Archive for the ‘Health’ Category

Symptoms of diabetes

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

In this blog of health and we have tried on other occasions the topic of diabetes, one of the most widespread diseases in the present, to the point of considering it an epidemic. This time we focus on the symptoms of diabetes in those elements that can make you suspect that suffers.

The important thing is to act in time and detect diabetes early, to avoid unnecessary risks.

Among the main symptoms of diabetes highlights thirst. People with diabetes have the sensation of thirst with relative frequency. Also, people with diabetes feel hungry, have a good appetite, because the cells can not detect the glucose from food.

On the other hand, people with diabetes feel tired, made from the difficulty that has the body to convert glucose into energy. Similarly, another of the symptoms of diabetes is weight loss, but you have not stopped eating or have followed a diet. They may also have stomach pain and heartburn.

But there is more that you may notice symptoms such as blurred, as if they saw a small cloud. Similarly, another of the symptoms to stress is the change in your skin. This is one of the most significant warning signs of possible diabetes, because excess sugar can lead to skin infection.

To this we must add that the nails may lose strength and begin to fall or discard. Must be considered as a symptom of the desire to urinate, because the kidney does not filter adequately and constantly feel like going to the bathroom.

Finally, we note that another symptom that warns of a potential diabetes is alitosis, ie when you smell the breath could be because you have diabetes.

It is important to monitor blood sugar level to avoid problems, and if you think you have all these symptoms, go to the doctor to assess your situation.

Posted in Diabetes, General, Health, Health System | No Comments »

How to avoid work stress

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

Much is spoken and written on one of the problems of the XXI century: the stress. Since this blog health We talked in the past, but now we focus on how to avoid stress at work, without doubt, one of the most suffering people. Work is the main source of concern and tension between the majority of people.

The first thing to make clear is that there is no magic formula that makes removing the stress of an immediate and radical, but each person has to adapt its own form of combat.

To avoid stress at work is important to plan your activities, be sure to improvisation or to the overlapping of tasks. When you have many things to do and little time, the situation tends to overwhelm you and starts the anxiety, nerves and the damn stress.

Nor is it good to accumulate more of the responsibility that your job needs. Think that the more responsibility you have, the more stress and pressure is generated, all damaging to your health. Learn to know your limits and do not want to cover more than what your body can sustain.

Similarly, to avoid stress at work must marcarte achievable goals and objectives, no utopias or pharaonic projects, which do not make more than entorpedecer your welfare. There are people who are unable to say “no”, hence, accumulate more charges on their work. It is important to say “no” and know what each can do.

Of course, you have to sleep to be rested and avoid stress. Sleep is essential to face the day with guarantees. The problem is that many times their own stress and not let you sleep pressure, this has to be solved, as the lack of sleep can also cause stress, and everything is a snowball that builds up and you affect you.

Whenever you have the option of going to a doctor for help and you get a treatment.

Posted in General, Health, Pain, stress | No Comments »

Guia against food myth

Friday, September 19th, 2008

Bread is not fattening, the whole grains and fat nor thin plants are always healthy, as a guide to myth food, prepared by the Confederation of Consumers and Users (CECU), which aims to demystify false claims and beliefs about food and that are installed with strength in society.

Thus, with a grant from the National Institute of Consumption (INC), CECU asked consumers to make claims of this type known for its scientific study and conclude its accuracy, including the results in a guide on ‘food myths Falsos ‘.

In addition, another guide has been published on ‘healthy eating habits’ which give the keys of the Mediterranean diet or how to achieve an appropriate weight through a balanced diet and regular exercise.

In the first part of this guide explains the basics of healthy eating, describing the food pyramid and the Mediterranean diet and then exposing the food groups, demonstrating the need to incorporate a sufficient amount of water, avoid fat or consumed only occasionally sweets, soft drinks or fast food. It emphasizes the importance of exercise throughout the week.

Thus, recommends CECU a varied diet, trying to eat every day from all food groups, five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, with five meals, moderate consumption of fast food, enjoy food, discard idea of good and bad foods, avoid snacks between meals, drink plenty of water and perform 30 minutes of daily physical exercise.

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Survey questions and radiographies resonances for low back pain

Saturday, June 14th, 2008

The routine use of expensive X-rays, MRI and CT in patients with low back pain would be unnecessary and, in the case of two of these reviews, exposes people to radiation, researchers said.

Back pain is one of the most common reasons for consulting the doctor and sick leave.

Experts say that while most patients had no serious condition that is causing the pain, doctors often order immediately imaging procedures that can detect problems such as herniated disks, muscle injuries, arthritis or fractures.

Dr. Roger Chou, of the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, and colleagues evaluated the results of six studies that included 1,800 people with pain in his lower back or lumbar spine.

Patients who had no signs of a serious underlying cause but as a control immediately received no imaging did better than those for which standard treatment was applied but without imaging studies, the authors wrote in The Lancet.

The results correspond to the particular type of back pain which is usually evaluated by a physician, said the team. The authors urged doctors not to order x-rays, CT or resonances unless concrete signs of a problem.

The controls are often expensive imaging and x-rays and scans expose patients to low doses of radiation may be carcinogenic, the researchers added.

“If there are warning signs that indicate a serious cause of low back pain, the images are rarely helpful in guiding treatment,” said Dr. Michael Koch, University of Goettingen in Germany, who wrote a commentary accompanied the study.

“The images of routine checks for patients with pain in his lower back is a waste of resources for medical care,” added Koch. He also stressed that the controls for images “have some potentially serious side effects.”

“Exposure to radiation is a major public health issue, particularly in women, where controls for images of the lumbar spine to expose the ovaries to radiation,” said Koch.

Meanwhile, the expert noted that although not involved exposure to radiation, the MRI is very expensive.

“Some doctors perform a routine of the lumbar spine or without a clear indication that possibly point to reassure their patients and themselves, to meet the expectations of the patient on diagnostic tests, or other reasons, wrote the computer .

Patients who insist on being subjected to imaging procedures should be counseled about their usefulness in certain limited cases.

Posted in Health, Pain | No Comments »

n humans, the mother’s diet may influence the design of fetal sex

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

“Everything that exists in the Universe
is the result of chance and necessity
(Jacques Monod, 1970
quoting Democritus)

“The sociobiology review
the biological basis
social behavior
in all types
organisms ”
(Edward. O. Wilson)

An article published in the April number of this year in a prestigious scientific journal, the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Biological Sciences, has had an impact on the daily headlines that could be described as global. The conclusion of a rigorous epidemiological study, conducted in a population of mothers in the UK universities of Exeter and Oxford, is that the fetal sex is associated with the characteristics of the diet consumed by the mother immediately before and after the time at which it occurs conception when a sperm fertilizes the egg: the more calories it is rich in the diet (and especially when consuming cereal at breakfast) is more likely to conceive a male fetus. As a result of this finding, the authors believe to be low calorie diets, prevalent today in young women in industrialized countries, which would explain the slow decline in the number of births of sons.

This finding may be read, no doubt, as an argument for the influence of the biological behaviors in humans, in the context of evolutionary biology, rooted in Darwinian evolution, and also the kind of sociobiology, as define, in 1975, the American zoologist and entomologist Edward O. Wilson, a discipline on the borderline between anthropology, life sciences and sociology, which studies the interaction between biological systems and the evolution of social behavior, and how and to what extent these social behaviors are listed in the genes, even in humans (Wilson, EO Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, 25 Anniversary Edition, Harvard University Press, 2000).

One of the most active areas of sociobiology is that studies in nonhuman mammals, the biological basis of the ratio between males and females in offspring, seen as the set of children who have a birth animals. ” The hypotheses that have attempted to answer this question, the best known and controversial is the proposal published in the journal Science, in 1973, two scientists from Harvard, Robert sociobiólogo. L. Trivers and mathematician Dan Willard.

The Trivers-Willard hypothesis suggests that the physiological condition of the mother influences the sex of their offspring: mothers whose physiological condition is good, because they live in areas with ample food resources, gestarían more male offspring, whereas mothers whose physiological is poor, because they live in areas short of food, females have more offspring.

This theory, from the perspective of evolutionary biology, predicts that mothers with different physiological conditions with biologically in their pregnancies, the proportion of male offspring / female (sex ratio “or ratio between the sexes in the offspring) in connection with future reproductive benefits of the flock in the environment in which they live: if the environment is favorable, with abundant food that allow mothers to maintain good physiological condition, males predominate in the offspring, as they can reproduce more (andalusia inseminate more and females have more offspring), but if the environment is poor in resources, and physiological condition of the mother is poor, the pups are females, mostly.

The application of the Trivers-Willard hypothesis to humans has been and is controversial because theoretical, empirical and ideological. New Zealand’s Elissa Cameron, an evolutionary biologist who has worked in Australia and South Africa, currently at the University of Nevada at Reno, has recently contributed to the analysis of the Trivers-Willard hypothesis by analyzing nearly 1,000 studies that had subjected to experimental verification. In his review (Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 2004) found that 34% of the published studies had data that favored the Trivers-Willard hypothesis, at 8.5% did not favor the data, while in the rest found no evidence for or against.

In a previous study in this review, conducted by the Elissa Cameron with wild horses in Australia, concluded that the physical condition of the mother when the concept is associated, significantly, with the birth of a male or a female. In his view, body fat and diet might affect glucose levels in maternal circulation, thus suggesting that these glucose levels at the time of conception could influence the sex of the animal conceived, so excess glucose that favor males.

Working at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, Cameron set out to prove through experiments in mice, the theory of the influence of maternal diet on the sex of the offspring. The experimental method used was adding dexamethasone, which reduces levels of blood glucose, water to drink to be 20 female mice, using as many females who do not drink this water as controls. During three days in cages made for male mice copulate with females with the following results: females with low levels of blood glucose, because they had drunk water with dexamethasone, gave birth to litters with 42% of males, compared with females that had not been drunk, with high levels of blood glucose, with 52% of males in their litters.

That is, under certain conditions, Darwinian natural selection would favor deviations in either direction, which is considered typical division of the sex of the offspring, half female, half male sex andalusia encourage better reproduced in poor physical condition, which is the feminine, and that mothers in poor physiological condition still can find some male insemination while the male weakened more difficult to find a female to mate.

“Would you like a child? Take cereal for breakfast” is the title of a commentary on the magazine’s ScienceNOW Daily News 23 April 2008, which analyzes the findings of researchers from Exeter and Oxford, and their relationships with the hypothesis sociobiológica of Trivers and Willard, in which, even accepting that these results are the first to appear in favor of this hypothesis, however, not clear that the nutrition of the mother is the most important cause of progressive decline in the number of children in developed countries, and is likely to coexist with other factors have also been implicated as environmental pollution.

Anyway, what can not be overlooked is the unfathomable complexity of the biological background of certain human behaviors, so partial to findings, although relevant from the standpoint of sociobiology, it must avoid any temptation too reductionist, understood here as an oversimplification of what is, in itself, is very complicated.

Posted in Health, Sex | No Comments »

Fourth death from bird flu in China this year

Saturday, June 7th, 2008

A woman of 31 years is the fourth fatality from the bird flu virus in humans since the beginning of the year, confirmed by the Department of Health of the western Chinese region of Xinjiang.

The deceased, a resident of the regional capital, Urumqi, died at dawn on Friday. According to the department’s regional deputy director, Wang Xiaoyan, the victim was at a live poultry market before falling ill on January 10.

Analysis of the Center for Disease Control today confirmed the presence of the lethal H5N1 virus of avian influenza in samples taken from the victim.

Since January 5 Three other people died in China on avian flu: a rural immigrant 19 years in Beijing the same day, last Saturday of another woman 27 years in Shandong (east) and 20 a couple days of 16 years in the central province of Hunan.

A baby of two years who was admitted to the province of Shanxi on avian flu was discharged from hospital yesterday after he threatened to leave and remained stable for six days straight.

The short space of time that these deaths have been recorded in China, where since 2003 there were 34 cases of which 22 died, has triggered alarms to a possible mutation of the H5N1 strain that allows the transmission between humans and not only from infected birds to people.

This theory took power after it was known that the mother of the baby Shanxi died two weeks ago of ‘pneumonia’, a symptom of bird flu, whose presence could not be confirmed because the body was cremated.

According warned the World Health Organization (WHO) on several occasions, infections occur among people with the disease could become a pandemic for which there is no vaccine.

Data updated on Thursday, the WHO since 2003 indicate there have been 399 cases of bird flu in people in 15 countries, most of Southeast Asia, of whom 251 died.

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Osteoarthritis of the spine affects the entire population

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

Osteoarthritis of the spine is to wear Osteoarticular structures as a result of misuse or the passage of years and is the main pathology of the spine because it affects virtually the entire population.

Emerging for 35 years and does not show symptoms. For that reason, experts recommend early diagnosis as the best preventive tool. This is one of the main conclusions of the Second Regional Conference of the Sociedad Canaria Orthopedic Surgery and Traumatology (COTCAN) held in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and has concentrated seventy professionals in the field to address in depth the current state of spinal pathology, as reported by the Medical Association of Las Palmas.

Experts point out that over 65 suffering from stenosis (narrowing) of the lumbar canal and especially the female population in the developing idiopathic scoliosis are segments of the population most vulnerable to spinal pathologies.

Arthrosis can be early in the housewives, who do not perform any kind of sport with a sedentary life. Obesity is a clear risk factor. Working in positions appropriate and healthy, not forced to sit properly, not to stay too long on a computer without some kind of stretching exercises can prevent the development of many of these disorders, says most participants in the meeting professional.

According to the chairman of the organizing committee for the conference, Enrique Recarte is necessary to hold the meeting because “the trauma involved in the pathology of the spine are few and do a sub part of it because of its enormous complexity .

Therefore, in the opinion of the Head of Service of Traumatology and Orthopedic Surgery at the Hospital Materno Infantil, you need a conference like this topic to “deepen and make an update of the entire vertebral pathology.

Among the experts who participated in it included the presence of the president of the Spanish Society of Orthopedic Surgery and Traumatology (SECOT), Enric Cáceres, Dr. Jesús Burgos, Hospital Ramón y Cajal, creator alongside its partners in the system for Coplanar correct vertebral rotation in scoliosis, and Dr. José Luis González, president of the Spanish Society of Orthopedic Surgery and Traumatology Child.

The Second Conference COTCAN discussed in detail the main pathologies of the spine such as congenital malformations, although rare and poorly symptomatic, can lead to serious pictures including paraplegia.

However, spondylolisthesis are much more frequent and consist of a defect which keeps separate the posterior arch of the vertebral body. Congenital malformations are produced by a defect of ossification, or combinations of segmentation within the spondylolisthesis Congenital malformations are the most frequent and occurs in 6 to 9 percent of the population, but most are asymptomatic.

Lumbar spinal stenosis is the narrowing of the canal as a result of osteoarthritis or protrusion of the disc is the result of combining with osteoarthritis or degenerative disc protrusions and in some cases include any congenital malformation.

Osteoporosis of the spine is caused by loss of bone mass in the spine as a result of defects or hormonal deficiency states as in some, but only in some women with menopause. No way, menopause and osteoporosis are necessarily linked.

Bone loss can lead to crushing of the vertebral body with all its associated pathologies. The lumbar spinal canal stenosis occurs in 8 of every 10 people over 65 years and are called ‘viewpoints window’ for the need of every way to stop the pain.

Can occur and in fact occurs vertebral osteoporosis by bone loss and calcium of the vertebral bodies.

Whiplash syndrome is another topic to be discussed at the meeting and is the result of trauma that occurs when colliding with another car himself, behind, and if not is buckled up, and especially no headrest .

In addition, the College of Physicians of Las Palmas noted that fractures can occur and slipped discs in the spine as a result of trauma or destiempo or forced movements. The infection of the column deserves a separate study by the seriousness that can sometimes be the case with tuberculous spondylitis or discitis child.

Tumors affecting the spine may be benign and are most common in children and especially metastatic cancers in other primitive bodies. Primitive malignant tumors of the spine are rare.

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Connections between labial herpes virus and Alzheimer’s

Friday, February 15th, 2008

A team of British scientists at the University of Manchester has established a connection between the virus of cold sores and Alzheimer’s disease, which could lead to new treatments for neurodegenerative disease.

In research published in the Journal of Patholgy, experts note that the virus that produces blisters in the mouth, known as herpes simplex virus (VHS1) is one of the sources of the protein plaques found in brains of Alzheimer patients.

The scientists, who acknowledge that their study is still in its initial phase and are seeking new funding, they argue that this virus may be linked to the onset of Alzheimer’s and suggest that perhaps the evil might be treated with antiviral agents. Their conclusion is that during the investigation, led by Ruth Itzhaki, discovered that the protein plaques in the brain affected by Alzheimer’s disease contain the DNA of the herpes virus.

Previous studies had already concluded that the infection of nerve cells with the virus causing it to settle a major component of the protein plaques characteristic of the neurodegenerative disease. Itzhaki and her team believe that the virus enters the brain by exploiting weak immune sets and there a latent infection that is triggered by factors such as stress, immune suppression or multiple infections.

“One of the most exciting of our research is that we have drugs that have been used for a relatively long time against VHS1, which are cheap and well tolerated,” said a statement by Itzhaki in The Times.

For now, the newspaper account of British scientists hope to obtain funding necessary to experiment with animals, which could give further evidence of the relationship between the virus that causes herpes and neurodegenerative disease in a period of one year. To test antiviral drugs in humans, whether pre-testing results are timely, Itzhaki estimated could take three to five years.

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