As the nation's baby boomers age, their health needs grow in volume and complexity. The extent of those needs and their possible impact on the nation's health care system are constantly being assessed by researchers. The latest: aging baby boomers are more likely to have disabilities, according to a new study by UCLA researchers.  

The study, to be published in the American Journal of Public Health, examined data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys for 1988-1994 and 1999 to 2004.

Researchers looked at three age groups 60-69, 70-79 and 80 and older, analyzing such mobility issues as walking from room to room, getting out of bed and doing chores around the house. They found increases in disabilities for all groups, except for those 80 and up.

Disabilities among people in their 60s increased between 40 and 70 percent in all the areas studied, regardless of socioeconomic status, health and weight. Racial minorities and overweight people had even higher increases. Researchers think the nation's changing demographics may have something to do with the trend. Blacks and Hispanics, whose populations are expected to grow the most, are more likely to be poor and obese -- factors that increase the risk of disabilities, the study states. 

Continue reading "Today's baby boomers face more disabilities " »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: General Health
        

Workers exposed to high levels of the chemical BPA were more likely to have erectile dysfunction and other sexual problems than men not exposed to the chemical, a new study has found.

The research, appearing in the latest issue of the journal Human Reproduction, studied 634 Chinese factory workers over five years, comparing men whose workplaces had high levels of BPA to those who had none. Workers in the factories with BPA had four times the risk of erectile dysfunction and seven times more risk of ejaculation problems, researchers from Kaiser Permanente found.

While other studies have linked high BPA levels to sexual dysfunction in animals, the authors say this study is the first in humans to study BPA's impact on men's reproductive system.

BPA, or bisphenol-A, use is widespread and the chemical is present in the urine of some 92 percent of Americans, the study states. Manufacturers use BPA to make the linings of food and beverage bottles and cans because it's durable, makes plastics harder and can withstand high temperatures.

Whether it's safe remains controversial. The government has been debating BPA, while consumer groups push hard for bans of the chemical. The Food and Drug Administration is expected to release findings from a long study on the issue later this month. Meanwhile, studies continue to question the safety of BPA. Last week, we told you about a Consumer Union report that found measurable levels of the chemical in canned foods.

In the study on sexual problems linked to BPA, the authors acknowledge more study is needed on the topic. For starters, men in the study were exposed to BPA levels 50 times higher than what the average man faces in the States. But for now, they say, given the widespread use of BPA their finding should be considered as the debate continues over its safety.

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: General Health
        

Long waits in the nation's emergency rooms are nothing new. But research finds they're getting worse.

One in four emergency room patients in 2006 waited longer to be seen than recommended -- an increase of one in five from less than a decade earlier in 1997, according to a new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

With more people using emergency rooms for non-life threatening medical problems, the rates of ER usage have soared. In 1994, there were 93 million visits to the nation's ERs. In 2006 that figure spiked to 119 million visits, according to the study. And it's worst in urban areas. Three quarters of emergency departments in urban areas are at or above capacity, which means longer waits, people being diverted to other hospitals or people choosing to leave without getting care.

Overcrowding means not just unhappy patients, but can cause serious delays in treatment of conditions such as pneumonia, cardiac symptoms and abdominal pain, the authors write.

Continue reading "ER wait times increase " »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 7:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: General Health
        

Hospital food. Yuck, right? Ranks right up there with bland school lunches and nuked airline "meals," goes the stereotype. Well, not all hospital food is lousy, according to the folks at Chowhound, a great site for restaurant reviews, recipes and good foodie tips.

There's an amusing post on a Chowhound message board asking about the quality of food in hospitals around the country. People have chimed in with tales of unclassifiable "meat covered in sauce" and "gummy oatmeal" to tasty Asian stir fry and enchiladas so scrumptious one patient didn't want to go home. The details are great. Hilarious stuff.

Some folks said the food was so bad they lost weight in the hospital and others said they were so hungry from their medical problems any old crumb was delicious. And still other raved about the selection of fresh veggies and inventive meals. Who knew?

Looking for hospital food that isn't crummy? There are quite a few corners of the Internet devoted to the search for tasty hospital cuisine. Hospital Food, encourages people to post photos of their meals and even includes a link to a popular Facebook group devoted to hospital eats.

Hospitals have been working to step it up lately with tastier, healthier meals, after enduring the  reputation of doling out processed foods with zero flavor. Organic produce, hormone-free meats and local ingredients have been making their way to hospital kitchens. Some hospital cafeterias have gotten downright glitzy, with low-fat high-flavor buffets. And local hospitals such as Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland Medical Center even sponsor farmer's markets.

So, is it all bad? Tell us your hospital food experiences.

AP photo.

Continue reading "Good hospital food -- does it exist?" »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 7:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)
Categories: General Health
        

University of Maryland School of Public Health is getting a boost from an old football playing alum to launch a center devoted to local and global health issues.

Madieu Williams, a 2003 Maryland grad and Minnesota Vikings free safety, made an endowment to the school of public health to launch the Center for Global Public Health Initiatives.

The center brings together efforts near and far -- from Williams' own Prince George's County to the Embassy of Sierra Leone. The center will focus on local, state and global public health initiatives in Prince George's County and Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: General Health
        

A new study finds that a range of common canned goods contain measurable levels of the chemical additive BPA -- even in products whose labels assured they were "organic" or "BPA- free."

The study by Consumer Union, the nonprofit that publishes Consumer Reports, included a wide range of canned goods and showed elevated levels of BPA, known as Bisphenol A. Top among the list included such products as Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup and Del Monte Fresh Cut Green Beans. You can read the full list of products tested here.

Children who eat numerous servings a day of the products with the highest BPA levels could ingest levels shown to cause adverse affects in animal studies, the report said.

BPA is a used to make the linings of food and beverage bottles and cans. Manufacturers use it because it's durable, makes plastics harder and can withstand high temperatures. 

Public health advocates have been pushing to get the FDA to ban BPAs in can linings and baby bottles, pointing to studies that link the chemical to reproductive problems and cancer. Consumer Union sent a letter to the FDA noting the latest research as further support for such a ban. Meanwhile, manufacturers and industry groups say their products don't expose people to unsafe levels of the chemical.

The FDA is studying data on the issue and is expected to make a decision later this month.

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 7:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: General Health
        

People can struggle for years to quit smoking and the magnitude of advice and remedies about how to do so effectively can be overwhelming. 

So, which method works best?

New research examining five treatments finds that the nicotine patch plus a nicotine lozenge does the trick.

The study, appearing in the November issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, enrolled 1,504 adult smokers -- all of whom were were motivated to quit -- to try one of six smoking cessation methods: nicotine lozenge alone, nicotine patch alone, bupropion (the drug Wellbutrin) alone, patch and nicotine lozenge, bupropion and nicotine lozenge or lastly, a placebo.

In addition to taking the specified treatment for eight to 12 weeks after quitting, participants got six one-on-one counseling sessions. People were evaluated after one week, eight weeks and six months after quitting. Nicotine patch plus a lozenge had the strongest support in helping folks take the first steps to quit, researchers found. These participants were more likely to have quit after seven days, and although some relapsed, they had longer periods between quitting and relapse than people in the other groups.

Previous studies have found the patch works well with other nicotine replacement methods from gum to nasal sprays, the authors said. Researchers think the key to making that first successful attempt to quit is using a patch with some other form of treatment.

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
Categories: General Health
        

New York beef manufacturer Fairbanks Farms has issued a voluntary recall of a little more than half a million pounds of ground beef.

The recall, which affects states from Maine to North Carolina -- Maryland included -- comes after one person died in New Hampshire and people were sickened in other states after eating beef thought to be contaminated by the bacteria E.coli. 

The products, which include ground beef, meatloaf and meatball mix, carry sell-by dates from Sept. 19-28 and were sold under such brands as Trader Joe's Butcher Shop Fine Quality Meats, Giant Meatloaf & Meatball Mix and BJ's Lean Ground Beef, Contains 7% Fat. Here are some details from Fairbanks Farms. And here's a list of the products from the USDA.

But the extent of affected meat could be much broader, the USDA warns. The products were distributed to stores in Maryland, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Virginia and the recall initially applied to just those states. But because chain stores often redistribute products, Fairbanks Farms has extended the recall to include all states throughout the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. 

Also confusing matters, the affected meat may carry different labels and sell-by dates than are included in the USDA product list. So bottom line: check the meat in your freezer. If you're concerned, contact the store where the meat was purchased. Or, just toss it in the trash if you're really worried.

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: General Health
        

We talk about it all the time here at Picture of Health -- diet and exercise can help ward off a host of diseases. Bear with me if you're tired of hearing it, but it's true. A new study based on 10 years worth of data drives home the point when it comes to a disease that affects some 24 million people nationwide: diabetes.

People who stuck to a healthy diet and consistent exercise over a decade cut their risk of diabetes by 34 percent, according to new research sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and published in the latest issue of The Lancet. Diet and exercised lowered the diabetes risk even better than the diabetes drug metformin, which reduced the rate of developing the disease by 18 percent, according to the study.

About 11 percent of the nation's adult population has diabetes, the vast majority of them the type 2 variety, the kind that can be prevented. Being overweight, inactive and having a family history all contribute as risk factors. Another 57 million overweight have glucose levels higher than normal, but not yet in the diabetic range. Still, those levels keep them at high risk of developing diabetes down the road or having a heart attack or stroke.

Continue reading "Diet and exercise reduces diabetes risk" »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: General Health
        

Anyone who has struggled with their weight knows what it's like to be on the receiving end of fat jokes. Despite a national obesity epidemic, our society isn't particularly sensitive to overweight people. Doctors included.

A new study from Johns Hopkins researchers found that physicans actually have less respect for their obese patients. In fact, in a study of 238 Baltimore patients, researchers found the higher their body mass index, or BMI, the less respect they received from their doctors. Ouch.

For 40 years, studies have documented health care providers' negative bias toward overweight people, the new study states. Some past research has found that obesity was a characteristic that elicited "negative feelings" among doctors. Others found that health care professionals associate obesity with negative terms such as lazy, incompetent and ignorant. Wow. And still other studies have found doctors are ambivalent about treating obesity.

But Hopkins researchers say this new study, appearing in the November issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, is among the first to examine doctors' direct attitudes toward their obese patients.  

Continue reading "Obese? Your doctor may have less respect for you" »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 7:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: General Health
        

Around the country 60 percent of the best-selling health care plans will charge a 40-year-old nonsmoking woman more for her health insurance  than a nonsmoking man of the same age, according to a recent report by the National Women's Law Center.

The discrepancy has sparked the center's new campaign web: "Being a woman is not a pre-existing condition," complete with T-shirts and direct to congress form letters to urge legislators to make sure women are not forgotten in the health care reform debate.

The report also found that in some states, it's legal for an insurer to reject a woman who has been a victim of domestic violence, or reject a woman simply because she's pregnant or has had a c-section in the past. This Newsweek article also breaks down some other inequities.

Insurance companies can charge women more for similar coverage through gender rating, which is allowed in 40 states and the District of Columbia, the report states. This happens in the individual insurance market, not typically among large employers, who are prohibited from discriminating on the basis of gender and other factors. Still, those higher costs affect millions of women every day.

Continue reading "Women, equity and health care reform" »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: General Health
        

Medical professionals are often left in the dark about the benefits and harms of prescription drugs because the details often fail to make their way to the label, according to a new editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The whole process of which harms and benefits end up on drug labels -- package inserts that come with medications -- is complex. And sometimes, harmful information is excluded, according to the article by Dr. Lisa M. Schwartz and Dr. Steven Woloshin of the Darthmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice.   

The labels, it turns out, are written by the manufacturers of the medication. Those labels are later approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Drug companies provide documents to support their case for the benefits and harms of a drug, but too often, doctors who want to prescribe a drug don't have all the critical information they need because its missing from the approved label, the authors contend.

Take the drug Lunesta, whose sales reached $800 million last year. The label says only that it is superior to placebo, but it doesn't explain how much, the authors state. In fact, the FDA review of studies on Lunesta found that while it did perform better than placebo in one test, on average, patients still had trouble falling asleep and didn't report being more alert in the morning.  

While the FDA has made improvements recently, the bottom line, the authors say, is the agency needs more thorough in communicating drug information to doctors.

Baltimore Sun photo

Continue reading "Prescription drug labels -- what the companies don't tell " »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 7:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: General Health
        

The Obama Administration said today that people who use and sell marijuana for medical purposes should not face federal prosecution. Instead, prosecutors should go after only high level traffickers.

The new Justice Department guidelines issued today to 14 states that allow medical marijuana effectively reverse long-existing stance on the drug. The Bush Administration raided medical distributors who violated federal laws.

While a handful of states allow marijuana for medical purposes, it's carefully restricted. California, however, is the only state where dispensaries can sell and advertise marijuana.

And the practice has taken off in recent years and attitudes toward the drug appear to be changing. Smoking pot is no longer taboo, but just well, normal, according to this piece in the LA Times. 

At fashion-insider parties, joints are passed nearly as freely as hors d'oeuvres. Traces of the acrid smoke waft from restaurant patios, car windows and passing pedestrians on the city streets -- in broad daylight. Even the art of name-dropping in casual conversation -- once limited to celebrity sightings and designer shoe purchases -- now includes the occasional boast of recently discovered weed strains such as "Strawberry Cough" and "Purple Kush."

As I heard Jon Stewart say on The Daily Show recently: did California just legalize marijuana without anybody noticing?

Continue reading "Obama administration eases policy on medical marijuana" »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 3:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: General Health
        

It's been mantra of public health officials since the swine flu outbreak in the spring: wash your hands.

But you never hear folks instruct how. Seems pretty ridiculous doesn't it? Everyone knows how to wash their hands, don't they?

Well, apparently they do not. Lots of people are forgetting a crucial companion in the handwashing game: soap.

A new study appearing in the American Journal of Public Health takes an examination of British handwashing trends, specifically after people had exited the loo.

Researchers installed sensors in highway service station bathrooms to record soap use in about 200,000 people. Flashing signs reading such messages as "Don't be a dirty soap dodger" and "Don't be a dope, use soap" encouraged people to wash their hands the right way. Researchers alternated between more than two dozen  reminders, from the gentle to the heavy handed. They also tested what happened when people didn't get a reminder. 

Without reminders, only 32 percent of men washed their hands with soap. Seriously, guys! Women did twice as better -- 64 percent. Still, ewwwww. I'm disturbed.

People who got reminders did a little bit better. But what's really fascinating is the kind of reminders people responded to.

Continue reading "Wash your hands! And remember, soap is your friend" »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: General Health
        

A story in Sunday's New York Times takes a terrifying look at beef contamination and the industry's lack of testing and oversight to prevent it. Brace yourself, this could make you rethink that burger at lunchtime.

The fascinating piece tells the tale of a 22-year-old dance instructor, who after eating a grilled burger, came down with a food-borne illness so severe that it shut down her kidneys, caused seizures and ultimately left her paralyzed.

E.coli was the culprit. Ground beef, the article explains, is vulnerable to the bacteria since it rarely comes from a single cut of meat, but rather from multiple sources ground together in a process that makes contamination possible every step of the way. The Times tracked the source of the woman's burger to various slaughterhouses and packaging plants in the U.S. and Uruguay. (A journalistic feat in itself, since such details are shrouded in secrecy). Inadequate testing and lax safety mechanisms along the way led to the tainted burger.

"As the trimmings are going down the processing line into combos or boxes, no one is inspecting every single piece," said one federal inspector... who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publically.

Yikes. Despite a rash of outbreaks, media attention and federal regulations that forbid companies from selling meat tainted with E.coli, eating ground beef is "still a gamble" the article contends. Every year, tens of thousands fall ill from the bacteria.

Continue reading "What's lurking in your hamburger?" »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)
Categories: General Health
        

Surgeons try their best to repair torn cartilage and flesh in serious injuries. But what if they got a little help from the body itself? What if the body could generate its own repair mechanisms to replace vital tissues?

It could happen. New stem cell research being done at Johns Hopkins is investigating the ability to use stem cells to help the body repair itself after injury.

Our colleague Frank Roylance gives us the scoop on how science is progressing on the stem cell front after he spent some time earlier this week at the 2009 World Stem Cell Summit, held here in Baltimore.

The Hopkins' lab, run by researcher Jennifer Elisseeff, is also working on technologies that will enable stem cells to reconstruct fat and muscle lost to surgery or trauma. Scientists are also testing a kind of contact lense that can help a patient's own stem cells rebuild a damaged  cornea. After years of promises from scientists that stem cells can transform modern medicine -- they are getting closer to such practical applications.

"People are working on the basic science of things and trying to understand how tissue develops but also at the same time developing practical technologies that can be used in the clinic today," Elisseeff said.

Fascinating stuff.

AP photo

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: General Health
        

There are two ways to get the flu vaccine -- in a shot, or in a mist that sprays up the nose. While both have long been used to protect the public from seasonal flu strains, a new study found the shot was 50 percent more effective than the spray for healthy adults. 

The spray, made by Maryland manufacturer MedImmune and known as FluMist, uses a live -- but weakened -- form of the virus to make the vaccine. The traditional shot used in the study was manufactured by Sanofi Pasteur and is made from an inactivated virus grown in chicken eggs.

The mist has become an increasingly popular way to give the vaccine in children -- what child wants to sit still for a needle in the arm? It's also very effective in kids under 6. But people have questioned whether it is as effective in adults.

The study, published in the new issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, was carried out in 1,954 healthy adults 18 to 49 years old during the 2007-2008 flu season. Those who got the shot responded far better than those who used the mist.

Continue reading "Flu shot works better than spray in adults" »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: General Health
        

It's a wrenching story. In 2001, 18-month-old Josie King was burned over 60 percent of her body after being scalded in the bathtub of her family's home.

Her parents took her to one of the most renowned medical institutions in the world -- Johns Hopkins. She died there three weeks later, not becuase she wasn't getting better, but because doctors made fatal errors in her care.

Sun readers might remember the heartbreaking tale told about Josie by former reporter Erika Niedowski in 2003. In the new book, Josie's Story, Josie's mother Sorrel King tells the story in her own words, describing how she turned grief into a crusade to eliminate medical mistakes.

The book describes how Sorrel and her husband took the money from their settlement with the hospital to set up a foundation to prevent similar tragedies from happening and what they learned and how they grieved along the way.

I spoke with Sorrel King for a Q&A that ran in today's newspaper. Here are a few highlights:

Continue reading "Josie's story: a mother turns grief into advocacy" »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 7:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (21)
Categories: General Health
        

Antibiotics are easily available online and without a prescription, a new study finds, a potentially unexplored source of overuse of this kind of medication.

Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina did simple Google and Yahoo! searches to find more than 130 vendors selling pencillin, erythromycin, even Cipro online. One-third sold antibiotics without a prescription, while the others just required someone to fill out a medical history to get the drugs. It is illegal to sell antibiotics without a prescription in the United States.

Antibiotic resistance is a big worry in the medical and research communities. Many are concerned that antibiotics are over-prescribed. So-called "superbugs" have been popping up, dangerous bacteria that are resistant to many forms of antibiotics, something that comes with their overuse. Educational campaigns have been directed, according to the study, to doctors who prescribe antibiotics, cautioning them to use the drugs more judiciously.

Continue reading "Antibiotics on sale on the Internet without prescription" »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: General Health
        

Up until now, food manufacturers determined if and when they would tell government officials about products they believed could seriously sicken humans or animals.

This week, the Food and Drug Administration changed that, instead requiring companies to alert them within 24 hours if  contamination is suspected. The FDA rolled out its Reportable Food Registry, an electronic system designed to head off potential cases of foodborne illness.

According to the FDA, the reasons why a company might have to report a problem include if there has been bacterial contamination, allergen mislabeling or elevated levels of certain chemicals.

Companies that fail to report could face fines or other sanctions. Companies are not required to report a problem if they have solved it and taken steps to correct it before an item is shipped.

"We learn about problems after people get sick," Michael Taylor, senior adviser to the FDA's commissioner, told reporters. "This is intended to inform us of contamination problems before people get sick."

The registry was mandated by Congress in 2007 and is supposed to be an answer to complaints that FDA doesn't react quickly enough to food safety issues. There have been a series of high-profile cases of foodborne illness recently, where many have gotten sick and some have died from consuming contaminated peanut butter, spinach, cookie dough and more.

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 7:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: General Health
        

There's still time left to take part in Picture of Health's inaugural "ask an expert" extravaganza. Got a pressing medical concern? Step right up and submit one here. We'll pick the best question, find you the right expert to answer it and post the response here. (The original deadline for submissions was supposed to be today, but because of the holiday week, we're extending it until next Wednesday)  

And wait, there's more. (Cue the infomercial voiceover) Our fist winner will receive a year's gym membership to Brick Bodies. (Fine print alert: Must be a local resident 25 and older. Good at any location. First-time visitors qualify and the membership is not valid with a current membership.)

Watch this space. On Friday, Sept. 18, we'll publish the winning question (complete with a response from a doc).

photo: stock.xchng

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: General Health
        

President Barack Obama seems to be talking health care reform everywhere these days. Tonight, he'll address a joint session of Congress. He's even on the cover of the October issue of Men's Health magazine, which hits newsstands next week, where he does discuss health care reform, but also takes on a range of health issues. (Sorry, ladies, unlike this mag's more typical cover models, his abs are hidden under a dignified suit and tie.)

Among the tidbits in the mag:

* Obama thinks a "sin tax" on soda and other sugary products "is an idea that we should be exploring." Still, he acknowledges that could spark a fight on Capitol Hill where "legislators from certain states that produce sugar or corn syrup are sensitive to anything that might reduce demand for those products." He adds that some people, understandably, don't want "Big Brother telling them what to eat or drink." Kids, he said, "drink way too much soda."

* Obama talks about his six-day-a-week workout schedule. "My blood pressure is pretty low, and I tend to be a healthy eater. So I probably could get away with cutting [my workouts] back a bit," he tells the mag. "The main reason I do it is to clear my head and relieve me of stress."

Continue reading "The prez as health mag cover model" »

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 7:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: General Health
        

One person's little pink pill looks like a little blue pill to someone who is colorblind. With color blindness found in 8 percent of men and .4 percent of women, color-coding of medication may not prevent mistakes as it is intended. Instead, it can create confusion, write Australian optometrists in the only journal The Lancet last week.

They cite an earlier study of 100 colorblind people where 2 percent reported taking the wrong drug because they couldn't tell what color the pill was. People with red-green colorblindness have difficulty with colors on both of those spectra and are better able to pick out yellow, blue, grey and white.

At the right, pictures A and C are how most people see colors. Pictures B and D are similar to what a colorblind person might see.

Continue reading "Help the colorblind find their medication" »

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 2:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: General Health
        

We here at Picture of Health know you worry about your health. We do, too. And we know you probably have pressing questions you would love to ask your doctor, if only she had time to sit and chat. So next Friday, we will inaugurate our Ask a Medical Expert feature.

Here's how it works: You submit your questions. We will pick the best one and the winning question will be answered here next Friday, Sept. 11. It's that easy

We hope you will submit questions. We hope you will tell your friends and family to submit questions. And since we are feeling generous today -- and not above bribery -- our first winner will receive a year's membership at Brick Bodies. (Offer good for local residents 25 and older. First-time visitors qualify and the membershop is not valid with a current membership. Good at any location. I love writing the fine print.)

So ask away and watch this space for answers.

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: General Health
        

This impressive piece in Sunday's New York Times Magazine offers a harrowing look inside one of New Orleans' hospitals as the waters of Hurricane Katrina rose and trapped patients and staff without power, sufficient supplies and any promises of imminent rescue. (The photo above shows patients and staff being evacuated in 2005.)

The story is one of doctors forced to make life or death decisions at Memorial Medical Center as the hours became days. In many cases, the doctors hastened the deaths of critically ill patients they believed would not survive evacuation. They also injected high doses of morphine and another drug into patients who had do-not-resuscitate orders but were not close to death. In an unusual move, the staff had decided to evacuate the healthiest patients first and leave the sickest to last.

Authorities later arrested a doctor and two nurses for second-degree murder, but a grand jury refused to indict.

Many stories were shocking. One stood out, mostly because of what the doctor involved would go on to tell Sheri Fink, the reporter who wrote the NYT piece. It is the case of Jannie Burgess, a 79-year-old woman with advanced uterine cancer and kidney failure.

Before the storm hit, Burgess was already sedated by morphine to keep her comfortable and, because of all the fluids she was getiing, weighed 350 pounds.

Continue reading "On the wards in the aftermath of Katrina" »

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: General Health
        

Jurisdictions around the globe have tried to squash secondhand smoke by banning smoking in public places. But only a few have tried to prevent people from lighting up in their cars -- typically only when children are present. 

A new study from Johns Hopkins' school of public health takes on the question car smoking -- just how bad is it?

Pretty bad. The amount of secondhand smoke was significantly higher in cars than in bars and restaurants, the paper found. 

Makes sense. Anyone who has driven with a smoker knows it can be impossible to escape the air in a smoky car -- forget about it if the windows are rolled up. But researchers also found that exposure to secondhand smoke lingers long after the smoker has put out the butt.

Continue reading "Secondhand smoke in cars worse than in bars" »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)
Categories: General Health
        

A study published today says that a lot of people are getting advanced medical scans -- half of patients ages 18 to 34 (!) had one in the last year. The scans can be costly to the health care system. They expose people to radiation, in some case levels that could increase their cancer risk. And very few of the tests have been scientifically proven to improve health or help people live longer.

And yet, when the doctor says you need a CT of your abdomen to check out the pain you've been having, you get one. The doctor ordered it, so it must have value, right? It won't cost you much money if you have decent insurance. And who thinks of cancer risk when sent for one little test?

Continue reading "The price of that CT scan" »

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 7:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: General Health
        

Men who embrace traditional beliefs on masculinity are 50 percent less likely than other men to go to the doctor, says a new study. And the attitudes of these "macho men" might just be what leaves them sicker than women, researchers conclude.

The study, led by a Rutgers sociologist and shared at a recent meeting of the American Sociological Association, touches on some stereotypes, for sure. But they appear to be grounded in facts, the researchers found. Based on responses from 1,000 men in the 2004 wave of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, researchers found education made no difference in the responses. Highly-educated men with the strong masculinity beliefs were just as unlikely to obtain preventative care as men with less education.

The study has some limitations -- mainly the participants were all white, middle-aged and had at least a high school degree.

But I think the authors make a good point. And I'd argue it has nothing to do with being "macho." Most men I know, regardless of their beliefs, are afraid to go to the doctor. I understand I may be generalizing, so please feel free to call me out on it. But in a very small unscientific sample of my girlfriends and women family members, all admit to being the ones who nag their husbands and boyfriends to go to the doctor, be it for a routine checkup or for a serious issue.

Are we alone?

Continue reading "Tough guys don't go to the doctor" »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 12:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: General Health
        

The tale of Caster Semenya and whether the world champion sprinter is a man or a woman has been a fascinating topic in sports circles over the last few days. After the masculine-looking 18-year-old girl's first major victory this week at the championships in Berlin, track and field officials said she would be undergoing tests to verify her eligibility as a woman.

Easy as pie, right? The whole Biology 101 thing -- two X chromosomes and you're female and if you have a Y chrosome, you're male, no?

But this piece in the New York Times is the best so far explaining why it just isn't as simple as a blood test to determine whether someone is male or female.

Photo by AFP/Getty Images

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 3:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: General Health
        

Life expectancy has hit an all-time high, the CDC tells us, reaching nearly 78 years in the United States.

The most recent data, from 2007, shows an increase from a life expectancy of 77.7 years in 2006 to 77.9 in 2007. Over a decade, life expectancy increased 1.4 years. Meanwhile, the CDC says, the death rate is down.

Life expectancy may go down this year because death rates are up already and because there are more elderly in the U.S.

The United States lags behind about 30 other countries in estimated life span, the Associated Press reports. Japan has the longest life expectancy — 83 years for children born in 2007, according to the World Health Organization.

Continue reading "Life expectancy at an all-time high, CDC says" »

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: General Health
        

Laid-off workers have been flocking in recent months to COBRA, the federal program that has long allowed them to keep their employers' health insurance for 18 months -- but for a hefty price.

Lots of people have become eligible for the program -- with unemployment at a 25-year high -- but few are able to afford it when they lose their income. COBRA allows involuntarily terminated to pay 100 percent of the premium plus 2 percent for administrative costs. The cost: roughly $8,800 a year for the average worker.

The doubling of COBRA enrollment has been since February, when the government began paying a subsidy to make the coverage actually affordable to some unemployed people, according to an analysis by Hewitt Associates, a human resources consulting firm.

Continue reading "COBRA enrollment doubles with subsidy, study says" »

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: General Health, Health care reform
        

Researchers say that one in four men suffer from sleep apnea and nearly one in 10 women do. Even moderate episodes of interrupted breathing at night can increase the risk of death significantly, according to a new study led by Johns Hopkins researchers.

The causes of death are many, and they appear to be linked to repeated stretches of time when the body is deprived of oxygen over the course of a night, every night, for a long period of time.

The main symptom of apnea is snoring, loud snoring that often awakens the snorer. Still, many people with apnea don't even know they have the disorder.

Sleep apnea is believed to be on the rise because it is linked to the growing obesity epidemic in theh United States.

Continue reading "Snorers beware" »

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 8:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: General Health
        

Breast is best. That's what the breastfeeding advocates always say. Public health proponents, too, have long promoted the benefits of nursing, from boosting infants' immunity to encouraging critical bonding time between mother and baby.

With that in mind, the CDC, the Surgeon General and the Department of Health and Human Services have announced a "Call to Action on Breastfeeding" seeking public comment on ways to encourage the practice. While the site is no longer accepting new comments (you can read the old ones here), the organizers are still holding public hearings, including one happening today in Atlanta. The goal is to update the government's Blueprint for Action on Breastfeeding, a 10-year- old document that spearheaded the push to get moms to nurse.

Now, that's not the only way to extol the virtues of nursing. How about something a little more, how shall we say, interactive? A doll. That makes sucking sounds. Who breastfeeds. You can't make this stuff up.

The Spanish doll -- known as Bebe Gloton (roughly, Gluttonous Baby in English) -- comes with a halter top with flowers placed where nipples should be. Bebe latches on and voila, sucks. There's even a video demonstration.

The doll, not yet available in the U.S., has sparked all sorts of controversy with opponents calling it "sucky", creepy and that it could encourage teen sex.  Meanwhile, defenders argue there's nothing wrong with a doll promoting this very natural, very healthy practice.

So, what say you?

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)
Categories: General Health
        

It's going to be a hot one today. It's already 91 degrees in Baltimore and some places may even reach 100. The city has declared it a Code Red day, opening cooling centers to ensure people get enough cool air and water. One of the city's many tips: Stay inside during the hottest time of the day.

Unless, it turns out, you have to attend the groundbreaking being held for a new homeless shelter downtown. Reporters and advocates are being called to an empty lot on the Fallsway at 2 p.m. (the hottest time of the day) for a dog-and-pony show where city officials -- including Mayor Sheila Dixon -- are likely to don hard hats and carry shovels to commemorate the occasion.

Here's hoping they have enough water on hand. And maybe even a paramedic or two. Heat exhaustion is a real issue on days like today (a healthy member of our softball team had to be rushed to the hospital yesterday when she fell ill in the heat).

Perhaps there is an upside. At least city officials will have an incentive to keep the proceedings short.

Illustration from stock.xchng

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: General Health
        

We've written about kidney donation here a few times lately, most of it stemming from the 16-person, domino transplant completed at Johns Hopkins this month. That transplant began when a man from Virginia offered to donate his kidney to a stranger. A fascinating piece in the most recent issue of The New Yorker, written by Larissa MacFarquhar, asks a terrific question: "What sort of person gives a kidney to a stranger?"

She tells the tale of one man who donated his kidney to a woman he found online, on a site designed to link donors to those in need. When a story about his deed hit the local news, someone called him on the phone in the hospital and "told him that she hoped his remaining kidney would fail quickly and kill him because her husband had been next in line to receive a kidney and (the donor) had given his to someone else." When a story appeared in the local paper, it asked "whether it was fair for him to pick his recipient, choosing who lived and who died."

Continue reading "Thoughts about kidney donation" »

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: General Health
        

Consumer Reports is now in the hospital rating business. The site rates more than 3,400 hospitals nationwide based on surveys of some 1 million patients.

The surveys come from the government's Hospital Consumer Assessments of Healthcare Providers and Systems.

The ratings take into account patient satisfaction in a variety of ways such as, communication with doctors, pain control, cleanliness and quietness of rooms, information about discharge and new medicines and whether a patient would recommend the hospital.

Locally, Anne Arundel Medical Center and Johns Hopkins Hospital were ranked highest in Maryland, both with overall scores of 78 out of 100.

Survey respondents' biggest complaints were about discharge planning and communication about their medications.

Continue reading "Consumer Reports ranks area hospitals" »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 2:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: General Health
        

As long as marriage has been around, people have been extolling the benefits of it. And every so often a study comes along to tell us a new perk of being wed, from sheer happiness to financial stability to, of course, health. Well, here's the latest: Not only is marriage good for you, the inverse is also true -- divorce or the death of a spouse can harm one's health even if the person remarries, according to a study by researchers from Johns Hopkins and the University of Chicago.

(Is it just me, or do these studies always seem to come out when some high profile split is in the news? Jon and Kate plus 8 anyone? With all their drama, I wonder how their health is doing?)

Anyhow, the marriage study, appearing in next month's Journal of Health and Social Behavior, found that people who were divorced or widowed were 20 percent more likely to have a chronic health condition such as heart disease, diabetes or cancer than married people. They were also 23 percent more likely to have mobility problems than couples who stayed together. Even people who remarried were 12 percent more likely to have chronic health problems and 19 percent more likely to have mobility troubles than their married peers.

Continue reading "Divorce may be bad for your health " »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: General Health
        

It's time to roll up your sleeve. 

We're not talking about swine flu this time, just the plain-old, run-of-the-mill seasonal flu, a killer in its own right of 36,000 Americans each year. Several major manufacturers of seasonal flu vaccine have announced over the last two days that they have started shipping doses to distributors, earlier than usual. Vaccine could be in the hands of health care providers as early as next week.

The manufacturer of Flu-Mist -- Gaitherburg-based MedImmune -- says it hopes that by getting their nasal spray vaccine into doctors' offices over the summer, physicians will be able to administer it to kids at back-to-school check-ups and more well visits than if they waited until later in the fall.

Continue reading "'Tis the season for seasonal flu shots" »

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 2:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: General Health
        

Much of the health-care reform talk on Capitol Hill right now is about cost savings. How can the amount of money spent on health care be reduced?

The authors of a study published online today say the answer could be in reducing obesity.

"There is an undeniable link between rising rates of obesity and rising medical spending," write the authors from the Reseach Triangle Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

They calculate that the cost of treating obesity and the disorders related to it may be as high as $147 billion a year, up from an estimate of $78.5 billion in 1998. Roughly half of that is financed by government spending through Medicare and Medicaid.

Continue reading "Will a slimmer U.S. mean lower health care costs?" »

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: General Health
        

Let's say this swine flu business got really serious and a pandemic flu emergency took hold. You might expect an army of doctors and nurses would flock to hospitlas to serve the public at a time of crisis -- right?

Well, according to a new study, one in six public health workers said they would NOT go to work during a pandemic flu emergency, regardless of how severe it is, according to a new survey by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

And those findings are an improvement from a 2005 report that found more than 40 percent of public health employees were unlikely to go to report for duty such an emergency.

Continue reading "Will the doctor be there in an emergency?" »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: General Health
        

It happened just three weeks after the 9/11 attacks -- mysterious white powder was turning up in letters to the media and politicians in congress. The powder turned out to be deadly, the sender unknown.

The anthrax attacks ended up killing five people and alarming everyone about the threat of biological terrorism. As the FBI tackled the case, they enlisted some unexpected crime-fighters: scientists. They helped trace the powder to its origins. Among them was Claire Fraser-Liggett, director of the University of Maryland's Institute for Genome Sciences, who worked on the project while at the director of the Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville.

She and her team will star in a documentary airing at 9 p.m. Sunday on National Geographic, discussing how they cracked the case. Last month, PBS ran a special on NOVA and there's an online video snippet. It's a fascinating detective story that highlights the use of a new field -- forensic genomics. It's also, as Fraser-Liggett said to me in an interview recently, "really cool."

Continue reading "Scientists as crime-fighting detectives" »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: General Health
        

Two stories from last week really got me thinking -- and got tongues wagging.

The first one, out of Spain, was about a woman who less than three years ago became the oldest new mother in the world at the grandmotherly age of 66. She had lied about her age and convinced an American doctor to help her conceive her twins. Last week, the single mom died of cancer at the age of 69, leaving her toddlers without any parents. Having the technology to extend child-bearing years is a wonderful tool under some circumstances, but is there a point when you're just too old to become a parent?

The second story comes out of the inspiring tale of Dr. Regina Benjamin, the family doctor picked to be President Obama's surgeon general. Last week, we wrote about how Benjamin has spent her career in rural Alabama, seeing patients who sometimes paid her for her services in oysters, if at all. She built a clinic for those in need, and built it again and again when Hurricane Katrina and then a fire stood in the way.

But some are complaining about something far more superficial: Benjamin's weight. They argue that a plus-size doctor sets a lousy example for a nation struggling with an obesity epidemic. They say she is simply too fat to preach about healthy living.

Continue reading "Too old? Too fat?" »

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 8:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: General Health
        

A fancy new tool from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention enables users to track environmental health hazards across the country.

The National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network collects information on environmental hazards, how people are exposed to them and if they lead to serious illnesses. The goal is to help people understand how the environment may play a roll in their health.

Scientists have known that air pollution and lead can contribute to illness, but many other environmental and health connections remain unproven. This site attempts to gather more information to better understand the possible connections.

Continue reading "Tracking environmental health" »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: General Health
        

Nine-year-old Kathryn Chenaille spent three months living at the Ronald McDonald House in Baltimore after a bone marrow transplant made necessary by her battle with aplastic anemia.

Her immune system was nearly wiped out by the procedure so her family worried about the air she would be breathing in the communal residence. Her father went out and bought for her room a high-powered air purifier that uses a UV filter to kill germs. The family thinks the filter kept Kathryn from getting sick while she was at Ronald McDonald. Now that she is in remission, Kathryn wanted to give something back to the place she left in February -- air purifiers.

Any day now, the Baltimore facility will get 37 purifiers, a gift from a company that makes the Secure Air 1200. When they heard Kathryn's story -- and her goal to bring clean air to other sick kids -- they donated the first batch. Now, Kathryn and her family are trying to raise money to buy air purifiers for Ronald McDonald Houses across the country. With every $45 raised, another room at a Ronald McDonald House will get an air purifier.

"If we could do it all across the country, that'd be great, but that's pretty big so we'll start with Pennsylvania," said Kathryn's mother Carolyn.

Continue reading "The gift of fresh air" »

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 7:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: General Health
        

OK, OK, this entry is a little late. Here's a little secret: I can't stay up past 10 p.m. So I never see "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" until it is re-run the next day. Still, I had to share this great piece from Wednesday night's show, one that -- aside from a pretty funny riff about the president throwing out the first pitch at this week's All-Star Game -- focused on health care reform.

Sure, there was the obligatory interview with Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. But check out this hilarious piece of satire on universal health care in other countries.

I can't decide if my favorite part is when "reporter" Samantha Bee, who hails from Canada, shows off the C-section scar on her NECK as she discusses the single-payer system in her home country. Or if it is Wyatt Cenac standing in front of an ER with a cleaver stuck in his head, calling himself an uninsured American. When Stewart points out he is insured, Cenac explains he was until he was injured, that he was thrown off his plan because of this "pre-existing condition." Kitchen tools, he is told, have been around longer than he has.

Continue reading "Jon Stewart does health care reform" »

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: General Health
        

AP Photo

In recent years, research studies done in three African countries have conclusively showed that being circumcised reduces a man's risk of acquiring HIV by roughly 50 percent. Could a man's circumcision also protect his partner from getting infected? The answer appears to be no.

A Ugandan study, led by Dr. Maria J. Wawer from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and published in this week's issue of The Lancet, was stopped short after 2 years when it was determined that HIV-infected men who were newly circumcised were just as likely to spread the disease to their partners as those who remained uncircumcised. ...

Continue reading "Bad news, good news on circumcision and HIV" »

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 8:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: General Health
        

As members of Congress duke it out in the health care reform debate, a national consumer advocacy group releases this sobering statistic: an average of 740 Marylanders lose their health insurance every week, according to a new study by Families USA.

By the group's estimates, 114,780 people will lose health coverage in Maryland from 2008 through December 2010. Nationwide, that figure could climb to 6.9 million, according to the organization, which if you haven't noticed, is lobbying bigtime for Congress to hurry and pass a bill that will expand coverage to those without. In fact, just an hour ago, a Senate committee made a first step to do just that.

Rising premiums -- up 119 percent from 1999 to 2008 -- are causing more families to go without coverage, both in Maryland and nationwide, according to the report "The Clock is Ticking: More Americans Losing Health Insurance.

photo courtesy of Brooks Elliot @ flickr

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: General Health
        

The focus of the health care reform debate has been on Washington and insurance companies and hospitals. The talk has, so far, been about how expensive the current delivery system is.

Dr. Regina Benjamin comes to the debate from a different place, literally and figuratively.  Yesterday, President Obama made the family doctor, who for years has cared for the poor and uninsured in rural Alabama, his choice for surgeon general. In doing so, he put the spotlight -- if only for a news cycle -- on those communities that shouldn't be ignored as the debate continues.

Benjamin's work has been in a small clinic in the 2,500 resident Gulf Coast town of Bayou La Batre, 25 miles south of Mobile. And it hasn't been easy. Often, her patients are cash-strapped and she has accepted payment in the form of oysters or fish. She has moonlighted in emergency rooms in other towns to help keep her clinic afloat.  "You got treated if you had money or not," the town's mayor told NPR this morning. ...

Continue reading "From rural doc to America's family physician" »

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 1:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: General Health
        

The new caution about acetaminophen, the popular painkiller, isn't about it suddenly being more toxic. Rather, it highlights a fear that we may be taking too much of the stuff without even realizing it.  

Acetaminophen isn't just in Tylenol. It's in Nyquil. It's in Midol. It's in Vicks cough syrup. It is in dozens of cough and cold products. We may not be taking more Tylenol than is recommended, but we can push into the territory of liver damage when we take several acetaminophen-containing products at once. ...

Continue reading "Read the small type: Contains acetaminophen " »

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 6:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: General Health
        

See the guy on the far right? The one decked out in aviator shades rocking out next to Aerosmith’s Joe Perry? President Barack Obama just picked him to lead the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Francis S. Collins, who led the government’s successful effort to decode the human genome (he also happens to play the guitar) is among a handful of preeminent researchers featured in a slick six-page photo spread in the June issue of GQ. The photos are part of a larger ad campaign called “Rock Stars of Science” designed to celebrate scientists, highlight the importance of their research and draw attention to the funding needed to make their work possible.

Collins did his groundbreaking work while as director of the National Human Genome Institute in Bethesda. He’s featured with such other notables as Dr. Harold Varmus, the former director of NIH, who won the Nobel Prize for his discovery of cancer genes, and Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

By featuring some of the nation’s renowned researchers alongside the likes of rockers Sheryl Crow and Seal, the hope is to make these science gurus more accessible and dare we say, cool, to the average American.

As Collins says in an interview on the Rock Stars of Science site, “I think it's a great idea to show that scientists are not all a bunch of oddball nerds.”

Continue reading "Rockin' out for science" »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 6:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: General Health
        

With all of the talk about kidney transplants in recent days, one thing has been left unsaid: Many kidney transplants don't last forever.

About 50 percent of kidney transplants from live donors are still working at 20 years, which means many people will need repeat transplants. With more transplants being done than ever before, and being done so successfully, the number of repeat transplants has been on the rise in recent years.

I wrote this story last year. In talking with some pediatric nephrologists (kidney docs), they mentioned something I never knew, that kidney transplants, especially in younger people, are a wonderful long-term fix but not necessarily a permanent one. And that's not always because patients may reject a new kidney or get some other severe illness.

"We can't get the grafts to last forever," Dr. Alicia M. Neu, a pediatric nephrologist at Johns Hopkins Children's Center, told me at the time. "We've kind of hit a wall. People live with one kidney all the time. They donate one, and they're fine. ...

Continue reading "Unlike diamonds, kidneys don't last forever" »

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: General Health
        

It all started with a Virginia man who offered his kidney to a woman from his parish who needed one. They had never met but Thomas F. Koontz thought the donation would be a good way to give back to God, whom he credited with saving his teenage daughter's brain cancer. The woman from church ended up finding a different donor. So Koontz called Johns Hopkins. He offered his kidney to anyone who might needed it,

His completely selfless act started a chain of events that would allow not just one person to get a desperately needed kidney, but eight people who needed new organs to keep them alive.

Surgeons at Johns Hopkins Hospital this morning held a press conference to announce that they -- along with doctors from hospitals in Oklahoma City, St. Louis and Detroit -- had performed a record feat. They completed an eight-way, multi-hospital, domino kidney transplant. This swap required seven pairs of people -- each made up of one person in need of a kidney and one willing to donate, but whose blood or tissue type was incompatible with the intended recipient. A computer program was fed all of the potential donor pairs and devised a complicated exchange that took place over the course of three weeks and involved several kidneys being flown around the country. At the end of the line was someone who didn't have a live donor offering a kidney, a woman who received her kidney at Hopkins last night. She was the ultimate recipient of Koontz's largesse.

Continue reading "One kidney saves eight lives" »

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 2:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: General Health
        

Long-distance travel may increase the risk of potentially deadly blood clots, a new study published today suggests, and the longer the trip, the greater risk of danger.

The relationship between venous thromboembolism -- clots that form in the veins, typically the leg, and can be deadly if they move to the lungs -- and travel has long been suggested. But previous studies have yielded contradictory findings. The study, published in this week's issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, looks back at previous data and finds that travel by any means is associated with a three-fold higher risk of these blood clots. And when limited to air travel, that relationship was even stronger: For every two additional hours on a plane was associated with a 26 percent increase in risk for blood clots.

Still, don't panic. These clots are still relatively uncommon. ...

Continue reading "Can long trips be bad for your health?" »

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: General Health
        

 My friend Rebecca posted something about her toe Friday night on her Facebook page. Rebecca wrote that she thought "it's broken; my husband thinks it's just bruised. Either way, my toe hurts."

What struck me about this was the response that came from her friend Tracy less than an hour later: "Post pix and let your FB MDs decide."

I loved this reply. Health topics that were once taboo (OK, maybe not broken toes) are now open for discussion -- on Facebook, no less. As a medical reporter, I've had more than one man start a conversation with me about his prostate exam and PSA numbers. But more often, in talking to friends, we discuss ours ailments or our kids' maladies and try to make armchair diagnoses. A lot of them figure our combined knowledge could be (nearly) as good as any docs. I wouldn't go that far, but that doesn't mean I don't engage in a little informal doctoring of my own.

Do you and your friends "play doctor," trying to diagnose one another? Do you use Facebook to do it? Twitter?

Photo/Getty Images

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: General Health
        

Long known to be a concern of aging women, osteoporosis turns out to be nearly as common in older men, a new study suggests.

Doctors routinely screen women in their sixties for thinning bones. But there are no guidelines for checking the bones of male patients. Physicians tend to look for osteoporosis in men only after a problem -- like a suspicious fracture -- occurs.

Dr. Sherita H. Golden, a Johns Hopkins epidemiologist and the author of the new study in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Matabolism, said she and her colleagues were surprised by the findings.

Falling estrogen levels contribute to thinning bones in women and low testosterone levels have been linked to bone loss, Golden said, so it does make sense that the hormonal changes of aging, regardless of gender, could lead to osteoporosis. Osteoporosis makes bones fragile and more likely to break, which can leave sufferers debilitated and deformed.

Another surprising finding: Osteopenia, a less severe form of bone loss, is actually more prevalent in aging men than in aging women.

Golden would like to see the study of men duplicated. If the results match up, she thinks the answer is clear: Men should be screened just as carefully for bone loss as women.

Image courtesy of answers.com

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: General Health
        

A federal advisory panel’s vote Tuesday to pull two popular prescription drugs off the market has shed light on a problem with a common ingredient in over-the-counter painkillers: acetaminophen.

The Food and Drug Administration panel recommends banning drugs like Vicodin and Percocet which combine a stronger narcotic with acetaminophen – the key ingredient in medicine cabinet staples like Tylenol and Excedrin. (It’s unclear if will happen, though. The FDA isn’t required to follow the panel’s advice, but it often does).

The reason for the recommendation? Big concerns about overdoses related to acetaminophen.  A New York Times story explains not only can the painkiller cause liver damage, more than 400 people die and 42,000 are hospitalized every year in the United States from overdoses.

In an effort to confront such problems, the panel made a slew of other decisions about the painkiller. Experts voted to lower the maximum daily dosage to less than 4 grams, or eight tablets of Extra Strength Tylenol. Another vote recommended a prescription for a 1,000 milligram dose – or two tablets of Extra Strength Tylenol.

Continue reading "How much is too much?" »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 1:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: General Health
        

Ten days ago, Johns Hopkins Hospital exec Pamela Paulk had two kidneys. Today, she has one -- and a co-worker she barely knew three years ago also has one, thanks to Paulk's decision to donate one of hers. Just because she could. 

She has been blogging the entire experience. She is even tweeting it.

Her story begins about 10 years ago after she observed a transplant surgery and started thinking about becoming a kidney donor herself. About five years ago, she decided she was ready to give, but she wanted her kidney to go to someone she was connected to in some way. Then, a few years later, she ran into Robert Imes. A painter and mechanic at the hospital who Paulk knew well enough to say "Hello" to, Imes had been out sick for 10 months with kidney disease.

"I said, 'Robert, I really missed you. Is there anything I can do for you?' He said, 'I need a kidney.' And I said, 'You can have mine,'" Paulk recalled. ...

Continue reading "Hopkins exec blogs kidney donation" »

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: General Health