Breast implants may be associated with a rare form of cancer, the FDA said yesterday.

Anaplastic large cell lymphoma, or ALCL, isn’t breast cancer, but very rarely the disease — which is treatable — can show up there. That’s what has happened with a small number of women who have had implants; their cancers have been found “in the fibrous scar capsule” surrounding the implant, but not in the breast tissue itself, the FDA says.

Here’s a bunch of information from the FDA on the topic.

As the WSJ reports, the number of cases reported thus far is very small. The FDA has identified up to 60 cases and verified 37 in women with breast implants since 1997, out of an estimated 5 million to 10 million who have had the devices implanted. Even assuming 60 cases among 5 million women, that’s about one case per 83,333 women.

That’s higher than the usual incidence of ALCL — only about 1 in 500,000 U.S. women each year gets the disease, and just 3 in 100 million develop it in a breast, according to the FDA — but still tiny.

An Allergan spokeswoman tells the WSJ in a statement that “a woman is more likely to be struck by lightning than get this condition.”

We checked out the official government stats on lightning strikes. The odds being struck by lightning during a given year is between 1 in 500,000 and 1 in 750,000, depending on whether you’re counting reported cases only or estimated cases. Over a lifetime, that risk is 1 in 6,250, the National Weather Service says. But those stats include men and women, and men are four times as likely to be struck than women, according to a study.

It’s not clear what the lifetime risk associated with implants — if in fact there is one — actually is. (Here’s the FDA’s review of the scientific evidence.)

It is clear, however, that women with or without breast implants (and of course men) are far better off focusing on the common health problems most likely to affect them. Cardiovascular disease, for example, killed more than 831,000 people in 2006 alone. And breast cancer — a disease that has not been linked to breast implants — likely killed almost 40,000 women last year.

Katherine Hobson

Regular walking isn’t just good for the dog. It’s also good for your brain. As Paula Span reports:

In a study published on Jan. 31 in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers randomly assigned 120 healthy but sedentary men and women (average age mid-60s) to one of two exercise groups. One group walked around a track three times a week, building up to 40 minutes at a stretch; the other did a variety of less aerobic exercises, including yoga and resistance training with bands.

After a year, brain scans showed that among the walkers, the hippocampus had increased in volume by about 2 percent on average; in the others, it had declined by about 1.4 percent. Since such a decline is normal in older adults, “a 2 percent increase is fairly significant,” said the lead author, Kirk Erickson, a psychologist at the University of Pittsburgh. Both groups also improved on a test of spatial memory, but the walkers improved more.

Other walking studies suggest spending time in a natural setting like walking in a park reduces brain fatigue and that for people in their 60s, regular walking appears to lower the risk of dementia.

source: http://goo.gl/W6bUP

The common and early symptoms of diabetes result from the effect of the high blood sugar entering the urine and drawing fluid from the body’s tissues along with it. This leads to excess urine production with frequent urination. The loss of body fluid leads to thirst, in order to replace the fluid loss. As long as the person with diabetes is able to keep pace with his or her thirst by regular fluid intake, he or she will remain relatively well.

However, without free access to fluid, which can occur for a variety of reasons, one will become dehydrated, which leads to dizziness upon standing upright drowsiness, confusion, and ultimately fainting and unconsciousness. Due to the wasting of calories as glucose in the urine, patients will complain of hunger and will usually lose weight if high blood sugar is very marked. However, it is important to note that only a minority of people with diabetes will experience these symptoms. Frequently, the degree of high blood sugar is more moderate, with little sugar entering the urine and causing no immediate symptoms. However, diabetes of even modest severity can cause considerable harm and lead to serious chronic complications. Therefore, it is important to detect diabetes that is asymptomatic (i.e., without symptoms), which is the reason that screening programs to detect diabetes in those at highest risk have been developed. If asymptomatic diabetes is not discovered for a sufficiently long period (many months or years), patients may actually present with long-term complications of the previously unrecognized diabetes, such as heart attack, stroke, heart failure, neuropathy (nerve damage), nephropathy (kidney damage), or retinopathy (eye damage).

Dieters are sometimes told to have a substantial breakfast, because it reduces the amount of food consumed during rest of the day. Not so, a new study reports.

German researchers studied the food intake of 280 obese adults and 100 of normal weight. The subjects kept records of everything they ate over two weeks, and were carefully instructed about the importance of writing down what they ate as soon as they ate it.

For both groups, a large breakfast simply added to the number of daily calories they consumed. Whether they ate a large breakfast, a small one or none at all, their nonbreakfast calorie intake remained the same.

The study, published in Nutrition Journal, found that the foods most often responsible for the variations in daily calories were among the morning’s favorites: bread, eggs, yogurt, cheese, sausages, marmalade and butter.

This may mean that exactly the opposite of the commonly offered advice is correct: A smaller breakfast means fewer daily calories consumed, not more.

“Whenever someone comes to me for dietary advice and says, ‘I never eat breakfast,’ I say, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing,’ ” said the senior author, Dr. Volker Schusdziarra, a professor of internal medicine at the Technical University of Munich. “Eating breakfast is just added calories. You’ll never compensate for them at subsequent meals.”

Coffee loving women rejoice – coffee is good for women and that shot of caffeine could well help in stressful and work related situations. And while coffee can help women, it was seen to have an opposite effect on men, reveals a new Bristol University study.

It could be the way to better male counterparts and get ahead when it comes to performance at work, because coffee consumption seemed to affect men and women differently when it came to stressful situations.

Whereas women were seen to complete tasks earlier after drinking coffee, men seemed to take longer and become less confident as a result of drinking the caffeinated drink which is known to be an effective stimulant to combat sleepiness and enhance performance.

It was the tendency of women to work together to sort out problems, what scientists call ‘tend and befriend’ trait that is responsible for this reaction to stress, whereas men tend to have a more instinctive ‘fight or flee’ response to a stressful situation.

This study adds to the list of possible benefits of drinking coffee – it could fight gout, liver damage, diabetes and even Alzheimer’s – now it would seem it is good for women’s careers as well!

Disulfiram (antabuse) is a classical drug in treatment of alcohol addiction and acts by inhibiting the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase, which is responsible of conversion of alcohol (ethyl alcohol) acetaldehyde (alcohol is metabolized to acetaldehyde) to acetate and as a result acetaldehyde concentration increases in blood as well as in tissues, which produce distressing symptoms known as “aldehyde syndrome”. Aldehyde syndrome is manifested as flushing, burning sensation, throbbing headache, perspiration (profuse sweating), uneasiness, tightness in the chest, vomiting, dizziness, mental confusion, visual disturbances, postural fainting, and in severe cases circulatory collapse and death. The duration of aldehyde syndrome lasts for 1-4 hours depending on the quantity of alcohol consumed after taking antabuse. As disulfiram produce severe symptoms which may lead to death, it is rarely used for treatment of alcoholism. Disulfiram is used only under strict medical supervision, where there is no risk of alcohol consumption by the alcoholic who is being treated, such as drug de-addiction centers.

Disulfiram is only used for those alcoholics who are well motivated for leaving the habit of alcohol and in the de-addiction centers where the risk of alcohol consumption is nil. Antabuse is given to alcoholics after abstaining from alcohol for at least 12 hours (overnight) at the dose of 1 gram in day one, 0.75 gram on day two, 0.5 gram on day three and 0.25 gram (250 mg) subsequently for 1-2 weeks or at the dose of 0.5 gram per day for 1-2 weeks followed by 0.125-0.250 gram per day for few weeks.

It is of vital importance to abstain from alcohol completely while taking disulfiram as consumption of alcohol during treatment with disulfiram will cause aldehyde syndrome and may cause death. The sensitization to alcohol develops within 2-3 hours after taking disulfiram and lasts for 1-2 weeks after stopping the medication.

What are the side effects of disulfiram?

The side effects of disulfiram are minor and less frequent and include skin rash, metallic taste, stomach upset, malaise, nervousness etc.

According to a new survey of more than 8,000 Consumer Reports subscribers, an awful lot of adults are getting an awful lot of heart tests that aren’t likely to benefit them and might cause harm.

The survey found that 44% of 40-to-60-year-olds with no risk factors for heart disease reported getting a cardiovascular screening test beyond blood-pressure monitoring and routine blood work. Tests such as EKGs, exercise stress tests and ultrasounds of the carotid artery aren’t recommended for healthy people, CR says.

Screening tests aren’t a risk-free proposition. They can lead to further testing and procedures that cost a lot and may lead to injury or harm — without actually helping a person live longer.

The magazine has rated nine cardiovascular screening tests with its familiar circular symbols on the question of whether the benefits of the test outweigh the risks. Ratings range from “very likely” to “very unlikely,” and vary by age, gender and heart-disease risk factors.

The ratings were calculated using a point system, with higher scores going to tests that received a better grade from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, that had additional evidence supporting them beyond what the USPSTF considered, affected a large chunk of the population, were assessed positively on measures of value and offered health benefits beyond the cardiovascular system. Here’s a complete description of the evaluation system.

John Santa, director of the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center, tells the Health Blog the ratings ended up being a bit more positive about the value of C-reactive protein than the USPSTF’s, and the recommendations for diabetes screening a bit broader, encompassing adults who are obese or who have high cholesterol.

Santa says the CR team was surprised at the low number of people who talked about the possible risks of tests with their physician. Just 11% asked about the follow-up that might come on the heels of an abnormal result, 9% asked about the test’s accuracy, 4% found out about possible complications and 1% asked about research showing the test could save lives.

“People are buying into [the notion] that all prevention has got to be good,” he says.

Skin tags; also know as acrochordon are common skin problem of benign nature, which are actually fibro-epithelial polyp. Skin tags usually do not cause any health problem (may cause minor problems such as irritation and inflammation of the area of skin tags due to friction with cloths or other objects such as jewelry or during shaving) but most individuals with skin tags like to remove skin tags, especially if they are present in the exposed areas of the skin such as face and cause cosmetic problem in women as well as men.

The common areas of human body where skin tags are formed more frequently are the areas of skin where skin forms creases such as armpit/axilla, neck folds and groin areas. But skin tags can occur in any part of the skin as well as most of the areas covered with mucous membranes, such as vagina. Skin tags also occur in face (when treatment is must for cosmetic reason), eye lids (may cause irritation of the eye and need treatment).

The sources of protein can be divided into two broad categories animal source and plant or vegetable source. Both of the sources are important source for supply of protein in our diet, depending on the cultural practice, religious belief, availability and locality. The source of the protein also decides the quality of protein. Quality of protein indicates the availability of essential amino acids, the better the quality the higher is the essential amino acids content.

Animal sources of protein:

The important sources of animal protein include eggs, meat, fish, cheese and milk. The animal proteins contain all the essential amino acids and the quantity of these essential amino acids is adequate in animal protein. Essential amino acids have to be supplied in our diet as they can not be synthesized by our body.

The egg proteins are considered best among all the food proteins as egg protein has highest “biological value” and digestibility, which means egg protein has all the essential amino acids in adequate quantity according to human need and very easy to digest too. For this quality the egg protein is used as “reference protein”.

Vegetable sources of protein:

The rich sources of vegetable protein are pulses (lentils etc), cereals (rice, maize, wheat, millets etc), nuts, beans etc. In developing countries the vegetable proteins are the main source of protein in the diet. The vegetable source proteins are poor in essential amino acids. They are deficient in one or more essential amino acids. These are known as “limiting” amino acids. But combination of two or more vegetable protein compensates the deficiency of the essential amino acids. For example cereal protein (rice, wheat etc.) is deficient in lysine and threonine and pulse protein is deficient in metheonine. Here lysine, threonine and metheonine are the “limiting” amino acids. But when these two sources (here rice/wheat and pulse) are combined in the diet they compensates each other and make the whole of the protein “biologically complete

Doing cardio exercise can provide many benefits such as weight loss and body become fitter. But there is another benefit that is gained a better sex life.

As we all know that good sex life is strongly influenced by overall health, so if someone has a good level of fitness then sexual life would be good also.

Cardio exercise can help a person survive much longer in bed, because this exercise to improve and strengthen stamina as strengthen the heart, increases lung capacity and muscle.

If someone is doing cardio exercises regularly, then he will have a healthy body. With a healthy body then someone will feel more sexy and attractive so that increased confidence that positive impact on sexual life, as quoted from Lifemojo.

After working all day, and the body will lose a lot of energy. But if he is regularly doing cardio so he still has the energy to have sex so it will likely enjoy.

Besides doing cardio exercises will improve blood circulation throughout the body including the sexual organs that can increase the intensity and quality of sex life. Sexual organs of male and female will receive great benefits if that is rich in blood supply can reach the nerve endings.

In the Journal of the American Medical Association, February 1999 issue, the scientists found sexual dysfunction is more likely to occur in people who have physical and emotional health of the poor. This can be overcome by doing cardio exercises on a regular basis, because cardio enough to effectively deal with the problem.

As well as cardio exercises performed can also help reduce stress. If the body start to feel stressed out, then go running or cycling, so the stress is reduced and can enjoy a better sex life.