Physically Active People Are More Likely To Prevail Over Cancer

Physically Active People Are More Likely To Prevail Over Cancer.
People undergoing cancer healing traditionally have been told to dozing as much as possible and steer clear of exertion, to save all their strength to battle the dreaded disease. But a growing number of physicians and researchers now impart that people who remain physically active as best they can during treatment are more likely to beat cancer. The unambiguous evidence for exercise during and after cancer treatment has piled so high that an American College of Sports Medicine panel is revising the group's public guidelines regarding exercise recommended for cancer survivors.

The panel's conclusion: Cancer patients and survivors should contend to get the same amount of irritate recommended for everyone else, about 150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise. Resistance training and stretching also are recommended.

Painkillers Are One Of The Causes Of Death

Painkillers Are One Of The Causes Of Death.
Abuse of tranquillizing painkillers and other recipe drugs is a growing problem in the United States, and a leading doctors' series is urging members to exercise tighter control on the medications. The American College of Physicians (ACP) says its recommended changes will compel it tougher for prescription drugs - painkillers such as Oxycontin and Vicodin, as well as drugs occupied for sleep problems and weight loss - to be ill-treated or diverted for sale on the street. Prescription drug abuse may now be a prime cause of accidental demise in the United States, according to a recent tally of preliminary data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

One 2010 survey, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, found that 16 million Americans superannuated 12 and older had in use a prescription painkiller, sedative, tranquilizer or urge for purposes other than their medical care at least once in the prior year. One of the ACP's 10 recommendations highlighted the penury to educate doctors, patients and the public about the dangers of prescription drug abuse. The guidelines also suggested that doctors take to be the full range of available treatments before prescribing painkillers. Among the other recommendations.

Evidence-based, nonbinding guidelines should be developed to worker guide doctors' care decisions. A national prescription-drug-monitoring program should be created, so doctors and pharmacists can check almost identical programs in their own and neighboring states before writing and filling prescriptions for substances with high misapplication potential. Two experts said the ACP recommendations are welcome, but more must be done.

Controversial Guidelines Of Treatment Of Lyme Disease Is Left In Action

Controversial Guidelines Of Treatment Of Lyme Disease Is Left In Action.
After more than a year of study, a expressly appointed panel at the Infectious Diseases Society of America has incontrovertible that factious guidelines for the treatment of Lyme disease are correct and want not be changed. The guidelines, first adopted in 2006, have long advocated for the short-term (less than a month) antibiotic remedying of new infections of Lyme disease, which is caused by Borrelia burgdorferi, a bacteria transmitted to humans via tick bites.

However, the guidelines have also been the hub of fierce antagonism from certain patient advocate groups that believe there is a debilitating, "chronic" form of Lyme c murrain requiring much longer therapy. The IDSA guidelines are important because doctors and insurance companies often follow them when making healing (and treatment reimbursement) decisions.

The new review was sparked by an exploration launched by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, whose office had concerns about the process reach-me-down to draft the guidelines. "This was the first challenge to any of the infectious disease guidelines" the Society has issued over the years, IDSA president Dr Richard Whitley said during a exert pressure conference held Thursday.

Whitley eminent that the special panel was put together with an independent medical ethicist, Dr Howard Brody, from the University of Texas Medical Branch, who was approved by Blumenthal so that the council would be sure to have no conflicts of interest. The guidelines suppress 69 recommendations, Dr Carol J Baker, leader of the Review Panel, and pediatric infectious diseases specialist at Baylor College of Medicine, said during the host conference.

So "For each of these recommendations our review panel found that each was medically and scientifically justified in beacon of all the evidence and information and required no revision". For all but one of the votes the committee agreed unanimously.

Particularly on the continued use of antibiotics, the panel had concerns that prolonged use of these drugs puts patients in peril of serious infection while not improving their condition. "In the container of Lyme disease, there has yet to be a single high-quality clinical ponder that demonstrates comparable benefit to prolonging antibiotic therapy beyond one month," the panel members found.

Cardiologists Recommend To Monitor Blood Pressure

Cardiologists Recommend To Monitor Blood Pressure.
Fewer commoners should bear medicine to control their high blood pressure, a new set of guidelines recommends. Adults superannuated 60 or older should only take blood pressure medication if their blood pressure exceeds 150/90, which sets a higher sandbank for treatment than the current guideline of 140/90, according to the report, published online Dec 18, 2013 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The virtuoso panel that crafted the guidelines also recommends that diabetes and kidney patients younger than 60 be treated at the same period as Dick else that age, when their blood pressure exceeds 140/90.

Until now, people with those chronic conditions have been prescribed medication when their blood persuasion reading topped 130/80. Blood pressure is the might exerted on the inner walls of blood vessels as the heart pumps blood to all parts of the body. The more elevated reading, known as the systolic pressure, measures that force as the heart contracts and pushes blood out of its chambers. The discount reading, known as diastolic pressure, measures that constrain as the heart relaxes between contractions.

Adult blood pressure is considered normal at 120/80. The recommendations are based on clinical validation showing that stricter guidelines provided no additional advantage to patients, explained guidelines author Dr Paul James, head of the department of dynasty medicine at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. "We really couldn't walk additional health benefits by driving blood pressure lower than 150 in people over 60 years of stage ".

And "It was very clear that 150 was the best number". The American Heart Association (AHA) and the American College of Cardiology (ACC) did not analysis the new guidelines, but the AHA has expressed reservations about the panel's conclusions. "We are active that relaxing the recommendations may expose more persons to the fine kettle of fish of inadequately controlled blood pressure," said AHA president-elect Dr Elliott Antman, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

In November, the AHA and ACC released their own seam set of therapy guidelines for high blood pressure, as well as inexperienced guidelines for the treatment of high cholesterol that could greatly expand the number of race taking cholesterol-lowering statins. About one in three adults in the United States has high blood pressure, according to the US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The introduce formed the Eighth Joint National Committee, or JNC 8, in 2008 to update the termination set of high blood demand treatment guidelines, which were issued in 2003.

In June 2013, the institute announced that it would no longer participate in the condition of any clinical guidelines, including the blood pressure guidelines nearing completion. However, the disclosure came after the institute had reviewed the preliminary JNC 8 findings. The JNC 8 solid to forge ahead and finish the guidelines.

Menopause Affects Women Differently

Menopause Affects Women Differently.
Women bothered by blether flashes or other crap of menopause have a number of treatment options - hormonal or not, according to updated guidelines from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. It's estimated that anywhere from 50 percent to 82 percent of women effective through menopause have recent flashes - sudden feelings of extreme intensity in the upper body - and night sweats. For many, the symptoms are frequent and severe enough to cause repose problems and disrupt their daily lives.

And the duration of the misery can last from a couple years to more than a decade, says the college, the nation's influential group of ob/gyns. "Menopausal symptoms are common, and can be very bothersome to women," said Dr Clarisa Gracia, who helped put in writing the new guidelines. "Women should grasp that effective treatments are available to address these symptoms". The guidelines, published in the January outlet of Obstetrics andamp; Gynecology, reinforce some longstanding advice: Hormone therapy, with estrogen by oneself or estrogen plus progestin, is the most effective way to cool hot flashes.

But they also advance out the growing evidence that some antidepressants can help an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. In studies, down doses of antidepressants such as venlafaxine (Effexor) and fluoxetine (Prozac) have helped spell hot flashes in some women. And two other drugs - the anti-seizure cure gabapentin and the blood pressure medication clonidine - can be effective, according to the guidelines.

So far, though, only one non-hormonal anaesthetize is actually approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for treating brilliant flashes: a low-dose version of the antidepressant paroxetine (Paxil). And experts said that while there is manifest some hormone alternatives ease hot flashes, none works as well as estrogen and estrogen-progestin. "Unfortunately, many providers are white-livered to prescribe hormones.

And a lot of the time, women are fearful," said Dr Patricia Sulak, an ob/gyn at Scott andamp; White Hospital in Temple, Texas, who was not affected in calligraphy the new guidelines. Years ago, doctors routinely prescribed hormone replacement analysis after menopause to lower women's risk of heart disease, among other things. But in 2002, a colossal US trial called the Women's Health Initiative found that women given estrogen-progestin pills really had slightly increased risks of blood clots, heart attack and breast cancer. "Use of hormones plummeted" after that.

Americans Suffer High Blood Pressure

Americans Suffer High Blood Pressure.
High blood press is a preventable and treatable danger factor for heart attack and stroke, but about one-quarter of adults don't recollect they have it, according to a large new study. Among those who do know they have the condition, many are not likely to have it under control, said persuade researcher Dr Uchechukwu Sampson, a cardiologist at Vanderbilt University Medical School in Nashville. "Despite all the going forward we have made in having available treatment options, more than half of the proletariat we studied still have uncontrolled high blood pressure.

The study is published in the January issue of the minute-book Circulation: Cardiovascular and Quality Outcomes. One in three US adults has high blood pressure, according to the US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Any reading over 140/90 millimeters of mercury is considered elated blood pressure. The analyse findings coincided with the Dec 18, 2013 issuing of immature guidelines for blood pressure management by experts from the institute's eighth Joint National Committee.

Among other changes, the unique guidelines recommend that fewer family take blood pressure medicine. Older adults, under the new guidelines, wouldn't be treated until their blood weight topped 150/90, instead of 140/90. In Sampson's study, the researchers evaluated how public high blood pressure was in more than 69000 men and women. Overall, 57 percent self-reported that they had dear blood pressure.

Lung Cancer Remains The Most Lethal Cancer

Lung Cancer Remains The Most Lethal Cancer.
New recommendations from the American Cancer Society about that older in touch or former heavy smokers may want to look upon low-dose CT scans to help screen for lung cancer. Specifically, that includes those old 55 to 74 with a 30 pack-year smoking history who still smoke or who had quit within the past 15 years. Pack-years are a amount made by multiplying the number of packs of cigarettes smoked a epoch by the number of years of smoking. "Even with screening, lung cancer would remain the most lethal cancer," said Dr Norman Edelman, supervisor medical officer at the American Lung Association.

He esteemed the cancer society guidelines are similar to the ones from the lung association. The restored recommendation follows on the results of a major US National Cancer Institute study, published in 2010 in Radiology, that found that annual CT screening for lung cancer for older inclination or old smokers cut their death rate by 20 percent.

Edelman stressed that the study does nothing to change the episode that smoking prevention and cessation remain the most important public health challenge there is. "Screening is not a velocity to make smoking safe from cancer deaths, and certainly does nothing to prevent smoking-related deaths from lasting obstructive pulmonary disease and heart disease".

The cancer society recommendations also highlight smoking cessation counseling as a high priority and stress that CT screening is not an alternative to quitting smoking. CT screening should only be done after a colloquy between patients and their doctors so people fully understand the benefits, limitations and risks of screening. In addition, screening should only be done by someone efficient in low-dose CT lung cancer screening, the cancer organization stressed.

Doctors Advise How To Avoid Breast Cancer

Doctors Advise How To Avoid Breast Cancer.
If a bride develops mamma cancer, having larger breasts and being sedentary might increase her risk of on one's deathbed from the disease, a large, long-term study suggests. Experts have long known that being physically effectual reduces the risk of getting breast cancer by about 25 percent. The new study, however, looked at how both drive crazy and breast size might predict survival if breast cancer does develop, said reflect on researcher Paul Williams, a staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in Berkeley, California Williams found a rudely 40 percent reduced risk of dying from bust cancer in physically active women compared to those who didn't meet exercise guidelines.

The retreat was published online Dec 9, 2013 in the journal PLoS One. For the study, Williams and his rig followed nearly 80000 women for 11 years. All were participants in national studies on runners' and walkers' health. About 33000 of the women were walkers and about 46000 were runners. When they entered the study, none of the women had been diagnosed with core cancer.

All reported the distances they walked or ran each week, as well as their bra cup hugeness and body charge and height. During the 11-year follow-up period, 111 examination participants died from breast cancer. They were in their mid-50s, on average, when they died. Those who met around exercise guidelines were about 42 percent less likely to die of breast cancer compared to those who did not pay the guidelines.

These guidelines recommend two and a half hours of moderate activity, an hour and 15 minutes of active activity or an equivalent combination weekly. The total of exercise found to be protective against breast cancer was about seven miles of brisk walking or nearly five miles of event each week. "It's not a lot of exercise. "This is more evidence of yet another benefit of exercise.

The Human Papilloma Virus Can Cause Cancer

The Human Papilloma Virus Can Cause Cancer.
Figuring out when to be screened for this cancer or that can commit women's heads spinning. Screening guidelines have been changing for an array of cancers, and on occasion even the experts don't accept on what screenings need to be done when. But for cervical cancer, there seems to be more of a regular consensus on which women need to be screened, and at what ages those screenings should be done.

The dominant cause of cervical cancer is the human papillomavirus (HPV), according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. HPV is very prevalent, and most persons will be infected with the virus at some point in their lives, according to Dr Mark Einstein, a gynecologic oncologist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. "But, it's only in very few community that HPV will go on to cause cancer. That's what makes this order of cancer very amenable to screening.

Plus, it takes a large time to develop into cancer. It's about five to seven years from infection with HPV to precancerous changes in cervical cells". During that organize it's possible that the immune group will take care of the virus and any abnormal cells without any medical intervention. Even if the precancerous cells linger, it still for the most part takes five or more additional years for cancer to develop.

Dr Radhika Rible, an second clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California, Los Angeles, agreed that HPV is often nothing to be anxious about. "HPV is very, very prevalent, but most women who are young and healthy will explicit the virus with no consequences. It rarely progresses to cancer, so it's not anything to be worried or alarmed about, but it's important to stick with the guidelines because, if it does cause any problems, we can stop it early".

Two tests are in use for cervical cancer screening, according to the American Cancer Society. For a Pap test, the more common of the two, a doctor collects cells from the cervix during a pelvic exam and sends them to a lab to resolve whether any of the cells are abnormal. The other test, called an HPV screen, looks for deposition of an HPV infection.

Weakening Of Control Heart Rhythm

Weakening Of Control Heart Rhythm.
Leading US cardiac experts have peaceful the recommendations for firm heart rate control in patients with atrial fibrillation, an bizarre heart rhythm that can lead to strokes. More lenient management of the condition is safe for many, according to an update of existing guidelines from the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association (AHA). Atrial fibrillation, stemming from unreliable beating of the heart's two loftier chambers, affects about 2,2 million Americans, according to the AHA. Because blood can clot while pooled in the chambers, atrial fibrillation patients have a higher jeopardize of strokes and humanitarianism attacks.

And "These new recommendations get ahead the many options we have available to treat the increasing number of people with atrial fibrillation," said Dr Ralph Sacco, AHA president and chairman of neurology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. "Health-care providers and patients indigence to be conscious of the many more options we now have".

Under the additional recommendations, treatment will aim to keep a patient's heart rate at rest to fewer than 110 beats per itsy-bitsy in those with stable function of the ventricles, the heart's lower chambers. Prior guidelines stated that constricting treatment was necessary to keep a patient's heart rate at fewer than 80 beats per piddling at rest and fewer than 110 beats per transcribe during a six-minute walk.

So "It's really been a long-standing belief that having a lower heart dress down for atrial fibrillation patients was associated with less symptoms and with better long-term clinical outcomes and cardiac function," said Dr Gregg C Fonarow, a professor of cardiology at the University of California Los Angeles. "But that was not voter to a prospective, randomized trial".

New Rules For The Diagnosis Of Food Allergy

New Rules For The Diagnosis Of Food Allergy.
A renewed set of guidelines designed to assistant doctors diagnose and treat food allergies was released Monday by the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). In annexe to recommending that doctors get a arrant medical history from a patient when a food allergy is suspected, the guidelines also sit on to help physicians distinguish which tests are the most effective for determining whether someone has a food allergy. Allergy to foods such as peanuts, out and eggs are a growing problem, but how many people in the United States indeed suffer from food allergies is unclear, with estimates ranging from 1 percent to 10 percent of children, experts say.

And "Many of us be aware the number is probably in the neighborhood of 3 to 4 percent," Dr Hugh A Sampson, an novelist of the guidelines, said during a Friday afternoon copy conference detailing the guidelines. "There is a lot of concern about food allergy being overdiagnosed, which we put faith does happen". Still, that may still mean that 10 to 12 million people suffer from these allergies, said Sampson, a professor of pediatrics and dean for translational biomedical sciences at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.

Another quandary is that aliment allergies can be a moving target, since many children who enlarge food allergies at an early age outgrow them, he noted. "So, we certain that children who develop egg and milk allergy, which are two of the most common allergies, about 80 percent will at the end of the day outgrow these," he said. However, allergies to peanuts, tree nuts, fish and shellfish are more persistent, Sampson said. "These are more often than not lifelong," he said. Among children, only 10 percent to 20 percent outgrow them, he added.

The 43 recommendations in the guidelines were developed by NIAID after working jointly with more than 30 conscientious groups, advocacy organizations and federal agencies. Rand Corp. was also commissioned to fulfil a consideration of the medical facts on food allergies. A epitome of the guidelines appears in the December issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

One aspect the guidelines try to do is delineate which tests can distinguish between a food sensitivity and a full-blown foodstuffs allergy, Sampson noted. The two most common tests done to diagnose a food allergy - the fleece prick and measuring the level of antigens in a person's blood - only make out sensitivity to a particular food, not whether there will be a reaction to eating the food.