NIH will start keeping track of patients' radiation exposure

TOXICITY

NIH will start keeping track of patients' radiation exposure

By Liz Szabo

Source:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-02-01-radiation01_ST_N.htm


Concerned that Americans may be accumulating too much lifetime radiation exposure from medical tests, doctors at the National Institutes of Health will begin recording how much radiation patients receive from CT scans and other procedures in their electronic medical records.

A study in the Archives of Internal Medicine in December estimated that radiation from such procedures, whose use has grown dramatically in recent years, causes 29,000 new cancers and 14,500 deaths a year.

A second Archivesstudy that month said the problem could be even worse, calculating that patients get four times as much radiation from imaging tests as previously believed. Children are particularly vulnerable because they're small and still growing.


For the full article:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-02-01-radiation01_ST_N.htm


Copyright 2010 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Healing Power

GARDENS OF HEALING

Healing Power
A cancer patient's dying wish becomes a gift of hope and serenity for others at Straub

Source:
http://www.starbulletin.com/news/hawaiinews/20100127_Healing_power.html

An 87-year-old woman waiting to see her doctor in the Cancer Outpatient Treatment Center at Straub Clinic & Hospital said she "felt healed" looking out at the garden.

"I remarked to another lady, 'It's so peaceful,' and I didn't even know what it was," Celia King said upon learning it is a "healing garden."

The garden is the hub of a newly renovated and expanded $2.4 million Cancer Center at Straub. The grand opening will be from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. tomorrow.

It was inspired by Carlton Higa, a Straub patient who died Dec. 7, 2006, at age 49 with multiple medical problems after months in the intensive care unit, said Art Gladstone, chief operating officer.


For the full article:
http://www.starbulletin.com/news/hawaiinews/20100127_Healing_power.html


Copyright © 2010 Starbulletin.com. All rights reserved.

Genetic Study Targets Cancer in Kids

GENETICS

Genetic Study Targets Cancer in Kids
St. Jude, Washington U. launch $65M effort to ID pediatric cancer genes

Source:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-01-26-genome26_st_N.htm

Two leading medical centers on Monday launched the largest effort to date to find all of the genetic mutations that cause childhood cancer.

Doctors at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis say the three-year, $65 million project could help them develop new treatments for pediatric cancer, which strikes more 10,000 American children under age 14 every year.


For the full article:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-01-26-genome26_st_N.htm


Copyright 2010 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Eat Pomegranates to Prevent Breast Cancer

FOOD AS MEDICINE

Eat Pomegranates to Prevent Breast Cancer

Source: Scientific Blogging.Com
http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_articles/eat_pomegranates_prevent_breast_cancer


Fruits that contain anti-aromatase phytochemicals, such as pomegranates, may reduce the incidence of hormone-dependent breast cancer, according to research published in the January issue of Cancer Prevention Research. The authors say that pomegranate is enriched in a series of compounds known as ellagitannins that appear to be responsible for the fruit's anti-proliferative effect.

"Phytochemicals suppress estrogen production that prevents the proliferation of breast cancer cells and the growth of estrogen-responsive tumors," said principal investigator Shiuan Chen, Ph.D., director of the Division of Tumor Cell Biology and co-leader of the Breast Cancer Research Program at City of Hope in Duarte, Calif.

For the full article:
http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_articles/eat_pomegranates_prevent_breast_cancer


© 2010 ION Publications LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Crisis in Haiti & Disaster Relief: Donate Your Gift Now

DISASTER RELIEF

Crisis in Haiti & Disaster Relief: Donate Your Gift Now
Help distribute life-saving relief supplies – including food, clean water, blankets, and tents, to children and families devastated by the earthquake and aftershocks in Haiti.

http://www.clintonfoundation.org/haitiearthquake/

A massive, 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti near the capital of Port-au-Prince on Tuesday, January 12th. The damage to buildings is extensive and the number of injured or dead is estimated to be in the tens of thousands.

The World waits as international organizations needing donations are rushing emergency supplies to survivors of this catastrophe.

Your gift now will help to get rescue efforts underway.

Donate now.

William J. Clinton Foundation - Haiti

http://www.clintonfoundation.org/haitiearthquake/

Make a difference in the recovery effort in earthquake-ravaged Haiti; the need will be great for years to come and your small or large donation will help in this time of dire need.


© 2009 The Garden of Healing® Company. All Rights Reserved.

New York City Mayor Seeks to Trim Salt from Diets

HEALTH BRIEFS

New York City Mayor seeks to trim salt from diets
Health experts say Americans now eat about twice the amount of salt they should.

Garden of Healing®

New York City is focusing on sodium as the next unhealthy enemy in its crusade to coax people into eating better.

The city's health department released draft guidelines Monday recommending that companies voluntarily limit the amount of salt in a variety of manufactured and packaged foods in an effort to help reduce the average American's salt intake by 20% in five years. The recommended salt reductions range from a 20% drop in peanut butter to a 40% decline in canned vegetables.

Health experts say Americans now eat about twice the amount of salt they should. Too much sodium can contribute to high blood pressure, which can cause heart attack and stroke.


© 2009 The Garden of Healing® Company. All Rights Reserved.

Suppressing Tinnitus With Music Therapy

HEARING

Suppressing Tinnitus With Music Therapy

By Henry Fountain

Source: The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/science/05obhear.html

Subjective tinnitus, the ringing or other noise that often accompanies noise-related hearing loss, is a tough problem to treat. But researchers in Germany have come up with a novel approach, a kind of music therapy in which the music is custom-tailored to the person with tinnitus.

The technique, by Hidehiko Okamoto, Henning Stracke and Christo Pantev of Westfalian Wilhelms-University and Wolfgang Stoll of Muenster University Hospital, makes use of recent findings about a possible cause of tinnitus: reorganization of the auditory cortex, the part of the brain responsible for perceiving sound, in response to noise exposure. Other research has shown that behavioral training may reverse faulty cortical reorganization.

The researchers allowed patients to choose their favorite music, which was then “notched” — a one-octave frequency band, centered on the frequency of the ringing experienced by the subject, was filtered out. The subjects listened to the music on average about 12 hours a week.

After a year, the researchers report in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, those who listened to this custom-notched music reported a significant improvement in their tinnitus — the ringing was not as loud — compared with others who listened to music that was notched at frequencies not corresponding to their ringing frequency.

The researchers suggest that two things might be happening in the auditory cortex to bring about the improvement. The neurons in the cortex related to the ringing frequency are presumably not being stimulated, because those frequencies are absent from the music. At the same time, nearby neurons may have been actively suppressing the tinnitus-related neurons, through a process known as lateral inhibition.

Source: The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/science/05obhear.html


Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company. All Rights Reserved.