Health

Thirty percent of North Americans over the age of 85 suffer from dementia. A recent study shows that people whose blood cholesterol levels varied the most over a 12 year period had a 19 percent increased risk for Alzheimer's dementia compared to those with little or no variability, and people who had high variations in their triglyceride levels had a 23 percent increased risk for Alzheimer's disease.

A study of 23,802 Swedish men found that getting an MRI before scheduling a prostate biopsy was associated with reduced proportion of men who received biopsies,, reduced biopsies in low-risk prostate cancers (Gleason score of 6 or lower) who usually are not treated, and increased detection of the number of men at high risk for prostate cancer (Gleason score greater than 6) who need immediate treatment

More than half of North American adults over 65 years of age suffer from osteoarthritis. It used to be that you would go to your doctor and tell them that you have pain in your knees, hips, hands or spine. Your doctor would order multiple x-rays and blood tests and most would come back normal, so they would then tell you, “Aha, you have osteoarthritis, ” which meant they didn’t have the foggiest idea why your joints hurt.

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.

Several recent research papers show that inflammatory types of arthritis such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis and reactive arthritis may be caused by harmful bacteria in your colon. Your colon is full of more than 100 trillion bacteria. Some are good and some are bad. The good bacteria are happy with what you eat and do not try to enter your colon cells, while the harmful colon bacteria are not happy with what you eat, so they try to enter the cells lining your colon.

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.

Several recent research papers show that inflammatory types of arthritis such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis and reactive arthritis may be caused by harmful bacteria in your colon. Your colon is full of more than 100 trillion bacteria. Some are good and some are bad. The good bacteria are happy with what you eat and do not try to enter your colon cells, while the harmful colon bacteria are not happy with what you eat, so they try to enter the cells lining your colon.

A recent review of seven studies covering more than 19,000 adults found that taking one alcoholic drink a day for more than four years is associated with a rise in blood pressure, even if a person previously had normal blood pressure. None of the people in the study had previously been diagnosed with high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, liver disease, alcoholism or binge drinking.

Morgan Freeman is an American actor, producer, and narrator who has Academy and Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Golden Globe Award, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2008, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2011, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2012, and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2018. He missed part of his press tour for his upcoming TV series Special Ops: Lioness, in which he stars alongside Zoe Saldana and Nicole Kidman.

Body Mass Index (BMI) is a standard method for assessing body weight. BMI is calculated by dividing a person's weight by the square of his height. A study from Israel found that one third of more than 3000 normal-weight and normal-BMI individuals were still at high risk for diseases caused by obesity, such as diabetes, heart attacks, strokes and kidney damage.

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

A study of 59,124 patients in 223 medical care centers had one group of patients check their blood pressures several times throughout the day and night, while the other group had blood pressure checked in their doctors' offices only. After 10 years, 12.1 percent of patients died, including 4.0 percent from heart disease. The study found that having patients check their blood pressure several times during the day and night, and following those results, was six times more effective in predicting death overall and death from heart attacks than just taking patients' blood pressure in the doctor's office.

High blood sugar and high blood pressure are major risk factors for dementia. A study from Johns Hopkins showed that the younger a person develops diabetes or pre-diabetes, the more likely they are to become demented. People who developed diabetes before age 60 were three times more likely to develop dementia than those who did not develop diabetes before age 60. Those who developed diabetes after age 70 were only 23 percent more likely to suffer from dementia, and those who developed diabetes in their 80s or 90s had no increased risk for developing dementia.

There are many ways to measure risk factors for having a heart attack, but since the 1950s the criteria used most by doctors to predict your likelihood to suffer a heart attack has been that HDL ("Healthy") cholesterol predicts protection, and the LDL ("Lousy") cholesterol predicts increased risk for heart attacks. An extensive review of the world’s literature demonstrates that this is not always true.

More than 80 million North Americans suffer from a fatty liver and many do not know that they have it because most people with a fatty liver have normal liver function blood tests in the early stages of the disease. The American Association of Clinical Endocrinology, supported by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, has issued guidelines for diagnosing and treating a fatty liver.

A review of 30 clinical trials published between 1982 and 2022, covering about 2,400 participants in many different countries, found that vegetarian and vegan diets reduced blood levels of total cholesterol levels by seven percent, the harmful LDL cholesterol by 10 percent, and apolipoprotein B by 14 percent. These blood factors are strong predictors of likelihood to suffer a heart attack or stroke, and reducing these three factors has been consistently shown to reduce risk for heart attacks in normal-weight and obese patients.

About 70 percent of North American adults will suffer from diabetes or prediabetes. The most common cause of diabetes is excess fat in the liver, which prevents your body from responding to insulin to cause high blood sugar levels. When you have high blood sugar, the sugar can stick to and damage the outer membranes of cells, to increase risk for heart attacks, strokes, certain cancers, and dementia.

Most people with high blood pressure are not able to achieve normal blood pressure with daily doses of a single medication. In one study, more than 45 percent of people with high blood pressure did not take their medication regularly, and 84 percent of those with persistent high blood pressure did not take their mediation regularly.

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.

Exercise has been shown to help prevent heart attacks, and a new study suggests that you can gain protection with as little as 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week, or 75 minutes per week of more vigorous activity. Pushing yourself to exercise at high intensity for many long hours did not appear to provide additional protection from heart attacks. The Master@Heart study found that middle-aged competitive endurance athletes had more plaques in their heart arteries than similarly fit and healthy exercisers with a healthy lifestyle who did not compete.

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.

Doctors try to predict and prevent heart attacks by measuring blood levels of LDL cholesterol and treating you if they are too high. Statins and PSK9 inhibitors are among the most effective drugs used to lower high LDL cholesterol. Almost half of all North American adults will suffer heart and blood vessel disease , and statins can help to save your life by lowering LDL cholesterol and reducing inflammation.

Prostate cancer usually grows slowly over many years, so a study was designed to find out if it is safe to delay treatment for many years. More than 1,600 men diagnosed with localized prostate cancer (that had not spread beyond the prostate) were randomly assigned to receive surgery, radiation or waiting with active monitoring. Fifteen years later, there was no statistical difference in deaths from prostate cancer between the three groups: 3.1 percent in the active-waiting group, 2.2 percent in the surgery group, and 2.9 percent in the radiation group.

An analysis of three large studies of people taking statins found that a blood test for inflammation levels was better than tests of cholesterol levels for predicting future heart attacks). More than 30,000 participants were given CRP (c-reactive protein test that measures inflammation) and cholesterol tests, and the researchers found that CRP was a stronger predictor for risk of future cardiovascular events and deaths than the cholesterol assessment (LDL).

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.

Both exercise and calorie restriction reduced liver fat in overweight and obese adults, but only exercise had a dose-dependent effect in reducing liver fat and reducing belly fat. Storing fat in your belly is a stronger risk factor for diabetes than just being overweight, and is arguably the most common cause of Type II diabetes in North America today