Health Tip: Canker Sores

(HealthDay News) - Canker sores are painful ulcers inside the mouth that most often occur on the base of the gums, inside the cheeks or lips, on the soft palate, or on the tongue. They typically do not require treatment and go away on their own.

Certain risk factors can increase the likelihood of developing canker sores. Here's a list, courtesy of the U.S. National Library of Medicine:

• Family history of canker sores.
• Weakened immune system.
• Dental work.
• Biting the inside of the cheek or the tongue.
• Stress, anxiety or changes in hormone levels.
• Malnutrition, particularly deficiencies in iron, folic acid or vitamin B-12.
• Allergic reaction to food.
• Viral infection.

When Worry Consumes You

(HealthDay News) -- Almost everyone worries about something -- credit card debt, car repair bills, an upcoming work review, whether your child will get into a good college. A little worry is natural and normal.

But when you become a 24/7 fret machine, that's not normal. You may have what doctors call generalized anxiety disorder, or GAD -- a condition marked by worry about most aspects of life that you feel you can't control. It can leave you feeling physically exhausted and emotionally drained, and also frustrate loved ones who must listen to you verbalize all that anxiety.

"This worry process never ends," said Dr. David H. Barlow, professor of psychology and psychiatry at Boston University and founder and director emeritus of the university's Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders.

"The key psychological feature of GAD is a state of chronic, uncontrollable worry," he added, noting that about 6 percent of Americans suffer from the condition at some point in their life.

"They are always anticipating the worst," Barlow said. They worry about major concerns as well as ones most of us would consider minor, he explained. They can't seem to stop the worrying, even when they know it's unrealistic or unfounded. And once one worry is over, the next one surfaces.

"There is always the next crisis to worry about," Barlow said.

People struggling with GAD "know the worry is out of proportion" to reality, said Jerilyn Ross, a licensed clinical social worker and president and CEO of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America. By way of example, Ross cited a woman whose husband is a wonderful family provider.

But she'll worry incessantly about finances, even though she knows the worry is unwarranted.
All this worrying leaves GAD sufferers living in a chronic state of physical tension, Barlow said.

Many have trouble sleeping, are irritable, can suffer from gastrointestinal distress, and can be left with frayed relationships. Other symptoms can include muscle aches and trembling and twitching, according to the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health.

Fortunately, mental health professionals have been paying increased attention to the disorder, leading to successful treatment approaches. And the treatments don't take years, Barlow and Ross said.

The trend is toward targeted, goal-driven sessions, with intense treatment lasting a couple of months or so, then tapering off to occasional sessions. Usually, cognitive behavioral therapy -- including talk therapy, cognitive "restructuring" to change the way people view situations that typically trigger worry -- can help, Barlow said. So can exercise.

The goal, Ross said, is to get the person with GAD to experience the feeling of worry and "desensitize" him or her to it -- "to experience it over and over again almost until it gets boring."
Ross said she helps GAD sufferers learn to tolerate the discomfort of their anxiety, over and over, until it starts to diminish. She helps them do this by having them ask themselves about their areas of concern: Is this a realistic worry? What are the probabilities of this happening?

Then, she suggests they attempt to let go of the worry.

Curiously, when a wave of worry sweeps over them, most GAD sufferers "try to stamp it out, not experience it," Barlow said. "But ironically, that only serves to increase the intensity of the emotion. We teach them new ways to experience emotions, how to experience emotions in more positive ways, to ride them through, to accept them, to let them run their natural course."

In addition to cognitive or behavioral therapy, medications can also help, Barlow said, including the antidepressants Prozac (fluoxetine), Paxil (paroxetine) and Effexor (venlafaxine).

More information
To learn more about generalized anxiety disorder, visit the Anxiety Disorders Association of America.

Ayurveda is "The mother of all healing arts" on our planet, because it predates all healing systems and all forms of natural medicine. It was develope

Ayurveda is "The mother of all healing arts" on our planet, because it predates all healing systems and all forms of natural medicine. It was developed in India some 5,000 to 10,000 years ago.

Knowledge of Ayurveda has been recorded in two of the vedic texts: the Atharva veda, and the Rig veda, which are more than 5,000 years old. It was many years later that other cultures studied Ayurveda and created their own healing systems, i.e. China, Tibet, Egypt, Africa, and other regions.

Ayurveda specializes in holistic natural remedies and prevention, and focuses on rebuilding the cells and tissues to support longevity. Hence its tools for healing are herbs, yoga exercise, healthy diet and lifestyle, Vedic massages, meditation, use of mantras, steam therapy and sauna, aromatherapy, use of gems, colors, etc.

More information about the Ayurveda Concept

Unlike Fine Wine, Crabby People Don't Age Well

(HealthDay News) -- There's new evidence that getting along with others is more than a key to pleasant human interaction. It also appears to be good for your health.

Researchers who studied a survey of almost 700 older adults found that those who got along with their relatives, friends and neighbors were less likely to report health problems and physical limitations.

The findings don't prove a cause-and-effect relationship between social life and health. Still, "the take-home message is that conflict in your life may have important impacts on your physical health," said study lead author Jason T. Newsom, associate professor at the Portland State University School of Community Health in Oregon.

There's nothing really new about a supposed link between attitude and health, but Newsom said his study was unique, because it looked specifically at interactions between people.

Newsom and his colleagues looked at the results of a multi-year national survey of people aged 65 to 90. A total of 666 people completed the survey, in which researchers asked them questions about their lives and their health.

Many of the questions were designed to reveal whether the study participants were prone to have "negative social interactions" with other people, Newsom said. The questions asked whether "people have interfered or meddled in your personal matters, have they acted unsympathetically or been critical of you. We asked them in a very general way," he said.

The survey didn't ask whether the participants were the instigators of negative encounters -- by being crabby or cranky, for instance -- or the victims of others who made their lives difficult.
The researchers found that those who reported more negative social encounters suffered greater declines in health.

"What we suspect is that there's some impact on the immune system, but there are other kinds of things that might be happening as well," Newsom said. "It may be that when there's a great deal of interpersonal conflict going on in someone's life, they're not able to take care of medical conditions as well."

The findings were published in the journal Health Psychology.

The study authors noted that their research had limitations. It only looked at senior citizens and relied on their own estimates of their health status instead of physical examinations, for one, and only examined changes over two years.

Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, director of the Ohio State University College of Medicine's Division of Health Psychology, said the new study came from "a group of excellent investigators." But, she added, she would like to have seen more analysis of whether the study participants were depressed.

"When people are blue, they tend to be overly sensitive to negative interactions, to feel that others are often unsympathetic -- and then they behave in ways that tend to elicit even more negative behaviors from others," Kiecolt-Glaser said. "They're cranky and critical and cantankerous. If you're seeing the world through dark-colored glasses, you're more likely to focus on how unsympathetic or insensitive other people act toward you, and there's a big element of self-fulfilling prophecy."

Newsom acknowledged that it's no easy task to make people get along better. But, he said, studies have shown that one approach -- conflict-resolution training -- actually works.

More information
To learn more about conflict-resolution training, visit the University of Wisconsin.

Airplane Noise Boosts Blood Pressure Even During Sleep

(HealthDay News) -- People who live near major airports may be disturbed by the din of aircraft flying overhead all day, but a new study finds it can also boost their blood pressure even while they're sleeping.

In fact, the louder the noise, the higher blood pressure will go, the study found. That finding holds whether the noise comes from airplanes, passing traffic or other sources, according to the report in the February issue of the European Heart Journal.

"We know that noise from air traffic can be a source of irritation, but our research shows that it can also be damaging for people's health, which is particularly significant in light of plans to expand international airports," co-author Dr. Lars Jarup, from the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at Imperial College London, said in a prepared statement.

"Nighttime aircraft noise can affect your blood pressure instantly and increase the risk of hypertension. It is clear to me that measures need to be taken to reduce noise levels from aircraft, in particular during nighttime, in order to protect the health of people living near airports," Jarup said.

In the study, the British team studied 140 people who lived near London's Heathrow Airport, as well as airports in Athens, Milan and Stockholm.

While the volunteers slept, the researchers remotely measured their blood pressure every 15 minutes. They also analyzed the noise level in the participant's bedrooms.

Jarup's group found a noticeable increase in blood pressure when noise levels grew louder than 35 decibels. That amount of increased noise can occur as an airplane flies overhead, from traffic noise, or even from someone snoring nearby. The increase in blood pressure was apparent even when the participant stayed asleep, the researchers found.

The noise from aircraft increased blood systolic pressure (the top number in a reading) an average of 6.2 mmHg, and diastolic pressure an average of 7.4 mmHg, the researchers found. This increase in blood pressure was also seen from other noise, such as road traffic, according to the report.

The boost in blood pressure was directly related to the loudness of the noise, Jarup's group found. In fact, every 5 decibel increase in airplane noise caused an increase in systolic blood pressure of 0.66 mmHg. The key factor in increasing blood pressure was the level of the noise, not its source, the researchers noted.

One expert believes more studies are needed to see if avoiding noise can benefit cardiovascular health.

"Elevations in systolic and diastolic blood pressure are important modifiable risk factors for heart attack and stroke," said Dr. Gregg C. Fonarow, a professor of cardiology, at the University of California, Los Angeles.

This study is consistent with earlier studies, which showed that environmental noise can significantly increase systolic and diastolic blood pressure during sleep, Fonarow added.

"Further studies are necessary to determine if avoiding excess noise during sleep will result in better blood pressure control and cardiovascular risk reduction in individuals with hypertension," Fonarow said.

"The study adds to the literature that noxious and stressful exposures have adverse cardiovascular consequences," said Dr. Harlan M. Krumholz, a professor of medicine at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn.

How this finding translates into policy is not quite clear, but it appears that the adverse effect of noise can be demonstrated by blood pressure changes, Krumholz said. "What is interesting here is that it occurred during sleep," he added.

"Whether all people are affected similarly and whether this response correlates with a higher risk of heart disease is not clear, but it seems sensible to assume that a noisy environment is not good for health," Krumholz said.

More information
For more on high blood pressure, visit the American Heart Association.

Acupuncture May Aid In Vitro Fertilization

(HealthDay News) -- Women undergoing in vitro fertilization can increase their chances of becoming pregnant by up to 65 percent if they also have acupuncture, a preliminary study suggests.

About 10 percent to 15 percent of couples have difficulty conceiving, and many opt for in vitro fertilization, in which a woman's egg is fertilized in a laboratory and then transferred into her womb. There had been some evidence that acupuncture can increase the success rate of this procedure.

"Complementing the embryo transfer process with acupuncture seems to increase the odds of pregnancy by 65 percent, compared to sham acupuncture or no adjuvant treatment," said lead researcher Eric Manheimer, a research associate at the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Center for Integrative Medicine.

For the study, Manheimer's team looked at seven trials that included 1,366 women undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF). Each trial compared acupuncture given within one day of the embryo transfer, to sham acupuncture or no acupuncture.

The researchers found that women who had acupuncture increased their chances of becoming pregnant by 65 percent compared with women who had no acupuncture or sham acupuncture.
"In absolute terms, this means that 10 women would need to be treated with acupuncture to result in one additional pregnancy," Manheimer said.

However, in studies where pregnancy rates were high, the benefit of acupuncture was small and non-significant, the researchers noted.

The findings were published online in the Feb. 7 edition of the British Medical Journal.
"Acupuncture may be useful adjuvant treatment in the IVF process," Manheimer said.

"However, I think there needs to be more studies to confirm these findings, because they are still preliminary," he added.

One reproduction expert cautioned that it's not clear if acupuncture improves the success of IVF, with studies showing both that it does and doesn't work.

"I approach this paper with hopefulness. I hope it would be borne out to be true that acupuncture boosts pregnancy rates," said Dr. Owen K. Davis, co-director and associate professor at the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City.

There are a lot of IVF patients undergoing acupuncture, relatively few of them at the suggestion of doctors, Davis said. "More often, it's something they seek themselves. Obviously, anything that can help our patients is something I'm very excited about. On the other hand, this study has many flaws," he said.

Davis thinks a large, randomized study is needed to really answer the question.

"I don't think we can say conclusively that acupuncture is effective or is anywhere near being a standard care, but it's not something I would discourage someone from trying if they wanted to. But I'm far removed from prescribing it to patients," he said.

One acupuncturist said the study findings bear out his own experience in using acupuncture to increase the success of IVF.

"I'm not surprised by these findings," said Dr. Marshall H. Sager, past president of the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture. "I've done acupuncture and infertility and been successful a number of times."

Sager thinks all women undergoing in vitro fertilization can benefit from acupuncture. "I think you are increasing the chances of success," he said.

More information
For more on acupuncture, visit the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture.

Dogs Could Be a Diabetic's Best Friend

(HealthDay News) -- Irish researchers hope to prove that a dog's keen sense of smell gives it the ability to watch over the blood sugar levels of diabetics.

Canines have already shown themselves capable of leading the blind, alerting the deaf, and helping the physically disabled with daily tasks.

But researchers at Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, are taking the "helpful companion" idea one step further by gathering scientific evidence that could verify dogs can reliably detect dangerous blood sugar level drops in diabetics.

"Anecdotal reports suggest that some dogs can perform early warning of hypoglycemia by using their sense of smell to 'sniff out' if their owner's blood sugar levels are dropping," said lead researcher and psychology professor Deborah Wells.

More than 20 million U.S. children and adults have diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association. Those with the disease do not produce enough insulin, a hormone the body needs to convert sugars, starches and other food into energy.

Diabetics must test their blood glucose level regularly, even sometimes in the middle of the night to avoid the peaks and valleys that can cause organ failure, say experts.

Wells hopes to find out what cues dogs pick up on so they can officially be recognized and trained as early-warning systems for diabetics.

At least two organizations in the United States already train dogs to detect low glucose levels. But exactly what the canines notice when a person experiences a blood sugar low is still a mystery, said Mark Ruefenacht, founder of Dogs for Diabetics, in Concord, Calif.
The organization is working with a forensic laboratory to identify a possible odor.

"We just haven't come up with the right answers," he said. "Every time we think we have the answer, we find that we don't."

Ruefenacht, a diabetic, started the organization three years ago, inspired after a puppy he was raising for Guide Dogs for the Blind woke him one night. Ruefenacht forgot to check his blood sugar before going to sleep, and he thinks he had a seizure that alarmed the pup.

Since then, the all-volunteer group has placed 30 trained canines in the homes of Northern California residents with type 1 diabetes.

Demand for the dogs is high; more than 100 people are on the waiting list.

Dogs for Diabetics uses Labrador retrievers that don't graduate from guide dog school. These dogs usually flunk for reasons such as refusing to walk in the rain or step onto an escalator -- all skills important for being a working dog, but not a general assistance one.

Ruefenacht said his dogs undergo three to four months of training similar to what is used to prepare dog to detect narcotics or explosives. The 2-year-old canines are first taught to detect scent samples of low blood sugar. Then they learn to find that scent on people, and alert others by holding in their mouth a soft tube that hangs from around their neck.

Dogs that successfully complete training are 90 percent accurate, Ruefenacht said.

These clever canines aren't the only ones that must learn new tricks.

Mary Simon has battled diabetes for more than three decades, and she now drives four hours each week from her home in Fresno to attend the required class.

"I need this dog desperately," said Simon, a diabetic who is also medical director for the Diabetic Youth Foundation in Concord, Calif.

Medication she takes hampers her ability to feel nighttime lows, she said, and the special glucose sensor she wears doesn't always work.

When Simon first learned of the hypoglycemic detection dogs a few years ago, she didn't think their talent was needed because glucose sensors were about to hit the market. Since then, she's changed her mind.

"My own personal experience is we need [the dogs] right now," she said.

Not everyone is so quick to put their trust in the canines' ability.

Larry Myers, a veterinarian and professor at Auburn University in Alabama, has trained dogs to detect everything from drugs to agricultural pests for 25 years. He said the jury is still out on whether dogs can truly detect low blood sugar levels, but he believes it's a possibility worth exploring.

Even though dogs have amazing olfactory abilities, he said they are not universally sensitive to all chemicals.

"Do hypoglycemic individuals, in fact, emit an odor that is characteristic? I don't know, and I don't think anybody does know right now," he said.

A possibility other than scent is the dogs are picking up on visual cues, which is thought to be the case with seizure detection dogs. Such dogs allegedly can pick up on extremely subtle physiological changes in their human companion that may begin five to 45 minutes before an actual attack. The dogs then warn the humans so they can find a safe environment or take precautionary measures.

"It turns out what the dogs are really sensitive to is subtle changes in behavior of the individuals just prior to seizing," Myers said. "It's more of a fact that dogs are very, very, very observant of human behavior."

More information
To learn more about diabetes, visit the American Diabetes Association.

Health Tip: Experience Grief as a Healthy Emotion

(HealthDay News) - Grief is a normal, healthy emotion experienced when a person has a significant loss, such as the death of someone close, or even the end of a relationship.

The American Academy of Family Physicians lists these common symptoms of grief:

• Numbness, shock and denial are common initially.
• Feelings of abandonment may occur once reality has set in.
• Anger -- directed at the person who is gone, yourself, others and even religion -- is common.
• Temporary depression and guilt may set in once the grieving person realizes what the loss means.
• Thinking frequently about the person and reliving memories are normal reactions, as well.
• Little by little, you should begin to feel better. Eventually, you should begin to focus on resuming relationships and activities. It's not uncommon to initially feel "disloyal" to someone as you start to move on.