Health Care Blog

The condition, called varicocele, is a network of tangled blood vessels in the scrotum which prevents the normal circulation of blood through the veins in the testicles. A minimally invasive radiological procedure called embolization can, in most cases, correct the problem. “Using the embolization of varicoceles, we were able to improve factors related to infertility, especially sperm count and sperm motility,” said lead researcher Dr. Sebastian Flacke, an associate professor of radiology at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. In embolization, a small catheter is inserted into the groin and, using X-ray guidance, is placed in the varicocele. Once the catheter is placed, a tiny platinum coil and a few milliliters of an agent to ensure the closure of the gonadic vein are also inserted. The minimally invasive procedure has a short recovery time; most patients go home the next day. Varicoceles are very common, Flacke noted. In fact, about 20 percent of all men have them. Not al...

Long-time mobile phone users who talk more than an hour a day on the devices may be may be more likely to have high-frequency hearing loss, researchers say. “Our intention is not to scare the public,” says Naresh K. Panda, MS, DNB, chairman of the department of ear, nose, and throat at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh, India, and researcher for the study. The study, he tells WebMD, is preliminary and small. “We need to study a larger number of patients.” His team found that people who had talked on cell phones for more than four years and those who talked more than an hour daily were more likely to have these high-frequency losses. These losses can make it difficult to hear consonants such as s, f, t and z, making it hard to understand words. But another hearing expert familiar with the study says there is as yet no cause for alarm. Panda and his colleagues evaluated 100 people, aged 18 to 45, who had used mobile phones for at least a year, d...

In the journal Cell, researchers report that when a worm gene called elt-3 becomes less active, lots of other genes do the same, and worms age. So what, you ask? The scientists want to find out if a similar process happens in other animals, including humans. If so, keeping key genes active may keep aging at bay. Stanford University’s Yelena Budovskaya and colleagues basically showed that aging is written into worms’ genetic script — at least, in a lab where worms lived out their days without becoming some other animal’s supper. The elt-3 gene was one of the worms’ important aging genes. When the elt-3 slowed down, aging picked up its pace. Budovskaya’s team notes that in humans and other mammals, aging has been shown to result from DNA damage, stress, and inflammation. The worm findings don’t change that, but scientists write that it will be “interesting” to see if changes in gene activity are also part of the aging process. If so, that could lead to a search for ways to edit the gen...

Kidney stones, crystals that develop in the kidneys or the tubes that carry urine from the kidney to the bladder, affect 10 percent of the U.S. population, and men run a four times greater risk than women of developing them. The chance of forming kidney stones rises steeply after the age of 40. Oxalate, a key chemical in the formation of kidney stones, comes in high concentrations in iced tea. “For many people, iced tea is potentially one of the worst things they can drink,” John Milner, an instructor in the department of urology at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, said in a news release. “For people who have a tendency to form kidney stones, it’s definitely one of the worst things you can drink.” The failure to stay hydrated is a common cause of kidney stones. Summertime heat and humidity, which causes excessively sweating and dehydration, combined with an marked increase in iced tea consumption in the United States, raises the risk of kidney stones during this t...

High-dose hyperbaric oxygen therapy shows promise as a way to extend the window of opportunity to resuscitate a person whose heart has stopped during sudden cardiac arrest, a new study shows. Researchers at the School of Medicine at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans report they used the technique to revive pigs up to 25 minutes after their hearts had stopped beating. In humans, if a patient’s heart is not restarted through some means (CPR, medications or electric shock) within 16 minutes, 100 percent of patients die, according to American Heart Association statistics. “To resuscitate any living organism after 25 minutes of heart stoppage at room temperature has never been reported and suggests that the time to successful resuscitation in humans may be extended beyond the stubborn figure of 16 minutes that has stood for 50 years,” study leader Keith Van Meter, a clinical professor of medicine at the LSU center, said in an university news release. In t...

There you are, sitting on the couch, remote in hand, thinking, “I should be exercising. If only I weren’t too tired to get off the couch!” Indeed, fatigue is among the most common complaints doctors hear. But you might be surprised to learn that experts say one of the best antidotes to beating fatigue and boosting energy is to exercise more, not less. “It’s now been shown in many studies that once you actually start moving around — even just getting up off the couch and walking around the room — the more you will want to move, and, ultimately, the more energy you will feel,” says Robert E. Thayer, PhD, a psychology professor at California State University, Long Beach, and author of the book Calm Energy: How People Regulate Mood With Food. And, experts say, when it comes to fighting fatigue, not all exercise is created equal. Read on to find out what kind of exercise and how much you should be doing for optimum energy-boosting results. In a study published in the journal Psychotherapy ...

That news comes from Norway, where people often eat fatty fish such as salmon, lean fish such as cod, and processed fish such as fish “fingers.” In a Norwegian study, about 2,030 people in their early 70s reported their fish consumption and took various mental skills tests. People who reported eating on average at least a third of an ounce of fish per day 10 grams outscored those who skimped on fish, regardless of factors including age, education, and heart health. Most participants ate fish, and the more fish they ate, the better their test scores were up to a point. Test scores leveled off for people who ate more than about 2.5 to 2.8 daily ounces of fish.To put that in perspective, 3 ounces of fish is about the size of a checkbook, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The Norwegian researchers who included Eha Nurk, MD, of Norway’s University of Oslo didn’t follow the elders over time, so they can’t prove that fish boosted test scores. But a new Dutch study con...

Three new studies shed more light on how diet affects your odds of developing type 2 diabetes. Each study covers a different aspect of diet. Together, the studies show that diabetes risk may rise if you drink too many sodas and sweetened fruit drinks, fall if you eat more fruits and vegetables, and may not be affected by how much fat you eat. But there’s another key theme that runs through the studies: There’s no getting around calories. Blow your calorie budget and you’ll gain weight, which makes type 2 diabetes more likely. “Until we have more information, we have to assume that calories trump everything else, and that our No. 1 goal for the reduction of new cases of type 2 diabetes should be to reduce the intake of high-energy, low-benefit foods,” especially in young people at high risk of diabetes, write Mark Feinglos, MD, CM, and Susan Totten, RD, from Duke University Medical Center. Sugary sodas and fruit drinks may be linked to increased risk of type 2 diabetes in African-Amer...

It seemed a good idea at the time. But you were young, wild, and in love with Roland. Now you are getting married to Ed and you want Roland’s name off your right calf. It seems that when it comes to getting tattoos removed, more women than men go in for the procedure. Researchers compared results of a 1996 study to a 2006 study looking at how people feel about their tattoos. Participants were people who came to four dermatology clinics in Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts, and Texas. The study was led by Myrna L. Armstrong, RD, EdD, of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. In background information presented with the findings, the researchers write “the vast majority of individuals who are tattooed are pleased with their skin markings (up to 83%).” Apparently about a fifth are estimated to be unhappy with their tattoos, while “only about 6% seek removal.” In the 2006 study, researchers interviewed 196 tattooed people; 130 of them were women and 66 were men. The researcher...

The researchers recorded activity in the hippocampus a brain region involved in learning and memory in 11 young and 11 old rats as they navigated mazes for food rewards. The rats’ hippocampal activity was recorded again when they slept. In the young rats, the sequence of neural activity recorded while they navigated the mazes was repeated while they slept. This was not the case in most of the older rats. The researchers also found that among both young and old rats, those with the best sleep replay performed the best in their age groups on spatial memory tasks. “This is the first study to suggest that an animal’s ability to perform a spatial memory task may be related to the brain’s ability to perform memory consolidation during sleep,” study author Carol Barnes said in a Society for Neuroscience news release. “These findings suggest that some of the memory impairment experienced during aging could involve a reduction in the automatic process of experience replay,” Michael Hasselmo, ...

The possible link was uncovered in an analysis of mold and health conditions in several cities in eastern and western Europe. And it could one day lead to the addition of emotional problems to the list of health woes caused by mold, the study authors said. But, the researchers cautioned, it’s still too soon to tell if exposure to mold is directly related to depression, or whether an already depressed person might simply relinquish control of their surroundings to the degree that mold may develop. “There is some preliminary evidence which suggests that high levels of exposure to mold may lead to depression,” said study lead author Edmond D. Shenassa, an assistant professor of community health at Brown University School of Medicine. “But it’s not a certainty,” he stressed. “We have found an association between mold and risk of depression, but we have more work to do to see if this is causal situation.” Molds are ubiquitous and toxic microscopic organisms called fungi that come in a varie...

A new study suggests a genetic link between women’s heart disease risk, migraine with aura, and a genetic variant carried by about 11% of the population. Migraine symptoms vary and may occur with a warning sign called an aura. The aura usually begins about 30 minutes before the headache starts and consists of visual cues such as seeing spots, wavy lines, or flashing lights. Some people may also have numbness or a pins-and-needles sensation in their hands. In the study, published in Neurology, researchers examined the relationship between genes, migraine headache, and heart disease in more than 25,000 white women who participated in the Women’s Health Study. The women were tested for a certain gene variant in the MTHFR gene, which in previous studies has been associated with an increased risk of vascular events in patients who experience migraine with aura. They also completed a questionnaire about migraine headaches. Over a 12-year follow-up period, 625 women suffered from a heart-rela...

So, you think you lead a healthy lifestyle, eat the right stuff, exercise adequately and look after your skin. Stop and take a closer look. Are you doing things that could inadvertently damage your skin? These silent killers may be the reason your appearance is lacklustre despite your best efforts. 1. Not drinking enough water This is perhaps the most repeated advice and the least followed. Your body needs at least two litres a day to remove toxins from your system, partly through your kidneys and partly through your skin. Lacking this, toxin build-up will affect your skin as well as your general health, making you tired and dull. Keep that bottle on your desk, and drink! 2. Picking your pimples We do it unconsciously, when nervous, or just as a habit. Pimples don't harm your face permanently. What leaves untreatable scars is your picking, pinching and playing with them -- scars so deep that even dermatologist cannot get rid of them 100 per cent. Prevention is the best cure, so s...

The next time you serve your favorite Italian dish, consider ditching the bottled garlic and opt for fresh garlic instead. Fresh garlic may be better for you, according to new research published in the American Chemical Society’s Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Researchers in Japan compared fresh garlic with garlic preserved in water, alcohol, and vegetable oil, specifically measuring a key ingredient called allicin. Allicin is the main active ingredient in garlic and the chemical responsible for its characteristic smell. Allicin is widely promoted for its antibacterial properties. Some studies have shown that allicin helps fight infections and may help prevent bacteria-related food poisoning. Other research has suggested that the compound can help against blood clots and certain cancers. Allicin is fragile and disappears quickly, leading the study’s researchers to question whether various storage methods would affect its levels. The team’s experiments ...

AYURVEDIC TIPS : HAIR LOSS AND BALDNESS TREATMENT Hair loss, thinning of hair and balding are some of the common hair problems. Many of us suffer from these ailments due to our modern lifestyle and diet. Ayurveda can be very beneficial in treating these conditions as it investigates the root cause of the problem. The causes for these hair conditions are: Excess of Pitta dosha in the body is the chief cause of hair problems. Pitta is increased by excessive intake of tea, coffee, alcohol, meats and excessive smoking.. Pitta is also aggravated by eating too much fried, oily, greasy, spicy, sour, and acidic foods. Intake of too many chemical medicines, low blood circulation, anemia, general weakness after disease, stress, anxiety, and mental tension are also prime causes of hair loss. Chronic diseases like typhoid fever, presence of dandruff or lice and hormonal imbalance also cause hair loss. So watch out carefully for these reasons! You may be overdoing one of them, and thus losing your ...

HIV can never survive in any other liquid* medium also other than blood or se.men (& please for God sake ... never in Pani Puri wala pani) Even if one drinks an HIV infected blood (or se.men) of someone (ingest through Gastro Intestinal track), the virus can not survive in the acidic pH of stomach. Highest extent of acidity is 0 (practically not possible) so imagine 1 as pH which is in our stomach. (This pH can burn your own finger in less than a second if you dip in that acid). Exposure of less than 1 second in AIR KILLS the HIV virus (hence story of needle pricks in Cinema theatres is a crap). Even if blood from a wound (of infected person) dries up (*blood clot*), *the virus dies*and can not infect anyone else. HIV transmission is *ONLY* an *INFECTION* i.e. entrance of virus in one's body. It *DOES NOT MEAN AIDS. An HIV-infected person (after entrance of virus) can progress to a condition of AIDS only after 8 to 10 YEARS (not in 15 days as in the Pani Puri story) It is not H...

Everyone can take steps to improve their memory, and with time and practice most people can gain the ability to memorize seemingly impossible amounts of information. Whether you want to win the World Memory Championships, ace your history test, or simply remember where you put your keys, this article can get you started. Scientists believe that exercising your brain can create a ‘cognitive reserve’ that will help you stay sharp as you age. 1. Convince yourself that you do have a good memory that will improve. Too many people get stuck here and convince themselves that their memory is bad, that they are just not good with names, that numbers just slip out of their minds for some reason. Erase those thoughts and vow to improve your memory. Commit yourself to the task and bask in your achievements — it’s hard to keep motivated if you beat yourself down every time you make a little bit of progress. 2. Keep your brain active. The brain is not a muscle, but regularly “exercising” the brain a...

You see, losing belly flab is a boring process. It requires time, hard work, and most important, dedication. Take the right steps every single day, and you’ll ultimately carve out your six-pack. But if you stray from your plan even a few times a week–which most men do–you’ll probably never see your abs. The solution: six simple habits, which I teach to my clients to help them strip away their lard for good. Think of these habits as daily goals designed to keep you on the fast track to a fit-looking physique. Individually they’re not all that surprising, but together they become a powerful tool. The effectiveness of this tool is even supported by science. At the University of Iowa , researchers determined that people are more likely to stick with their fat-loss plans when they concentrate on specific actions instead of the desired result. So rather than focusing on abs that show, follow my daily list of nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle strategies for achieving th...

The eyes are the part of the face we notice first. This is why it's important to make sure that your eyes look their best when attending to your makeup and care routine. Following are some great beauty tips for your eyes, no matter who you are. 1. Healthy eyes are beautiful eyes. If your eyes are swollen, red, or otherwise unhealthy, no amount of makeup is going to disguise this fact. If you wear contact lenses, make sure that you attend to all the care instructions for them. Also, protect your eyes by using cosmetics with sunscreen included. 2. When putting on eye makeup, make sure it goes with the rest of your look. Too many women forget that while the eyes are important, they must be in harmony with the rest of the face. Choose eye makeup that goes with what you're wearing, and with the look you choose on the rest of your face. Don't let your features go to war with each other to be the most prominent – you'll have to choose whether you want the focus...

There are many effective methods of teeth whitening available, but some come with heavy price tags. Here are some steps you can take at home to whiten teeth naturally without breaking the bank. Things You’ll Need: Straw Toothbrush Lemon Juice Salt Baking soda Hydrogen peroxide Strawberries 1. Limit your consumption of drinks that stain tooth enamel. A few of these include coffee, tea and red wine. If you simply can't cut back on these beverages, consider drinking them though a straw to limit the amount of liquid that actually comes in contact with teeth. 2. Brush your teeth immediately after eating, especially if eating foods that stain easily, such as berries. 3. Rub raw strawberries on your teeth, preferably pureed. There is an enzyme in strawberries that acts as a whitening agent. You'll want to brush and rinse after applying the strawberries to remove the natural sugars and acids they may leave behind. 4. Eat crunchy foods that requ...

Kids who sleep with the light on could risk leukaemia, parents were warned yesterday. Scientists have found the body needs darkness to produce a chemical that fights cancer. Even switching the light on for the toilet, staying up late, traveling across time zones, or the light from street lamps can stop enough melatonin being made, they say. The body needs the chemical to prevent damage to DNA and its absence stops fatty acids reaching tumours and preventing them growing. Texas University Prof Russell Reiter, who led the research, said: 'Once you go to bed you should not even switch the light on for a minute. 'Your brain immediately recognises the light as day and melatonin levels drop.' Rates of childhood leukaemia have doubled in the past 40 years. About 500 youngsters under 15 are diagnosed with the disease each year and around 100 die. A conference on childhood leukaemia in London yesterday heard that people were being subjected to more light at night than e...

It’s a cruel irony that more than half of adult women are battling breakouts at the same time they’re coping with crow’s feet. The culprit is hormones, which ebb and flow throughout a woman’s life rather than stabilize as they do in men. “As estrogen levels fluctuate–or in the case of menopause, decrease–androgens, the hormones that stimulate oil glands, can lead to breakouts,” says Jonette E. Keri, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of dermatology at the University of Miami School of Medicine. Also to blame: stress, which raises hormone levels. One thing you needn’t stress about is controlling the condition. New remedies make it easier to get the clear skin you’ve always wanted–and erase signs of aging in the bargain. This skin care routine fights the main cause of acne: pores clogged by oil and cellular debris and inflammation from P. acnes bacteria. But unlike topical teenage treatments–formulated for oilier complexions these OTC solutions are less likely to dry mature skin and make wr...