Healthy Tips from HealthyLife

Beth Cooney offers tips to keep you healthy
About Beth Cooney

Author Archive

Slow Breathing for Pain Reduction

Tuesday, April 13, 2010 by:Jill Montag
Comment
Comments
|
|

It’s no secret that taking slow, deep breaths can be relaxing; according to a recent study, it may also help you feel less pain.  The study conducted by researchers from Barrow Neurological Institute at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Arizona and the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University found that controlled breathing at a slowed rate can significantly reduce feelings of pain. People who suffer from chronic pain, specifically fibromyalgia patients, also reported less pain while breathing slowly unless they were overwhelmed by sadness, depression or negative feelings.

The researchers studied two groups of women aged 45 to 65; one group was composed of women previously diagnosed with fibromyalgia. During the study, participants were subjected to moderately painful heat pulses on their palms, which were administered while they were breathing at normal rates and when participants reduced their breathing rates by 50 percent. After each heat pulse,  participants were asked to report their feelings three ways: how strong the pain was (pain intensity), how uncomfortable it was (pain unpleasantness) and how their mood varied (affect).

After analyzing the participants’ ratings of pain intensity and unpleasantness, the researchers found an overall reduction in reported pain when the healthy control participants were breathing slowly. Interestingly, fibromyalgia patients only benefited from slow breathing if they reported positive affect.

Previous studies have shown the connection between pain and emotion is particularly evident in people with fibromylagia, who also have a tendancy to suffer from depression. This study showed that FM patients as a whole didn’t show a lessening of pain when breathing slowly but that FM patients who tend to have a positive affect as part of their personality did show some improvement. According to the researchers, this fits with the idea that FM patients generally have low positive affect, or energy reserves. They say that those who do have some can use it to reduce pain by breathing slowly, just like healthy individuals.

Cut the Salt, Add Years to Your Life

Monday, April 12, 2010 by:Jill Montag
Comment
Comments
|
|

It’s all too easy to use a heavy hand with the salt shaker, but according to a new study easing up could save your life. The study, conducted by a team from the University of California, San Francisco, Stanford University Medical Center and Columbia University Medical Center, found that reducing salt in the American diet by as little as one-half teaspoon a day could prevent almost 100,000 heart attacks and 92,000 deaths every year. This could save the U.S. about $24 billion in health care costs, according to the researchers, who also say such benefits are on par with the benefits from reductions in smoking.

The team derived their results from the Coronary Heart Disease Policy Model, a computer simulation of heart disease among American adults that has been used by researchers to determine potential benefits from public health interventions. They found that reducing dietary salt by three grams a day (about 1200 mg of sodium) would result in 13 percent fewer heart attacks, 11 percent fewer cases of new heart disease, 8 percent fewer strokes and 4 percent fewer deaths. This effect was even more remarkable among African-Americans, who researchers believe are more likely to have high blood pressure and may be more sensitive to salt. African-Americans would see a reduction of new cases of heart disease by 16 percent and heart attacks by 19 percent with this degree of salt reduction, according to the study.

According to the federal government, the average American man consumes more than 10 grams of salt (4000 mg sodium) every day, although most health organizations recommend no more than 5.8 grams of salt per day (2300 mg sodium) and less than 3.8 grams for those over 40. 

The American Heart Association says salt consumption among Americans has risen by 50 percent and blood pressure has risen by almost the same amount since the 1970s. This is despite evidence linking salt intake to high blood pressure and heart disease.

Sticking it to Dental Anxiety

Friday, April 9, 2010 by:Jill Montag
Comment
Comments
|
|

For many people, going to the dentist is an anxiety-provoking event that keeps them from getting the dental care they need, but new research suggests acupuncture may help.

Researchers from the department of oncology at Weston Park Hospital in Sheffield, England, say one in 20 people suffer from odontophobia — severe anxiety about dentistry — and a third of all people say they have moderate anxiety when going to the dentist. They conducted a study in which they tested acupuncture on 20 patients with an average age of 40 who had experienced moderate to severe dental phobia for between 2 and 30 years.

Researchers checked and rated the study participants’ anxiety before and after five minutes of acupuncture. They found the anxiety levels dropped significantly after the acupuncture session, and all of the patients were able to have their dental work. Interestingly, only six of the twenty patients could withstand any treatment at all before trying acupuncture.

The researchers insist that acupuncture is not a miracle treatment, but it is safe, fast and cheap and therefore has some advantages over other treatments. They say evidence shows that acupuncture helps release endorphins, which act as painkillers and sedatives, and that these hormones contribute to natural feelings of well-being and decrease anxiety.

Childhood Harms and Lung Cancer Risk

Thursday, April 8, 2010 by:Jill Montag
Comment
Comments
|
|

Here’s some disturbing news for those of you who suffered through traumatic childhoods;  a new study says that could increase your risk for lung cancer.

Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta studied the effects of abuse (physical, emotional, sexual), parental separation, witnessing domestic violence, or growing up in a household where people were substance abusers, mentally ill or sent to prison. They found that these kinds of adverse childhood experiences were associated with an increased risk of lung cancer, particularly premature death from the disease. This link, say the researchers, is partly explained by higher rates of cigarette smoking in victims of childhood trauma, but other factors may also be to blame.

The information about adverse events in childhood was collected from more than 17,000 people between 1995 and 1997, and the researchers followed up on their medical records to study lung cancer rates in 2005. According to the researchers, people who experienced six or more traumas were about three times more likely to have lung cancer than people who claimed no childhood trauma. Plus, the people who reported trauma were about 13 years younger when their lung cancer was discovered than those without trauma. Again, researchers also found that people who had had difficult childhoods were more likely to smoke.

They say the central message of this study is that children can be faced with a terrible burden of stressors. These stressors are associated with harmful behaviors like smoking that could lead to the development of lung cancer and other diseases, and even death at younger ages. Therefore, researchers believe, reducing the burden of adverse childhood experiences should be considered as a means of preventing lung cancer and other smoking-related diseases.

Turn Down the Volume on your iPod!

Tuesday, April 6, 2010 by:Jill Montag
Comment
Comments
|
|

Working out while listening to an iPod is pretty common for many of us, but new research suggests we might want to turn down the volume while working up a sweat. A researcher from the Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology at the University of Alberta in Canada says he’s found that exercising in a gym often leads people to turn up the volume to levels that may not be safe for their ears.

Assistant professor Bill Hodgetts found that study participants, who were in a gym-like setting, listened at levels that could be dangerous while working out; this is likely due to the presence of background noise. But, he says, the listening level isn’t the only thing that’s risky — it also matters how long a person listens at that level. Hodgetts found almost half of his study participants listened for an amount of time during exercising that put them at risk for hearing loss.

Luckily, Hodgetts says the solution is pretty simple; all you have to do to prevent this problem is pick up a pair of earphones that “seal” the ear canal, acting as an earplug and thus reducing background noise. Then it will be easier for all of us to listen at a lower level — and keep our ears safe.

Blueberry Juice and Memory

Monday, April 5, 2010 by:Jill Montag
Comment
Comments
|
|

If you’re suffering from memory loss, replacing your daily glass of O.J. with a glass of blueberry juice just might do the trick. A recent study by researchers at the University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Canadian department of agriculture found that blueberry supplementation may actually improve memory in older people; previous tests had been conducted only on laboratory animals.

The study consisted of a group of volunteers in their 70s with early memory decline who drank about 2 to 2 1/2 cups of a commercially available blueberry juice every day for two months — and a control group who drank a beverage without blueberry juice. The scientists say the group who drank blueberry juice showed significant improvement on learning and memory tests.

The researchers say these preliminary memory findings are encouraging and that this study establishes a basis for human clinical trials to determine whether blueberries can indeed enhance memory.

Feeling Burned Out? Your Teens Might be Too.

Friday, April 2, 2010 by:Jill Montag
Comment
Comments
|
|

If you’re suffering from burnout, it turns out your teenagers might be too. That’s the conclusion of the first ever scientific study into the relationship between adolescents’ and parents’ burnout.

The study, funded by the Academy of Finland, found that school burnout among adolescents is shared with parental work burnout. Children of parents suffering from burnout are more likely than their peers to experience school burnout. If you’re wondering what exactly school burnout is, it’s a chronic school-related stress syndrome that is manifested in fatigue, experiences of cynicism about school and a sense of inadequacy as a study. (Who knew there was an official name for that?!)

Researchers obtained estimates of school burnout from 515 15-year olds in ninth-grade. They also obtained estimates of work burnout from 595 parents of these adolescents. The findings? Experiences of burnout were shared in families, especially between teens and parents of the same gender, i.e. between moms and daughters and fathers and sons. Researchers say the parent of the same gender seems to serve as a kind of role model for the development of burnout. Interestingly, family finances were reflected in the level of shared burnout; the greater the family’s financial worries, the more burnout experienced by parents and their teens.

Depression and Productivity

Thursday, April 1, 2010 by:Jill Montag
Comment
Comments
|
|

Treatment for depression is supposed to help you feel like your old self, right? Well, it turns out it might not necessarily bring your productivity back to where it used to be. A recent study by researchers at Thomson Reuters Healthcare in Washington, D.C. found that employees with depression have higher costs related to short-term disability and absenteeism - even after receiving antidepressant therapy.

The researchers used insurance claims and employee health and productivity databases to look at the relationship between antidepressant treatment and productivity costs. They found that depressed employees were about twice as likely than workers without depression to use short-term disability leave. The short-term disability rate was three times higher for workers with severe depression. The researchers estimate annual short-term disability costs at about $1,000 per worker with depression — and $1,700 per worker with severe depression. That’s much higher than for common diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure. Not surprisingly, employees with depression also missed more work days.

This is not the first study to link depression to reduced productivity at work — but previous studies have not looked at how productivity is affected by treatment for depression. These results show that depression is associated with increased disability and absenteeism, even in workers taking antidepressants. Researchers theorize that the productivity losses probably result from depression or depressive symptoms that persist despite treatment. They also say that therapies that can manage depression better could actually help employers save money.

Page 44 of 47« First...4243444546...Last »