How to Breathe Easier At Home

 

Banish allergies, send germs packing, and make your place a feel-good retreat with these easy tweaks.

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Having a healthy home isn't necessarily about making every surface spotless. (Phew!) But a bit of strategic cleaning protects you from germs and toxins. In fact, concentrations of some pollutants can be two to five times greater inside our homes than they are outdoors, according to the Environmental Protection Agency—a worrisome fact considering we spend, on average, 90 percent of our time indoors.
What's more, ordinary objects like a dirty dish towel or neglected houseplant "can provide just the right environment for harmful microbes to grow," says Kelly Reynolds, PhD, associate professor of environmental sciences at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Fortunately, small changes, whether it's shaking out your welcome mat or installing a water filter, can improve the well-being of your home—and everyone in it. Here, the most important moves to make.
Step up your doormat
About 60 percent of the dust in our home comes from outside—most of it tracked in on the bottom of our shoes, research says. And those tiny particles are made up of a combination of all sorts of icky things like human skin, animal fur, food debris, lead, and even arsenic.
"Fortunately, using the right kind of doormats can help reduce dirt, pesticides, pollen, and other pollutants in your home," says Oluremi Aliyu, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Connecticut Health Center. Pick an abrasive one (it will grab more gunk) made of synthetic fibers like nylon yarn or polypropylene.
Then don't forget to clean it: "Vacuum or shake out your mat once a week," advises Linda Cobb, cleaning expert and author of Talking Dirty with the Queen of Clean. Once a month, do a deep clean: Scrub it with a scrub brush and warm, soapy water, then hose it off.
Filter your tap water
Your home H2O can contain bacteria, chemicals, and other pollutants, including heavy metals like lead. At least 74 million Americans in 42 states drink tap water containing chromium (a metal that in some forms can cause cancer), a study from the Environmental Working Group reveals.
And although chlorine is necessary to disinfect our water supply, large amounts can damage healthy cells. The chlorine can also react with other elements in water to form compounds that have been linked to cancer, miscarriages, and birth defects. Long-term exposure to water contaminants—via drinking or inhalation (such as in the steam from your shower)—can also lead to blood, bone, and lung diseases, notes Michael Roizen, MD, chairman of Cleveland Clinic's Wellness Institute.
For extra peace of mind, invest in a water filter for your kitchen faucet that is certified by the National Science Foundation (such as Pur or Brita). In the shower, install a carbon filter to help remove chlorine as well as metals that may leach out of pipes. Remember: "The longer water has been sitting in the pipes, the higher the metal content, so let it run for a few seconds before showering," Roizen adds.

 

Stem Cell Therapy Could Transform Parkinson's

 

Stem cell therapy is emerging as a promising treatment for Parkinson's disease

By Lydia Denworth

 

Neurosurgeon Ivar Mendez of the University of Saskatchewan often shows a video clip to demonstrate his work treating Parkinson's disease. It features a middle-aged man with this caption: “Off medications.” The man's face has the dull stare typical of Parkinson's. Asked to lift each hand and open and close his fingers, he barely manages. He tries but fails to get up from a chair without using his hands. When he walks, it is with the slow, shuffling gait that is another hallmark of Parkinson's, a progressive neurological disorder that afflicts an estimated one million Americans, most of them older than 60.

Then the video jumps forward in time. The same man appears, still off medications. It is now eight years since Mendez transplanted dopamine cells from a fetus into the patient's brain. These neurons, which live in a midbrain region called the substantia nigra and secrete the neurotransmitter dopamine to initiate movement, are the ones that die off in Parkinson's. The man has aged, but his energy and demeanor are characteristic of a much younger man. Asked to do the same tasks, he smoothly raises his arms high and flicks his fingers open and shut rapidly. Arms crossed on his chest, he rises from a chair with apparent ease. Then he struts down the hall.

 

Hipertireoidismo e hipotireoidismo

 

A tireóide é uma glândula endócrina importantíssima para o funcionamento harmônico do organismo. Os hormônios liberados por ela, T4 (tiroxina) e T3 (triiodotironina) estimulam o metabolismo, isto é, o conjunto de reações necessárias para assegurar todos os processos bioquímicos do organismo.

Os principais distúrbios da tireóide são o hipotireoidismo (baixa ou nenhuma produção de hormônios) e o hipertireoidismo (produção excessiva de hormônios), doenças que incidem mais nas mulheres do que nos homens.

Sintomas

a) Hipotireoidismo

* Cansaço;

* Depressão;

* Adinamia (falta de iniciativa);

* Pele seca e fria;

* Prisão de ventre;

* Diminuição da frequência cardíaca;

* Decréscimo da atividade cerebral;

* Voz mais grossa como a de um disco em baixa rotação;

* Mixedema (inchaço duro);

* Diminuição do apetite;

* Sonolência;

* Reflexos mais vagarosos;

* Intolerância ao frio;

* Alterações menstruais e na potência e libido dos homens.

b) Hipertireoidismo

* Hiperativação do metabolismo;

* Nervosismo e irritação;

* Insônia;

* Aumento da frequência cardíaca;

* Intolerância ao calor;

* Sudorese abundante;

* Taquicardia;

* Perda de peso resultante da queima de músculos e proteínas;

* Tremores;

* Olhos saltados;

* Bócio;

* Comprometimento da capacidade de tomar decisões equilibradas.

Causas

a) Hipotireoidismo

* Tireoidite de Hashimoto, uma doença auto-imune que provoca a redução gradativa da glândula;

* Falta ou excesso de iodo na dieta.

b) Hipertireoidismo

* Doença de Graves, doença hereditária que se caracteriza pela presença de um anticorpo no sangue que estimula a produção excessiva dos hormônios tireoidianos;

* Bócio com nódulos que produzem hormônios tireoidianos sem a interferência do TSH, hormônio produzido pela hipófise.

Diagnóstico

O diagnóstico pode ser feito pela dosagem do hormônio TSH produzido pela hipófise e dos hormônios T3 e T4 produzidos pela tireóide.

Níveis elevados de TSH e baixos dos hormônios da tireóide caracterizam o hipotireoidismo. TSH baixo e alta dosagem de hormônios da tireóide caracterizam o hipertireoidismo.

Tratamento

Em ambos os casos o tratamento deve ser introduzido assim que o problema é diagnosticado e depende da avaliação das causas da doença em cada paciente.

No hipotireoidismo, deve começar de preferência na fase subclínica com a reposição do hormônio tireoxina que a tireóide deixou de fabricar. Como dificilmente a doença regride, ele deve ser tomado por toda a vida, mas os resultados são muito bons.

No hipertireoidismo, o tratamento pode incluir medicamentos, iodo radioativo e cirurgia e depende das características e causas da doença. Deve começar logo e ser prescrito principalmente na 3ª idade a fim de evitar a ocorrência de arritmias cardíacas, hipertensão, fibrilação, infarto e osteoporose.

Recomendações

* Não se assuste com a idéia de epidemia de problemas na tireóide. Avanço nas técnicas de diagnóstico explica o aumento do número de casos;

* A ingestão regular do iodo contido no sal de cozinha evita a formação de bócio;

* A dosagem do TSH deve ser medida depois dos 40 anos com regularidade;

* Hormônios tireoidianos não devem ser tomados nos regimes para emagrecer (produzem maior queima dos músculos do que de gordura);

* Procure adotar uma dieta alimentar equilibrada. É engano imaginar que o hipotireoidismo seja fator responsável pelo ganho de peso, porque as pessoas costumam ter menos fome quando estão com menor produção dos hormônios tireoidianos;

* Atividade física regular é indicada nos casos de hipotireoidismo, mas contra-indicada para pacientes com hipertieoidismo;

* Fumar é desaconselhável nos dois casos;

* Não minimize o mau funcionamento da tireóide. Discuta com o médico a melhor forma de tratamento para seu caso e siga suas orientações.

 

 

Thyroid Illness Is Epidemic

 

Autoimmune thyroid illness, which includes Hashimoto’s and Graves’ diseases, is also occurring at increasing rates. In fact, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) estimates that up to 5 percent of the American population (over 15 million people) may be suffering from an autoimmune thyroid illness.

However, my experience and the experience of many of my colleagues points to a much higher number. In fact, my estimate is that 20 percent of the population is suffering from an autoimmune thyroid illness. I am always amazed at how many new patients test positive for an autoimmune thyroid illness, especially Hashimoto’s disease.

But why would the incidence of autoimmune thyroid illness be increasing? One underlying factor is iodine deficiency. As iodine levels have fallen over 50 percent in the last 30 years, autoimmune thyroid illness has increased at epidemic rates.

There are many conventional doctors who feel that using iodine is responsible for the development of autoimmune thyroid illness. However, research does not support this accusation.

In fact, researchers cannot induce autoimmune thyroid illness in animals unless a goitrogenic agent (substances that suppress thyroid gland function by interfering with iodine uptake) is given to those animals along with iodine.

A radiographic procedure known as X-ray fluorescence scanning can measure the iodine content of the thyroid gland. Using this procedure, researchers measured the iodine content in the thyroid gland of a group of normal subjects alongside another group of people with autoimmune thyroid disorder.

If excess iodine were the causative agent for the development of autoimmune thyroid disease, one would expect that those suffering from the disease (as compared to subjects with a normal thyroid gland) would show excess iodine during scanning of the thyroid gland.

But researchers found that the subjects with autoimmune thyroid disorders had much less iodine in their thyroid glands — 50 percent less than the normal group. And those with hypothyroidism and autoimmune thyroid disease had nearly 80 percent less iodine in their thyroid gland.

Numerous studies have cited a link between autoimmune thyroid disease and gluten sensitivity. One study found 43 percent of celiac disease patients also have thyroid involvement. Celiac disease is a condition that damages the lining of the small intestine and prevents absorption of nutrients from food. The damage is often caused by eating gluten, which is found in grains such as wheat, barley, rye, and oats.

Every patient with an autoimmune thyroid disease needs to be tested for gluten sensitivity. Conversely, every patient with gluten sensitivity (or celiac disease) deserves a test for autoimmune thyroid disease.

I have successfully treated countless patients for autoimmune thyroid disease simply by correcting their nutritional imbalances and advising them to avoid gluten.

 

Designing Cameras That Work Like Eyes

 

To improve photography, engineers are designing cameras that behave more like eyes

In a clearing in a subtropical rain forest in northern Australia, you can watch the light dance as it filters through the rustling canopy. Below, the leaves of the bushes form an intricate pattern of shadows on the trunks of trees. A wallaby grazes in the open space. You raise your smartphone and aim it at the tranquil marsupial. Just as you tap the button to take its picture, the wallaby notices you and hops away. In the image on your screen, half of the snapshot is too dark to make out details, and the sky between the treetops looks bleached white. The hopping wallaby is a blurry, small blob near the center of the photograph. Zooming in on the animal exposes an almost Cubist field of pixels, his outline visibly broken up into the smallest squares of the camera's sensor.

For any of us who snap photos, whether with a tap of the screen or by holding up a professional-grade piece of equipment, the experience described above—if perhaps not the wallaby—will be a familiar one. The proliferation of smartphones has turned nearly all of us into amateur shutterbugs. According to a Pew Research Center survey, more than half of all U.S. Internet users post original photos online. Instagram, the popular sharing service, reports that some 55 million pictures are posted to its network daily—that's 38,000 a minute. Yet not a single one of those millions on millions of images comes anywhere close to capturing the vivid, rich world we experience with our eyes.

 

Prevent Heart Attacks by Eating Fresh Fruit and Vegetables

 

Let's say there's heart disease all over your family tree. You'd likely feel genetically doomed, right? That makes this good news even better: One of the most common causes of inherited heart disease is a nasty gene called 9p21, and major recent research shows that what you eat can prevent a heart attack.

Just go to the grocery store and pile your cart with fresh vegetables and fruit. Something in fresh produce, especially veggies, turns this genetic bully into a wimp. What that something is isn't clear yet, but who cares? If heart disease runs in your family and 9p21 is why, eating lots of fresh veggies and fruit cuts your risk of the family heart attack so much that it's as if you didn't get the gene.

Here's another example: Say you and your neighbor have the gene. You're not a nutritional saint (dessert happens) but your diet is also packed with carrots, broccoli, spinach, berries, apples, and artichokes. Your neighbor eats a typical American diet (meaty, sugary, salty, fatty). Your healthy eating lowers your heart attack risk. Your neighbor's? It doubles.

We YOU Docs have seen way too much heart disease. (Dr. Oz's first job description was cardiac surgeon; Dr. Mike's, anesthesiologist). We'd both love never to see a heart patient again. That's not so far-fetched. If every American stopped smoking, started walking, managed stress, and ate a ton-o-veggies, heart disease could go extinct. Make it happen in your house.

Stomach-Acid-Suppressing Drugs May Raise Risk of Death After Angioplasty

 

TUESDAY, Nov. 17, 2009 (Health.com) — Heart patients who take certain stomach-acid-suppressing drugs to prevent gastrointestinal bleeding may be at increased risk of dying after a cardiac procedure, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association (AHA) in Orlando.
Researchers at Mount Sinai Medical Center, in New York City, reported that patients who underwent angioplasty, a procedure to clear blocked blood vessels in the heart, were 30% more likely to die if they were taking proton pump inhibitors (PPIs).
It’s unclear whether the patients in the study who were prescribed these medications were sicker than those who weren’t, and thus more likely to die. The study's lead author, Joseph M. Sweeny, MD, a cardiologist at Mount Sinai, says that he will continue to follow current guidelines on prescribing PPIs, but that he will also be "very careful" in deciding which of his patients need to be on the drugs.
Before undergoing angioplasty, heart patients are typically prescribed blood-thinning drugs such as aspirin and Plavix, which increase the risk of stomach bleeding and ulcers. In a joint statement issued in 2008, the AHA, the American College of Gastroenterology, and the American College of Cardiologists indicated that PPIs could help prevent stomach bleeding in people at high risk.
But some experts have raised concerns that PPIs could make Plavix less effective because they block the action of enzymes that are crucial for metabolizing the blood-thinning drug. A number of studies have suggested that mixing the two drugs could be risky for patients, while others have not.
The study examined some 8,300 angioplasty patients who had had drug-secreting stents placed in their hearts to prop open narrowed blood vessels. In all, 17% of the patients were prescribed PPIs.
During the follow-up period, which lasted an average of two years, 602 patients died. When Dr. Sweeny and his colleagues broke patients into groups according to which PPI they were taking, they found that omeprazole (Prilosec) and pantoprazole (Protonix) were associated with an increased risk of death of 72% and 54%, respectively, in the years following the procedure.
Two other PPIs, esomeprazole (Nexium) and lansoprazole (Prevacid), were not associated with a greater risk of dying after the procedure. It’s not clear whether this means some PPIs were safer than others, says Dr. Sweeny.
“The numbers that I got were very dramatic,” Dr. Sweeny says. “You have to raise questions as to exactly what this is coming from.”
The findings need to be interpreted cautiously, he adds, because the patients who were taking PPIs may have been sicker to begin with. “What the clinical implications of this are right now I don’t know,” he says. However, the risk of death and complications after angioplasty is relatively low overall.
“The jury is still out regarding acid-suppressing medications and Plavix,” says Shoshana J. Herzig, MD, a researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, in Boston, who didn’t participate in Dr. Sweeny’s study.
Because overall mortality in the current study was greater among the patients on PPIs, says Dr. Herzig, it’s definitely possible they may have been sicker in the first place.
Even so, she says, “I think that it’s fairly clear that in patients who are on Plavix and an acid-suppressing medication, we should evaluate whether they actually need that acid-suppressing medication.” Although PPIs usually aren’t intended to be taken indefinitely, patients often wind up staying on the drugs anyhow, she says.
At least in ICU patients, Dr. Herzig says, PPIs are prescribed too often, in large part because the ulcer drugs are viewed as very safe. However, she adds, rarer side effects do come to light when a drug is prescribed to millions of people.
Any patient who is prescribed a PPI, Dr. Herzig and Dr. Sweeny agree, should ask their physician why, and find out how long they need to take the medication.
At the American Heart Association's annual Scientific Sessions meeting, more than 20,000 cardiologists and other physicians from around the country give presentations on new research and on advances in the diagnosis and treatment of heart disease and stroke.

NASA Technology Views Birth of the Universe

 

Astronomers are announcing today that they have acquired the first direct evidence that gravitational waves rippled through our infant universe during an explosive period of growth called inflation. This is the strongest confirmation yet of cosmic inflation theories, which say the universe expanded by 100 trillion trillion times, in less than the blink of an eye.

The findings were made with the help of NASA-developed detector technology on the BICEP2 telescope at the South Pole, in collaboration with the National Science Foundation.

"Operating the latest detectors in ground-based and balloon-borne experiments allows us to mature these technologies for space missions and, in the process, make discoveries about the universe," said Paul Hertz, NASA's Astrophysics Division director in Washington.

Our universe burst into existence in an event known as the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago. Moments later, space itself ripped apart, expanding exponentially in an episode known as inflation. Telltale signs of this early chapter in our universe's history are imprinted in the skies, in a relic glow called the cosmic microwave background. Recently, this basic theory of the universe was again confirmed by the Planck satellite, a European Space Agency mission for which NASA provided detector and cooler technology.

But researchers had long sought more direct evidence for inflation in the form of gravitational waves, which squeeze and stretch space.

"Small, quantum fluctuations were amplified to enormous sizes by the inflationary expansion of the universe. We know this produces another type of waves called density waves, but we wanted to test if gravitational waves are also produced," said project co-leader Jamie Bock of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., which developed the BICEP2 detector technology. Bock has a joint appointment with the California Institute of Technology, also in Pasadena.

The gravitational waves produced a characteristic swirly pattern in polarized light, called "B-mode" polarization. Light can become polarized by scattering off surfaces, such as a car or pond. Polarized sunglasses reject polarized light to reduce glare. In the case of the cosmic microwave background, light scattered off particles called electrons to become slightly polarized.

The BICEP2 team took on the challenge to detect B-mode polarization by pulling together top experts in the field, developing revolutionary technology and traveling to the best observing site on Earth at the South Pole. The collaboration includes major contributions from Caltech; JPL; Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.; Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.; and the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

As a result of experiments conducted since 2006, the team has been able to produce compelling evidence for the B-mode signal, and with it, the strongest support yet for cosmic inflation. The key to their success was the use of novel superconducting detectors. Superconductors are materials that, when chilled, allow electrical current to flow freely, with zero resistance.

"Our technology combines the properties of superconductivity with tiny structures that can only be seen with a microscope. These devices are manufactured using the same micro-machining process as the sensors in cellphones and Wii controllers," said Anthony Turner, who makes these devices using specialized fabrication equipment at JPL's Microdevices Laboratory.

The B-mode signal is extremely faint. In order to gain the necessary sensitivity to detect the polarization signal, Bock and Turner developed a unique array of multiple detectors, akin to the pixels in modern digital cameras but with the added ability to detect polarization. The whole detector system operates at a frosty 0.25 Kelvin, just 0.45 degrees Fahrenheit above the lowest temperature achievable, absolute zero.

"This extremely challenging measurement required an entirely new architecture," said Bock. "Our approach is like taking a camera and building it on a printed circuit board."

The BICEP2 experiment used 512 detectors, which sped up observations of the cosmic microwave background by 10 times over the team's previous measurements. Their new experiment, already making observations, uses 2,560 detectors.

These and future experiments not only help confirm that the universe inflated dramatically, but are providing theorists with the first clues about the exotic forces that drove space and time apart.

The results of this study have been submitted to the journal Nature.

JPL is managed by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena for NASA.