Water births ‘pose no extra risk’

Birthing pools have been used for some time in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. In the US, they have gained popularity. However, safety concerns have caused controversy.

Immersion in water during labor is thought to have various benefits, including less need for pain medication and, theoretically, a smaller chance of vaginal trauma, as the perineum becomes more elastic and relaxed in water.

The water is believed to reduce stress hormones and decrease blood pressure, easing tension in the mother. For the baby to pass from the amniotic sac into the warm water may also be less stressful for the neonate, possibly reducing fetal complications.

One concern is the possibility of drowning. When babies are born, they have a “dive reflex,” which means they can block their throats when underwater. This should mean there is little chance of drowning. However, near-drownings have been reported due to the baby breathing in fluid from the tub.

There is also a small risk that water will enter the mother’s bloodstream, causing a water embolism. The fear of additional exposure to infection has also been voiced, although at least one study has indicated that this is unlikely.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Academy of Pediatrics support laboring in water but not being immersed when the baby is born.

Researchers at Oregon State University (OSU) studied data on nearly 17,000 women who gave birth in the US between 2004-2009. The majority were attended by Certified Professional Midwives.

The source of the data was the Midwives Alliance of North America Statistics Project (MANA Stats), and the midwives provided detailed reports on their cases from their medical records.

Of the 17,000 recorded cases, more than 6,500 of the deliveries were water births. These births were all attended by midwives, and they all took place either in a dedicated birthing center or at home. None of the water births analyzed were carried out in a hospital.

Source: medical news today

Irregular heartbeat is riskier for women

An irregular heartbeat, also known as atrial fibrillation, appears to be a stronger risk factor for heart disease and death in women than in men, according to research published in The BMJ.

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is associated with a higher risk of stroke and death generally, with an estimated 33.5 million people affected globally in 2010, and an age-adjusted mortality rate of 1.7 per 100,000 people.

The prevalence is increasing in both developed and developing countries.

Evidence is now emerging that women and men experience risk factors, such as diabetes and smoking, differently for cardiovascular disease (CVD).

This could have significant implications for estimating the AF burden, targeting treatment to manage it and for future research into gender differences.

An international team of researchers set out to estimate the association between AF and CVD and death in women and men and to compare the genders.

In a meta-analysis of 30 studies published between January 1966 and March 2015, they analyzed data for over 4 million participants.

12% higher risk of mortality for women with AF
All the studies had a minimum of 50 participants with AF and 50 without, which reported sex-specific associations between AF and all-cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality, stroke, cardiac events – including cardiac death and non-fatal myocardial infarction – and heart failure.

They took into consideration the differences in study design and quality in order to minimize bias.

AF was linked to a 12% higher relative risk of all-cause mortality in women and a much stronger risk of stroke, cardiovascular mortality, cardiac events and heart failure. The reason for the gender differences is not known.

With respect to clinical care, the results support the development of a specific risk score for AF in women and more aggressive treatment of risk factors in women, as recently recommended by the American Heart Association (AHA).

In relation to public health policy, the researchers say estimation of the global and regional burden of AF should be independent of sex, while “allocation of public health resources for prevention and treatment of AF should also consider the differential effects of AF by sex.”

Finally, they say future research should aim to determine the underlying causes of the observed sex differences.

Source: BBC news

Families happier with less aggressive end-of-life cancer care

Families may be more satisfied with end-of-life care for loved ones dying of cancer when treatment is focused on comfort rather than aggressive treatment and provided outside of a hospital, a U.S. study suggests.

When patients received at least three days of hospice care focused on comfort and quality of life, 59 percent of their loved ones thought their treatment was excellent, compared with just 43 percent when patients received little or no hospice care, the study found.

At the same time, family members of cancer patients admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) in the last month of life reported excellent care just 45 percent of the time, compared with 52 percent when patients didn’t receive this type of aggressive treatment.

“Interventions should focus more on increasing early hospice enrollment and decreasing ICU admissions and hospital deaths,” said lead study author Dr. Alexi Wright of Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

“The best way to do this is to encourage patients, physicians and family members to talk about their end-of-life wishes,” Wright added by email.

Many patients with advanced cancer receive aggressive medical care during their dying days even though growing evidence suggests that high-intensity treatments may not be associated with better quality of life or outcomes for patients, or an easier bereavement for the loved ones they leave behind, Wright and colleagues report in JAMA.

For the current study, researchers interviewed family members and close friends of 1,146 patients aged 65 and older who died of lung or colorectal cancers.

In most patients, the cancer had spread beyond the original location to other tissue and organs.

Overall, 51 percent of relatives and friends rated their loved ones’ end-of-life care as excellent, and another 29 percent said the quality of care was very good.

When patients had received at least three days of hospice care, most family members – 73 percent – said their loved ones had died where they wanted to. But when patients got little or no hospice care, only 40 percent of participants said the death happened in the location of the patient’s choice.

When patients died in the hospital, just 42 percent of their loved ones reported excellent care, compared with 57 percent when patients didn’t die in a hospital.

It’s possible that hospitalized patients didn’t get good pain or symptom management or emotional and spiritual support, said Dr. David Casarett, director of palliative care for Penn Medicine in Philadelphia.

“Hospice is very good at providing that sort of support and is designed to help people remain in their homes,” Casarett, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.

It’s also possible that families with loved ones in the ICU didn’t have a chance to come to terms with the patient’s death, and were more surprised by the course that events took, Casarett added.

The findings underscore the importance of having family discussions about wishes for end-of-life care and communicating clearly with healthcare providers about these preferences, Casarett said.

If hospice is preferable to more aggressive treatment, it’s crucial to communicate that as early as possible.
Source: fox news

High fish consumption in pregnancy tied to brain benefits for kids

When mothers eat three sizeable servings of fish each week during pregnancy it may benefit children’s brains for years to come, according to a large study in Spain.

Researchers followed nearly 2,000 mother-child pairs from the first trimester of pregnancy through the child’s fifth birthday and found improved brain function in the kids whose mothers ate the most fish while pregnant, compared to children of mothers who ate the least.

Even when women averaged 600 grams, or 21 ounces, of fish weekly during pregnancy, there was no sign that mercury or other pollutants associated with fish were having a negative effect that offset the apparent benefits.

“Seafood is known to be an important source of essential nutrients for brain development, but at the same time accumulates mercury from the environment, which is known to be neurotoxic,” lead author Jordi Julvez, of the Center for Research in Environmental Epidemiology in Barcelona, said in an email.

In an attempt to balance the potential harms of such pollutants with the general health benefits of fish, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s 2014 guidelines encourage pregnant women to eat fish, but no more than 12 ounces per week.

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The European Food Safety Authority recently issued a scientific opinion endorsing 150 g to 600 g of fish weekly during pregnancy, Julvez and colleagues note in the American Journal of Epidemiology. But, the study team writes, the effects of maternal fish consumption during development are still not well understood and more research could help give pregnant women clearer guidance.

The researchers analyzed data from the Spanish Childhood and Environment Project, a large population study that recruited women in their first trimester of pregnancy, in four provinces of Spain, between 2004 and 2008.

Source: foxnews

Broken sleep raises risk of stroke

As people age, they experience new sleep patterns. Insomnia creeps in and falling asleep takes longer. Sleep fragmentation, when sleep is interrupted by repeated awakenings or arousals, can also be a problem.

Changes that occur in circadian rhythms, the body clock that coordinates timing of bodily functions, including sleep, can cause older people to become sleepier in the early evening and to wake earlier in the morning.

Sleep problems can stem from an underlying medical or psychiatric condition, but they are also a risk factor for further health issues, including cardiovascular disease.

Poor sleep quality has been linked with more severe arteriolosclerosis in older people’s brains and of higher levels of oxygen-starved brain tissue, or infarcts. These factors increase the risk of stroke and cognitive impairment.

In the current study, researchers wanted to see if there was an association between sleep fragmentation and detailed microscopic measures of blood vessel damage and infarcts in autopsied brain tissue from the same individuals.

Reduced supply of oxygen to the brain
The team, led by Dr. Andrew Lim, an assistant professor of neurology at the University of Toronto, Canada, examined autopsied brains of 315 people, of whom 70% were women; the average age was 90 years.

Participants had undergone at least 1 full week of around-the-clock monitoring for rest or activity, from which sleep quality and circadian rhythms were quantified. Sleep fragmentation caused sleep to be disrupted on average almost seven times each hour.

In all, 29% of the patients had suffered a stroke, while 61% had signs of moderate to severe damage to their blood vessels in the brain.

Greater sleep fragmentation was associated with a 27% higher chance of having severe arteriolosclerosis. For every additional two arousals per hour of sleep, there was a 30% higher chance of having visible signs of oxygen deprivation in the brain.

Other cardiovascular risk factors, such as body mass index (BMI), smoking history, diabetes, hypertension and other medical conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, pain, depression or heart failure were all adjusted for.

Source: Medical News Today

Easy Way to Prevent Arthritis Pain During Winter Season

My arthritis becomes worse during winter. What can I do for it? What is difference between rheumatic and arthritis pain, and treating arthritis pain? Arthritis is a sensation of discomfort joint and sometimes very painful.

Arthritis can be classified as auto immune arthritis and rheumatoid arthritis as inflammatory and osteoarthritis or degenerative. Many people are suffer from degenerative arthritis, a condition that stem from tear and wear in the cartilage.

Both type of arthritis are responding to anti inflammatory medication and few anti inflammatory supplement foods can help it. On the diet program, it was highly saturated with fat and high sugar content includes high fructose corn syrup that lead to inflammation. It is important to avoid high fat as well as fried foods, saturated red meat and sugary foods.

In order to decrease inflammation, it is recommended to eat food with high nutrient as well as veggies whole grain, leaf green veggie, high fiber foods, pear, whole wheat spaghetti and raspberry. There are large numbers of supplement that can reduce inflammation. Some research shown that turmeric, hops, ginger, ground flax, and fish oil can reduce joint pain.

Some people added chondroitin and glucosamine supplement to find good result at the clinic. Last, modify lifestyle can relieve joint pain because the body can get more healing times. Give more adequate sleep and pay attention to balance and decompress stress to reduce inflammation and enhance body capacity to heal by bound and leaps.

Source: Secretlyhealthy

Infertility treatment ‘does not affect offspring’s early development’

There are ongoing concerns that conception through infertility treatment may negatively impact the development of offspring. But a new study hopes to alleviate these concerns, after finding that children conceived thorugh infertility treatment were at no higher risk for early developmental delays than those who were not conceived through such treatment.

Edwina Yeung, PhD, of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) – part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – and colleagues publish their findings in JAMA Pediatrics.

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), around 1.5% of all infants in the US are conceived using assisted reproductive technology (ART), such as in vitro fertilization (IVF).

Previous studies have suggested such treatment may lead to developmental problems among offspring; Yeung and colleagues point to a 2013 Swedish study that identified an 18% greater risk of intellectual disability among children conceived through a form of ART called intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). However, many other studies have found no such association.

Additionally, the researchers note that few studies have assessed how non-ART infertility treatments, such as ovulation induction (OI) – the stimulation of ovulation through medication – impacts the risk for developmental delays among offspring.

“In response to critical data gaps, we designed the Upstate KIDS Study to specifically assess the association between the mode of conception and children’s development through age 3 years,” say the authors.

Drawing data on infertility treatment types and offspring’s development
The Upstate KIDS Study involved 1,422 mothers of 1,830 children who were conceived through infertility treatment and 3,402 mothers of 4,011 children who were not conceived through such treatment. All children were born in New York State between 2008-2010.

The team notes that parents of twins and other multiples were included in the study, and there were around three times as many singleton children in the non-treatment group than the treatment group.

Four months after the mothers gave birth, they were asked to complete a questionnaire detailing the type of infertility treatment they underwent. These included ART treatments, such as IVF, frozen embryo transfer, assisted hatching and zygote intrafallopian transfer, and the non-ART treatment OI, with or without intrauterine insemination (IUI).

When the children were aged 4-6, 8, 12, 18, 24 and 36 months, their mothers completed a questionnaire that was used to identify developmental disabilities. Specifically, the questionnaire was used to assess children’s fine motor skills, gross motor skills, communication, problem-solving abilities and personal and social functioning.

Findings ‘provide reassurance’ to couples receiving infertility treatment
Overall, the researchers found there was no difference in the risk of developmental disabilities between children conceived via infertility treatment – regardless of ART or non-ART treatments – and those who were not.

Accounting only for children who were conceived via ART, the researchers found they were more likely than those in the non-treatment group to have developmental delays; they were most likely to have difficulties with problem-solving and personal and social functioning.

However, when the team accounted for the significantly higher number of twins in the ART group – after noticing twins were at higher risk of developmental problems than singletons – there was no difference in the risk of developmental disabilities between children conceived through ART and those in the non-treatment group.

Additionally, the researchers found no difference in the percentage of children who were referred for assessment by developmental specialists between treatment and non-treatment groups.

Among children who were diagnosed with a developmental disability aged 3-4 years, the researchers identified no significant differences between those conceived through infertility treatment and those who were not.

Source: medicalnewstoday

How exercise can enhance memory and learning

Science has proven how exercise can improve weight loss results as well as reduce the risk of developing some chronic diseases, but could working out also improve the health of your brain and make you smarter?

“We know exercise can stimulate the growth of brand-new brain cells in the hippocampus, and because we know that the hippocampus is important for long-term memory and imagination, this suggests that exercise can improve not only memory function but our creativity as well,” Dr. Wendy Suzuki, a neuroscientist and professor at New York University and author of “Healthy Brain, Happy Life,” told FoxNews.com.

“It helps parts of the brain important for attention, for memory and for mood, and it does this by doing things like changing the anatomical structure of the brain— it actually increases the size of some of these areas, and enhances the physiological responses of these areas.”

Most studies on the effects of exercise have been done in the elderly, but Suzuki wanted to see if exercise could change the brains of young and healthy adults. She set out to learn whether that was possible by studying her students at NYU.

After getting certified as a group fitness instructor, Suzuki told her students they would be actively participating in the research process. She would teach ‘intentional exercise,’ a type of class similar to intenSati, where you make exercise aerobic and mental by yelling positive affirmations or mantras like “I am strong” or “I am powerful” while exercising.

“Each class was one hour of me teaching them aerobic exercise, followed by an hour and a half lecture discussion talking about and telling them about what exercise was doing to their brain,” she said.

Suzuki would also test her young participants with a memory-encoding task at the beginning and end of the course. The task was designed to clearly show the function of one section of the hippocampus.

“I tested students on a challenging memory task that required them to differentiate between similar-looking objects in memory. I found that one semester of increased exercise in my class improved their response times for correctly answered questions. In other words, they answered correctly more quickly if they were in my exercise class compared to if they were not in the exercise class,” Suzuki said.

“Improvements in response times have been reported before, but this was unique because it was shown in a group of healthy young university students with just once a week of increased exercise. This suggests that if significant effects can be seen with this modest amount of exercise, then we might see even more striking effects if we got up to two to four times a week of increased exercise.”

Even though her research was on young students, exercising can improve the health of your brain at any age, Suzuki said.

“You don’t have to be a triathlete to get the benefits of exercise on your brain. No matter what age you are, no matter what health status you are, you can get these benefits of exercise.”

Like in most types of chronic disease, stress can have detrimental effects on the brain. Long-term stress can affect several areas of the brain, including the hippocampus, the prefrontal cortex— which is essential for cognitive abilities like the working memory, decision making and flexible thinking— and the amygdala, which is responsible for the response and memory of emotions, especially fear.

“It [stress] actually makes certain brain areas smaller,” Suzuki said. “People that have chronic stress have smaller parts of the brain that are important for memory. That part of the brain is called the hippocampus.”

To protect yourself from brain cell-killing stress, Suzuki refers to exercise.

“We know if you put animals on exercise, you can help protect their brains from lots of stress that you can give them, but not only that— if animals are already stressed and you put them on an exercise program, you can regrow these brain areas that are being attacked by stress hormones in the blood stream,” she said.

Aside from exercise, Suzuki believes we can exercise our brain with what she calls simple brain hacks that can enhance certain functions.

Source: Foxnews

Mysterious Syndrome Can Cause People to Become ‘Drunk’ Without Drinking

The baffling case of a woman who was arrested for DWI without drinking has spotlighted a rare condition called “Auto-Brewery” syndrome, where the digestive system becomes its own tiny brewery.

The woman was able to get the charges dismissed after her lawyer presented evidence by a doctor that she had the rare syndrome, according to the AP. The syndrome causes substances in the gut to ferment food into ethanol, thereby causing a person’s blood-alcohol level to spike. While the story of food-turning-to-alcohol in the body may seem like a convenient tale for the police, doctors have found the rare condition in multiple patients.

As a person’s blood-alcohol level rises, he or she can exhibit all the same symptoms as someone who drank too much liquor, including slurred words and confusion. In one case, the patient said that alcohol could be smelled on their breath.

Dr. Richard Peek, a professor of medicine and cancer biology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said the cause of the symptoms is not fully understood although there is one likely culprit.

“Yeast are normally in the GI tract and the commonality of all these case reports is they have an increased number of candida,” Peek told ABC News. “When [yeast] ingest a meal that has a high amount of carbohydrates, they metabolize the carbohydrates into ethanol.”

Peek said the alteration of the gut’s bacteria, called the microbiome, has far-reaching effects with auto-brewery syndrome being one of the most drastic results.

“These observations show the importance of gastric microbiota or microbiome in altering functions,” Peek said. “It really can regulate or cause disease such as irresistible bowel syndrome and it’s been linked to metabolic syndrome, diabetes, fatty liver.”

Peek said more study was needed to pinpoint the exact cause and find a cure that works for all patients.

“You could recommend a low carbohydrate diet and in some cases that has worked to reverse the symptoms,” Peek said, stressing that these treatments have not been proven for every patient. “You can treat the patients with antifungal medications to reduce the load of candida in microbiota.”

While most people will not end up with a tiny “brewery” in their gut, Peek said anyone can face an alteration of their micrombiome, due to illness, antibiotics or other conditions.

He recommended a good diet, exercise and occasional probiotics to achieve a healthy microbiome.

Source: abcnews

How healthy foods could lead to overeating

Is your New Year’s resolution to eat more healthily? If so, watch out: foods portrayed as healthy may lead to overeating and contribute to weight gain, according to new research.

In the cookie experiment, researchers found that participants who consumed the “healthy” cookie reported greater hunger after eating than those who consumed the cookie portrayed as unhealthy.

What is more, in the real world experiment, the team found that participants ordered larger portion sizes before watching the film and ate more food during the film when food was portrayed as healthy, compared with when food was portrayed as unhealthy.

Interestingly, even individuals who did not believe in the theory that unhealthy foods are less filling – as determined by the Implicit Association Test – reported greater hunger after consuming the “healthy” cookie and ordered and consumed more food when it was portrayed as healthy.

In the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, investigators found that if we perceive a certain food to be healthy, we are likely to consume more of it.

According to study coauthor Jacob Suher and colleagues, from the University of Texas-Austin, their findings support the “healthy equals less filling” theory – the idea that we consume healthy foods in larger amounts because we consider them less filling than unhealthy foods.

The researchers conducted three experiments on three groups of participants to reach their findings.

Firstly, the team enrolled 50 undergraduate students to complete the Implicit Association Test, which was used to assess whether they believed healthy foods to be less filling than unhealthy foods.

Next, the researchers asked 40 graduate students to consume a cookie; one cookie was presented to them in packaging with nutritional information that represented it as unhealthy, while the other cookie was portrayed as healthy.

After consuming the cookie, participants were asked to report their hunger levels.

In a third “real world” experiment involving 72 undergraduate students, the team assessed how health portrayals of food affected the amount of food participants ordered prior to watching a short film, and how such portrayals impacted the amount of food consumed during the film.

Source: medical news today