U.S. Dialysis Patients Increasingly Live in Poor Areas

WEDNESDAY, June 24, 2015 (HealthDay News) — More than one-third of kidney dialysis patients in the United States live in poor neighborhoods, a study finds.

Kidney dialysis rates in the United States are higher in poor neighborhoods, and they’re increasing in those areas, the 15-year analysis shows. Dialysis is used to treat people with kidney failure.

Researchers analyzed U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data to assess overall dialysis rates and those in poor areas, defined as having a a zip code where at least 20 percent of people live below the federal poverty line.

The results showed that 27.4 percent of adults who began dialysis between 1995 and 2004 lived in poor neighborhoods, compared with about 11 percent of adults in the general population.

Those percentages increased to 34 percent and 12.5 percent, respectively, between 2005 and 2010, said the researchers from Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine.

The study was published recently in the journal Hemodialysis International.

The researchers said it’s not clear why kidney failure and dialysis rates are higher in poor neighborhoods. Possible reasons could be less access to health care, greater exposure to environmental toxins and lifestyle habits, they said.

Future studies of kidney failure rates should examine long-term trends in poverty at the individual level and in smaller geographic areas, said corresponding author Dr. Holly Kramer and colleagues.

“The collection of such data may help track national and local trends in poverty status and be used to develop policies for improving health outcomes and disease prevention,” they wrote.

More information

The National Kidney Foundation has more about dialysis.

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Drug for Rheumatoid Arthritis May Also Help Ease Vitiligo

WEDNESDAY, June 24, 2015 (HealthDay News) — It’s only been tested in one patient so far, but researchers report that a drug for rheumatoid arthritis may be a promising treatment for the discoloring skin condition known as vitiligo.

Vitiligo is characterized by a disfiguring loss of pigmentation in skin. Most notably, pop star Michael Jackson suffered from the disorder much of his adult life. According to the Yale University researchers, current treatments are limited to steroid creams and light therapy, neither of which is reliably effective.

“Current treatments for vitiligo can be cumbersome, expensive and have side effects, besides being less than optimal in results,” said Dr. Doris Day, a dermatologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

She added that the downsides of vitiligo go beyond the cosmetic.

“We know that appearance has a powerful impact on self esteem, and having white blotches that are very difficult to cover with makeup — in very visible areas such as the face and hands — can have a powerful negative impact on both social and professional activities,” Day said.

The new study was led by Dr. Brett King, an assistant professor of dermatology at Yale School of Medicine, in New Haven, Conn. His team had heard of recent research suggesting that an existing class of FDA-approved medications, known as JAK inhibitors, were effective in treating hair loss caused by alopecia areata.

So, they reasoned that the JAK inhibitor tofacitinib (Xeljanz) — currently approved to treat rheumatoid arthritis — might also help ease vitiligo.

The researchers tested their theory by giving the drug to a 53-year-old patient with noticeable white spots on her face, hands and body.

After taking the drug for two months, the woman experienced a marked improvement in the pigmentation on her face, arms and hands. After three more months on the medication, the white spots on her face and hands were almost entirely gone and just a few spots remained on her body.

The woman did not have any negative side effects from the treatment, according to the study published June 24 in the journal JAMA Dermatology.

King’s team is hopeful that the treatment may perform well in other patients, but they stressed that more research is necessary to confirm that.

“It’s a first, and it could revolutionize treatment of an awful disease,” King said in a Yale news release. “This may be a huge step forward in the treatment of patients with this condition. While it’s one case, we anticipated the successful treatment of this patient based on our current understanding of the disease and how the drug works.”

Day agreed that tofacitinib could offer people with vitiligo new hope.

“This drug has had a very impressive impact in hair loss,” she said, “and [based on the new study] I’m optimistic it will have a similar reliable effect for those suffering from vitiligo. Of course, clinical trials are needed to help evaluate dosing and results, but it’s very exciting to have a drug to work with that shows so much promise.”

Dr. Gary Goldenberg is an assistant professor of dermatology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York City. He noted that tofacitinib is also being considered for approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of psoriasis.

“Since this medication suppresses the immune system, it’s possible that it may be efficacious in other autoimmune conditions, such as alopecia areata and vitiligo,” he reasoned. “This is great news for patients with these conditions, since not many effective treatments are currently available.”

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases provides more information on the vitiligo.

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Smoking Around Toddlers May Raise Their Obesity Risk

WEDNESDAY, June 24, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Smoking around your toddler may be just as harmful to your child as smoking during pregnancy, new research suggests.

By age 10, children exposed to secondhand smoke as toddlers tended to have wider waists and a higher body mass index (a calculation of body fat) than their non-exposed peers, Canadian researchers found.

“We suspect the statistics we’ve established linking childhood obesity to exposure to parents’ smoking may underestimate the effect due to parents under-reporting the amount they smoked, out of shame,” said study leader Linda Pagani, from CHU Sainte-Justine Research Centre in Montreal.

“By the age of 10, the children who had been intermittently or continuously exposed to smoke were likely to have waists that were up to three-fifths of an inch wider than their peers,” she said in a university news release. “And their BMI scores were likely to be between 0.48 and 0.81 points higher. This prospective association is almost as large as the influence of smoking while pregnant.”

While the weight gain might not seem large, the researchers explained that it occurs at a time in development that could have long-term consequences.

“Early childhood exposure to secondhand smoke could be influencing endocrine [hormone] imbalances and altering neurodevelopmental functioning at this critical period in . . . development, thus damaging vital systems which undergo important postnatal growth and development until middle childhood,” Pagani said.

She said there are multiple ways that household smoke negatively influences immune, neurodevelopmental and cardiovascular processes. And children’s immature vital systems are more vulnerable than adults to the toxic effects of secondhand smoke, Pagani pointed out.

The study doesn’t establish a direct cause-and-effect relationship between secondhand smoke exposure and later weight gain. But the researchers believe their work is stronger than previous studies because it included information about the children’s well-being, lifestyle, behavior and social environment that also could affect weight.

The study was published online recently in the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research.

Around the world, 40 percent of children are exposed to secondhand smoke at home, the researchers said.

The study authors concluded that public health programs should educate parents on the importance of eliminating young children’s exposure to secondhand smoke.

More information

The American Academy of Pediatrics has more about the effects of secondhand smoke on children.

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SNL’s Vanessa Bayer on Being a Teen Cancer Survivor: ‘It Can Be Extremely Alienating’

Photo: Getty Images

Saturday Night Live funny gal Vanessa Bayer opened up to People this week about a more serious topic: her own  battle with leukemia at age 15, and her support for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which actually fulfilled her own wish to take a family trip to Hawaii nearly 18 years ago.

“Being a sick child is obviously extremely difficult,” Bayer explained. “You’re in hospitals all the time undergoing treatments, and you’re not getting to do all of the things that other kids your age are doing.”

RELATED: How 500,000 Dogs Are Helping a Teen With Cancer

Bayer went through 10 days of radiation and 11 months of intense chemotherapy, followed by an additional two years of follow-up chemo to rid her body of the cancer.

“As a child or young adult going through an illness, it can be stressful at times and boring and extremely alienating,” she said. “[The] Make-A-Wish trip was such a special time for me to be away from hospitals and from all of the stressful, bad things we were dealing with. It was truly a wonderful, uplifting experience.”

Which is why Bayer elected to give back to the program, which fulfills dream requests from children diagnosed with life-threatening medical conditions, as the host of their recent 2015 Evening of Wishes fundraising gala.

RELATED: 3 Ways to Get Happy in a Hurry

“It was an overwhelming feeling be able to give back to an organization that helped me through such a difficult time,” she said. “Plus, having my family and my wish granter at the gala made the whole evening feel very full-circle.”

The number of people successfully recovering from childhood cancers has skyrocketed in recent years. An April 2015 study found that almost 389,000 survivors of childhood cancers are currently living in the United States, an increase of 59,849 people since the last measurement in 2005. The researchers largely attribute this improvement to better treatments.

RELATED: 9 Ways Gratitude Can Make You Happier, Fitter, and Richer

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Everything You Need to Know About Sprouted Grains

Photo: Getty Images

Food trends lately seem to be all about bringing back age-old traditions. Look no further than bone broth, fermented foods, and ancient grains to see what I mean.

Now, add sprouted grains to the list. Here, we answer all your questions about them.

What are they?

A grain essentially is a seed with a kernel. It’s biologically programmed to not grow until the environment it’s in has the optimal temperature and moisture level. The beginning of that growth process is—you guessed it—sprouting. So a sprouted grain is one that’s just begun to grow.

RELATED: 5 Ancient Grains You Need to Try

Why should I eat sprouted grains over the regular kind that are normally found in bread and flour?

“Sprouting requires enzymes,” says Cynthia Sass, RD, Health’s contributing nutrition editor and author of Slim Down Now: Shed Pounds and Inches with Real Food, Real Fast ($19, amazon.com). “These same enzymes allow the baby plant to digest the starch in the kernel and boost the plant’s access to nutrients to promote its growth.” And when we eat these baby plants, we, in turn, enjoy the same benefits, Sass says: Easier-to-digest starch, and more nutrition. “Sprouted grains are also slightly higher in protein, because some carbohydrates are lost in the process of sprouting,” she adds. “Plus, you still get the benefits of eating a whole grain.”

RELATED: Fiber, Starch, Fats, and Serving Sizes: Eat Right Advice for Your Diet

How do I get them into my diet?

If you’re a super-DIY kind of person, we applaud you, and here’s an excellent tutorial on how to sprout grains and flours from The Nourished Kitchen. But if you’re shorter on time, good news: There are plenty of great products containing sprouted grains available for you to try. Here are some that we like:

• One Degree Organic Sprouted Whole Wheat Flour ($13 for 5 lbs., amazon.com)
• TruRoots Organic Sprouted Rice and Quinoa Blend ($19 for 3 lbs., amazon.com)
• Food for Life Ezekiel 4:9 Organic Sprouted Grain Pasta ($37 for 6 16-oz. boxes, amazon.com)
• Angelic Bakehouse Sprouted Seven-Grain Flatzza ($9 for 5 pizza crusts, amazon.com)
• Unique Pretzel Whole-Grain Sprouted Pretzels ($15 for 2 8-oz. bags, amazon.com)

RELATED: 5 Awesome Food Trends Worth Trying

Where can I learn more?

The Whole Grains Council website’s a great source of information about the history of sprouted grains and recipes for using them.

RELATED: Get Healthy With Whole Grains

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Ebola Linked to Rise in Malaria Deaths in Guinea

WEDNESDAY, June 24, 2015 (HealthDay News) — The Ebola epidemic in West Africa appears to have led to an increase in malaria deaths last year, a new study finds.

Research in Guinea, one of the countries hardest hit by the Ebola epidemic, indicates an extra 74,000 cases of malaria went untreated in 2014, compared to previous years. As a result, deaths associated with malaria (a mosquito-borne disease) also rose and will likely exceed Ebola deaths in Guinea, researchers reported June 23 in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

“One problem is that the early symptoms of malaria [fever, headache and body aches] mimic those of Ebola virus disease,” said study author Dr. Mateusz Plucinski, from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Malaria is one of the main causes of fever and health facilities visits in Guinea, but our data suggest that since the start of the Ebola epidemic, people with fevers have avoided clinics for fear of contracting Ebola or being sent to an Ebola treatment center,” Plucinski said in a journal news release.

The researchers surveyed 60 public health facilities in some of the areas hit the hardest by the deadly Ebola virus in Guinea. They also surveyed 60 clinics in areas unaffected by Ebola, interviewed health care workers and examined malaria indicators between 2011 and 2014 to determine the effect the Ebola epidemic had on malaria treatment.

Health clinics that stayed open during the Ebola epidemic saw a 42 percent drop in outpatient visits in some age groups, the researchers found. There was also a 69 percent drop in the number of malaria cases treated at those facilities.

Compared to 2013, the number of people treated with pills for malaria fell by 24 percent and those treated with injectable drugs dropped by 30 percent, the study found. Even in areas with no reported Ebola cases, the number of reported and treated malaria cases declined dramatically.

Also, in the most affected areas, the proportion of community health workers who were working fell from 98 percent before the Ebola epidemic to 74 percent after. Those actively treating malaria fell from two-thirds to about 48 percent, the findings showed. Meanwhile, the number of health workers in areas unaffected by Ebola increased.

“Untreated malaria cases lead to rising malaria death rates and more cases of fever in the community,” said Plucinski. “This puts extra pressure on an already overburdened health system owing to a greater number of suspected Ebola cases requiring triage and isolation at treatment centers.”

Malaria control efforts and delivery of care must be kept on track during an Ebola epidemic, so that progress made in malaria control is not jeopardized and Ebola response is not impeded, he added.

In areas affected by both Ebola and malaria, the World Health Organization recommends malaria treatment for all patients with a fever and malaria drugs for people working where malaria transmission is high.

While some cases of Ebola continue to emerge, health officials believe the worst of the epidemic is over. So far, Ebola has caused 2,473 deaths in Guinea alone, according to the CDC.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about Ebola.

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Virtual Reality May Help Alcoholics Beat Cravings, Study Finds

WEDNESDAY, June 24, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Virtual reality therapy may help alcoholics battle their addiction, a small study from South Korea suggests.

Researchers recruited 12 people being treated for alcoholism for the study. The volunteers went through a week-long detoxification program and then did two sessions of virtual reality therapy a week for five weeks.

The patients were presented with three virtual scenes: a relaxing environment; a high-risk setting in a restaurant where other people were drinking; and an aversion situation that featured the sights, sounds and smells of people getting sick from drinking too much.

PET and CT brain scans suggested that the patients had a reduced craving for alcohol after the virtual reality therapy, according to the study.

The research is published in the July issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

While it was a small study, the findings suggest virtual reality therapy could help alcoholics, said senior researcher Dr. Doug Hyun Han, of Chung-Ang University Hospital in Seoul, South Korea.

This is because it places patients in situations similar to real life and requires their active participation, he explained. Plus, the sessions are individualized for each patient, he said.

This gives the patients a realistic simulation of situations they may face after treatment, which may give them a chance to better learn how to manage those situations in a safe environment, before they’re confronted with them in real life, the researchers said.

However, larger studies are needed to prove whether virtual reality therapy helps alcoholics stop drinking and avoid relapses, Han said.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has more about treatment for alcohol problems.

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Oxygen Chamber Therapy May Ease Fibromyalgia, Study Suggests

By Maureen Salamon
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, June 24, 2015 (HealthDay News) — The majority of women with fibromyalgia who underwent hyperbaric oxygen therapy — best known for treating “the bends” in scuba divers — experienced relief from pain and other symptoms, a small study found.

Brain scans of the patients showed that two months of hyperbaric oxygen therapy may have also repaired abnormal brain activity in pain-related areas of the brain, the researchers said.

“Seventy percent of the patients could not be categorized as suffering from fibromyalgia at the end of the treatment,” said study author Dr. Shai Efrati, director of the Sagol Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Research in Tel Aviv, Israel.

“The good correspondence between the physiological improvements and the changes in brain functionality … make the results particularly convincing,” Efrati added.

The research is published in the June issue of the journal PLOS ONE.

Fibromyalgia is a pain syndrome that affects nine times more women than men. Symptoms include chronic widespread pain, intense pain in response to pressure on certain body parts, fatigue and poor sleep, according to the American College of Rheumatology (ACR).

The condition is poorly understood because no single cause has been traced. Physical or emotional factors may trigger symptoms, the ACR says.

Fibromyalgia is typically treated with a combination of therapies, including drugs, lifestyle changes and cognitive behavioral therapy.

The new study included 48 women who had been diagnosed with fibromyalgia at least two years earlier. Half underwent 40 hyperbaric oxygen therapy treatments over two months. The treatments were given five times a week. They lasted 90 minutes each session. During the treatment, patients breathed 100 percent oxygen pressurized to twice the normal air pressure. The therapy is thought to increase oxygen flow to body tissues, improving healing.

Administered in cylindrical chambers, the therapy has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat 14 conditions, including decompression sickness among scuba divers, diabetic wounds, radiation injury from cancer treatments, serious infections, severe burns, and carbon monoxide poisoning. Fibromyalgia is not one of the currently FDA-approved conditions for hyperbaric oxygen therapy, which continues to be tested for this and other “off-label” conditions.

After a two-month delay, the other 24 women in the study were then exposed to the same hyperbaric oxygen therapy treatment as the first group, after which they experienced similar symptom relief and brain scan changes, Efrati said.

Patients were able to significantly reduce or even eliminate their use of pain medications, he said.

One U.S. expert not involved with the study said the new finding has potential.

“I think this could give patients another option to help manage their pain from fibromyalgia,” said Dr. Michelle Dang, a pain management specialist and anesthesiologist at Houston Methodist Hospital.

“It’s a debilitating pain where there aren’t a whole lot of treatment options available,” she said, “and these patients will experience pain for pretty much the whole day.”

But health insurance or Medicare are unlikely to cover the cost of hyperbaric oxygen therapy for fibromyalgia at this point, since it’s not one of the FDA-approved uses. According to the Duke Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Environmental Physiology in North Carolina, the total cost of the 30 to 60 treatments required for most conditions can approximate that of a major surgical procedure — tens of thousands of dollars.

Dang said some of her fibromyalgia patients who use a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine to treat their coexisting sleep apnea also experience an improvement in their fibromyalgia symptoms. This improvement may be due to the increased oxygen flow to their brain and other tissues, she said.

“Fibromyalgia isn’t a well-understood disorder and there are a lot of different components to it,” Dang said. “This [oxygen chamber therapy] may be one good option for these patients.”

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine offers more information on hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

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Bicep curl with disc weight

 

This bicep curl shows a different overhand grip on a basic weight and is ideal for toning your forearms as well as bicep.

How to
Place your hand over the weight and engage your core.

Step back with one foot for strong posture and isolate your bicep as you curl the weight up to your shoulder and back down again.

Control and selecting the right weight for your level is key.

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Many Hospital Patients Not Asked About Supplements: Study

TUESDAY, June 23, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Most hospitalized Americans aren’t asked if they take dietary supplements, such as multivitamins, a new study suggests.

“If clinicians are unaware of possible drug-[dietary supplement] reactions, they may unknowingly provide a treatment plan or prescribe medications that could have an adverse reaction or interactions with the dietary supplement,” said study author Dr. Paula Gardiner.

She is assistant director of Boston Medical Center’s program for integrative medicine and health care disparities.

“Dietary supplements also affect physiological processes in the body and could have an impact on medical procedures like surgery, chemotherapy, blood work and many other treatments or procedures,” she added in a medical center news release.

Nearly 18 percent of American adults (more than 40 million) take dietary supplements, according to the 2012 National Health Interview Survey.

The most commonly used dietary supplements are vitamins and minerals, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports. But other supplements may include herbs, amino acids or other substances, the study authors pointed out.

The study, published recently in the journal Patient Education and Counseling, looked at 558 hospital patients, more than half of whom (60 percent) used dietary supplements.

Of those 333 patients, only 36 percent had use of supplements documented at admission to the hospital. Only 18 percent told a health care provider about their dietary supplement use, and only one in five were asked about dietary supplement use by a health care provider, the study found.

The ideal scenario is to be asked at admission about dietary supplement use, to disclose use of the products, and have their use documented in medical records. But all three criteria were met for only 6 percent of the supplement users, the researchers found.

Documentation of dietary supplement use on medical charts was lower among older patients and non-white patients, the researchers said.

“Research has shown that some of the reasons patients do not disclose [dietary supplement] use is because they either don’t know that physicians need the information, or sometimes there’s a fear of being judged by a clinician,” Gardiner said.

“Medical school faculty have the opportunity, and in fact the obligation, to educate tomorrow’s physicians about the importance of [dietary supplement] dialogue with patients of all ages and cultural backgrounds,” she said.

Doctors need to establish a formalized approach to documentation to help prevent adverse reactions from dietary supplement-prescription medication interactions, Gardiner concluded.

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more about dietary supplements.

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