing, we therefore recommend the routine use of non-fasting lipid profiles,” the researchers write.

“These recommendations represent a joint consensus statement from the European Atherosclerosis Society and European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine involving 21 World medical experts from Europe, Australia and the US,” said Nordestgaard.

The research team cautions that fasting cholesterol tests may be needed if a person has high triglycerides (or blood fats), is recovering from pancreatitis or is starting certain medications that can cause high triglycerides.

Nordestgaard said people should “stop fasting before a lipid profile test, or even better push their local laboratory to stop the requirement for fasting before cholesterol and triglyceride testing.”

Some specialists may resist, but “that also happened in Denmark, although very few were against the change,” Nordestgaard said.

Younger than you look? Scientists identify gene that seems to age people faster

Scientists have said they have identified a variation in a gene that seems to age people faster.

It’s no secret that good genes can explain why some people age well. But researchers they have identified a specific gene variant that can make people look about two years older than their actual age.

Scientists already know that the gene in question, known as MC1R, is responsible for producing red hair and pale skin, according to the report in the journal Current Biology.

“For the first time, a gene has been found that explains in part why some people look older and others younger for their age,” said researcher Manfred Kayser of Erasmus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

Previous research has shown that a person’s genes and environmental factors contribute equally to how old a person looks.

Perceived age is also important because it can be linked to a person’s actual health and their risk of dying prematurely, other research has suggested.

For the current study, scientists examined the genomes of more than 2,600 elderly Dutch Europeans “for DNA variants associated with differences in perceived facial age and wrinkling as estimated from digital facial images,” the report said.

“The strongest hits for perceived facial age were for DNA variants in the MC1R gene.”

Researchers said they were able to confirm their finding in two other large European studies.

The influence of the MC1R gene variant was not swayed by age, sex, skin color, or sun damage.

MC1R is also known for its role in inflammation and DNA damage repair, processes that may influence how youthful a person appears, researchers said.

Marriage is good for cancer patients: study

WASHINGTON: Married people with cancer have better survival odds than their single peers – and not for money reasons, a U.S. study suggests.

Unmarried men were 27 percent more likely to die of their tumors, and single women were 19 percent more likely, the study found.

Married people generally had better health insurance and lived in better neighborhoods, but single patients still fared worse even after accounting for these financial reasons for the marriage advantage.

“It seems that the major contributing factor is greater social support, and less social isolation, among married patients,” said study leader Scarlett Lin Gomez of the University of California, San Diego.

“Having a strong support system can have meaningful impacts on the odds of survival after a cancer diagnosis,” Lin added by email.

The research team studied nearly 783,000 patients diagnosed with cancer in California from 2000 through 2009, including about 387,000 who had died by 2012.

They focused on patients with invasive malignancies and their 10 most common causes of cancer deaths.

Once researchers adjusted for insurance status and neighborhood socioeconomic status, unmarried men were 22 percent more likely to die than their peers who had tied the knot, and single women were 15 percent more likely to die.

At the start of the study, 70 percent of the men and 51 percent of the women were married, and nearly all patients had some type of health insurance.

Unmarried patients were more likely to be black, live in low-income neighborhoods, be uninsured or have government insurance, be diagnosed at a later stage of disease, and not receive any surgery or radiation.

Uninsured men and women had about 25 percent higher odds of death than people with private health insurance.

The findings don’t prove single life causes death from cancer, however. It’s also possible that certain characteristics that lead people to marry, such as being physically or emotionally healthier than people who don’t find mates, might influence patients’ survival odds, the authors note in the journal Cancer.

The results also don’t make cancer death a foregone conclusion for single people, study coauthor Maria Elena Martinez of the University of California, San Diego added by email.

“Single patients should take advantage of their support networks, even if they do not necessarily have spouses or children to turn to during a cancer diagnosis,” Martinez said. “This is particularly important for male patients.”

That’s because research suggests that men benefit more socially from marriage, said Catherine Powers-James, a psychology researcher at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

“Although both men and women may think they are being a burden on others when they ask for help, women are more inclined to reach out to others for emotional support and for assistance,” Powers-James, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.

Single patients who don’t have close friends might consider seeking professional help from a therapist, Powers-James added.

Not all marriages are the same, or equally strong in times of crisis. But the findings suggest it’s worth investigating what aspects of these long-term relationships may be most responsible for better survival odds, since money clearly isn’t the only thing in play.

“To the extent that the U.S. will be seeing a greater number of cancer patients and survivors due to the aging of our population, coupled with a rising proportion of unmarried individuals, we can look further into the possible ways that being married translates into improved cancer survival so that we can use the information to help all patients,” Martinez said.

Here’s How Much You Should Eat Dry Fruits

Packed with proteins, essential fatty acids, antioxidants and minerals, these are little factories of good health. Since most of the water is extracted from dry fruits, their nutrients are condensed into small packages.

Health Benefits Of Dry Prunes And Reasons To Eat More Of Them

Not a fan of prunes? You’re not alone. In fact, women ages 25 to 54 react so negatively to the idea of prunes that the California Prune Board pressured the Food and Drug Administration to change their name to the more appealing ‘dried plums’ (which they technically are), and it worked! Sales of this super-healthy purple fruit have grown.

Key Compound In Tomatoes Could Help Male Fertility

Woman With Skin Cancer Shares Shocking Images Of The Hole She Had Cut Out Of Her Nose

New York : Until two years ago, Jade Thrasher had been going for 20 minute tanning sessions on the sunbed three times a week, for 11 years.Then in 2014, she noticed a clear spot forming on her nose, which kept bursting and failing to heal.

Simple Ways To Check Your Heart Health

Vegetable fat not the route to a healthy heart: study

PARIS: Replacing animal fat in the human diet with vegetable oil seems not to lower heart disease risk, and might even boost it, according to a study published Wednesday that challenges a cornerstone of dietary advice.

British cancer operation streamed in virtual reality ‘world first’

LONDON: A British surgeon live-streamed a cancer operation using virtual reality technology in what he said was a world first that would help in training and allow doctors to advise on operations remotely.

Shafi Ahmed from the Royal London Hospital told AFP he had set up two rigs for 360-degree filming in the operating theatre, allowing anyone with a smart phone and virtual reality headset to feel present.

“We can teach people globally cheaply and more immersively,” the surgeon told AFP ahead of a colon cancer operation expected to last at least two hours.

“It takes away the myth of surgery,” said the doctor, who streamed another operation he was working on live two years ago with a Google Glass.

The patient, a British man in his 70s, has not been named but Ahmed said he was excited about the prospect of the surgery being watched internationally.

The live stream ran around a minute behind the actual surgery in case of complications and Ahmed said only people aged 16 and above should watch it.

“We’ll be taking away a segment of the bowel and joining it together again. It will all be done through keyhole surgery,” Ahmed said.

“This is the first time that immersive 360 VR is used in surgery.”