|
6564. arkymalarky - 7/14/2005 9:56:20 PM Thanks Judith. This man's background sounded good, and I would trust my doctor's choices of people to come into his office, but I couldn't remember what I'd heard about DO's and couldn't get a lot of information that wasn't pretty vague. 6565. thoughtful - 8/4/2005 2:44:34 PM Articles like this annoy me....correlation is not causation. And they ignore completely the possibility that people who are interested in yoga are also generally more interested in their health and thus more likely to watch their weight.
Anyway, here it is for your digestion:
Practicing yoga may be one way to prevent middle-aged spread, according to the findings of a new study.
Although the connection appears to be indirect, yoga practitioners are apparently able to avoid - or at least minimize - the one-pound-a-year of gained weight that most people endure between the ages of 45 and 55.
The researchers used data from more than 15,000 men and women ages 53 to 57, who reported their weight at age 45 and their current weight.
The subjects were also asked to report whether they engaged regularly in three specific recreational activities - walking, weight lifting, and yoga - and whether they participated in two broader categories of activity, moderate and strenuous exercise. The researchers assessed the diet of the study participants using a detailed food questionnaire.
Practicing yoga for 4 or more years, for at least 30 minutes once a week, was associated with a 3.1-pound lower weight gain among people who were normal weight at age 45. The yoga practitioners who were overweight at 45 lost an average of 5 pounds, as opposed to an average gain of 13 pounds in overweight nonpractitioners. Being overweight was defined as having a body mass index of 25 or greater. 6566. wonkers2 - 8/18/2005 3:44:31 PM High altitude pulmonary edema. Sounds like this is what got my sister's fiance last weekend at 14,000 feet in the Peruvian Andes. Here. 6567. thoughtful - 9/29/2005 5:56:53 PM latest nutrition action newsletter does a review of the CDC study which suggested that people who are slightly overweight tend to live longer than those who are thinner.
They essentially destroy the study results. Key considerations are that they did not adequately adjust for people who are already ill and the aged. People who are ill and old tend to lose weight as they tend to be less healthy...think of those who literally waste away as a result of disease.
There were a number of other criticisms of the study including its use of the BMI which is a poor indicator. The waist to hip ratio measurement is a better indicator, esp as one ages as one tends to lose muscle. So one could easily be the same weight at 65 that they were at 25 but if it's fat and not lean muscle mass, they are clearly not as healthy.
Their final point was, many studies have had difficulties adjusting for various factors when trying to associate long life with weight. However, the studies are very clear on the correlation with being overweight and the risk of disease including diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc. So, it's best to maintain a low, healthy weight and minimize the risk of these horrible diseases. 6568. wonkers2 - 10/2/2005 3:48:07 PM What Americans have to look forward to. 6569. thoughtful - 10/5/2005 7:50:19 PM Doc has had hubby on Red Yeast Rice to lower cholesterol. Hubby went to apothecary to get more and she said that the stuff is no good...the statins...the chems that reduce cholesterol... have been taken out by law by the FDA and the stuff may actually be harmful to take while doing no good. (No comment as to who was behind that move!)
I sent a note to doc to see what he has to say and we'll go fro there. Frankly I'd rather he didn't take the stuff at all since he has 0 history of cholesterol problems in his family. 6570. judithathome - 10/5/2005 9:27:45 PM Well, my doc said it seemed to be working on me.... 6571. thoughtful - 10/6/2005 2:41:34 PM From Whole Health MD
If you've been waiting for solid scientific evidence before trying red yeast rice extract (original brand name, Cholestin) to lower your cholesterol, there's good news and bad news, as doctors like to say. The good news first. A rigorous trial from the UCLA School of Medicine, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 1999, confirmed that a supplement known as red yeast extract reduces cholesterol levels by an average of 40 points in 12 weeks when combined with a low-fat diet. That's about the same result you'd expect from a low dose of the popular cholesterol drug, Mevacor.
Red yeast extract contains a number of cholesterol-lowering compounds known as statins, among them lovastatin, the same active ingredient that's in Mevacor. Other red yeast compounds are similar to those in other cholesterol medications, such as Lipitor (atorvastatin) and Zocor (simvastatin). Which brings us to the bad news. Because red yeast extract contains lovastatin, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has successfully banned red yeast rice from open store shelves, arguing that it's really a drug, needing a doctor's prescription. Therefore, red yeast rice can no longer be sold an unregulated supplement. Should it return to the market, it will require full FDA oversight, as do all other prescription drugs. 6572. wonkers2 - 10/6/2005 4:59:46 PM My brother-in-law who is a drug research scientist is recommending Tamiflu as a treatment? or preventive? for avian flu. Anybody know anything about it? 6573. wonkers2 - 10/6/2005 5:00:22 PM I believe he said it's a new anti-viral drug. 6574. Magoseph - 10/6/2005 5:07:25 PM tamiflu
Tamiflu is for treating adults, adolescents, and pediatric patients 1year of age and older with the flu whose flu symptoms started within the last day or two. Tamiflu is also used to reduce the chance of getting the flu in people age 13 and older who have a higher chance of getting the flu because they spend time with someone who has the flu. Tamiflu can also reduce the chance of getting the flu if there is a flu outbreak in the community.
6575. PelleNilsson - 10/6/2005 5:37:13 PM Yes, Tamiflu is the drug authorities hope will keep essential societal services going if a pandemic breaks out. It will take time to produce a vaccin in quantity because (a) it cannot be designed until the virus has already mutatated to spread between humans and (b) the production involves fertilized chicken eggs which come from specially bred livestock so production capacity is limited. 6576. wonkers2 - 10/21/2005 8:25:55 PM The Aging Enigma 6577. judithathome - 10/21/2005 9:58:08 PM Well, of course they took red yeast rice off the market. Because it works and is extremely cheap compared to prescription drugs, they couldn't let it run riot over the competition. 6578. PelleNilsson - 10/21/2005 10:27:18 PM Who are "they"? 6579. robertjayb - 11/13/2005 11:01:54 PM Marrow stem cells boost heart function...(Reuters)
DALLAS, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Heart attack survivors whose hearts were infused with stem cells from their own bone marrow showed nearly twice the improvement in the organ's pumping ability as patients given a placebo, according to a new study presented on Sunday.
A further analysis of the data found that benefits to heart function seen four months after an attack appeared to be most pronounced in patients with more severe heart attacks that caused greater damage to the muscle, researchers said at the American Heart Association annual scientific meeting. 6580. alistairConnor - 11/13/2005 11:35:36 PM Damn. That's serious.
Immortality is not far off. 6581. judithathome - 11/13/2005 11:45:43 PM Who are "they"?
Pharmaceutical companies and the FDA.
6582. Jenerator - 11/14/2005 7:25:11 PM wonkers,
Tamiflu is new? It's been around for awhile in pill and shot forms. 6583. thoughtful - 11/15/2005 4:50:21 PM Today's NYT and heart disease risk...better than BMI, get out the tape measure:
A study in the Nov. 5 issue of Lancet, the medical journal, has found that waist-to-hip ratio is a better predictor of heart attack.
A waist-to-hip ratio (waist measurement divided by hip measurement) below 0.85 in women or 0.9 in men is average. Anything above that is a risk for heart disease.
The researchers, led by Dr. Salim Yusuf, a professor of medicine at McMaster University near Toronto, studied 12,461 people who had had a first heart attack and compared them to a matched group of 14,637 without heart disease.
A body mass index greater than 28.2 in women or 28.6 in men did indicate an increased risk of heart attack, but the relationship disappeared after adjusting for age, sex, geographic region and tobacco use.
Waist-to-hip ratio, on the other hand, showed a continuous relationship to heart attack risk even after adjusting for other risk factors. Those in the highest fifth were 2.52 times as likely to have a heart attack as those in the lowest fifth.
|
