Other Diseases & Conditions

It is never too late to adopt a healthful lifestyle. Researchers followed the records of people over age 80 (61 percent women) for an average five years and found that those with the most healthful lifestyle (no smoking, regular exercise and varied diet) were most likely to live to be 100 years old, be free of chronic diseases, have higher physical and cognitive function, and have far less mental illness. Less likely lifestyle factors for living from age 80 to 100 were: where a person lived, years of education, marital status, having chronic medical conditions, u.sing alcohol or being obese. In this study, 1454 people lived to be 100 and 3768 died before reaching 100 years

About 40 percent of U.S. households cook with gas stoves. A recent study reported that “12.7 percent of current childhood asthma in the US is attributable to gas stove use." However, the authors did not show that gas stoves cause asthma. They presented evidence that gas stoves emit gases such as nitrogen dioxide, that can worsen symptoms in people who have asthma. Any air pollutant can cause an asthmatic to cough, wheeze and become short of breath. These authors have not demonstrated cause-and-effect, they only found an association between gas stoves and asthmatic symptoms.

Dry skin on any part of the body can be annoying and can cause flaking and cracking, redness due to scratching, and unsightly patches of thick or hard skin. When dry skin occurs on the feet, the symptoms are magnified due to wearing shoes, the stretching of the skin on the feet with every step . . .

Up to 60 percent of North American adults suffer from night-time leg cramps, a sudden painful contraction usually of the calf muscles that can last from a few seconds up to 10 minutes or more. Doctors do not know what causes most cases of leg cramps, but usually they are not caused by dehydration or lack of minerals.

A new study found that a two-year program of personalized instruction on specific lifestyle changes helped to delay and prevent loss of memory in a study group of 172 people who were at high risk for dementia (JAMA Intern Med, Jan 1, 2024;184(1):54-62). The modifiable risk factors identified for this study included hearing loss, high blood pressure, alcohol consumption, obesity, smoking, air pollution, depression, levels of physical activity and socialization, and diabetes control. People in the special instruction group had a 74 percent greater improvement in memory, compared to the group that did not receive regular and continuous special instruction.

Too much sun exposure can cause skin cancers, but getting small amounts of sunlight on your skin for short periods may have some benefits beyond providing vitamin D The problem is that nobody really knows how much sun exposure an individual can tolerate without increasing skin cancer risk.

Almost all skin cancers are caused by repeated damage to the DNA in skin cells from excessive exposure to sunlight. Every cell in your body is programmed to live for a limited time and then die. This is called apoptosis. For example, red blood cells live for only around 120 days and then die. A new skin cell starts on the inner bottom layer of your skin and then progressively moves to the outside, where it is sloughed off as dander or dandruff at about 28 days.

Human papilloma viruses (HPVs) can cause several types of cancer. There are 12 high-risk HPV types: HPV 16, 18, 31, 33, 35, 39, 45, 51, 52, 56, 58, and 59. Two of these, HPV 16 and HPV 18, are responsible for most HPV-related cancers.

Dentists do not agree on whether it is better to brush before or after breakfast. I think you should brush after breakfast, but you should try to wait and brush at least 30 minutes after eating. If that doesn't fit into your schedule, do whatever works best for you. Any brushing is better than no brushing.

The macula is located in the retina in the back of the eye and provides central vision, most of the color vision and the fine details of vision. Age Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) is a chronic eye disorder. The earliest symptoms of macular degeneration are blurring of vision, distortion of vision (i.e. lines are no longer straight or letters seem bunched up) or areas of central vision that appear to be blackened, greyed or whited out.

Sitting and lying without moving for long periods is a significant risk factor for dementia. In a recent study, almost 50,000 non-demented people in the UK, age 60 and older, wore wrist accelerometers 24 hours a day for a week to measure their levels of activity, and were then followed for almost seven years. By the end of the follow-up period, 414 of the participants had been diagnosed with dementia. Compared to sitting for a little over nine hours a day, those who spent 10 hours a day sitting or lying had an eight percent increased risk for becoming demented and those who spent 12 or more hours not moving had a 63 percent increased risk for becoming demented.

Two studies were presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Studies (2023), showing that regular use of marijuana markedly increases risk for heart attacks and strokes in people with high blood pressure and/or high cholesterol (CNN Health, Nov 6, 2023). Marijuana increases risk for heart failure by about one-third, compared to people who reported never using marijuana.

All people can develop body odor when certain bacteria or fungi colonize on their skin. Normal sweat doesn’t smell when it first reaches your skin. The odor usually comes only after certain microbes on the skin’s surface break down the fat in sweat to form chemicals that smell. Most sweat glands produce sweat that contains no fat, but the sweat glands around the breasts, genitals and armpits produce sweat that contains fat.

A study of 44,000 Swedish adults, 64 to 99 years of age, followed for up to 35 years, found that 2.7 percent (1,224) lived to their 100th birthday (Geroscience, Nov 4, 2023). Among the 1,224 centenarians in this study, 84 percent were women. The researchers wanted to find out which blood tests (measures of metabolism, inflammation, liver function, kidney function, anemia, and nutritional status) would appear to predict longevity.

Refusing to wear a mask when you have a respiratory infection and are near other people shows total disregard for their health. We have just gone through the major portion of a COVID-19 epidemic and can expect other epidemics from this and other viruses in the future. Many studies show that a proper mask will block some of the viruses, and droplets spread when an infected person coughs, sneezes, breathes or talks.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that 20 million new cases of venereal diseases occur every year. One out of five North American adults have a sexually transmitted disease (STD), and STDs cost the U.S. healthcare system nearly $16 billion/year. Worldwide, 31 percent of adults have genital herpes (HPV) that causes many cases of genital and oral cancers

An early colon cancer often has no symptoms whatever, so screening tests can boost survival rates by diagnosing a colon cancer before it has caused symptoms and spread to other parts of the body. Polyps detected in any of the screening tests can be removed, which greatly improves the rates of survival.

A study from Spain called the Vallecas Project has followed 1169 non-demented people, average age 74.4, for six years and found that some of the participants had memory test scores that were equal to people who were 30 years younger. The authors call the high-scorers "superagers" and they have done further testing on 64 of them, with a matched control group of 55 "typical older adults" who had average memory test scores.

Ten thousad people attended the Alzheimer's Association International Conference (AAIC) in Amsterdam on July 19, 2023, which featured more than 3,000 scientific presentations. Much of this conference dealt with amyloid plaques and the drugs associated with them. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved anti-amyloid drugs Lecanemab (Leqembi, Eisai) and Aducanumab (Aduhelm TM), and fast-tracked a third drug, Aducanumab. These drugs may help to slow brain damage caused by amyloid plaques that deposit in and damage the brain as much as 20 years before a person suffers loss of mental function.

Researchers at the Centre for Ecological Research in Hungary analyzed the death records for 110,148 animals from 191 mammal species that died in zoos and found that carnivorous mammals were much more likely to die of cancer than mammals that rarely or never eat animals. Humans are mammals, so we might expect to see similar results in studies of human diets.

A study of 1,799 people, who had suffered and survived strokes at the average age of 62, found that stroke risk is markedly increased by sleep disturbance symptoms, poor sleep quality, napping for long periods, and sleep apnea symptoms (Neurology, May 23, 2023;100(21): e2191–e2203). The stroke survivors were compared to age-matched people who had not had a stroke and the results were adjusted for smoking, physical activity, depression, and alcohol intake.

Many of the more than 150 strains of Human Papilloma Viruses (HPV) are relatively harmless, but about 15 are classified as high-risk types because they can cause cancer and other health problems. A single dose of the vaccine for types 16, 18 and the other high-risk types of HPV appears to provide at least eight years of protection against these infections. These viruses are the most common cause of cancers of the cervix and other parts of the uterus, as well as of the penis, anus, throat, vagina and vulva

I am following the latest Bivalent Booster Protects Against the Most Recent COVID-19 Viruses: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that the bivalent COVID-19 vaccine that is available today helps protect against infection by the omicron variant XBB and its subvariant XBB.1.5 that dominate infections today. The present bivalent booster was made specifically against both the initial SARS-CoV-2 virus and the BA.4/BA.5 variants. However, BA.5 and its subvariants account for just about two percent of cases now, and BA.4 and the original virus are essentially gone.developments on COVID-19.

It is common and normal for people to occasionally have difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep at night, but if this occurs on a regular basis and interferes with functioning during the daylight hours, you may need a medical evaluation to find the cause. Getting fewer than seven hours of sleep each night is associated with increased risk for heart attacks, depression, weight gain and diabetes.

Obesity in your 40's-60's increases risk for developing the dementia of Alzheimer’s disease later in life. Researchers analyzed brain scans of more than 1,300 people from the UK Biobank and found that people who were obese in midlife had already lost gray matter in the brain in the same areas as those who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease.

The National Health and Aging Trends Study from Johns Hopkins followed 2,413 community-dwelling participants aged 65 and older, and found that 10.3 percent suffered from dementia. Of those with dementia, 36.7 percent suffered mild hearing loss and and 29.8 percent had moderate to severe hearing loss. The people with moderate to severe hearing loss were 61 percent more likely to suffer from dementia than those with normal hearing, and every 10-decibel loss of hearing was associated with a 16 percent increase in dementia risk.

About 22 percent of North Americans ages 85-89 and 33 percent of those over 90 suffer some degree of dementia. A study from the Chicago Health and Aging Project, which followed 2449 men and women over age 65, suggests that there is a lot that you can do to help protect yourself from dementia. The healthful lifestyle factors tracked in this study included diet, physical activity, cognitive activity, not smoking, and avoiding or limiting alcohol

Every week I receive emails asking why I recommend vaccinations against COVID-19 when they can have serious side effects that can result in hospitalizations and deaths. I have been following the data and research since the beginning of the pandemic, and they clearly show that: • Vaccination helps to prevent hospitalization or death from COVID-19 by a very wide margin • The rates of heart damage or death from vaccination are vastly lower than from the disease itself

This winter is expected to be a severe flu season. Flu virus is headed here from the southern hemisphere, and Australia already has a very severe flu season. Only 49 percent of North Americans plan to get a flu shot during the 2022-2023 flu season, according to a survey by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID).

A study from Israel found that intense exercise may help to prevent cancer from spreading, in humans and in mice, by using up body sugars so that less energy is available for the tumor cells to grow and spread. Compared to non-exercisers, those who exercised regularly before they developed cancers had a slightly reduced incidence of cancer, while those who exercised at high intensity after developing cancer had a 72 percent lower incidence of metastatic cancer than those who did not exercise after developing cancer.