This week’s Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported a huge study from Denmark. Following over 900,000 women for 8 years, they found that post-menopausal women who had hormone therapy were 38% more likely to get ovarian cancer than peers who had not, and the higher risk persisted for 2 years after halting therapy. Moreover, “Regardless of the duration of use, the formulation, estrogen dose, regimen, progestin type, and route of administration, hormone therapy was associated with an increased risk of ovarian cancer.”
Holy ****! Cursing Reduces Pain!
On July - 13 - 2009Comments Off on Holy ****! Cursing Reduces Pain!
It turns out that our instinct to say something profane when we experience pain may be good medicine. A small study covered in the journal NeuroReport found that:
Swearing increased pain tolerance, increased heart rate and decreased perceived pain compared with not swearing. However, swearing did not increase pain tolerance in males with a tendency to catastrophise [think that a situation is worse than it really is]. The observed pain-lessening (hypoalgesic) effect may occur because swearing induces a fight-or-flight response and nullifies the link between fear of pain and pain perception.
Better Language Skills May Mean Less Dementia
On July - 10 - 2009Comments Off on Better Language Skills May Mean Less Dementia
The latest news from research known as The Nun Study indicates that women who displayed better language skills in their 20s had lower incidence of Alzheimer’s Disease and other types of dementia. And the important part is that this even held true even when their brains showed signs of Alzheimer’s at autopsy.
Vitamin Supplements: Necessary, Insurance, or Waste?
On July - 8 - 20091 COMMENT
You have probably heard it over and over: it’s best to get the vitamins and minerals you need by eating healthy foods. But the reality is that most people don’t eat as healthy a diet as they would like to, and feel that a good quality multi-vitamin pill daily is a dietary “insurance policy”. Particularly people who are watching their calories or on some other restrictive diet feel it is not really possible to get all the micronutrients they need from food. A new study from Harvard questions those assumptions.
NPR vs. BMI
On July - 6 - 20091 COMMENT
Over the weekend, NPR provided a Stanford mathematician to argue the invalidity of BMI as a rough measure of fatness. His basis of argument hinges on the idea that BMI measures are not a true indicator of fatness. Mathmatically minded people don’t like BMI because it is, admittedly, inexact. While this may be true to a point, the rough measure is important and here’s why. Read the rest of this entry »