December Health Pearls: The last one of 2013!
December Health News Vaccine for Prevention of Mild and Moderate-to-Severe Influenza in Children, New England Journal of Medicine, 2013; 369(26): 2481-91. Children who received a quadrivalent (targeted against 4 specific strains) flu vaccine versus Hepatitis A vaccine (control group) had a 59% less likelihood of contracting influenza. The study included 5168 children in 8 countries. The difference…
e-cigarettes: what you should know
Over the past few months, I’ve seen articles on e-cigarettes frequently in the popular press and in medical journals – so I thought you might like the scoop on this misnamed device. It sounds like a virtual cigarette you might find on the internet, but it’s not. It’s very real, and although it has one…
Urinary Incontinence – more common than you think
At the 2012 London Olympics, almost half of the athletes competing were women. As women’s participation in sports continues to increase, the importance of understanding common women’s health issues in the sports environment becomes more important for all clinicians. Urinary incontinence is an unspoken problem of the female athlete, and of women in general. Here’s…
November Health Pearls on Nuts, Knees and Vitamin D
#1 We have already seen that a Mediterranean style diet, rich in nuts, is healthy. This month, researchers from Harvard reviewed nut consumption in over 110,000 health professionals from 1980 through 2010. Eating any nuts reduced the risk of dying by 7%. The more they ate, the better, so those with daily nut consumption reduced…
It’s all in your head — sports related concussions
In the last few years, increased attention has been paid to sports related concussions and their effects. In October 2013, the Institute of Medicine issued a summary of recommendations addressing sports related concussions in youth. After reviewing recent research on the topic, they concluded that there is a lack of data on how common sports…
How can my eyes be dry and tearing at the same time?!
Do you suffer from gritty, burning, red eyes? Do they feel dry, or sometimes excessively watery? Then you’re not alone. Estimates are that more than three million women over 50 and over 1.5 million men over 50 are affected by dry eye syndrome. The prevalence increases with age. You can see that women are twice…
Should We Drink Bottled Water or Tap Water?
Poland Spring, Fiji, Aquafina, Deer Park, Dasani, Evian…the list goes on and on. Today, bottled water is becoming more and more prevalent as people turn to this option as a healthy alternative to drinking other bottled beverages, such as sodas and energy drinks. However, you may have heard concerns regarding the differences between tap water…
Heart Disease in Women
Why, you might ask, should there be a symposium on heart disease in women? When we talk about pregnancy-related issues, uterine fibroids, and other ‘female issues’, it’s obvious why discussions need to focus on females, but why would that be true for heart disease? Well, having just returned home from just such a conference, I think…
October Health Pearls
October Health News 1. Primary Care Utilization and Colorectal Cancer Incidence and Mortality Among Medicare Beneficiaries, Annals of Internal Medicine, 2013; 159(7): 437-445. Senior citizens who see a primary care physician more often (5-10 visits over an 11 year period versus 0-1 visits during the same period) are less likely to develop colorectal cancer and less likely…
Think Pink, Breast Cancer Screening: MRI or Mammogram?
“ Think Pink. “ Pink is everywhere in October, from the White House to NFL primetime, during breast cancer awareness month. For many of us, breast cancer is very personal and we have seen the toll it takes on our loved ones. Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women, and currently the…