Cancer Patients Who Smoke Report More Severe Pain

Cancer patients who smoke suffer worse pain than nonsmokers, researchers have found.

The new study included 224 patients with a range of cancer diagnoses who were asked to provide information about pain severity, pain-related distress and pain-related interference.

Patients who were current smokers reported more severe pain than those who never smoked and also reported more interference from pain than never smokers or former smokers. Among former smokers, the longer it had been since they quit, the less pain they had, according to lead investigator Joseph W. Ditre, of the psychology department at Texas A&M University, and colleagues.

The results of the study are published in the January 2011 issue of the journal Pain.

"Clinicians must do more to assist cancer patients to quit smoking after their diagnosis," Dr. Lori Bastian, of the department of internal medicine at Duke University, Durham, N.C., and the Durham VA Medical Center, wrote in a commentary accompanying the report.

"Although more research is needed to understand the mechanisms that relate nicotine to pain, physicians should aggressively promote smoking cessation among cancer patients," she noted in a journal news release. "Preliminary findings suggest that smoking cessation will improve the overall treatment response and quality of life."
For more info- http://news.yahoo.com/health

How to Keep Your Hands Soft and Sweet

Hands are the workhorses of our body. They swipe on lip gloss. Brush our hair and text our messages. In all they do for us, they are never only self-serving. Our hands, make the dinner, pats the backs, waves hello, claps in thunderous applause and wipes away tears.

Isn't it time that we spoiled them a little? Follow these easy steps for giving dry, calloused, overworked hands the royal treatment. Using a few key ingredients and in just 20 minutes, you'll have gorgeous hands worth holding.

To get started, remove all jewelry from your hands. Next, assemble the necessary ingredients and equipment. You will need liquid soap or shower gel (preferably all natural soap free of synthetic detergents like SLS), sugar, olive oil or a bath and body oil blend, vanilla extract, basic soy wax (available at your local super craft store), two large microwave safe mixing bowls (one with warm water and one for the soy wax) lotion and two towels. Let's begin!

CLEANSE

    The first step is easy, because you've done it since you were tall enough to reach the sink, washing your hands. Instead of vigorous hand washing gently wash them with a fragrant liquid hand soap. Be sure to get underneath your nails.

EXFOLIATE

    With hands still wet, it's time to exfoliate. Exfoliating softens callouses and removes dead skin. First warm 1/2 cup of olive oil in the microwave. You can make it as warm as you like, but not too hot, you don't want to melt your sugar. Too cool and your sugar will cool your olive oil. Of course there's nothing wrong with not heating your olive oil, but warm oil on tired hands feels incredible.
    Add your olive oil to 1 cup of sugar, 2 teaspoons of liquid soap and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. The sugar works as an exfoliant, the liquid soap will emulsify when you rinse off the mixture and the vanilla extract just smells good.
    Mix together your sugar scrub and cover your hands, wrists and forearms. Working your way gently toward your elbows. Use as much of the mixture as you want and pay special attention to those dry patches and callouses. Rub until mixture starts to feel "drier" and most of the olive oil has absorbed. Rinse off the sugar scrub mixture.

DIP

    Place the soy wax in one of the bowls and melt in the microwave. Be careful not to bring the wax to a boil. It should be just melted thoroughly. This is the fun part. Once the soy wax melts, plunge your hands into the bowl of melted wax. Relax and enjoy until wax starts to harden. You definitely want to remove your hands BEFORE the bowl of wax completely hardens.

PEEL and SOOTHE

    After removing your hands from the wax bowl, gently peel the dried wax from your hands. After you've thoroughly peeled the wax. Fully immerse one clean towel into the second mixing bowl filled with warm water. Wring the excess water from the wet towel and wrap both of your hands in the towel for a soothing treat.

MOISTURIZE

    Once you remove the towel, generously apply all natural body lotion on your hands to lock in moisture.

Follow these instructions and your hands will feel amazing. Repeat the process once a week to see improved results. Be sure to experiment with different body oils, body lotions and body washes. Finally, the recognition these unsung heroes deserve!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Shenay_Shumake

Why You Need to Drink a Lot of Water When Running

I started running since 2005 with 800m a day. Now sometimes I may run even 10km a day. My secret is that I always am doing it for pleasure and health. Since then I began to research about drinking water during the running. At the beginning of my running I had a lack of information about drinking water during the running. I started to read advices and tips which made me think that you absolutely can not drink while running. During these years nothing has changed, tips are giving all who want to keep attention on them, even if they don't know about what they are talking, being usually wrong. From my experience I can tell about water during the running the following.

   1. If you can drink while running or immediately after the race - always drink. Water speeds up all processes in the body, including the restoration.
   2. The faster you fill the water loss during exercise, the better. Especially in hot weather above +25oC when you run 5 minutes you lose of about 100 ml of liquid.
   3. Your breath won't knock down, if you'll drink 200 ml of water at a time.
   4. Look just how runners, tennis players drink a lot and often during the match.
   5. Smart athletes drink water, fools - suffer. But in the end they will also drink.
   6. Without water intake during the race you won't die, but it's better to drink.
   7. But, if you're running 20 - 25 min., then there's no meaning to drink water. This is a very small burden for the organism, if you're running more, then you must drink after every 20-25 minutes.
   8. Every organism is different. Each perceives different liquids in different ways, even during jogging. You can drink it all, but the reaction to this maybe all different - from pain in the liver, to bliss. Try it, make experiments. Water is a neutral liquid and it is suitable for everyone.
   9. While running dress for the weather to avoid overheating (or under cooling) of the organism, otherwise no water will help.
  10. Drinking water during running supports the water level in the body, thereby helps to avoid dryness, which is usually accompanied by headaches, sickness and weakness
  11. Constant replenishment of the water body supports the circulating volume of water at the desired level. Accordingly, the pulse is usually lower than in those who replenish water during workout. This allows the increase of the training time by growing efficiency.
  12. Drinking water with simple carbohydrates, with glucose is rapidly absorbed and allows you to keep your blood sugar on a good level, helping to avoid exhaustion.
  13. Some believe that water is an extra weight on the heart during exercise, which is already loaded but the reality is that the water relaxes, and then working hard to get into a rhythm.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ili_Eugen

Family health history: 'best kept secret' in care

WASHINGTON – Make Grandma spill the beans: Uncovering all the diseases that lurk in your family tree can trump costly genetic testing in predicting what illnesses you and your children are likely to face.
It may sound old-fashioned, but a Cleveland Clinic study comparing which method best uncovered an increased risk of cancer helps confirm the value of what's called a family health history.
All it costs is a little time questioning your relatives, yet good family health trees are rare. A government survey estimated less than a third of families have one — and time-crunched doctors seldom push their patients to remedy that.
"I view family health histories as back to the future," says Dr. Charis Eng, a cancer geneticist at the Cleveland Clinic's Genomic Medicine Institute. "It's the best kept secret in health care."
Holiday gatherings can be a good chance to gather the information, as can reunions or even funerals. The U.S. Surgeon General operates a free website — https://familyhistory.hhs.gov — that helps people create a family health history and share it electronically with relatives and their doctor.
However you do it, get the scoop on both sides of the family, says another study of 2,500 women. Researchers found that women not only know less about the health of their paternal relatives, they tend to dismiss the threat of breast cancer if it's on Dad's side.
"It's a risk no matter what," says Dr. Wendy Rubinstein of Chicago's NorthShore University Health System, who presented the research last week at a meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics.
Far too often, a family health history consists of whatever you happen to jot down on that clipboard in the doctor's waiting room. Mom hasn't confided her soaring cholesterol? Can't recall what killed Aunt Mary? Don't realize that the hunched back of Grandma and her sisters could foreshadow your osteoporosis? Or maybe Dad never mentioned that in his 40s he survived the prostate cancer that killed his own father.
Looking for patterns of familial illness can predict someone's brewing health risks, so gaps can be a problem.
How does a good history compare with those online genomic testing services — sold without a doctor's prescription for hundreds of dollars — that analyze DNA glitches and predict people's predisposition to various diseases?
To find out, the Cleveland Clinic's Eng recruited 44 people — 22 patients in her family cancer clinic and their spouses — for a family health history and a saliva test from one of those genomic services, Navigenics, to calculate their risk for colon cancer and breast or prostate cancer.
Both approaches classified about 40 percent of participants as having above-average risk — but they picked the same people only about half the time. For example, the genomic screening missed all nine people with a strong family risk of colon cancer, five of whom Eng's clinic gave extra scrutiny to prove they carried a specific gene mutation.
"A patient might have done this testing and been very reassured and not come to medical care," she told last week's geneticists' meeting.
On the other hand, Navigenics listed eight men at risk for prostate cancer when their family history predicted a risk no higher than average.
Why the difference? No matter the brand, genomic screening takes a broad look at DNA variations, including some that scientists aren't sure play a big role. Yet it often doesn't include high-profile gene mutations that are linked for specific diseases and can require more specialized testing, Eng explains.
Navigenics didn't return a call for comment.
"Family history remains the best genetic tool we have, but health care providers are not taking advantage" of it, says Dr. Maren Scheuner of the Veterans Affairs Healthcare System in Los Angeles, who is leading a pilot project to add family cancer histories to the VA's electronic medical records at two area clinics.
Popularity may be growing. The surgeon general's office counts nearly 30,000 new visitors a month to its "My Family Health Portrait" Web site since summer, about a third of whom return, suggesting they're compiling an electronic family health tree.
Chicago's Rubinstein, who is testing a next-generation tool, found that women's newly created family health histories include much more information than was in their regular medical charts — even if they did need a nudge about the paternal side.
"It's not uncommon to think, 'I look like one parent, that affects the illness I'm going to get,'" Rubinstein says. "Generally that's not the case."
Because genes seldom are destiny, a family health tree also should reflect shared environmental or lifestyle factors that can further affect an inherited risk, says James O'Leary of the nonprofit Genetic Alliance, which just won government funding to help spread family health histories to community health centers that serve the poor.
Collected from- http://news.yahoo.com

The Daily Checkup: How parents can treat kids with Sickle Cell Anemia

As the acting chief of pediatric hematology and oncology, Anne Hurlet devotes 60% of her time to treating patients with sickle cell anemia. She has been working in the field for more than 25 years.

Who’s at risk
Sickle cell disease is an inherited red blood cell disorders. that causes abnormal shape of the red blood cell and hemolytic anemia. “This disease affects people who have an abnormal gene called Sickle gene,” says Hurlet. “The majority of patients are of African descent, but there are also patients with ancestors from the Mediterranean, the Arab peninsula and India.” The CDC estimates that between 70,000 and 100,000 Americans are living with sickle cell disease, and that the disease occurs in 1 out of every 500 African-American babies.
Sickle cell anemia is a genetic and progressive disease, which means that patients are born with the disease and it gets worse over time. “Both parents must carry the Sickle gene or one parent carries the sickle gene and the other another abnormal red blood cell gene such as C gene or Beta Thalassemia gene that when combined with the Sickle gene also gives sickle cell disease. In the U.S., all pregnant women are tested for sickle cell; if the woman has it, then her partner is tested too. In New York State, all babies are screened for sickle cell diseases at birth regardless of their ethnic background.

In patients with sickle cell anemia, the red blood cells take on a deformed shape--instead of being flexible and doughnut-shaped, the cells become shaped like a crescent moon, or sickle. “The red blood cells are supposed to be flexilble and able to move into the blood vessels easily,” says Hurlet. “When the cell is sickle, it becomes rigid, and the cell starts blocking the vessels, stopping oxygen flow causing pain.” The sickle cell also causes injury of endothelial cell, the cell that covers the inside of all the vessels. Eventually the sickle cells break apart, and causes anemia. This process of damage happens in the bone marrow where the blood is made, and around the body, causing damage to all the organs. “Although we are taking care of the pediatric patients better and we have seen a significant decrease of mortality rates, young adults are still dying from complications of the disease,” says Hurlet.

Signs and symptoms
“The severity of the disease ranges a lot from one patient to another, even from brother to sister,” says Hurlet. Sickle cell anemia is diagnosed through newborn screening done shortly after birth in the United States but some patients coming from other countries are diagnosed only when they have symptoms later in childhood.

“During the first year of life, babies with sickle cell are prone to have deadly infection from a common bacteria like pneumococcal infection. So parents have to be on the alert for any infection or fever; infections more often become deadly because the spleen isn’t working right,” Hurlet. Another sign of sickle cell is stunted growth. “They are icteric and very anemic,” says Hurlet. As a result, these children can remain smaller then their peers.

Another common symptom is pain, especially in the hands and feet, which become swollen when they are young. Later on they also can have excruciating pain in the long bones, like the legs and arms, and later in life, in the back and hips,” says Hurlet. This pain is the result of the sickle cells blocking blood flow inside the bone marrow, where the resulting lack of oxygen causes pain.

Traditional treatment
During the first years of their life, patients are at an increased risk of deadly infections and even in some cases of stroke. Doctors have developed a plan of attack to help protect infants with sickle cell during this crucial time. “Between 2 and 3 months of age, we put them on penicillin,” says Hurlet. “Medication and educating the parents is key to helping the young infants.”

The second advance in the treatment is a therapy is called hydroxyurea, which has been available to adults since 1985 and more recently used for children.

“Hydroxyurea increases fetal hemoglobin in the cells, thus slowing the process of cells becoming sickle,” says Hurlet. “Patients with higher fetal hemoglobin do better, and it’s so far not giving any significant side effects.” It’s is administered as a pill you take once a day and 70 to 80 percent of patients experience fewer symptoms or less severe symptoms as a result.

Another advance has been to be able to prevent some strokes, which young patients have a 1 in 10 chance of suffering from. “Now, by measuring the speed of the blood in vessels in the brain we can predict who is at higher risk of stroke,” says Hurlet. “In some children we can prevent it by putting them on a chronic transfusion program, transfusing them every two or four weeks prevent the stroke.” Transfusion comes with its own risk such as iron overload. Children also develop antibodies which reject the transfusion because their ethnic background doesn’t match that of the donor. The key to preventing that problem is encouraging more minorities to donate blood.

In terms of a finite cure, there’s only one: bone marrow transplants. “A bone marrow transplant completely changes the bone marrow and cures the patient, but it has serious risks,” says Hurlet. “But we have very good results if we do it with a matched sibling — someone from the same mother and father who do not have the sickle cell disease and is a HLA match.” Unfortunately, it’s hard to find these perfect matches within our families.

Research breakthroughs
Researchers at Mount Sinai are taking a unique approach in cases where the parents can and want to have another baby. “Using IVF we can choose an embryo that does not have the disease and is an HLA match,” says Hurlet. “We collect the cord blood from the baby, which can be enough to help the sibling with sickle cell.” If the cord blood isn’t enough, then you can collect the bone marrow from the sibling at 6 or 7 months. “This is recently done at Mount Sinai, and we’ve had very good results with one family so far,” says Hurlet. “But this is only for people where everything lines up right.”

Questions for your doctor
The first question parents raise when their child is diagnosed is “What’s going to happen to my baby?” Doctors can’t predict the severity of the disease, but they can lay out a variety of different scenarios to let parents know the range of forms the disease takes. Another good question is “What will the treatment look like while my child is still young?” Doctors have had great success in improving life.

What you can do

• Get informed: Hurlet points parents to Emory’s Sickle Cell Information Center at scinfo.org.

• Get comprehensive care: As a result of the Sickle Cell Centers created all over the U.S. during the past decades, doctors is taking care of pediatric patients “better and better,” says Hurlet. But there is still a lot to be done for the older patients. Mount Sinai is taking al the steps to continue to improve the care of those patients when they become adult.

• Learn emergency tactics: An infection in a young sickle cell patient can be deadly, so it’s important for parents to get the warning signs and any life-saving techniques from their doctor. “Because an infection can lead to an enlarged spleen, we will teach parents how to palpate the spleen to save their child’s life,” 
• This article taken from- http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2010/07/28/2010-07-28_the_daily_checkup_how_parents_can_treat_kids_with_sickle_cell_anemia.html