Healthy Aging: Body, Mind & Spirit

Amazing and encouraging story…

for those who have had a bad cancer diagnosis lately, or those who just fear the BIG C!

Here’s a GREAT article full of hope, inspiration and useful information!

Grow Up and Get Happy!

Want to Be Happy? Grow Up, Says New Study

Deciding about getting a mammogram…

Here’s an interesting article by an MD who reads the new studies and tries to decide what to tell her patients.

New breath tests being developed to diagnose cancers

Scientists say they have developed a breath-test that can accurately tell if a person has bowel cancer.  The test, which looks for exhaled chemicals linked to tumour activity, was able to identify a majority of patients with the disease.  The British Journal of Surgery reported an overall accuracy of 76%.

Scientists are working on breath-tests for a host of other diseases, including several types of cancer, TB and diabetes.  These technologies show a great deal of promise. If diagnosed and treated early, the chances of stopping cancer can be good, but there is often little or no outward sign of the disease until it has progressed significantly.

Continue reading this story on the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20599238

An important new testing discovery!

A cheap test which could detect even low levels of viruses and possibly prostate cancer has been developed by UK researchers.  The colour of a liquid changes to give either a positive or negative result.

The designers from Imperial College London say the device could lead to more widespread testing for HIV and other diseases in parts of the world where other methods are unaffordable.  The prototype, which needs wider testing, is described in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

The test can be configured to a unique signature of a disease or virus, such as a protein found on the surface of HIV.  If that marker is present it changes the course of a chemical reaction.  The final result is blue if the marker is there, red if the marker is not allowing the researcher to detect disease with the naked eye.

Learn more at the BBC.

Controversy about breast cancer screening continues…

In the UK, women invited to have mammograms for breast cancer screening will be given more information about the potential harm of being tested.

An independent review was set up to settle a fierce debate about whether the measure did more harm than good.  It showed that for every life saved, three women had treatment for a cancer which would never have been fatal.

Learn more here.

Should you bother with that multi-vitamin?

Apparently yes, if you are male and in midlife!

In the first rigorous, long-term study of multivitamins and their effect on cancer, older men who took daily vitamins over 11 years, lowered their risk of cancer by 8% compared to men who skipped this supplement.  The men took Centrum Silver specifically.

Learn more over at TIME Magazine.

Sitting and Your Health

While you’re sitting around cruising the Internet, you should probably read this article about how bad sitting around is for you!

Deadly fungal meningitis spreads

Health authorities say 15 people have now died from an outbreak of fungal meningitis linked to steroid injections to treat back pain.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said the latest death occurred in Indiana – the second in that state.  In all, nearly 200 people in 13 U.S. states have been affected.

This is so dreadful and preventable!

Good news about the health effects of HRT

Women who take hormone replacement therapy (HRT) may cut their risk of heart problems, a study suggests, but experts are still cautious about long-term safety risks.  Published in the journal BMJ, the study also found HRT is not associated with an increased risk of cancer or stroke, but past studies have shown a link.

The researchers traced 1,000 women over 10 years – half of them were on HRT.  The paper’s authors said: “HRT had significantly reduced risk of mortality, heart failure, or heart attack, without any apparent increase of cancer, deep vein thrombosis or stroke.”  However, they stressed that “due to the potential time lag, longer time may be necessary to take more definite conclusions”.

Safety concerns about the long-term use of the therapy has been debated by academics over the past decade.

Cancer findings

The women in the study were between the ages of 45-58 years old and recently menopausal.  Those on treatment started it soon after menopausal symptoms began.

HRT replaces female hormones that are no longer produced during menopause, which can help with hot flushes, insomnia, headaches and irritability.

After 10 years, 33 women in the group that had not taken HRT had died or suffered from heart failure or a heart attack, compared with just 16 women who were taking the treatment.

Continue reading this story over at the BBC. 

(Please note there are  a number of different types of hormone replacement.  I have been on very low levels of bio-identical estrogen for the past few years, administered through a skin patch, and I have been very happy with the results!)