Posts from — April 2009

Health Tip – Audio Version - Smoking and breast cancer
Health Tip – Healthy Next Step: Straight Talk about Tobacco (GirlsHealth.gov)

Think smoking as a young woman is relatively risk-free? Think again.

A study in Mayo Clinic Proceedings suggests that women who smoked before pregnancy were 20 percent more likely to develop breast cancer later in life than women who never smoked, or who started smoking after their first child.

Mayo Clinic Rochester researcher Janet Olson:

“This study would suggest that breast cancer prevention needs to start in adolescence, when young women are making decisions about whether to start smoking cigarettes.”

The research supported by the National Institutes of Health used data from an Iowa Women’s Health Study that sampled more than 41,000 women aged 55 to 69.

The findings are consistent with other studies linking smoking to increased risk of breast cancer.

Health Tip courtesy of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Last revised: August, 15 2006

Health Tip – Audio Version - For better, for worse
Health Tip – Healthy Next Step: Healthy Marriage Initiative (ACF)

A study of couples finds that “for better, for worse” seems to really mean something.

Claire Kamp Dush of Cornell University looked at contentment, from married couples to living-togethers, daters, and people in no relationship at all. Her study in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Kamp Dush found married couples were the most content and no-relationship singles the least content. But even people in unhappy marriages felt better than people who were unhappy living together. That surprised her; she had expected that feeling stuck in a bad marriage would make life worse.

Kamp Dush’s conclusion: Commitment counts.

“It appears that there’s just some advantages to being in committed relationships. Perhaps it’s the security of knowing you have a partner there for you.”

Her advice: Work on the commitment.

Health Tip courtesy of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Last revised: August, 15 2006

Health Tip – Audio Version - Surprise Valentine’s Day
Health Tip – Healthy Next Step: Healthy Valentine (Office of Women’s Health)

OK, it’s Valentine’s Day. Flowers, candy, I love you. What about next month?

That’s a valid question because showing love isn’t one day – it’s every day. HHS’ Assistant Secretary for Children and Families, Wade Horn:

“If you wait a month, and you do it for no apparent reason other than you really love your partner, that’s going to actually have greater meaning in your relationship than a feeling that you kind of had to, because it’s something called Valentine’s Day.”

A surprise Valentine’s Day might be a skill to learn. And Horn says marriage is a lot about skills – including ones that can be taught in class. Marriage education classes – not counseling for troubled couples, but teaching for couples that just want to be better – can show new ways to talk, listen and interact.

Health Tip courtesy of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Last revised: August, 15 2006

Health Tip – Audio Version - What Grandma Takes
Health Tip – Healthy Next Step: Get the Facts – What is Complementary and Alternative Medicine (National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine)

Older folks have been around long enough to have an idea what works for them – whether it really does nor not. A survey in rural North Carolina finds older folks often favor home remedies. Home remedies can be anything from herbal teas to liniments – and while some might have a scientifically provable effect, others might not work at all.

Researcher Joseph Grzywacz of Wake Forest University did the study. The report in the American Journal of Health Behavior was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Grzywacz reports cultural differences in use of home remedies.

“The existing data do consistently indicate higher, sometimes as much as 50 to 75 percent higher, use of home remedies among racial and ethnic minority adults.”

He says the reason could be that minority group members believe more strongly that home remedies work.

Health Tip courtesy of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Last revised: August, 15 2006

Health Tip – Audio Version - Working the body, Saving the mind
Health Tip – Healthy Next Step: The Pocket Guide to Staying Healthy After 50+ (AHRQ)

A sound mind in a sound body, is how the saying goes. And a study by researcher Eric Larson of Seattle’s Group Health Cooperative indicates there’s truth in it.

Larson tracked about 1,750 people ages 65 and older for six years, to see if physical activity reduces the risk of dementia. The work in Annals of Internal Medicine was supported by the National Institutes of Health:

“A modest amount of exercise would reduce a person’s risk of dementia by about 30 – 40 percent.”

There was some benefit with as little as 15 minutes of walking three times a week.

Larson says people who take up exercise even after decline begins may be able to slow their loss:

“It says to me, ‘Use it even after you start to lose it.’ ”

Health Tip courtesy of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Last revised: August, 15 2006

Health Tip – Audio Version - Doing good with aspirin
Health Tip – Healthy Next Step: Aspirin for Reducing Your Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke (Center for Drug Evaluation and Research)

The word is spreading – an aspirin a day can do a person good. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say aspirin use has been going up. The latest survey data show 36 percent of people questioned used aspirin regularly. Compared with results from 1999, that’s up by 20 percent.

The report is in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine

CDC researcher Umed Ajani has the numbers to show people know the reasons they take aspirin:

“Seventy-four percent of those who reported using aspirin said they were using it to reduce their chance of a heart attack or a stroke.”

That’s the payoff. Earlier studies have shown that aspirin taken regularly cuts those risks.

An 81-milligram tab, as opposed to headache-strength 325 milligrams, can do the job.

Health Tip courtesy of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Last revised: September, 26 2006

Health Tip – Audio Version - Exercise in the real world
Health Tip – Healthy Next Step: Walking Works, The Blue Program for a Healthier America (PDF –  KB) (The President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports)

Experts recommend brisk walking 30 minutes a day, most days of the week. But walkers don’t always do that. They follow their own plan. What happens then?

Researcher Michael Perri of the University of Florida checked what people do in the real world. His work, which was supported by the National Institutes of Health, was in Archives of Internal Medicine.

Perri found people got more fit with 30 minutes of moderate or brisk walking five or more days a week, or brisk walking three or four days a week. Harder workers had an extra payoff – better cholesterol levels. But any program seemed to make participants’ lives better:

“They found it easier going up and down stairs. They found it easier when they were playing with their children in different sports kinds of activities.”

Health Tip courtesy of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Last revised: August, 15 2006

Health Tip – Audio Version - Kids, parents and cancer.
Health Tip – Healthy Next Step: Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PDQ®) (National Cancer Institute)

When a child gets cancer, a parent’s life gets bound up in fighting the disease. And even when the child survives, a parent’s stress can continue.

Anne Kazak of The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia looked at symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in parents of children undergoing treatment and parents of survivors. Flashbacks – unwanted mental returns to the trauma – were common.

Kazak says parents, especially while a child is treated, need to take some time for their own needs:

“You’re a better parent if you’re taking care of yourself and taking the time to have some periods when you are doing things that are important for yourself.”

These include getting rest and talking with other family members.

Kazak’s study of parents of survivors was supported by the National Institutes of Health. It’s in the Journal of Family Psychology.

Health Tip courtesy of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Last revised: August, 15 2006

Health Tip – Audio Version - Where do you want that six-pack?
Health Tip – Healthy Next Step: 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans: Alcoholic Beverages
(Departments of Health and Human Services and Agriculture)

Warm weather means a lot of us are walking around with six-packs of one kind or another.

One kind is the tight band of muscle that shows we work out and eat right no belly fat to speak of.

But the other six-pack holds the calories that settle over our gut and hide the first six-pack.

Could we have both? Well ask nutrition expert Kim Stitzel of HHS Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion:

“Let’s be generous and think you’re drinking light beer. It’s about 100 calories per beer, so that’s about 600 calories in a six-pack. And if you’re an average guy let’s say you’re five-ten, 160 pounds, something along those lines you got to run about an hour to burn that off. At a pretty good pace.”

If you drink comparable cans of regular soda, add about a half hour of exercise. And individual results may vary for instance, older people with slower metabolisms could have to exercise more.

Health Tip courtesy of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Last revised: July 11, 2005

Health Tip – Audio Version - Bigger than your stomach.
Health Tip – Healthy Next Step: Keep an Eye on Portion Size
(National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute)

Your eyes are bigger than your stomach, and researcher Brian Wansink of Cornell University believes it’s a reason why Americans are gaining weight. He told a conference sponsored by the National Institutes of Health that things like big plates and supersized cups are dietary boobytraps they fool us into eating more than we know.

In one experiment, graduate students were taught that people eat more when they have bigger bowls. Six weeks later, Wansink invited them to a Super Bowl party at which some grad students snacked from gallon bowls and others from half-gallon bowls. The gallon-bowl partiers ate more. But did they realize it? Wansink says:

“If you brought them together and said, `Look, on average, you guys took 55 percent more,they to a person would say, `No, I didn’t. Maybe others did, but I didn’t.”

Wansink says you can feel just as full on smaller cups and plates.

Health Tip courtesy of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Last revised: July 18, 2005