About 12% of the population, or 36 million Americans, suffer from migraine headaches, according to the AHS.
Although most people with migraines have one or two attacks a month or less, about 3% of the population has chronic migraines, which occur at least 15 days each month.
Dodick says understanding the molecular pathways that trigger migraines or cause occasional migraines to become chronic could lead to better drugs to treat or prevent them.
Although getting enough sleep is important for people with migraines, having a sleep routine is even more critical, he says.
Just as too little sleep can trigger migraine headaches, so can too much sleep at one time.
"That's why 'Saturday morning' migraines are so common," he says. "If someone with migraines who gets up during the week at 6 a.m. sleeps in on Saturday, this can cause a migraine."
The same is true for irregular afternoon naps or any disruption in the regular sleep pattern.
"Sleep routine is very important," Dodick says. "People with migraines need to go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time every day. If they get up at 6 a.m. during the week they need to do the same thing on Saturday and Sunday."
SOURCES: American Headache Society 52nd Annual Scientific Meeting, Los Angeles, June 24-27, 2010.
Paul L. Dunham, PhD, Missouri State University, Center for Biomedical & Life Sciences, Springfield, Mo.
David Dodick, MD, president, American Headache Society; professor of neurology, Mayo Clinic, Phoenix.
News release, American Headache Society.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Too Much Sleep Triggers Migraines
Friday, July 2, 2010
12 Mouthwatering Meatless Meals
Meat-free, but flavor-packed
Looking for a way to save money? Meatless meals are less expensive, and plant-based diets may reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease. These 12 vegetarian recipes will wow your taste buds without hurting your wallet.
Ravioli With Tomatoes, White Beans, and Escarole
This recipe combines Mediterranean spices and white beans to get a protein-packed pasta.
Ingredients: Four-cheese ravioli, great Northern beans, diced tomatoes, basil, oregano, red pepper, fresh escarole or spinach, grated Asiago cheese
Calories: 329
source: www.health.com
Obesity Rates Jump in 28 States
Americans are continuing to get fat, with obesity rates nudging upwards in 28 states over the past year, a new report shows.
“More than two-thirds of states now have adult obesity rates above 25 percent,” Jeff Levi, executive director of the Trust for America’s Health, said during a Tuesday news conference. “Back in 1991, not that long ago, not a single state had an obesity rate above 20 percent. There’s been a dramatic change in a relatively short period.”
“Obesity is one of the biggest public health crises in the country,” Levi added. “Rising rates of obesity over past decades is one of the major factors behind skyrocketing health care costs in the U.S., one-quarter of which are related to obesity.”
Mississippi weighed in for the sixth year in a row as the fattest state, with 33.8 percent of its adults obese, while Alabama and Tennessee tied for second (31.6 percent). The other top 10, also concentrated in the south, were West Virginia, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arkansas, South Carolina and Michigan tying with North Carolina for 10th place (29.4 percent).
Michigan was the only state in the top 11 not in the South, an anomaly perhaps explained by the state’s economy.
“Michigan certainly has been very hard hit, not just in the recent recession, but in the last decade or so,” Levi explained.
And, as the report also shows, income is a major driver of the obesity epidemic. More than 35 percent of adults bringing in less than $15,000 a year were obese, vs. only 24.5 percent in the over-$50,000 income bracket.
The healthiest states in terms of weight were congregated in the Northeast and West. Colorado (19.1 percent) came in first, followed by Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Hawaii, Vermont, Rhode Island, Utah, Montana and New Jersey. The District of Columbia was the only region to experience a decline in obesity rates.
In addition to geographic and economic differences, this year’s report also focused on racial and ethnic disparities, finding that blacks and Latinos bear the brunt of the obesity problem. Blacks and Latinos outweighed whites in at least 40 states plus D.C.
“Just over 30 percent of African-Americans and nearly 40 percent of Latino children are overweight versus 29 percent of white children,” Angela Glover Blackwell, founder and chief executive officer of PolicyLink, said during the teleconference.
As with adults, this puts them at higher risk of developing diabetes, high blood pressure and other risk factors for heart disease.
Racial/ethnic differences are closely intertwined with economic inequalities.
“The link between poverty, race and obesity is undeniable,” Glover Blackwell said. “For example, Mississippi, the poorest state in nation with an African-American population of more than 37 percent, has the highest obesity rate of any state and highest proportion of obese children.”
Poor and minority neighborhoods lack safe streets and parks in which to exercise and many are also so-called “food deserts.”
“Twenty-three million African-Americans do not have access to a grocery store within a mile of where they live, and only 8 percent of African-Americans live in a census tract with a grocery store,” Glover Blackwell said.
A poll on childhood obesity included in this year’s report found that 16.4 percent of children aged 10 to 17 are obese and 18.2 percent are overweight. Although the rates are troubling, the trend may have stabilized, the report said.
But the issue is at least getting on the radar, with 80 percent of Americans saying they believe “childhood obesity is a significant and growing challenge for the country.”
Some glimmers of hope have also appeared on the horizon, including “three major developments at the federal level,” Dr. James Marks, senior vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said during the teleconference. “This includes First Lady Michelle Obama’s ‘Let’s Move’ program; health care legislation that includes support for obesity-related projects; and many states and communities have mandated nutritional standards for school meals and snacks as well as foods sold in schools.”
“In the last few years, promising programs and policies have increased exponentially, but our response as a nation has yet to fully match magnitude of problem,” Levi said.
The report was co-authored by the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
More information
The Trust for America’s Health has the full report.
SOURCES: June 29, 2010, teleconference with: Jeff Levi, Ph.D., executive director, Trust for America’s Health; James Marks, M.D., senior vice president, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; and Angela Glover Blackwell, founder and chief executive officer, PolicyLink; F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America’s Future 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Save our environment with green biofuel technology
People are now continuously searching for green and clean coal biofuel technology. A good news come from N-Viro International which support this green technology. They convert various types of waste into beneficial alternative fuel products. Their coal clean fuel product of course will help us to save our green environment.
Enviro owns patented technologies to convert various types of waste into beneficial alternative fuel products. Waste-to-energy is the process of creating energy in the form of electricity or heat from the incineration of waste source. waste to energy is a form of energy recovery. Most WtE processes produce electricity directly through combustion, or produce a combustible fuel commodity, such as methane, methanol, ethanol or synthetic fuels.
Some alternative energy companies are now developing new ways to recycle waste by generating electricity from landfill waste and pollution. To reduce more pollution, we may use opportunity fuels. This is any type of fuel that is not widely used, but has the potential to be an economically viable source of power generation.
Watch this video to get more information about renewable energy from Enviro Technology
Why We Must Reduce Health Care Costs
Health care costs continue to rise, with no end in sight. But many people aren't aware of what accounts for those costs and where the money goes. However, such awareness is key to finding ways to bring costs down.
Where does the money go?
Here are the major categories of health care costs in the U.S. as reported in 2007:
* Hospitals: 32%
* Health insurance administration and profits: 13%
* Medications: 10%
* Physician income: 9%
* Physician expenses: 7%
* Clinical laboratory services: 5%
Private health insurance
The overhead costs and profits of private health insurance is just one of the reasons for my disappointment that a health reform bill, now being considered in Congress, will likely have no type of public insurance option. In contrast to these large costs for private insurance, administrative overhead for Medicare is only about three percent. Of course, anyone who has tried to deal with private insurance companies can express plenty of other objections about them. It is evident that their total attention is to bottom line profit rather than to any real interest in providing for the health of their policy holders.
New medications and increasing longevity
Scientific advances have led to the availability of many new medications that may prolong life or at least reduce suffering. Medications are likely to become an even larger fraction of the health care budget because of their high development costs, the extraordinary effectiveness of some, and the increasing longevity of individuals. Although many patients take these largely insurance-covered costs in stride, they still contribute significantly to the overall cost of health care.
Nonetheless, some savings are possible. If physicians were more aware of the costs of drugs, they might be able to prescribe equally effective, less costly alternatives. Physicians tend to prescribe the newest drug for high blood pressure, for example, even though it is more expensive and no more effective than earlier medications. Not infrequently a physician may acquiesce to a patient's request to get a drug they have heard about in a television ad-for example, the highly touted Plavix which is far more expensive and not necessarily any better than aspirin in many situations.
Physician income reasonable
It seems reasonable to me that we physicians share about nine percent of the pie. Although physician incomes have not fallen, studies show that on average they need to spend more working time to maintain such incomes. However, what is not evident from the nine percent figure is the unfair discrepancy in reimbursements, which pay big bucks to specialists for procedures and far less to the internist or general practitioner who carries out the evaluation and long term management of patients. Interventive cardiologists may deny it, but it's easy to understand how their income from an angioplasty procedure may lead them to recommend it even though angioplasty prolongs life no more than non-invasive medical treatment in people with stable coronary heart disease.
Physician expenses and insurance claims
Physician expenses include obvious things such as rent and salaries for a receptionist and nurse, but physicians also spent 10 to 15 percent of their gross income for billing and collection, preparing a variety of insurance forms (often requiring hiring an additional person), and an average of three hours a week on the phone or corresponding with insurance claims adjusters. The cumulative cost of the time physicians spend in these interactions with insurers is estimated at $23 to $31 billion annually. The costly and time consuming tasks of paperwork and completing multiple insurance forms weigh heavily in physician dissatisfaction and early retirements.
Laboratory tests... more to come
The rising number of laboratory tests ordered by physicians continue to be of concern to both the medical community and the public.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Prevention of Specific Infectious Diseases
Description:
Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a rod-shaped bacterium that can cause disseminated disease but is most frequently associated with chronic pneumonia. Transmission occurs when a contagious patient coughs, spreading the bacilli through the airborne route to a person sharing the same air space. The exposed person may acquire latent infection (sometimes abbreviated LTBI) or, depending on host factors, tuberculosis disease. Both conditions can usually be treated successfully with medications (1).
Multi-drug resistant or MDR-TB is TB resistant to at least two of the most effective drugs, isoniazid and rifampin (also called first-line drugs). XDR-TB is resistant to at least these two drugs and three of the six second-line drugs used to treat MDR-TB.
Occurrence
In many other countries, tuberculosis is much more common than in the United States, and it is an increasingly serious public health problem (2). Although MDR-TB occurs globally, it appears to be rare compared to drug-sensitive TB. XDR-TB is of particular concern among HIV-infected or other immunocompromised persons (see Maps 4-13, 4-14).
Risk for Travelers
To become infected, a person usually has to spend a relatively long time in a closed environment where the air was contaminated by a person with untreated tuberculosis who was coughing and who had numerous M. tuberculosis organisms (or tubercle bacilli) in secretions from the lungs or larynx. Infection is generally transmitted through the air; therefore, there is virtually no danger of its being spread by dishes, linens, and other items that are touched, or by most food products. However, it can be transmitted through unpasteurized milk or milk products (e.g., some cheeses) obtained from infected cattle (1). Documented sites of XDR-TB include crowded hospitals, prisons, homeless shelters, and other settings where susceptible persons come in contact with infected persons with TB disease.
Travelers who anticipate possible prolonged exposure to tuberculosis (e.g., those who could be expected to come in contact routinely with hospital, prison, or homeless shelter populations) should be advised to have a tuberculin skin test or QuantiFERON TB-Gold test (QFT-G) before leaving the United States (1,3). If the result is negative, they should have a repeat test approximately 8-10 weeks after returning (4,5). Because persons with HIV infection are more likely to have an impaired response to the test, travelers should be advised to inform their physicians about their HIV status. Except for travelers with impaired immunity, travelers who have already been infected are unlikely to be reinfected (1).
Travelers who anticipate repeated travel with possible prolonged exposure or an extended stay over a period of years in an endemic country should be advised to have a baseline two-step tuberculin test or a single-step QFT-G (4). If the baseline test is negative, annual screening would identify recent infection, which should prompt medical evaluation to exclude disease and treatment for latent infection.
CDC and state and local health departments have published the results of six investigations of possible tuberculosis transmission on commercial aircraft. In these six instances, a passenger or a member of a flight crew traveled on commercial airplanes while contagious with tuberculosis. In all six instances, the airlines were unaware that the passengers or crew members had tuberculosis. In two of the instances, CDC concluded that tuberculosis was probably transmitted to others on the airplane. The findings suggested that the risk of tuberculosis transmission from an infectious person to others on an airplane was greater on long flights (8 hours or more). The risk of exposure to tuberculosis was higher for passengers and flight crew members sitting or working near an infectious person because they were more likely to inhale droplets containing M. tuberculosis bacteria (6).
Based on these studies and findings, WHO issued recommendations to prevent the transmission of tuberculosis in aircraft and to guide potential investigations. The risk of tuberculosis transmission on an airplane does not appear to be greater than in any other enclosed space. To prevent the possibility of exposure to tuberculosis on airplanes, CDC and WHO recommend that persons known to have infectious tuberculosis travel by private transportation (that is, not by commercial airplanes or other commercial carriers), if travel is required. CDC and WHO have issued guidelines for notifying passengers who might have been exposed to tuberculosis aboard airplanes (6). Passengers concerned about possible exposure to tuberculosis should be advised to see their primary health-care provider for evaluation.
read more http://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/yellowBookCh4-TB.aspx
The Power of Positive Reinforcement
When you're faced with a challenge, a little positive self-talk goes a long way. Learn how to find your own success mantra.
Studies back up the benefits of positive self-talk: Research suggests that consistently replacing negative thoughts with optimistic ones may improve your outlook, reduce stress and lift your self-esteem. Here's how to come up with a motivating personal mantra you can rely on again and again:
1. First, envision your ideal life, then come up with an encouraging phrase that makes it sound as if what you desire is already a reality. Instead of "I hope tomorrow is better," try "I believe that tomorrow will be a better day."
2. Repeat your mantra whenever you start to badmouth yourself ("I'm such a loser!"). You'll retrain your brain to focus on the positive, not the negative. Share your successful mantras on our Happiness forum.
3. Can't think of a mantra that doesn't make you feel silly? Try one of these:
"I choose to love and appreciate myself and others."
"I am grateful for the good and wonder in my life."
"I can make healthy choices and be the architect of my future."
"I forgive my flaws and celebrate my strengths."
Source: http://health.yahoo.com/
