It’s About You: Lu Ann Cahn’s Story

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It’s About You: Lu Ann Cahn’s Story




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  We would like to introduce you to our blogging series, “It’s About You.” In addition to telling you their personal story, our bloggers in this series talk about their experience with past LBBC programs and/or t...

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#Breastcancer, #Cancer, #Health, #Learning-From-Others, #Metastatic-Breast-Cancer, #Newly-Diagnosed, #Shared-Experiences, #Young-Women

Leaf-mining insects destroyed with the dinosaurs, others quickly appeared

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After the asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous period that triggered the dinosaurs’ extinction and ushered in the Paleocene, leaf-mining insects in the western United States completely disappeared. Only a million years later, at Mexican Hat, in southeastern Montana, fossil leaves show diverse leaf-mining traces from new insects that were not present during the Cretaceous, according to paleontologists.”Our results indicate both that leaf-mining diversity at Mexican Hat is even higher than previously recognized, and equally importantly, that none of the Mexican Hat mines can be linked back to the local Cretaceous mining fauna,” said Michael Donovan, graduate student in geosciences, Penn State.Insects that eat leaves produce very specific types of damage. One type is from leaf miners — insect larvae that live in the leaves and tunnel for food, leaving distinctive feeding paths and patterns of droppings.Donovan, Peter Wilf, professor of geosciences, Penn State, and colleagues looked at 1,073 leaf fossils from Mexican Hat for mines. They compared these with more than 9,000 leaves from the end of the Cretaceous, 65 million years ago, from the Hell Creek Formation in southwestern North Dakota, and with more than 9,000 Paleocene leaves from the Fort Union Formation in North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming. The researchers present their results in today’s (July 24) issue of PLOS ONE.”We decided to focus on leaf miners because they are typically host specific, feeding on only a few plant species each,” said Donovan. “Each miner also leaves an identifiable mining pattern.”The researchers found nine different mine-damage types at Mexican Hat attributable to the larvae of moths, wasps and flies, and six of these damage types were unique to the site.The researchers were unsure whether the high diversity of leaf miners at Mexican Hat compared to other early Paleocene sites, where there is little or no leaf mining, was caused by insects that survived the extinction event in refugia — areas where organisms persist during adverse conditions — or were due to range expansions of insects from somewhere else during the early Paleocene.However, with further study, the researchers found no evidence of the survival of any leaf miners over the Cretaceous-Paleocene boundary, suggesting an even more total collapse of terrestrial food webs than has been recognized previously.”These results show that the high insect damage diversity at Mexican Hat represents an influx of novel insect herbivores during the early Paleocene and not a refugium for Cretaceous leaf miners,” said Wilf. “The new herbivores included a startling diversity for any time period, and especially for the classic post-extinction disaster interval.”Insect extinction across the Cretaceous-Paleocene boundary may have been directly caused by catastrophic conditions after the asteroid impact and by the disappearance of host plant species. While insect herbivores constantly need leaves to survive, plants can remain dormant as seeds in the ground until more auspicious circumstances occur.The low-diversity flora at Mexican Hat is typical for the area in the early Paleocene, so what caused the high insect damage diversity?Insect outbreaks are associated with a rapid population increase of a single insect species, so the high diversity of mining damage seen in the Mexican Hat fossils makes the possibility of an outbreak improbable.The researchers hypothesized that the leaf miners that are seen in the Mexican Hat fossils appeared in that area because of a transient warming event, a number of which occurred during the early Paleocene.”Previous studies have shown a correlation between temperature and insect damage diversity in the fossil record, possibly caused by evolutionary radiations or range shifts in response to a warmer climate,” said Donovan. “Current evidence suggests that insect herbivore extinction decreased with increasing distance from the asteroid impact site in Mexico, so pools of surviving insects would have existed elsewhere that could have provided a source for the insect influx that we observed at Mexican Hat.”Story Source:The above story is based on materials provided by Penn State. The original article was written by A’ndrea Eluse Messer. …


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#Cretaceous, #Current, #Donovan, #Formation, #Health, #Mexican, #North-Dakota, #Paleocene, #Professor, #Union

Breakthrough drug-eluting patch stops scar growth, reduces scar tissues

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Scars — in particular keloid scars that result from overgrowth of skin tissue after injuries or surgeries — are unsightly and can even lead to disfigurement and psychological problems of affected patients. Individuals with darker pigmentation — in particular people with African, Hispanic or South-Asian genetic background — are more likely to develop this skin tissue disorder. Current therapy options, including surgery and injections of corticosteroids into scar tissues, are often ineffective, require clinical supervision and can be costly.A new invention by researchers from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore (reported in the current issue of TECHNOLOGY) provides a simple, affordable and — most importantly — highly effective way for patients to self-treat keloid scars. The team of scientists and engineers from NTU’s School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, in collaboration with clinicians from Singapore’s National Skin Centre, have developed a special patch made from polymers fabricated into microneedles, which are loaded with the US food and drug administration (FDA)-approved scar-reducing drug, 5-fluorouracil. Self-administered by patients, the microneedles attach the patch to scar tissue and allow sustained drug-release (one patch per night). The drug as well as the physical contact of the microneedles with the scar tissue contributes to the efficacy of the device, leading to the cessation of scar tissue growth and a considerable reduction of keloids as demonstrated in laboratory cultures and experiments with animals. “Most patients seek treatment due to disfigurement and/or pain or itch of scars,” says Assistant Professor Xu Chenjie from NTU who leads the study. “We wanted to develop a simple, convenient, and cost-effective device able to inhibit keloid growth in skin tissue and reduce the size of disfiguring scars,” adds Yuejun Kang, another key investigator in the study from NTU.”Self-administered treatment for keloid scars can reduce the economic burden on the healthcare system and provide a treatment option for patients who have limited access to medical care,” comments Professor Jeffrey Karp from Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School, US, an expert on medical device design who was not involved in this study.Story Source:The above story is based on materials provided by World Scientific. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.


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#Asian, #Chemical, #Health, #Healthcare, #Hispanic, #National, #Ntu, #Women

11 Foods That Make You Hungrier

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11 Foods That Make You Hungrier


Do you ever get the feeling that your stomach’s a bottomless pit? These foods might actually be the problem.

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11 Foods That...

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Dr. Robert Cameron Chairs International Panel of Medical Specialists at 4th Annual Symposium on Lung-Sparing Therapies for Malignant Pleural...

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Dr. Robert Cameron ThePacific Meso Center, in conjunction with The Office of Continuing Medical Education of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, held the 4th International Symposium on Lung-SparingTherapies for Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma on June 7, 2014 in Santa Monica, California. TheWorthington & Caron Law Firmwas proud to once again be a platinum sponsor of this unique medical seminar focusing on rational treatment options for patients with pleural mesothelioma.As in years past, the course organizer and chair of the symposium was thoracic surgeon and pleural mesothelioma specialist,Dr. Robert Cameron. An ardent supporter of rational lung-sparing treatments for pleural mesothelioma, and innovator of thepleurectomy/decortication(“PD”) surgical procedure, Dr. Cameron is the founder and director of both theComprehensive Mesothelioma Programat the UCLA Medical Center and…


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#Cancer, #Chief, #Education, #Health, #Lung-Sparing-Surgery, #Medical, #Pacific-Meso-Center, #Pacificmeso, #Program, #Thoracic, #Ucla

Changes in agriculture increase high river flow rates

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Just as a leaky roof can make a house cooler and wetter when it’s raining as well as hotter and dryer when it’s sunny, changes in land use can affect river flow in both rainy and dry times, say two University of Iowa researchers.While it may be obvious that changes in river water discharge across the U.S. Midwest can be related to changes in rainfall and agricultural land use, it is important to learn how these two factors interact in order to get a better understanding of what the future may look like, says Gabriele Villarini, UI assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, assistant research engineer at IIHR — Hydroscience & Engineering and lead author of a published research paper on the subject.”We wanted to know what the relative impacts of precipitation and agricultural practices played in shaping the discharge record that we see today,” he says. “Is it an either/or answer or a much more nuanced one?”By understanding our past we are better positioned in making meaningful statements about our future,” he says.The potential benefits of understanding river flow are especially great in the central United States, particularly Iowa, where spring and summer floods have hit the area in 1993, 2008, 2013 and 2014, interrupted by the drought of 2012. Large economic damage and even loss of life have resulted, says co-author Aaron Strong, UI assistant professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning and with the Environmental Policy Program at the UI Public Policy Center.”What is interesting to note,” says Strong, “is that the impacts, in terms of flooding, have been exacerbated. At the same time, the impacts of drought, for in-stream flow, have been mitigated with the changes in land use composition that we have seen over the last century.”In order to study the effect of changes in agricultural practices on Midwest river discharge, the researchers focused on Iowa’s Raccoon River at Van Meter, Iowa. The 9,000-square-kilometer watershed has the advantage of having had its water discharge levels measured and recorded daily for most of the 20th century right on up to the present day. (The study focused on the period 1927-2012). During that period, the number of acres used for corn and soybean production greatly increased, roughly doubling over the course of the 20th century.Not surprisingly, they found that variability in rainfall is responsible for most of the changes in water discharge volumes.However, the water discharge rates also varied with changes in agricultural practices, as defined by soybean and corn harvested acreage in the Raccoon River watershed. In times of flood and in times of drought, water flow rates were exacerbated by more or less agriculture, respectively. The authors suggest that although flood conditions may be exacerbated by increases in agricultural production, this concern “must all be balanced by the private concerns of increased revenue from agricultural production through increased cultivation.””Our results suggest that changes in agricultural practices over this watershed — with increasing acreage planted in corn and soybeans over time — translated into a seven-fold increase in rainfall contribution to the average annual maximum discharge when we compare the present to the 1930s,” Villarini says.The UI research paper, “Roles of climate and agricultural practices in discharge changes in an agricultural watershed in Iowa,” can be found in the April 15 online edition of Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment.Story Source:The above story is based on materials provided by University of Iowa. …


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#Agriculture, #Alternative-Medicine, #Alzheimer, #Climate, #Engineering, #Health, #Iowa, #King, #Program, #University

Burn victims avoid hypothermia with practice developed by nurses

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Loyola University Health System has established new guidelines to protect burn victims at risk for hypothermia during surgery.The skin regulates body temperature and when a large portion of skin is burned, the body loses heat. Loyola nurses recognized this threat and established a warming process for burn victims at risk for dangerously low body temperatures.”Burn victims are in an extreme amount of pain and are at risk for severe complications from their injuries,” said Sharon L. Valtman, RN, BSN, CNOR, the Loyola nurse who initiated the warming process for patients. “It is our job as nurses to listen to our patients and identify ways to ease their discomfort and prevent further health issues.”The warming process Valtman established involves using Bair Hugger technology to elevate the patients’ body temperature. The device carries warm air through a hose to a blanket that is draped over the patient. Nurses initiate this process in a patient’s hospital room one hour before surgery and continue it during the procedure. Studies have shown that keeping a patient warm during surgery results in less bleeding and faster recovery.The success of this program led Loyola’s Burn Center and operating room doctors, nurses and staff to adopt this process as hospital protocol for burn patients.Story Source:The above story is based on materials provided by Loyola University Health System. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.


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#Alzheimer, #Bsn, #Health, #Hugger, #Procedure, #Science, #University, #Victimsatrisk

"Lost in translation" issues in Chinese medicine addressed by researchers

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Millions of people in the West today utilize traditional Chinese medicine, including acupuncture, herbs, massage and nutritional therapies. Yet only a few U.S. schools that teach Chinese medicine require Chinese-language training and only a handful of Chinese medical texts have so far been translated into English.Given the complexity of the language and concepts in these texts, there is a need for accurate, high-quality translations, say researchers at UCLA’s Center for East-West Medicine. To that end, the center has published a document that includes a detailed discussion of the issues involved in Chinese medical translation, which is designed to help students, educators, practitioners, researchers, publishers and translators evaluate and digest Chinese medical texts with greater sensitivity and comprehension.”This publication aims to raise awareness among the many stakeholders involved with the translation of Chinese medicine,” said principal investigator and study author Dr. Ka-Kit Hui, founder and director of the UCLA center.The 15-page document, “Considerations in the Translation of Chinese Medicine” was developed and written by a UCLA team that included a doctor, an anthropologist, a China scholar and a translator. It appears in the current online edition of the Journal of Integrative Medicine.Authors Sonya Pritzker, a licensed Chinese medicine practitioner and anthropologist, and Hanmo Zhang, a China scholar, hope the publication will promote communication in the field and play a role in the development of thorough, accurate translations.The document highlights several important topics in the translation of Chinese medical texts, including the history of Chinese medical translations, which individuals make ideal translators, and other translation-specific issues, such as the delicate balance of focusing translations on the source-document language while considering the language it will be translated into.It also addresses issues of technical terminology, period-specific language and style, and historical and cultural perspective. For example, depending on historical circumstances and language use, some translations may be geared toward a Western scientific audience or, alternately, it may take a more natural and spiritual tone. The authors note that it is sometimes helpful to include dual translations, such as “windfire eye/acute conjunctivitis,” in order to facilitate a link between traditional Chinese medical terms and biomedical diagnoses.The final section of the document calls for further discussion and action, specifically in the development of international collaborative efforts geared toward the creation of more rigorous guidelines for the translation of Chinese medicine texts.”Considerations in the Translation of Chinese Medicine,” was inspired by the late renowned translator and scholar Michael Heim, a professor in the UCLA departments of comparative literature and Slavic studies. A master of 12 languages, he is best known for his translation into English of Czech author Milan Kundera’s “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” The new UCLA document is dedicated to him.The document, the authors say, was influenced in large part by the American Council of Learned Societies’ “Guidelines for the Translation of Social Science Texts,” which are intended to promote communications in the social sciences across language boundaries. It was also influenced by Pritzker’s longstanding anthropological study of translation in Chinese medicine, which is detailed in her new book, “Living Translation: Language and the Search for Resonance in U.S. …


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#Agriculture, #Alternative-Medicine, #Alzheimer, #Considerations, #Document, #Health, #Professor, #Publication, #Social, #Western

14 Ways to Boost Your Metabolism Right Now

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14 Ways to Boost Your Metabolism Right Now


Turning up your body’s fat-burning power doesn’t have to mean spending hours at the gym. These lifestyle tweaks spark your metabolism instantly.

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5 proven steps to make pores look smaller

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Learn more about Herbalife – Follow @Herbalife on Twitter- Like Herbalife on Facebook- What is Herbalife? More fitness advice – Watch ‘Fit Tips’ Videos on YouTube- Straightforward exercise advice- Get fit = be happy. Positivity advice Nutrition advice for you – Watch ‘Healthy Living’ on YouTube- Dieting advice you might like- Interesting weight loss articles Copyright © 2013 Herbalife International of America, Inc.


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#America, #Dieting, #Good-Skin-Care, #Health, #Herbalife-Beauty, #Interesting, #Skin-Care, #Skincare, #Watch

Chocolate Covered Sunflower Seed Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Chocolate Covered Sunflower Seed Chocolate Chip Cookies Emily Dickey posted this in RecipesChocolate chip cookies are a classic and you can never go wrong with making them for a dessert or event! But sometimes we spice them up a bit… maybe you add peanut butter chips? Or butterscotch? How about some peanuts or raisins? Try this recipe for chocolate covered sunflower seed chocolate chip cookies! That’s a mouthful Chocolate Covered Sunflower Seed Chocolate Chip CookiesChocolate covered sunflower seeds?! They really aren’t that hard to find Check them out on Amazon. You could try another seed or just use raw sunflower seeds with mini chocolate chips if you’d like (or if that’s what you have on hand). The cookies will still be delicious!Chocolate-Covered Sunflower Seed Chocolate…


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#Check, #Covered, #Desserts, #Emily, #Health, #King, #Recipes, #Seedorjust, #Sunflowerseed

Can Other Minerals Besides Asbestos Induce Mesothelioma?

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Can Other Minerals Besides Asbestos Induce Mesothelioma?



While asbestos exposure is the most commonly known cause for mesothelioma, it has also been discovered that a mineral called erionite can be a cause as well. One case of erionite-induced mesothelioma has been reported in a male living...

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#Asbestos, #Erionite, #Erionite-Mineral, #Health, #Mesothelioma, #Mesothelioma-Causes, #North-Dakota, #Turkey

From the Health Wonks… are men getting the short end of the stick?

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Please enable cookies. Error 1010 Ray ID: 150a7e36f2990296 Access denied What happened?The owner of this website (www.healthinsurancecolorado.net) has banned your access based on your browser’s signature (150a7e36f2990296-mh5).CloudFlare Ray ID: 150a7e36f2990296 • Your IP: 162.144.68.20 • Help • Performance & security by CloudFlare


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#Access, #Browser, #Cloudflare, #Cloudflareplease, #Health, #Performance, #Securitybycloudflare, #Theowner, #Thiswebsite, #Youraccess, #Yourbrowser

The Top 10 Reasons People don’t have Life Insurance

The Top 10 Reasons People don’t have Life Insurance



One thing I had to learn early in my career as a life insurance broker was that not everybody I spoke to was going to purchase a policy from me. The list of reasons people don’t get a policy is a long one, so I have narrowed it down i...

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#Health, #Insurance-Agent, #Insurance-Broker, #Life-Insurance-Info, #Life-Insurance-Policy

Building Company Fined after Work Accident Injury

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Home » No Win No Fee » Latest Personal Injury News » 2014 » 7 » Building Company Fined after Work Accident InjuryBuilding Company Fined after Work Accident InjuryA building company and the director of a roofing firm have been ordered to pay sizeable fines following a workplace accident that led to an employee suffering serious injuries.In 2012, a self-employed roofer had been under the control of John Donald of John Donald Roofing, which had been sub-contracted to carry out work on a building project by Right Angle Ltd.During work on a project in which three residential properties were being refurbished and extended, the unnamed worker was at one point clearing materials from a flat roof.He saw a piece of ply board that he thought was debris so he picked it up. However, the board was actually concealing a roof light void. The man, who was aged 28 at the time of the accident, ended up falling from a height of 5.6 metres.Multiple bones in his back were fractured and broken during the fall, while his thigh, lungs and diaphragm were bruised.The extent of the employee’s injuries meant he could not return to work for more than a year, and he has been left with a persistent back problem that requires treatment in hospital. This means he has had to seek employment elsewhere.HSE Work Accident InvestigationA work accident investigation launched by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) after the accident and a number of failings were identified at the building site.The HSE criticised John Donald and Right Angle Ltd for failing to take adequate steps to mark and protect voids in the roof.HSE Inspectors described the measures that had been in place as “totally unacceptable” and warned that many workers on the site could have experienced a similar accident. The HSE also identified a number of other shortcomings on the site, including open staircases without handrails and a lack of edge protection on scaffolding.In addition, excess rubbish and debris on the building site was said to have created numerous slip and trip hazards, while there were various fire risks with insufficient prevention measures in place.The HSE concluded that the defendants had not properly planned, managed or monitored the work, which meant that the accident had been completely avoidable.Right Angle Ltd pleaded guilty to breaching the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007 and was handed a £15,000 fine in a hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court. The company was also ordered to pay £5,375 in costs.In addition, John Donald admitted breaching the Work at Height Regulations 2005 and was fined £4,000, plus costs of £3,695.Danielle Coppell, an inspector at the HSE, commented, “There were numerous failings on the part of Right Angle Ltd that exposed multiple operatives to a host of foreseeable risks, including falls, slips and trips.”John Donald has to accept culpability as an experienced roofer who should have known better. He instructed the injured worker to work in an unsafe area where there were wholly insufficient measures in place to prevent or mitigate a fall.”Ms Coppell added that the consequence of their shortcomings is that a young man has been left with life-changing spinal injuries, from which he might never completely recover.By Francesca WitneyOr Call freephone 0800 884 0321SHARE THIS


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#Accident, #Building, #Construction, #Coppell, #Court, #Executive, #Health, #Regulations, #Safety, #Westminster

Trees save lives, reduce respiratory problems

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In the first broad-scale estimate of air pollution removal by trees nationwide, U.S. Forest Service scientists and collaborators calculated that trees are saving more than 850 human lives a year and preventing 670,000 incidents of acute respiratory symptoms.While trees’ pollution removal equated to an average air quality improvement of less than 1 percent, the impacts of that improvement are substantial. Researchers valued the human health effects of the reduced air pollution at nearly $7 billion every year in a study published recently in the journal Environmental Pollution.The study by Dave Nowak and Eric Greenfield of the U.S. Forest Service’s Northern Research Station and Satoshi Hirabayashi and Allison Bodine of the Davey Institute is unique in that it directly links the removal of air pollution with improved human health effects and associated health values. The scientists found that pollution removal is substantially higher in rural areas than urban areas, however the effects on human health are substantially greater in urban areas than rural areas.”With more than 80 percent of Americans living in urban area, this research underscores how truly essential urban forests are to people across the nation,” said Michael T. Rains, Director of the Forest Service’s Northern Research Station and the Forest Products Laboratory. “Information and tools developed by Forest Service research are contributing to communities valuing and managing the 138 million acres of trees and forests that grace the nation’s cities, towns and communities.”The study considered four pollutants for which the U.S. EPA has established air quality standards: nitrogen dioxide, ozone, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matter less than 2.5 microns (PM2.5) in aerodynamic diameter. Health effects related to air pollution include impacts on pulmonary, cardiac, vascular, and neurological systems. In the United States, approximately 130,000 PM2.5-related deaths and 4,700 ozone-related deaths in 2005 were attributed to air pollution.Trees’ benefits vary with tree cover across the nation. …


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#Alternative-Medicine, #Alzheimer, #Cancer, #Forest, #Forestservice, #Greater, #Health, #Institute, #Northernresearch, #Pollution, #Science, #Unitedstates

Fire ecology manipulation by California native cultures

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Before the colonial era, 100,000s of people lived on the land now called California, and many of their cultures manipulated fire to control the availability of plants they used for food, fuel, tools, and ritual. Contemporary tribes continue to use fire to maintain desired habitat and natural resources.Frank Lake, an ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Station, will lead a field trip to the Stone Lake National Wildlife Refuge during the Ecological Society of America’s 99th Annual Meeting in Sacramento, Cal., this August. Visitors will learn about plant and animal species of cultural importance to local tribes. Don Hankins, a faculty associate at California State University at Chico and a member of the Miwok people, will co-lead the trip, which will end with a visit to California State Indian Museum.Lake will also host a special session on a “sense of place,” sponsored by the Traditional Ecological Knowledge section of the Ecological Society, that will bring representatives of local tribes into the Annual Meeting to share their cultural and professional experiences working on tribal natural resources issues.”The fascinating thing about the Sacramento Valley and the Miwok lands where we are taking the field trip is that it was a fire and flood system,” said Lake. “To maintain the blue and valley oak, you need an anthropogenic fire system.”Lake, raised among the Yurok and Karuk tribes in the Klamath River area of northernmost California, began his career with an interest in fisheries, but soon realized he would need to understand fire to restore salmon. Fire exerts a powerful effect on ecosystems, including the quality and quantity of water available in watersheds, in part by reducing the density of vegetation.”Those trees that have grown up since fire suppression are like straws sucking up the groundwater,” Lake said.The convergence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers was historically one of the largest salmon bearing runs on the West Coast, Lake said, and the Miwok, Patwin and Yokut tribal peoples who lived in the area saw and understood how fire was involved.California native cultures burned patches of forest in deliberate sequence to diversify the resources available within their region. The first year after a fire brought sprouts for forage and basketry. In 3 to 5 years, shrubs produced a wealth of berries. Mature trees remained for the acorn harvest, but burning also made way for the next generation of trees, to ensure a consistent future crop. …


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#America, #Annual, #Coast, #Ecology, #Forest, #Health, #Indian, #Science, #State, #University, #Valley

Bothered by hot flashes? Acupuncture might be the answer, analysis suggests

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In the 2,500+ years that have passed since acupuncture was first used by the ancient Chinese, it has been used to treat a number of physical, mental and emotional conditions including nausea and vomiting, stroke rehabilitation, headaches, menstrual cramps, asthma, carpal tunnel, fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis, to name just a few. Now, a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials which is being published this month in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS), indicates that acupuncture can affect the severity and frequency of hot flashes for women in natural menopause.An extensive search of previous studies evaluating the effectiveness of acupuncture uncovered 104 relevant students, of which 12 studies with 869 participants met the specified inclusion criteria to be included in this current study. While the studies provided inconsistent findings on the effects of acupuncture on other menopause-related symptoms such as sleep problems, mood disturbances and sexual problems, they did conclude that acupuncture positively impacted both the frequency and severity of hot flashes.Women experiencing natural menopause and aged between 40 and 60 years were included in the analysis, which evaluated the effects of various forms of acupuncture, including traditional Chinese medicine acupuncture (TCMA), acupressure, electroacupuncture, laser acupuncture and ear acupuncture.Interestingly, neither the effect on hot flash frequency or severity appeared to be linked to the number of treatment doses, number of sessions or duration of treatment. However, the findings showed that sham acupuncture could induce a treatment effect comparable with that of true acupuncture for the reduction of hot flash frequency. The effects on hot flashes were shown to be maintained for as long as three months.Although the study stopped short of explaining the exact mechanism underlying the effects of acupuncture on hot flashes, a theory was proposed to suggest that acupuncture caused a reduction in the concentration of β-endorphin in the hypothalamus, resulting from low concentrations of estrogen. These lower levels could trigger the release of CGRP, which affects thermoregulation.”More than anything, this review indicates that there is still much to be learned relative to the causes and treatments of menopausal hot flashes,” says NAMS executive director Margery Gass, MD. “The review suggests that acupuncture may be an effective alternative for reducing hot flashes, especially for those women seeking non- pharmacologic therapies.”A recent review indicated that approximately half of women experiencing menopause-associated symptoms use complementary and alternative medicine therapy, instead of pharmacologic therapies, for managing their menopausal symptoms.Story Source:The above story is based on materials provided by The North American Menopause Society (NAMS). Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.


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#Alzheimer, #Analysis, #Cancer, #Effects, #Health, #Journal, #Menopausesociety, #Science

5 Essential Body Weight Exercises

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Fast Workouts5 Essential Body Weight ExercisesBy DailyBurnDitch the weights and still build strength! These body weight exercises from DailyBurn trainer Cody Storey work your legs, glutes, back, and chest, even if you’re short on space or equipment. #arms #strength


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#Cancer, #Daily, #Dailyburn, #Health, #Weight, #Weights, #Workouts

Did the DC Court of Appeals Doom the Future of Obamacare?

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Did the DC Court of Appeals Doom the Future of Obamacare?



On July 22, two judges on a three-judge panel of the 3rd District Court of Appeals in Washington, DC, ruled that “Obamacare” insurance exchange subsidies are illegal in 36 states. If this decision is upheld, that means about 4.5 mil...

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#Affordable-Care-Act, #Cancer, #Health, #Mesothelioma, #Obamacare