Heating Plastic Bottles Releases Potentially Harmful Chemical

(HealthDay News) -- Exposing plastic bottles to boiling water can release a potentially harmful chemical 55 times faster than normal, new research suggests.

Bisphenol A (BPA) is found in the plastics that make up water bottles, baby bottles, and other food and drink packaging. It acts as an environmental estrogen and can disrupt the function of the endocrine system.

In 2007, an expert panel convened by the U.S. Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR) concluded that exposure to BPA presents some risk to development and reproduction, although it's unclear at what level that harm begins to occur.

"There isn't a real answer," said study senior author Scott Belcher, an associate professor of pharmacology at the University of Cincinnati. "There seems to be a current difference of opinion between the scientific research field and the folks doing risk assessment. If you were to sum it up in an easy, relatively conservative way, the scientific data points to some reason for caution at low concentrations. There really isn't much information regarding the effects on human populations directly."

Belcher's findings appear in the Jan. 30 issue of the journal Toxicology Letters.

Animal experiments have suggested that BPA may mimic the female sex hormone estradiol. The fear has been that exposure to BPA can cause birth defects and developmental problems. In addition, exposure to BPA has been blamed for a variety of other problems, including cancer, diabetes, obesity and attention-deficit disorder (Attention-deficit / hyperactivity disorder).

Exposure to BPA can occur through direct contact or by exposure to food or drink that has been in contact with material containing BPA.

Previous studies had found that repeatedly scrubbing, washing and boiling polycarbonate baby bottles could cause them to release BPA.

"It was migrating from the bottle into the water," Belcher explained.

This latest study tried to assess the effect from "normal" use, looking at both "old" polycarbonate water bottles from a local climbing gym as well as new bottles of the same brand.
The age of the bottle made no difference in the amount of BPA released.

However, if the bottles were briefly exposed to boiling water, they released BPA 55 times more rapidly than before being dunked in the hot water, the study said.

"There's nothing new in this paper," said Steven Hentges, executive director of the polycarbonate business unit of the American Plastics Council. "Migration has been studied many times before. In a sense, this is good news because it confirms what we already know."

Kirby Donnelly, department head of environmental and occupational health at the Texas A&M School of Rural Public Health, said the new finding was "not surprising" because it is a basic principle of chemistry that if a solvent is heated up, it will form a liquid solution.

"With BPA there are such contradictions as to whether it is toxic or nontoxic; a lot of times, it comes down to dose and duration," he added.

What does this mean to the average consumer?

According to Belcher, dishwashing temperatures might be OK but he stressed that even without the boiling water, such bottles do release small amounts of BPA.

For his part, Belcher avoids polycarbonate plastic. "That's been my personal choice," he said.

More information
Visit Statistical Assessment Service for more on BPA.

Radon Gas More Deadly Than Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

(HealthDay News) -- Radon, an invisible radioactive gas that seeps into homes through foundation cracks, causes 100 times more deaths than carbon monoxide poisoning, says the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

To heighten awareness of that potential danger, the agency has designated January as National Radon Action Month.

Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer behind smoking, and about 20,000 people in the United States will die this year due to breathing too much radon without even knowing it, the EPA said.

"It's remarkably easy to protect our loved ones by testing for radon and building new homes with radon-resistant features that allow everyone to breathe freely and safely," EPA Deputy Administrator Marcus Peacock said in a prepared statement.

As part of the National Radon Action Month, the EPA has released public service announcements about how people can protect themselves against radon, which is emitted by underground sources of uranium and can reach harmful levels if trapped indoors.

About one in 15 homes in the United States have a high radon level, the EPA said.

The first step in protection is to check your house with an easy-to-use radon test kit. If high levels of radon are detected, a venting system can be installed by a contractor. During construction of new homes, it's easy to include radon-resistant features and home buyers should ask for these, said the EPA, which also recommended that new home buyers ask their builder to test for radon gas before they move in.

Over the past 20 years, radon preventive actions have saved about 6,000 lives, according to the EPA, which wants to double that number over the next five years.

More information
The American Lung Association has more about radon.

Health Tip: Too Many Tears?

(HealthDay News) -- Watery eyes are an irritating symptom of a variety of conditions.
The U.S. National Library of Medicine lists these common causes of watery eyes:

• An allergy to particles in the air, such as dust, dirt or dander.
• An infection of the eye.
• A blocked tear duct.
• Eyelids or eyelashes that turn inward and irritate the eye.
• A foreign substance in the eye.
• Temporary watering of the eyes can sometimes accompany laughing, yawning, straining the eyes, or vomiting.

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Immune Therapy May Help Some Heart Failure Patients

(HealthDay News -- Some patients with heart failure may stand to benefit from therapy which modifies the body's immune response.

A study in the Jan. 19 issue of The Lancet found that patients with no history of heart attacks, as well as those in a milder stage of heart failure, had a reduced rate of death and of subsequent hospitalizations with such a treatment.

But the novel therapy is far from hitting hospitals or doctors' offices any time soon, experts said.
"It had absolutely no improvement [in the general study population]," noted Dr. Norbert Moskovits, director of the Heart Failure Program at Maimonides Medical Center in New York City. "The subgroup analysis is more or less a way to come up with a new study. If they show improvements in certain subgroups then next time they can look at that in a larger trial. You cannot draw any conclusions from this, really. It was a very good trial and it still showed nothing."

According to the American Heart Association, some five million Americans have heart failure. "There are half a million new cases each year. It is the number one discharge diagnosis for Medicare patients," Moskovits said. "It's a huge problem, and that's why everyone is looking for a new angle."

Heart failure is commonly treated with drugs, including ACE inhibitors, beta blockers and diuretics. "Most improve patient survival, symptoms and lifestyle," Moskovits said.

Some experts believe that inflammation plays a role in chronic heart failure. Logic would dictate, then, that interfering with the immune system and related inflammatory processes could impact the course of the disease.

But interventions that have targeted specific inflammatory cytokines (signaling chemicals central to the immune system) have not met with much success.

This has led scientists to hypothesize that affecting the immune system more generally might have a benefit.

This study involved more than 2,400 heart failure patients who were randomly assigned to receive non-specific immunomodulation therapy (IMT) or a placebo. They also had left ventricular systolic dysfunction and had undergone hospitalization for heart failure or IV drug therapy in an outpatient setting within the past 12 months.

In this case, IMT involved taking blood from patients with congestive heart failure, exposing the blood to oxidative stress for 20 minutes, then injecting the blood back into the muscle on days 1, 2 and 14, and then every 28 days for at least 22 weeks.

"Certain blood cells in these samples were more or less killed off and, by injecting them, you attenuate the immune response," Moskovits explained. "It's a very cumbersome process."

But after a mean follow-up of more than 10 months, patients in the IMT group showed only an 8 percent reduction in risk of death or hospitalization, which essentially translates into no difference.

However, the results were more impressive in two subgroups of participants: Those with no previous history of heart attack had a 26 percent reduction in risk while those classified with New York Heart Association functional class II heart failure - meaning they had only slight or mild limitations in their activities -- had a 39 percent reduction in risk.

Both of these subgroups were younger and had less severe disease than the entire group of participants.

There was also a trend toward a lowering in C-reactive protein (CRP) concentrations in the IMT arm. CRP is a marker of inflammation and this finding, the authors said, indicates that the concept of treating heart failure with immunomodulation is not yet dead.

But long-term affects also need to be investigated. "By attenuating the immune response, do you subject patients to a higher risk for infections, for cancer?" Moskovits asked. "There are a lot of questions."

Moskovits also pointed out that many therapies for heart failure are counterintuitive. Beta blockers, for instance, were thought for many years to be contraindicated for heart failure. Similarly, a medication to improve heart muscle function in heart failure patients ended up worsening their survival.

The current study was funded by Canadian biotech company Vasogen. Employees of Vasogen were involved with the trial. Authors received an honorarium or travel support or both from the company.

More information
There's more on heart failure at the American Heart Association.

Low Testosterone Could Weaken Older Men's Bones

(HealthDay News) -- Low testosterone levels may boost the risk of fractures for men over 60, an Australian study finds.

The researchers tracked 609 men (average age 72.6) between 1989 and late 2005.

The University of Sydney researchers collected information about the men's bone mineral density, lifestyle habits, and blood levels of testosterone and estradiol (an estrogen).

During the study period, 113 men suffered low-trauma fractures (caused by a fall from standing height or lower). Of those men, 25 suffered multiple fractures.

There were a total of 149 fractures, including 55 vertebral, 27 hip, 28 rib, six wrist and 16 upper- and 17 lower-extremity fractures.

The risk of fracture was much higher among men with low testosterone levels, the team found.
Even after adjusting for a variety of potential risk factors, low blood levels of the two hormones "were associated with overall fracture risk," the study authors concluded. Fracture risk was associated "particularly with hip and non-vertebral fractures," they noted.

The findings are published in the Jan. 14 issue of the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.

"While testosterone may affect fracture risk via skeletal and non-skeletal mechanisms, the present findings suggest that measurement of [blood] testosterone provides additional clinical information for the assessment of fracture risk in elderly men," the researchers wrote.

More information
The U.S. National Institute on Aging has more about falls and fractures.

Kama Yogi

Sexual dysfunction may take many forms. The most common problems are Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (low not allowed drive) and Penile Erectile Dysfunction (difficulties in achieving and maintaining an erection). According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the key causes of sexual dysfunction is due to rapid urbanization, increased consumption of energy-dense foods high in saturated fats and sugars and depression.

When a man finds himself unable to get and maintain a sufficient erection due to physical causes, it can cause depression and anxiety. By the same token, when a man finds he suffers ED only in certain circumstances, physiological factors may be the source of the problem.

While psychological factors can play a big role in sexual problems, studies have suggested that 20 - 50% of men with erectile dysfunction have some organic basis for their problem. Sexual dysfunction may range from mild (low not allowed drive, weak erections, lack of energy, slow and weak ejaculation) to severe (total inability to achieve erection and complete lack of sexual desire).

In many cases, sexual dysfunction or sluggish sexual responses may be caused by poor systemic health, stress, the build up of toxins and unhealthy lifestyles.

In a way, sexual health can be seen as a sort of ‘barometer’ of overall systemic and psychological health. Men who are healthy, fit and confident about themselves and about life usually report a vigorous and satisfying not allowed life, no matter what their age.

Practitioners of Ayurveda have many centuries of knowledge regarding the use of herbal medicines and holistic techniques to treat a wide variety of medical problems and to promote optimum health and functioning. In this respect, certain Yoga techniques practices have been identified as having the ability to improve sexual functioning and overall systemic health. Traditionally, Yoga is the divine science, a gift of God to his creation.

When man has reached a certain stage of evolution, Yoga is "revealed" to a few great saints who are empowered to transmit it to qualified pupils and through them to successive generations. The earliest archaeological evidence for the practice of yoga is afforded by drawings of men in the posture of yogic meditation excavated in the Indus valley - dating from at least 3000 BC!

The earliest literary evidence is found in references to the practice of Yoga in the Vedas, the oldest books in the world, parts of which were composed in Northern India not later the 2500 BC; it is widely believed by scholars that Yoga existed and was handed down orally for thousands of years before that. India Herbs has a seasoned group of Ayurvedic doctors specialized in Vajikarana, one of the eight major specialties of Ayurveda (the ancient science dealing with medicine).

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The KAMAYOGI eBook is a clear and step-by-step practical guide with photos to help you to increase your psycho-sexual power and improve your not allowed life. YOGA's healing power is very strong - so powerful that men who are impotent can regain their potency as they realized their overall health potential.

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Women Who Stay Religious Less Likely to Have Anxiety Disorder

(HealthDay News) -- Women who stop being religiously active are three times more likely to suffer generalized anxiety disorder than women who have always been religiously active, researchers report.

In contrast, the researchers found that men who stopped being religiously active were less likely to suffer major depression compared with men who had always been religiously active.

"One's lifetime pattern of religious service attendance can be related to psychiatric illness," study co-author Joanna Maselko said in a prepared statement. She is an assistant professor of public health at Temple University.

Maselko and her team analyzed data from 718 adults who shared details of their religious activity in youth and adulthood. They found that a majority of the respondents changed their level of religious activity between childhood and adulthood. The data is published in the January issue of Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology.

According to Maselko, the gender differences in the relationship between religious participation and mental health may be tied to social networks. Women are more likely to build them through their religious activities, and then to feel the loss of those networks when they stop attending church, she explained.

Slightly more than one-third of the women reported always being religiously active. Half said they had not been active since childhood. About 7 percent of the women who were always religiously active could be categorized as having generalized anxiety disorder, compared with 21 percent of those who had ended their religious activities.

People with generalized anxiety disorder experience worries and concerns out of proportion to their daily lives, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. The disorder is diagnosed if the worries do not abate after six months. About 6.8 million Americans suffer from the disorder, which can seriously interfere with sleep and relaxation. Women are two times more likely to suffer from anxiety disorder than men.

"Everyone has some spirituality, whether it is an active part of their life or not; whether they are agnostic or atheist or just 'non-practicing.' These choices potentially have health implications, similar to the way that one's social networks do," Maselko said.

More information
For more on spirituality and health, go to the American Academy of Family Physicians.