Month: June 2008
Active men less likely to die from cancer
Active men less likely to die from cancer
Wednesday May 28 2008 16:46 IST ANI
London, May 28 (ANI): Men who take regular moderate exercise are at a reduced risk of dying from cancer than couch potatoes, according to a new study by Swedish researchers.
The team found that the cancer death rate in active men who walked or cycled at least 30 minutes daily fell by a third.
The authors said that active men have a 34 per cent lower chance of being killed by cancer than those who do not, reports the Scotsman.
The researchers monitored the health and physical activity levels of 40,708 men aged 45 and 79 for seven years.
During that time, 3,714 of the participants developed cancer and 1,153 died from their disease.
The findings showed that exercise had a significant influence on cancer survival and a smaller impact on incidence.
According to the results, men who walked or cycled at least 30 minutes a day were 34 per cent less likely to die from cancer than men who exercised less or did nothing at all.
The same activities only led to a 5 per cent reduction in cancer rates, a result that could be due to chance.
However, a more rigorous programme of walking and cycling for between an hour and an hour and a half a day was linked to a 16 per cent lower incidence of cancer.
The study is published in the British Journal of Cancer.
Want to live longer? Eat less!
Want to live longer? Eat less!
Thursday May 29 2008 19:03 IST ANI
LONDON: Eating well is certainly essential for healthy survival but if you want to live longer, then all you need to do is reduce your diet rather than skipping off to the gym.
Derek Huffman, from the University of Alabama in Birmingham, found that eating less prolongs life in rodents and said that now he knows one of the key molecules involved.
It’s probably down to depressed insulin levels, which regulate blood glucose, he said. For the study, Huffman kept mice on a variety of diets and exercise regimes.
He found that insulin was lowest in animals eating the least, even if they didn’t exercise. However, Huffman warned that it is still unknown if the effect translates to humans, so keep exercising.
“The benefits of exercise in humans are overwhelming,” New Scientist quoted Huffman, as saying.
Quality of life predicts survival in cancer patients
Quality of life predicts survival in cancer patients
Friday May 30 2008 17:57 IST ANI
WASHINGTON: Quality of life can be an important indicator in determining survival among patients with head and neck cancer, according to a new study.
The study indicates that identifying patients with poor quality of life could help in recognizing patients with aggressive tumours.
Researchers from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Centre analysed 495 people at four hospitals with head and neck cancer within the previous two years. They were asked about physical and emotional quality of life, including pain, eating and swallowing, speech and emotional well-being.
“Low quality of life may have value in screening patients for recurrence. By identifying patients with poor quality of life, we may also be able to identify early on those who have particularly aggressive tumours,” said Carrie A. Karvonen-Gutierrez, lead study author and research associate at the U-M School of Public Health and the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System.
The findings revealed that general physical health and quality of life issues had an impact on survival.
Also patients who reported difficulty with pain, eating and speech were significantly less likely to survive.
“Our findings validate the concept that doctors have long recognized: that persistent or increasing pain is a worrisome clinical finding,” said Sonia A. Duffy, study author, a research scientist at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, associate professor of nursing at the U-M School of Nursing and research assistant professor of otolaryngology at the U-M Medical School.
“Perhaps in the future, quality of life data will be routinely collected in a standardized way, and trends in pain scores will trigger more aggressive examinations for cancer recurrence,” she added.
“While patients are monitored and screened after cancer treatment, small recurrences of cancer may be difficult to detect, even with standard imaging techniques,” said Dr Jeffrey Terrell study author, associate professor of otolaryngology at the U-M Medical School.
The team would be conducting further studies to understand whether treatments that improve quality of life can improve survival.
“Although it is not yet clear how the association works between survival and quality of life related to head and neck pain, it is clearly advantageous to minimize pain for patients,” Duffy said.
The study appears in the June 1 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Smoking during pregnancy raises risk of SIDS
Smoking during pregnancy raises risk of SIDS
Saturday May 31 2008 17:33 IST ANI
WASHINGTON: A new study has found that smoking while pregnant can lead to an increased risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
Clinicians have long considered prenatal cigarette smoke exposure a major contributing risk factor for SIDS, but researchers had not proved a casual relationship.
Other contributing factors include disturbances of breathing and heart rate regulation and impaired arousal responses, thermal stress (primarily overheating from too high temperatures or too much clothing) and sleeping in the prone (belly-down) position.
“Since the advocacy of ‘back to sleep position,’ smoking during pregnancy has become the principal risk factor for SIDS,” said Dr. Shabih Hasan, staff neonatologist and associate professor in the department of pediatrics at the University of Calgary, and the principal investigator of the new study.
“Our results provide some of the most direct evidence to date suggesting that prenatal cigarette smoke exposure can contribute to the destabilizing effects of hypoxia and thermal stress on neonatal breathing,” he added.
To investigate the compounding effects of cigarette smoking on other known risk factors for SIDS, namely thermal and oxygen stress, researchers exposed pregnant rat pups to either room air (control) or mainstream cigarette smoke equivalent to that a pack-a-day smoker would experience.
“Our approach sought to quantify the effects of cigarette smoke holistically, rather than using nicotine exposure as a proxy for cigarette smoke. Nicotine is just one of the 4,700 known toxins in cigarette smoke that could have protracted effects on embryonic development and postnatal growth,” said Dr Hasan.
In this study, both plasma nicotine levels in the mothers and reduced birth weight in the pups were comparable to those of moderate to heavy smoking human mothers and the infants born to them.
A total of 30 control and 39 cigarette smoke-exposed one-week-old rat pups were randomized to undergo either thermoneutral or hyperthermic exposure to an oxygen-depleted environment. Researchers then analyzed the respiratory responses to the challenges.
Overall, just 13 percent of the control animals exhibited gasping, whereas nearly three times that of the cigarette smoke exposed animals did. Furthermore, none of the control animals exhibited gasping under hypoxic conditions during thermoneutral experiments, whereas 25 percent of the cigarette smoke exposed animals did.
nder hyperthermic conditions, just 29 percent of the control group displayed gasping behavior, compared to nearly half-49 percent-of the cigarette smoke exposed group.
“These results also indicate the adverse effects of low oxygen and thermal stress even in pups, which were not exposed to cigarette smoke during pregnancy,” said Dr. Hasan.
But the effects were much more pronounced in pups that head been exposed to cigarette smoked prenatally. Under hyperthermic conditions, hypoxia induced gasping in both groups, but only the cigarette smoke-exposed animals exhibited a pronounced and longer lasting respiratory depression following the termination of hypopxia.
“Our results show that prenatal cigarette smoke exposure compounds the risk by increasing the likelihood of gasp-like respiration and prolonging the time that it takes for neonates to return to normal breathing following hypoxia,” said Dr. Hasan.
“These observations provide important evidence of how prenatal cigarette smoke exposure, hypoxic episodes and hyperthermia might place infants at higher risk for SIDS and further support efforts to foster prenatal smoking cessation programs.”
The study appears in the first issue for June of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, a publication of the American Thoracic Society.
Simply moving can have you feeling more positive
Simply moving can have you feeling more positive
Monday June 2 2008 14:35 IST ANI
WASHINGTON: Indiana University researchers have found that physical activity throughout the day like simply moving is linked to positive feelings.
However, they found no similar relationship between physical activity and negative moods.
“In the study, if people are more active, they tend to report a more positive mood. Really low levels of activity are related to lower levels of positive affect,” said Bryan McCormick, associate professor in IU Bloomington’s School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation.
For the study, physical activity was considered movement beyond resting — not formal exercise.
“People often see physical activity as having to be exercise, but it doesn’t have to be exercise. Physical activity beyond a resting state does appear to be related to mood,” McCormick said.
The study is exceptional because it tracks moment-by-moment physical activity throughout the day and compares it to reports study participants make throughout the day of their activities and feelings.
For the study, the 25 participants wore uniaxial accelerometers during waking hours for seven days so their physical activity could be recorded.
They also wore wristwatches with pre-programmed alarms that signalled them seven times per day during this period so they could fill out brief reports.
If the participants responded more than 20 minutes after the alarm, their report was disregarded in order to eliminate the ambiguity of “recall.”
Majority of studies involving mood and physical activity rely on recall, and compare it to overall physical activity levels, not moment-by-moment activity.
“Most research distinguishes between positive and negative mood. In our study, the moment-by-moment activity is related to positive mood — but not related to negative mood state,” McCormick said.
Physical activity and exercise is drawing more attention as a possible way to influence mild depression.
“In some ways, it might treat mild depression in that it increases our positive feelings, but it doesn’t necessarily take away our negative feelings,” McCormick said.
Georgia Frey, associate professor in the School of HPER’s Department of Kinesiology and lead author of the study, said: “The results of this study were modest and based on a relatively small sample but the findings are encouraging.”
Drinking water may be harmful to babies
Drinking water may be harmful to babies
Monday June 2 2008 14:22 IST Express Features
BABIES younger than six months old should never be given water to drink, a research at Johns Hopkins Children’s center in Baltimore says.
Consuming too much water can put babies at risk of a potentially life-threatening condition known as water intoxication.
Because babies’ kidneys aren’t yet mature, giving them too much water causes their bodies to release sodium along with excess water, Anders said. Losing sodium can affect brain activity, so early symptoms of water intoxication can include irritability, drowsiness and other mental changes.
Other symptoms include low body temperature (generally 97 degrees or less), puffiness or swelling in the face and seizures.
Denied boarding ticket? Go home richer
Denied boarding ticket? Go home richer
OVERBOOKED FLIGHTS
Ashwini Phadnis for The Hindu Business Line
New Delhi, June 2 The next time an airline says it has no seats though you are holding a confirmed ticket and reported to the airport well in time, you could be going back home richer by between Rs 5,000 and Rs 12,000.
The Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has issued draft guidelines that stipulate a passenger denied boarding is entitled to Rs 5,000 for flights of 1,500 km or less or Rs 8,000 for longer domestic flights. Similarly, a passenger flying over 3500 km outside India will be entitled to a compensation of Rs 12,000.
A passenger is considered as having being denied boarding when there are too many passengers and an airline does not have enough seats to offer.
Cancellation
In case of cancellation of flight, the draft guidelines say that the passenger must be given the choice of either refund of his ticket (with a free flight back to initial point of departure), or alternative transport to the final destination and meals, refreshments, hotel accommodation when necessary and communication facilities.
Refund may be in cash or through a bank transfer, the DGCA circular adds.
Delays
In case a flight is delayed by more than five hours and a passenger decides against continuing the journey, the airlines have now been asked to refund the cost of the ticket.
“We will be holding discussions with all the stakeholders including the airlines and passenger groups and fresh guidelines will be issued after taking their views on board. The consultation process should be over within a month,” a senior Government official said.
The amendments are being proposed to ensure that airlines provide minimum facilities to passengers in a liberalised aviation market.
Sources point out that while airlines do offer meals and refreshment in the case of delay in domestic flights, the decision to look at providing financial compensation is being examined for the first time.
The latest move comes months after the Lok Sabha passed the Carriage by Air (Amendment) Bill, 2008, which increased manifold the compensation to be paid to an air traveller in case of death or bodily injury as also damage to checked in baggage.
While the compensation for death or bodily injury is proposed to be increased seven times to $1,40,000 approximately, the compensation for damage to the checked baggage is to increase from $20 a kg approximately to $1,400 per passenger.
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