Healthy Aging: Body, Mind & Spirit

Increase alcohol consumption to increase your good cholesterol!

I’ve been working on increasing my good cholesterol or HDL levels by losing weight (50 pounds!) and increasing my daily exercise.  Now I find out that I should also be drinking wine!

Heart disease risk is directly associated with elevated total cholesterol, but more specifically with low levels of “good” cholesterol, or HDL, coupled with high levels of “bad” cholesterol, or LDL.

High levels of “good” cholesterol (HDL) reduces your overall risk of heart disease, and according to some studies, alcohol consumption helps to raise these levels in your blood.

The exact mechanism by which this happens is a point of debate, and the benefit of raising HDL via alcohol consumption comes with some negative impact.  With apologies to the American Heart Association, which discourages doctors from telling their patients about the advantages of alcohol: one or two drinks per day can significantly increase HDL levels.   However, more than one or two drinks per day can lead to substantial health problems including heart failure.

Also remember, alcohol contributes a lot of sugar and “empty calories” to your daily diet!

Who has the cleanest air?

The American Lung Association just came out with their list of the cleanest cities in the U.S.

Go check it out and see how your air is doing!

New blood test for ovarian cancer in development

A chemical in the blood could one day help doctors spot early signs of ovarian cancer.

A US team found a marker antibody in the blood of women with ovarian cancer, but not in healthy ones. Ovarian cancer is very difficult to detect at an early stage, which means it can remain hidden until it is advanced and very difficult to treat.

A cancer charity said the early findings were intriguing but required further study.  The work was carried out by a team at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

They tested women for antibodies to mesothelin, a substance found on the surface of ovarian cancer cells.  Some of the women had fertility problems (109), ovarian cancer (28), or non-cancerous ovarian growths (24), while the rest (152) were healthy. The antibodies were found in the bloodstream of most of the women with ovarian cancer, as well as women with infertility due to problems with the ovary, the researchers said.  They were not present in healthy women or the women with non-cancerous ovarian tumours.

Lead researcher Dr. Judith Luborsky said: “The finding is extremely important because at present medical tests are unable to detect ovarian cancer in its early stages, which is why death rates from this disease are so high.”

This research is published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, published by the American Society for Cancer Research.

Why do certain songs get STUCK in our heads?

Earworms are songs that get stuck in your head and go round and round, sometimes for days, sometimes for months.   Sometimes it seems you cannot help yourself from humming or singing a tune by Lady Gaga or Coldplay, or horror upon horrors, the latest American Idol reject.  This phenomenon shows to us a part of our mind that is clearly outside of our control, because “earworms” arrive without permission and refuse to leave when we tell them to. They are parasites, living in a part of our minds that rehearses sounds.

According to research, 98% of individuals experience earworms. Women and men experience the phenomenon equally often, but earworms are more likely to last longer for women and to irritate them much more!

Most of us get these musical memories, and people appear to have different ones. True the songs that we get stuck with tend to be simple and repetitive, but it seems we are not all singing the same number one song at the same time.

Neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote in his book Musicophilia that earworms are a clear sign of “the overwhelming, and at times, helpless, sensitivity of our brains to music.”  Music is defined by repetition, which partially explains why earworms can be so hard to shake, they are musical memories that loop, say a particular verse or a hook, forever repeating rather than running to completion.  Some report that by singing an earworm to the end of the song, you can get rid of it.  Others report in frustration that this does not work at all.

As well as containing repetition, music is also unusual among the things we regularly encounter for being so similar each time we hear it.  Fences are visually repetitive, for example, but each time you see the same fence you will look at it from a different angle, or in different light.  Put a song on your stereo and the sound comes out virtually identical each time.   Remembering is powerfully affected by repetition, so maybe the similarity of music engraves deep grooves in our mind. Grooves where earworms can thrive.

Another fact about earworms is that they often seem to have something interesting or usual about them.   Although they will often be simple and repetitive bits of music, tunes that do become earworms have a little twist or peculiarity, something that makes them “catchy”, and perhaps this is a clue as to why they can take hold in our memory system.  If there was nothing unique about them they would be swamped by all the other memories that sound similar too.

Happiness and Heart Disease

I know in the past I wrote about dying of a broken heart…

New research now shows a sunny, optimistic outlook can protect your heart from attacks and strokes!

A new paper by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) suggests that positive psychological well-being may reduce the risk of heart attacks, strokes and other adverse cardiovascular events.  Although many previous studies have shown that negative mental states, like depression, anger and hostility, can be harmful to heart health, this new report which analyzes studies from the past 15 years, is the first large, systematic review of data on positive mood and cardiovascular outcomes.

After reviewing more than 200 studies published in two scientific databases, PubMed and PsycINFO, the authors found that optimism, life satisfaction and happiness were associated with reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and its progression.  The most optimistic individuals had an approximately 50% reduced risk of experiencing an initial cardiovascular event compared to their less optimistic.

This association remained true regardless of factors like age, socioeconomic status, smoking and body weight. “Even if a person is overweight, smokes a lot and has high cholesterol, they can still benefit from positive emotions. It is something unique about well-being itself,” says one of the researchers.

Why exactly positivity may benefit the heart isn’t clear, but the researchers suggest that optimistic people may be more motivated to treat their bodies well.   Having a purpose in life motivates people and gets them thinking about the future and how they can structure their lives.  They want to get out and do things.  They are not sitting at home watching TV.

They found that if you have a positive disposition you’re more likely to exercise, eat well and get enough sleep at night.  This can have positive biological effects in terms of inflammation, cholesterol, blood pressure and lipids.  Engaging in healthier behaviors can lead to healthier body functions.

New prostate cancer treatment reduces side-effects

A new technique to treat early prostate cancer may have far fewer side-effects than existing therapies.   A 41-patient study in the journal Lancet Oncology suggests targeted ultrasound treatment could reduce the risk of impotence and incontinence.   Researchers say it could transform future treatment if the findings are repeated in larger studies.   The Medical Research Council (MRC), which funded the study, welcomed the results, which it said were promising.

Each year 37,000 men in the UK are diagnosed with prostate cancer.   Many face a difficult dilemma: the disease kills about 10,000 men every year, but for some it may not get worse if left untreated.   Standard treatment with surgery or radiotherapy involves treating the whole prostate gland, and can harm surrounding tissue, with a serious risk of side-effects, including urinary incontinence and impotence.

Targeted treatment

Doctors at University College Hospital in London have carried out the first trial using high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) aimed at small patches of cancer cells on the prostate. This was a “proof of concept” study involving 41 patients.

They used a probe, placed close to the prostate, which emits sound waves that heat the targeted cells to 80C, while causing minimal damage to surrounding nerves and muscles.   Hashim Ahmed, a urological surgeon at the trust who led the study, says the results, 12 months after treatment, are very encouraging.

“We’ve shown in this study that focal therapy – by targeting the individual areas of cancer – can avoid the collateral damage.   In nine out of ten men no impotence or incontinence resulted.

Mr Ahmed says the early evidence on cancer control is also very good, but this needs to be evaluated in much larger studies.

What does caffeine do to your brain?

Just 325 mg. of caffeine, like that found in a Starbucks Cafe Grande, can make MAJOR differences in your blood pressure and heart rate!

When research watched caffeine’s effect in an MRI, they found a 40% decrease in blood flow to the brain, and large increases in blood pressure and heart rate.

How much does it take the change your brain?  One cup a day is all it takes!   There are lots of positive health effects from coffee, but remember it also raises your blood pressure!

How bad are plastic water bottles for you?

In just one year, Americans drank nearly 9 billion gallons of bottled water, which is second only to soft drinks as the largest beverage type in the U.S. market, according to the Beverage Marketing Corporation.

What are You Really Drinking When You Drink Bottled Water?

Plastic water bottles have come under scrutiny in recent years for both their environmental and health effects, including those surrounding the chemical bisphenol-A (BPA).   BPA can leach out of plastic during everyday use, causing health problems.  It’s now widely known that BPA mimics the female hormone estrogen and may affect fertility and promote cancer.  And just last year it came out that BPA may also lead to heart disease, diabetes and liver problems.

Studies have shown that detectable levels of BPA exist in more than 90 percent of the U.S. population, but exposure has been blamed on not only drinking water and food, but also on dental sealants, dermal exposure and inhalation of household dusts.

How much BPA are we exposed to when drinking from a plastic bottle?

A new study from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) found out.   Researchers recruited Harvard College students for a study in April 2008, and all 77 participants then began a seven-day “washout” during which they drank all cold beverages from stainless steel bottles in order to minimize BPA exposure.  For the next week, participants were given two polycarbonate bottles and asked to drink all cold beverages from them.

Urine samples were taken at the end of each week-long period, and the results that came back were shocking!  Levels of BPA rose 69 percent after just one week of drinking out of plastic bottles.

“We found that drinking cold liquids from polycarbonate bottles for just one week increased urinary BPA levels by more than two-thirds. If you heat those bottles, as is the case with baby bottles, we would expect the levels to be considerably higher. This would be of concern since infants may be particularly susceptible to BPA’s endocrine-disrupting potential,” said Karin B. Michels, associate professor of epidemiology at HSPH and Harvard Medical School and senior author of the study.

While previous studies have found that BPA could leach from polycarbonate bottles into their contents, this study is the first to show the corresponding increase in BPA levels in humans.

The end result is this, if you drink out of plastic water bottles, you can pretty much guarantee that you’re increasing your levels of BPA, which is very risky for your health.

Chronic exposure to very low levels of BPA, such as might occur when drinking bottled water, is potentially very harmful.

“An expert panel of scientists has concluded that exposure to extremely low doses of bisphenol A is strongly linked to diseases such as breast cancer, prostate cancer, and diabetes, and to reproductive and neurological development,” the Sierra Club reported.  And single-serve bottles are not the only ones to be concerned about.   Consumer Reports found in 2000 that eight of 10 5-gallon water jugs they tested contained residues of BPA.

While the use of BPA in polycarbonate baby bottles was banned in Canada in 2008, and some manufacturers have voluntarily eliminated the chemical from their bottles, this is not yet widespread in the United States nor have recent U.S. regulatory laws been passed.   In fact, BPA is so widely used that it may be nearly impossible to avoid exposure entirely, however you can greatly reduce your exposure by avoiding BPA-containing products as much as possible, including one of the biggest BPA predators: plastic water bottles.

Plastic containing BPA may be called: Polycarbonate, Lexan, and Polysulfone.

Changing memories can prevent drug relapse

Manipulating memories of drug use may help reformed addicts avoid a return to a life of drug abuse, according to scientists in China.  They say memories linking “cues” – such as needles or cigarettes – and the pleasurable effects of drugs caused cravings and relapsing.  Authors of the study, published in the journal Science, “rewrote” those memories to reduce cravings.

Experts said targeting memories could become a new avenue for treatment.  Repeatedly showing people drug cues without actually giving patients the drug is a part of this therapy for addicts.   It can break the link between cue and craving in the clinic. but this does not always translate to real life.

The researchers at Peking University tried to rewrite the original memory so that it would be as if the link between cue and the craving never existed.   This work relies on the idea that a memory can become malleable after it is accessed, creating a brief window during which the memory can be “rewritten.”

Faster treatment for stroke victims

Treating stroke in specialized ambulances en route to the hospital could boost the number of patients who can receive life-saving therapy.   Mobile stroke units can halve the time it takes a patient to get clot-busting drugs, a small German trial found.  These drugs only work if given within four and a half hours of stroke onset.

Since not all patients are suitable candidates, a rapid assessment is critical, The Lancet Neurology reports.  Clot-busting drugs (thrombolytics) can be effective if the stroke is caused by a blood clot (the cause in about 80% of cases), but not if it is due to a bleed.   The faster an eligible patient receives clot-busting treatment, the better their chances are of surviving thus reducing long-term disabilities.

The latest trial, which involved 100 patients in Germany, found treatment decision times were reduced by equipping ambulance staff with the necessary tools, including CT scanners, to diagnose and manage stroke immediately.  In the study, thrombolysis was given within 35 minutes, on average, for those patients treated by mobile stroke units.   In comparison, those sent to hospital for treatment in the usual way waited 76 minutes.

Patient outcomes did not differ significantly between the two groups but the researchers point out that the study was not designed to evaluate this and that the number of patients involved in their trial was small. The follow up was also short – a week.   Experts say larger studies are needed to explore what impact earlier treatment will have on prognosis, and to confirm whether mobile stroke units would also work in other geographical regions, not just in urban areas with short journey distances.