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Health Tip: Exercise Doing Everyday Chores

(HealthDay News) - Getting needed exercise can be as simple as performing a few household chores regularly.
Here are some suggestions, courtesy of HealthGuidance.org:

• Gardening -- Water plants with a watering can instead of a hose, and alternate carrying the can on each arm.
• Sweeping -- Clean not just your driveway, but offer to do your neighbors', as well as the sidewalks.
• Washing your car -- Use a bucket that you have to carry, not a hose.
• Cleaning and re-arranging -- Thoroughly clean out rooms in your home, carefully moving objects to clean every area.
• Walking or bike riding -- Leave the car home, if practical, to get to work or to run an errand.

Most Elderly Don't Get Good Medical Care: Study

(HealthDay News) -- The quality of care received by vulnerable elderly Medicare, Medicaid patients is barely acceptable, a team of U.S. researchers report.

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, used quality of care measurements developed by the Assessing Care of Vulnerable Elders project to look at 43 specific types of care received by more than 100,000 community-dwelling people, average age 81, in 19 California counties between 1999 and 2000.

The study found that vulnerable elderly patients -- those at risk of death or functional decline -- received only 65 percent of tests and other diagnostic evaluations and treatments recommended for a number of illnesses and conditions, including diabetes and heart disease.

"Thirty-five percent of the medical care interventions they should have received were not provided, indicating significant room for improvement. We'd much rather have everything higher -- say, at least 90 percent," lead author Dr. David S. Zingmond, assistant professor of general internal medicine and health services research at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, said in a prepared statement.

One specific example cited by Zingmond and his colleagues: Only 42 percent of patients with diabetes were tested to assess their blood sugar control or received an eye examination during the one-year period covered by the study.

The findings are published in the October issue of the journal Medical Care.

More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers information about healthy aging for older adults.

Protein Gives Clues to Pancreatic Cancer

(HealthDay News) -- Researchers say they've identified a protein that could play a key role in the development of pancreatic cancer.

According to a team at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, the protein -- called pp32 -- is a tumor-blocker than normally inhibits a cancer-causing gene called K-ras.

However, pp32 is absent in the most aggressive form of pancreatic cancer, the researchers said. More research is required, but pp32 could eventually become a marker for this deadly form of pancreatic cancer and a potential drug target.

In laboratory experiments, the Jefferson team found that when pp32 is absent, mutations in the K-ras gene take over and turn cells cancerous. Adding pp32 to pancreatic cancer cells with K-ras mutations slowed the growth of the fast-growing cells. The researchers concluded that the loss of pp32 may be a key event in determining the aggressiveness of pancreatic cancer.

The study was published online in the journal Modern Pathology.

"If we are able to learn more about this molecule, this may be a potential target that we could turn on in aggressive types of pancreatic cancers," team leader Jonathan Brody, assistant professor of surgery, said in prepared statement. "In theory, if we could find a way to upregulate this molecule in these pancreatic cancers, we may be able to arrest these fast-growing cancer cells as we did in experiments in this study. As we understand its molecular interactions, we could also somehow find the things that regulate it and extend our molecular understanding of this devastating disease."

Previous research had also suggested a link between pp32 and prostate and breast cancer.

More information
The American Cancer Society has more about pancreatic cancer.

Raw Seafood Poses Digestive Risks

(HealthDay News) -- Eating raw or undercooked seafood -- such as sushi and sashimi -- increases the risk of infection by parasitic worm larvae. And such infection can cause severe stomach and intestinal problems such as diarrhea, cramping, and vomiting that warrant a visit to a hospital emergency department, say two cases studies by Japanese researchers.

Raw or undercooked seafood can contain larvae of a parasitic worm called Anisakis. While the worm itself can't survive in humans, the larvae can attach to the tissues lining the stomach and intestines, resulting in severe abdominal symptoms, the researchers said.

In most cases, the larvae eventually die, and the symptoms usually resolve on their own.

However, some patients may experience small bowel obstruction.

Anisakiasis in the stomach can easily be diagnosed by endoscopy, but anisakiasis of the small intestine is more difficult to diagnose, the study authors said.

In these case studies, abdominal X-rays showed air-fluid levels suggesting a small intestinal obstruction in both patients. Doctors used multidetector-row computed tomography (MDCT) to obtain high-quality images of the small bowel and found that both patients had an intestinal blockage caused by the presence of Anisakis larvae. Fluid replacement and rest relieved their symptoms.

Anisakiasis symptoms can be similar to those of other gastrointestinal problems and may be misdiagnosed as appendicitis, stomach ulcers, or peritonitis, the researchers noted. They said anisakiasis should be considered in the differential diagnosis of small intestinal obstruction.

The studies were expected to be presented Oct. 15 at the American College of Gastroenterology annual meeting, in Philadelphia.

More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about anisakiasis.

Familial MS May Be More Destructive

(HealthDay News) -- Multiple sclerosis that runs in families appears to cause more severe brain damage than the non-familial form, say University at Buffalo researchers.

They used MRI scans to examine the brains of 759 MS patients and found that the 198 patients with familial MS had significantly more destructed lesions, and significantly lower volume of whole brain, white matter and gray matter, as well as other indications of greater brain damage.

"Patients whose parents, children or siblings (first-degree relatives) had MS showed more damage than patients who had cousins with MS. This indicates that the closer the relationship, the greater the risk of MS," research team leader Dr. Robert Zivadinov, professor of neurology, said in a prepared statement.

"Of particular interest is the finding of more severe gray matter damage and more lesions, particularly in those with MS in first-degree relatives. These findings are very interesting, and we will be investigating them further," he added.

The study was to be presented Friday at a European Committee for the Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis meeting in Prague, Czech Republic.

"From the early 1980s on, MS researchers thought that genetic factors likely played a role in the disease, that its traits were determined by several different genes, and our findings support this hypothesis," Zivadinov said.

"Our MRI analysis showed a difference between the severity of disease characteristics in familial MS patients versus what we call sporadic, or non-familial, MS patients. These differences may be related to some disease-modifying genes, but to prove this, we must do further investigation," he added.

More information
The U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke has more about MS.

Intervening in Preschool Years Can Prevent Juvenile Delinquency

(HealthDay News) -- Parental action can alter a preschoolers' biological response to stress, lowering the chance that even a high-risk child will become a juvenile delinquent, U.S. researchers report.

The finding suggests "that antisocial behavior isn't hard wired, and parents can be part of the solution," lead author Laurie Miller Brotman, associate professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine, said in a prepared statement .

It's known that children with older delinquent siblings are at high risk for becoming juvenile delinquents themselves, noted the study authors.

Research has shown that highly aggressive children and delinquent teens have abnormal stress responses, especially in social situations. These youngsters seem to have less awareness of social cues and don't respond to positive reinforcement in the same way as normally developing children.

This new study, published in the October issue of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry, found that family interventions that alter stress response in at-risk children may reduce the risk of delinquency and psychiatric illness later in life.

The study included 92 families with a preschooler and an older child who'd been in trouble with the law. Some of families were assigned to take part in family intervention sessions that included 22 group sessions and 10 home visits from mental health professionals over eight months. In these sessions, the preschoolers learned to socialize with peers, to identify feelings and to follow rules.

Other families were assigned to a control group that received no intervention.

Cortisol (a stress hormone) levels in saliva were checked to assess stress levels in the children before and after a socially stressful situation, such as interacting with a group of unfamiliar children. The children in the intervention group showed a normal cortisol response, while those in the control group showed a response pattern similar to that seen in older delinquent youth, the study found.

"Our findings demonstrate the powerful influence of the caregiving environment on children's biology," said Brotman, who is also director of the Institute for Prevention Science at NYU Child Study Center.

"We have known for some time that parents play an important role in how young children behave. We have shown that parents of delinquent youth can improve their parenting, and these changes result in lower rates of problems in their young children," Brotman said. "We have now documented that a program that improves parenting and children's behavior also leads to biological changes that are consistent with more adaptive non-delinquent behaviors."

More information
The American Academy of Pediatrics has more about children's behavior.

As Sunlight Fades, Look Out for SAD I

(HealthDay News) -- If your mood, energy level, and motivation decline in November but bounce back to normal in April, you may have seasonal affective disorder (SAD), one expert says.

"SAD is thought to be related to a chemical imbalance in the brain brought on by lack of light due to winter's shorter days and typically overcast skies," says Dr. Angelos Halaris, chief of the psychiatry and behavioral sciences department at Loyola University Health System.

As many as 10 percent to 20 percent of Americans may experience a mild form of SAD, according to the American Psychiatric Association. Certain people may have a genetic vulnerability to developing the condition, which affects more women than men and tends to start appearing in the teen years.

"This condition, characterized by depression, exhaustion and lack of interest in people and regular activities, interferes with a person's outlook on life and ability to function properly," Halaris said.

You can take steps to reduce the risk of developing SAD.

"If at all possible, get outside during the winter, even if it is overcast. Expose your eyes to natural light for one hour each day. At home, open the drapes and blinds to let in natural light," Halaris recommended.

If you do develop SAD, it can be "effectively treated with light therapy, antidepressant medication and/or psychotherapy. The latest treatment is a headband containing mounted lights that delivers light to your retina whether you are inside or outdoors," Halaris said.

More information
The American Academy of Family Physicians has more about SAD.

Health Tip: Nicotine Withdrawal

(HealthDay News) - Nicotine is an extremely addictive substance that causes physical and psychological reactions in the body when it is no longer available.
The highly addictive nicotine in cigarettes is what makes quitting smoking so difficult.
The American Cancer Society lists these common symptoms of nicotine withdrawal:

• Dizziness.


• Insomnia, restlessness and difficulty concentrating.


• Depression, irritability and moodiness.


• Feeling frustrated or anger.


• Headache, fatigue and increased appetite.

Some people have found using the nicotine patch or chewing gum with nicotine in it as useful transitional methods for quitting smoking
But, health experts warn, eventually it is your own will-power that's needed to quit.

Communities Can Speed Stroke Care

(HealthDay News) -- U.S. communities are key to boosting local emergency care system responses to ensure that stroke patients receive the best treatment as soon as possible.

So concludes a new policy statement from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.

Prompt stroke care can reduce the risk of death and disability in stroke patients.

In creating the statement paper, experts analyzed stroke-related challenges faced by different types of emergency medical services systems (EMSS) across the United States. The experts then came up with potential solutions, resources and performance measures designed to help communities build a transport, transfer and on-the-scene care structure to improve emergency stroke care.

The statement was published online this week in the journal Stroke.

"We look at emergency medical services stroke care as part of a fully integrated system along the complete continuum of care," statement lead author Joe Acker, executive director of the Birmingham Regional Emergency Medical Services System in Alabama, said in a prepared statement.

"First, someone has to call 9-1-1, so we have to educate the public," he said. "Then we have to make sure 9-1-1 communicators recognize stroke symptoms and dispatch appropriate pre-hospital instructions and respond with emergency medical services personnel at the highest level possible. There has to be appropriate care at the scene, then transport to a stroke-ready hospital, which may mean routing past other hospitals that are not stroke-ready."

"The purpose of this policy paper is not only to have people recognize that all these components are necessary, but how to make these things happen," Acker said.

More information
The U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke has more about stroke.