CHRONIC PAIN
• Knee Replacement Brings Less Pain,
Better Function: Total
knee replacement usually results in greater pain relief and better joint
function after a year than nonsurgical arthritis treatment, researchers report.
The study shows knee replacement is much better for pain relief, but physical
therapy is often effective and should be viewed as a viable option, especially
for those concerned about the risks of surgery. NEJM
• Prescription
Naproxen as good as Narcotic Painkillers for low back pain: Naproxen
-- a drug available over-the-counter and by prescription -- appears to provide
as much relief for low back pain as a narcotic painkiller or a muscle relaxant,
a new study suggests. JAMA
• Mindfulness Meditation Trumps Placebo in Pain Reduction: New evidence has been found that
mindfulness meditation reduces pain more effectively than placebo. The
research, published in the Nov.11 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience,
showed that study participants who practiced mindfulness meditation reported
greater pain relief than placebo. Significantly, brain scans showed that
mindfulness meditation produced very different patterns of activity than those
produced by placebo to reduce pain.
• People Can Raise Their Pain Threshold by Altering Brain Chemistry: The numbers of opiate receptors in the
brain increases to combat severe pain in arthritis sufferers, researchers have
shown for the first time. By applying heat to the skin using a laser
stimulator, the researchers showed that the more opiate receptors there are in
the brain, the higher the ability to withstand the pain. Pain
• High Frequency Stimulation in Pain Medicine: Due to disease-related changes
in their brain, pain patients often suffer from an impaired tactile ability in
their hands. In a new study, high frequency repetitive stimulation was
investigated as a therapeutic approach for these patients. The results of this
study show that passive stimulation of this kind is a promising new therapy
option. Frontiers in Neurology
COMPLEMENTARY & ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE
• Resilience-Mind Body Medicine Reduces Need for Health Care: Resilience
is a skill anyone can learn starting with the relaxation response-a
physiologic state of deep rest induced by practices such as rhythmic breathing,
mindfulness meditation, yoga, tai chi, qi gong, or prayer. People who graduated
from a resiliency-boosting program developed by the Benson-Henry Institute used
considerably less health care services in the year following the course
compared with the year before. PLoS One
• Pot Use
Doubles Among Americans in Past Decade: As laws
and attitudes about marijuana have relaxed in the past decade, the number of
Americans who say they smoke pot has more than doubled, a new report shows. And
with that increase in use, there has come an increase in abuse: Nearly three of
10 marijuana users had a marijuana use disorder in 2012-2013, the researchers
said. JAMA Psychiatry
•Acupuncture and Alexander Technique Help Chronic Neck Pain: Researchers
provided over 345 people with chronic neck pain with a few months of
acupuncture or Alexander Technique and compared them to 170 people who just
received usual care for a year. By three months, people receiving acupuncture
or Alexander Technique were had about a 10 percent less pain than the people
who hadn't received the extra care. The pain relief was also seen at six and 12
months. Annals of Internal Medicine
• Better Sleep and Tai Chi Reduce Inflammation: A new
study published in the current issue of Biological Psychiatry reports
that treatment for insomnia, either by cognitive behavioral therapy or the
movement meditation tai chi, reduces inflammation levels in older adults over
55 years of age.
FDA ACTION
• Approves Praxbind
for emergency use with Pradaxa when bleeding can’t be controlled.
• Flibanserin,
the little pink pill for women with low libido is now on sale.
• Approved
Expanded use of the melanoma drug Yervoy.
• Granted
accelerated approval for Tagrisson, an oral medication to treat patients with
advanced non small cell lung cancer.
• Approved
cobimetinib to be used in combination with vemurafenib to treat advanced
melanoma that has spread to other parts of the body or can’t be removed by
surgery.
• Determined
that long-term use of the blood-thinning drug Plavix (clopidogrel) does not
increase or decrease overall risk of death in patients with, or at risk for,
heart disease. The drug also does not appear to increase the risk of cancer or
death from cancer.
• Approves
nasal spray (narcan) to reverse narcotic painkiller overdose
• Finalizes New
Food Safety Rules
• Poor Sleep Might Harm Kidney: Women who slept five hours or less a
night had a 65 percent greater risk of rapid decline in kidney function,
compared with women sleeping seven to eight hours a night, according to a study
of thousands of women. American Society of Nephrology
• Dogs
in the Home May Lower Kids’ Odds for Asthma: Exposure to dogs or farm
animals early in life appears to reduce a child's risk of developing asthma, a
new study shows. JAMA Pediatrics
• Breast Feeding May Reduce Risk of
Aggressive Breast Cancer: A new
study finds a link between breast-feeding and a woman's reduced risk for an
aggressive form of breast cancer called hormone-receptor-negative breast
cancer. Annals of Oncology
• Giving
Birth, Breast-Feeding May Help Women’s Long Term Health: Researchers
analyzed data from nearly 323,000 women in 10 European countries who were
followed for an average of about 13 years. The risk of cancer death was lower
in women who had given birth than among those who had not, and was lower among
those who gave birth to two or three children than among those with one child.
Among women who never smoked or were former smokers, those who used birth
control pills were less likely to die of cancer than those who did not. The
study also found that women who had given birth, breast-fed and started menstruating
when they were 15 or older had a lower risk of death from circulatory diseases,
and those who had given birth and breast-fed had a reduced risk of death from
heart disease. While the study found an association between childbirth,
breast-feeding and life span, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.
BMC Medicine
• Physical Fitness Linked to Mental Fitness in Seniors: Connections
between different parts of the brain weaken with age, but new research suggests
that being physically fit can boost long-term brain function. A study from the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that age-related differences
in the brains of older adults varied, depending on their level of aerobic
endurance. The researchers found greater fitness is associated with stronger
brain connections later in life. However, the study did not prove a
cause-and-effect relationship between the two. Neurolmage
• Possible New Mechanism for Aspirin’s
Role in Cancer Prevention: A new
technique called metabolite profiling has been used by scientists to identify a
biochemical pathway previously unknown to be regulated by aspirin.
Specifically, the researchers found that aspirin substantially decreases the
level of a chemical called 2-hydroxyglutarate in the blood of healthy
volunteers and in two colorectal cancer cell lines. Cancer Epidemiology,
Biomarkers, and Prevention
NUTRITION/SUPPLEMENTS/VITAMINS
• B Vitamin May Help Ward Off Some Skin
Cancers: A form
of vitamin B3 called nicotinamide appears to reduce non-melanoma skin cancers
by 23 percent when taken twice daily, the Australian researchers reported.
NEJM
• Mediterranean Diet May Keep Your Mind Healthy in Old Age: Eating
healthy foods from the so-called Mediterranean diet may help your brain stay in
good shape as you get older, the new study suggests. The researchers said that
people over 65 who ate more fish, vegetables, fruit, grains and olive oil had a
larger brain volume than a similar group who didn't follow a Mediterranean
diet. Neurology
• Sweetened
Drinks Might Raise Men’s Risk for Heart Failure:
People who regularly consume sodas or sweetened fruit drinks may have a higher
risk for heart failure, researchers report. Swedish men who drank two or more
servings of sweetened beverages a day had a 23 percent higher risk of suffering
heart failure. JACC:Heart Failure
• Low Fat Diets No Better than Other Plans: We found that low-fat diets were
not more effective than higher-fat diets for long-term weight loss.” The key to
success seems to have more to do with adherence than a specific weight-loss
plan.” "Being able to stick to a diet in the long term will probably
predict whether or not a diet is successful for weight loss." The Lancet
Diabetes & Endocrinology
• Foods May Affect Each Person’s Blood
Sugar Differently: A new
study from Israel suggests that people have very different blood sugar
responses to the same food -- with some showing large spikes even after eating
supposedly healthy choices. Researchers said the findings, published in the
Nov. 19 issue of the journal Cell, underscore the message that there is no
"one-size-fits-all" diet.
• Coffee Drinkers May Live Longer: Coffee
lovers may live longer than those who don't imbibe -- with lower risks of early
death from heart disease and neurological conditions such as Parkinson's
disease, a large U.S. study finds. Over 30 years, nonsmokers who drank three to
five cups of coffee a day were 15 percent less likely to die of any cause,
versus nondrinkers. Specifically, they had lower rates of death from heart
disease, stroke, neurological conditions and suicide. Both regular coffee and
decaf were linked to longer survival, the study found. Circulation
• Common Shoulder Injury Heals Well Without Surgery: Those who decide against surgery for a dislocated
shoulder joint develop fewer complications and get back to work sooner. But,
surgery patients seem more satisfied with the appearance of their shoulder
after treatment. Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma
• Drugs May Be as Good as Surgery for Chronic Sinusitis: Sticking
with treatments that can include nasal sprays, antibiotics and antihistamines
may be as effective as surgery in helping some patients achieve a better
quality of life, the small study found. JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery
• Many Seniors Given Antipsychotic Meds, Despite Potential Problems: The
researchers found that the percentage of people aged 80 to 84 who received a
prescription for an antipsychotic drug was twice that of people aged 65 to 69.
This increase is occurring despite the known risks of serious side effects such
as stroke, kidney damage, and death, they added. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry
• New
American Cancer Society Guidelines for Mammograms: The
American Cancer Society is delaying the recommended age when a woman should
start receiving annual mammograms, based on new research that shows the average
risk for breast cancer increases near menopause. Most women should receive
annual mammograms between the ages of 45 and 54, then transition to screening
every two years for as long as they remain healthy, according to the new breast
cancer screening guidelines. JAMA
• It’s Time for Flu Shots: The start of flu season is just around
the corner and U.S. health officials are urging everyone aged 6 months and
older to get their yearly flu shot. October is the ideal time to get
vaccinated, Grohskopf said. But it's never too late, even after the flu season
starts.
• Statins May Dampen Protective Power of
Flu Vaccines: Two new
studies raise the possibility that the popular cholesterol-lowering drugs known
as statins may blunt the effectiveness of flu vaccines in seniors. But experts
caution that more research is needed to better understand the issue, and that
older people shouldn't throw away their statins just yet. Journal of Infectious
Disease
• Revascularization Before Exercise Program Improves Patients with PAD: Among patients with peripheral artery disease and
intermittent claudication (cramping pain in the legs due to poor circulation in
the arteries, aggravated by walking), a combination therapy of endovascular
revascularization (an invasive procedure to improve blood flow in an artery)
followed by supervised exercise resulted in greater improvement in walking
distances and health-related quality-of-life measures at one year compared with
supervised exercise only, according to a new study. JAMA Network
• Ozone Gas Injections May do the Trick for Knee Osteoarthritis: Injecting
ozone gas into the knee reduces pain and improves functioning and quality of
life in people with knee osteoarthritis, according to research presented this
week at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Meeting in San Francisco.
• Light Box Might Help Nonseasonal Depression too: Light
therapy, a treatment for a kind of depression known as seasonal affective
disorder (SAD), may also benefit nonseasonal depression, a new study indicates.
"The combination of light and an antidepressant seems to work very well
for treating nonseasonal depression.” JAMA Psychiatry
OTHER
• Study Refutes Notion That Obese Fare
Better Against Chronic Ills:Scientific debate continues to simmer over the so-called "obesity
paradox" -- the apparent ability of obese or overweight people to better
withstand chronic illnesses, such as diabetes or heart disease, and outlive
thinner people with those same maladies. But the obesity paradox is built on a
foundation of shaky research, a new study contends. Earlier studies failed to
account for two important factors that negate the supposedly protective effects
of obesity: weight history and smoking, the researchers said. Obesity
• Severe
Combat Injuries Linked to Risk of Chronic Disease:"The more severely a service member is injured, the more likely they are
to develop a wide variety of chronic medical conditions, including high blood
pressure, diabetes, chronic kidney disease and hardening of the arteries.”
Circulation
• Media
Often Overplays Cancer Drug Research: News articles that promise
"breakthrough, "game-changing" new cancer drugs could
irresponsibly raise the hopes of desperate patients, a new report suggests.
Just five days' worth of news last June contained 94 articles that lavishly
praised 36 different cancer drugs, researchers found by combing Google.
Unfortunately, half of the "marvel" drugs had not been approved by
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and 14 percent had never been tested on
humans, the results showed. JAMA Oncology
• Once-A
Week Sex Makes for Happy Couples: An active sex life is important
to couples' happiness, and they don't have to go at it like rabbits -- those
who make love once a week are happiest, a new study suggests. Social
Psychological and Personality Science
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