Change in ‘Pap’ Test Rules Linked to Drop in STD Testing

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, July 21, 2015 (HealthDay News) — A major change in Pap test guidelines introduced in 2009 may have had an unintended consequence: Some young women are missing out on screening for chlamydia — a common sexually transmitted disease that can cause infertility if left untreated.

That’s according to a small, new study that discovered chlamydia screening among 15- to 21-year-olds plummeted after national guidelines were changed to discourage routine Pap screening for cervical cancer before age 21, because of evidence that showed it did not benefit young women.

Those guidelines have nothing to do with chlamydia — a bacterial STD that infects nearly 3 million Americans each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But researchers suspect that as fewer young women got Pap tests, chlamydia screening also fell by the wayside.

However, the CDC and other groups advise all sexually active women younger than 25 to get an annual chlamydia screening test.

Yet in the new study, researchers at the University of Michigan saw a precipitous drop in chlamydia screening at five outpatient clinics connected to the university.

Experts stressed that the pattern does not necessarily reflect what’s going on nationwide.

In fact, there’s evidence that the national rate of screening for chlamydia has inched up in recent years, said Dr. Gale Burstein, who chairs the committee on sexually transmitted infections for the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine.

“This is just one center, and can’t be seen as reflecting what’s going on nationally,” said Burstein, who was not involved in the study.

However, she added, it’s likely that similar trends have happened at other medical centers.

Burstein said young women should be aware of the chlamydia screening guidelines, and if they haven’t been tested, they should talk to their doctor.

Screening is vital, Burstein said, because chlamydia usually causes no symptoms. It’s easily cured with antibiotics, but if left untreated, the infection can cause pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility in some women.

So why did chlamydia screening drop at the clinics in this study? It seems that providers there were in the practice of “coupling” chlamydia screening with Pap testing, said lead researcher Dr. Allison Ursu, of the university’s department of family medicine.

Of roughly 1,600 young women seen at the clinics from 2008 to 2009, more than 500 were given chlamydia screening tests.

But from 2011 to 2012 — after the Pap test change — only 37 young women underwent chlamydia screening, Ursu’s team reports July 20 in the Annals of Family Medicine.

“It was surprising,” Ursu said. “We saw that decrease despite the fact that young women were making the same number of office visits. So there were just as many opportunities to screen for chlamydia.”

The university has since taken steps to make sure all clinics are up to speed with the guidelines on chlamydia screening, Ursu said. She added it would make sense for other institutions to look at their own screening patterns, and make changes if needed.

Even though the U.S. chlamydia screening rate has been creeping up, it’s still far from optimal, Ursu noted. Fewer than half of sexually active women younger than 21 are being screened, based on data from private and public health insurance plans.

There is no reason for chlamydia screening to be linked to Pap tests, Burstein pointed out.

“It does not take an invasive pelvic exam,” she said. “It can be done with a urine test or a vaginal swab that you take yourself.”

That knowledge, Burstein said, may make young women more comfortable with asking their doctors about chlamydia screening.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has an overview on chlamydia.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1JudBTH

Doctors May Play Big Role in Antibiotic Overuse: Study

MONDAY, July 20, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Doctors, nurse practitioners and other health care workers who prescribe drugs may be helping to drive the overuse of antibiotics in the United States, new research suggests.

Experts have long warned that using antibiotics for illnesses for which they are useless — viral infections, for example — helps foster resistance by germs to these potentially lifesaving drugs.

In the new study, a team led by Dr. Barbara Jones, an assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Utah, looked at data on more than 1 million patient visits for acute respiratory infections at 130 VA medical centers across the United States between 2005 and 2012.

According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, acute respiratory infections include the common cold, bronchitis and ear infections — many of which are caused by viruses.

However, Jones’ team found that antibiotics were prescribed in more than two-thirds (68 percent) of clinic visits for these infections. In fact, prescriptions for antibiotics for these cases actually rose by 2 percent during the eight years of the study, the Utah team said.

There was also wide variation in the prescribing of antibiotics by doctors and other health care staff. At the high end, 10 percent of health care providers prescribed an antibiotic for 95 percent or more of their patients with a cold, bronchitis or other acute respiratory infection.

At the low end, 10 percent of health care providers prescribed antibiotics for 40 percent or fewer of their patients.

“We were able to see that even if Dr. A works just down the hall from Dr. B they may practice medicine very differently,” Jones said in a university news release.

The study also found a 10 percent increase in the proportion of broad-spectrum antibiotics (macrolides) prescribed, even though guidelines now recommend against them as a first line of defense for most respiratory infections.

The habits of individual health care providers accounted for 59 percent of the variation in how often antibiotics were prescribed, while differences in practice among clinics accounted for 28 percent, and differences in practice among hospitals accounted for 13 percent.

The findings suggest that differences between health care providers are a significant factor in antibiotic prescribing, more so than differences between patients or between practice standards at hospitals and clinics.

Health care professionals “all receive similar training, but we can practice differently. The extent of this variation has been hard to measure in the past,” Jones said.

“We’d like to use this research to start a conversation among providers and patients about antibiotic prescribing for [acute respiratory infections], and share the approaches of providers who are prescribing antibiotics less frequently with those who may be prescribing too often,” she said.

The findings were published July 20 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

More information

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

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1MgPAF2

Many Older Women Have Active Sex Lives, Study Finds

By Maureen Salamon
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, July 20, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Nearly six in 10 women over the age of 60 who are in committed relationships are sexually active, new research shows.

“I wasn’t necessarily surprised by the proportion of older women who are sexually active, but maybe others might be,” said study author Dr. Holly Thomas, an assistant professor of medicine at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

“People assume as women get older, they automatically become sexually inactive and sex is not as important to them,” she added, “which isn’t necessarily the case.”

The study, analyzing more than 2,100 U.S. women ranging in age from 28 to 84, consisted mostly of women in their 50s and 60s. It found that women in their 60s and 70s had sexual satisfaction levels similar to women in their 30s and 40s.

The research is published in the July/August issue of the Annals of Family Medicine.

According to U.S. Census figures, the percentage of the American population aged 65 and older rose from 4.1 percent in 1900 to 13 percent in 2010, and it’s projected to reach nearly 21 percent by 2050. Research has increasingly focused on various aspects of this growing population, and the new findings are consistent with prior research focusing on older women’s sexual activity levels, Thomas said.

Expanding on regional research completed several years ago, Thomas and her team focused on a national sample of women who answered an array of questions about sexuality in a questionnaire. They found that 62 percent of respondents reported being sexually active in the previous six months.

Of those aged 60 and older with a committed partner, 59 percent were sexually active. Those romantically partnered were eight times more likely to be sexually active than those without a partner, but 13 percent of sexually active women did not have a steady romantic partner.

Thomas said the results suggest that for women, being connected to one person is more important than having sex for the sake of sex.

“It seems for a lot of women in this age group, whether they have a romantic partner is a big contributor to whether they’re sexually active,” she said. “Also, we assume that sex goes downhill as we get older, but these findings suggest women are maintaining sexual satisfaction as they get older.”

However, since 13 percent of sexually active respondents were not in committed relationships, Thomas noted that “we shouldn’t look at a woman who’s not married and 60, and assume she’s not sexually active.”

Lynnette Leidy Sievert, a board member of the North American Menopause Society, praised the new research for continuing to spotlight sexual activity among older women.

“It has to be publicized every couple of years to counteract the stereotype that women over a certain age don’t enjoy or want sexual activity,” said Leidy Sievert, who is also a professor of anthropology at University of Massachusetts at Amherst. “I think we just have to keep putting it out there, and I think these studies are important to say that women remain sexually active.”

The results also indicated that among women who were sexually active, age wasn’t related to higher sexual satisfaction. Instead, sexual satisfaction was linked to higher satisfaction with their relationship, better communication and prioritizing the importance of sex.

“It’s good to see that menopause is not nearly as important [to sexual satisfaction] as their relationship with the person they’re having sex with,” Leidy Sievert said, “because menopause is blamed for so many things.”

Thomas said she hopes physicians will use the information to be more proactive in asking older female patients about sexual activity.

“It’s something doctors should be doing,” she said. “A lot of women actually want to talk about sex with their doctor but may feel they can’t. But if physicians are aware that a lot of these women are sexually active and interested in maintaining a healthy sex life, they can bring it up.”

More information

The U.S. National Women’s Health Network offers strategies on staying sexually active after 60.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1OiEI80

Impotence Linked to Risk of Type 2 Diabetes

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, July 20, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Men who experience impotence may face twice the risk of undiagnosed type 2 diabetes compared to men without such sexual problems, a new study suggests.

“This effect was more significant among middle-aged men 40 to 59 years old,” said lead researcher Dr. Sean Skeldon, a resident in family medicine at the University of Toronto in Canada.

“The probability of having undiagnosed diabetes increased from one in 50 in men without erectile dysfunction, to one in 10 in men with erectile dysfunction,” Skeldon said.

It’s important to note this study only found a link between impotence and type 2 diabetes. It didn’t prove a cause-and-effect relationship between the health issues.

The report was published in the July/August issue of the Annals of Family Medicine.

For the study, Skeldon’s team collected data on more than 4,500 men 20 and older who took part in the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2001 to 2004.

The researchers looked at the association of erectile dysfunction with undiagnosed high blood pressure, high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes in that group.

The investigators didn’t find any link between having trouble achieving or keeping an erection and undiagnosed high blood pressure or high cholesterol.

But they found that the prevalence of undiagnosed diabetes was 11.5 percent in men with impotence compared to about 3 percent among men without the disorder. In men aged 40 to 59, the rate of undiagnosed diabetes was 19 percent in men with erectile dysfunction compared to 3 percent in those who didn’t have erectile troubles, the study found.

Erectile dysfunction is a risk factor for future heart disease, Skeldon said. Unlike diabetes, high blood pressure or high cholesterol, which typically have no obvious symptoms, impotence is something men recognize as a problem, he said.

“Men with erectile dysfunction should see their doctors to ensure they are properly screened for diabetes,” Skeldon said. “Doing so may help prevent heart disease down the road. Conversely, doctors should ensure that they perform the proper screening for men with erectile dysfunction.”

Dr. Joel Zonszein, director of the Clinical Diabetes Center at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City, said, “Usually, erectile dysfunction is not an early complication of diabetes — it’s a late complication caused by changes in nerve function.”

These findings indicate that men with erectile dysfunction may have had undiagnosed diabetes for an extended time, he added.

However, men with impotence who are at an early stage of diabetes may have another medical problem having nothing to do with their diabetes that led to the erectile dysfunction, Zonszein said.

Zonszein said doctors are often lax in asking their patients about their sexual health. “In clinical practice we don’t get a good history of erectile dysfunction,” he said.

Doctors should get a history of sexual function, because erectile dysfunction can be a sign of undiagnosed diabetes, Zonszein explained.

“Diabetes is not a benign disease,” he said. “We have to make the diagnosis early and we have to treat diabetes early and aggressively.”

More information

For more about erectile dysfunction and diabetes, visit the American Diabetes Association.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1MgPAoz

Model Chantelle Winnie’s Powerful Message About Self-Acceptance

 

Fact: beauty comes in different shapes, sizes, and colors. And as twenty-year-old model Chantelle Winnie proves, beauty can also come in two colors, on one body.

Winnie, who has the skin condition vitiligo, is probably most well-known for placing sixth in the 2014 cycle of America’s Next Top Model. She’s also now the brand ambassador for Desigual, and featured in Diesel’s Spring 2015 ad campaign.

But she wasn’t always this comfortable in her skin, or as celebrated—though she’s pretty much always attracted attention, she explained recently in an essay for Cosmopolitan.

Vitiligo, which causes melanocytes, the cells that give skin pigment, to be destroyed, affects between .5% to 1% of the population worldwide. It often starts in your 20s, but it can appear at any age. Winnie was four years old when she began to develop white patches on her skin.

At first she wasn’t teased or taunted by classmates, she wrote in her essay, but a change of schools in third grade led to harassment and bullying that would only get worse as she got older.

 

She was called a cow and mooed at, and got into fights in middle school and high school. “I remember sitting by my window, wishing upon the stars that my skin condition would go away. I wondered, ‘Why me?'” Winnie wrote.

Winnie, who grew up mostly in Toronto, Canada, eventually switched to an alternative school before dropping out to work at a call center because she couldn’t take the abuse.

RELATED: How to Beat Social Media Self-Doubt

She says that it wasn’t until she was noticed by a Toronto-based journalist who made a Youtube video featuring her that she ever considered modeling as a career path. After that, Winnie set her sights and didn’t give up: She started networking, posting pictures of herself to social media, and eventually made it onto Tyra Banks’ reality competition.

Her story proves grit and believing in yourself no matter what can take you far, but the really beautiful thing about her is this message:

“People sometimes ask when I learned to love myself. But that was not the issue. I didn’t have a problem with myself or my skin. I had a problem with the way people treated me because of my skin. They tried to define me,” Harlow wrote. “I had to relearn how to love myself by forgetting the opinions of everyone else and focusing on my opinion of myself.”

 

RELATED: 9 Ways to Silence Your Inner Critic

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1RL2TlF

Cancer Trials Need to Include More Seniors: Experts

MONDAY, July 20, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Clinical trials of cancer treatments need to include more elderly people, a leading group of cancer specialists says.

In a position statement released July 20, the American Society of Clinical Oncology called on the U.S. government and the cancer research community to broaden clinical trials to include older adults.

“Older people living with cancer often have different experiences and outcomes in their treatment than younger cancer patients,” Dr. Julie Vose, society president, said in a news release from the group.

“As we age, for example, the risk of adverse reactions from treatment significantly increases. Older adults must be involved in clinical trials so we can learn the best way to treat older cancer patients resulting in improved outcomes and manageable toxicity,” she explained.

More than 60 percent of cancers in the United States occur in people aged 65 and older, the statement authors say, noting the number of seniors will increase in coming years. However, there is a lack of evidence about cancer treatments for the elderly because too few are included in clinical trials, and clinical trials designed specifically for seniors are rare.

These trials need to mirror the age distribution and health-risk profile of patients with cancer, statement co-author Dr. Arti Hurria, director of City of Hope’s Cancer and Aging Research Program, said in the news release.

The American Society of Clinical Oncology “has laid out a multi-pronged approach to expand the participation of older adults in clinical trials, ensuring that all patients will receive high-quality, evidence-based cancer care,” Hurria added.

The position statement was also published July 20 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Aging has more about cancer.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1DqQMhU

Study Sees No Link Between Testosterone Therapy and Blood Clots

MONDAY, July 20, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Testosterone therapy doesn’t appear to increase the risk of blood clots in veins, a new study contends.

The most common forms of this problem — called venous thromboembolism (VTE) — are deep vein thrombosis (a clot in the leg) and pulmonary embolism (a clot in the lungs). VTE is the third most common type of cardiovascular problem, after heart attack and stroke, the researchers said.

There is conflicting information about the link between testosterone therapy and the risk of VTE. As a result, many men with low testosterone and their doctors are reluctant to start testosterone therapy, the study investigators said.

“In 2014, the [U.S.] Federal Drug Administration required manufacturers to add a warning about potential risks of VTE to the label of all approved testosterone products,” study author Jacques Baillargeon, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, said in a university news release.

“The warning, however, is based primarily on post-marketing drug surveillance and case reports. To date, there have been no published comparative, large-scale studies examining the association of testosterone therapy and the risk of VTE,” he noted.

Baillargeon and his colleagues looked at data from more than 30,000 American men, aged 40 and older. The researchers found that having a prescription for testosterone therapy was not associated with an increased risk of VTE.

The researchers also studied various forms of testosterone therapy, including topical creams, transdermal patches and intramuscular injections. No increased risk of VTE was found with any of these forms, the researchers said.

But due to the study’s design, it’s not possible to say definitively that there’s no VTE risk associated with testosterone therapy.

Baillargeon said he recognized the need for more study. “It’s also important to note that further research needs to be conducted to rigorously assess the long-term risks of testosterone therapy,” he said.

The study was published July 20 in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more about testosterone therapy.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1Loalzf

Blacks at Higher Risk of Sudden Cardiac Arrest Than Whites: Study

By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, July 20, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Black Americans are more likely than whites to experience sudden cardiac arrest, according to a new study.

The study also found that sudden cardiac arrest often occurs at an earlier age in blacks than in whites.

Sudden cardiac arrest occurs when the electrical system of the heart malfunctions. This causes the heart to beat erratically or to stop beating. As a result, blood isn’t pumped throughout the body.

“Sudden cardiac arrest is significantly higher in black Americans compared to whites, at least twofold higher,” said study researcher Dr. Sumeet Chugh, associate director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles.

Blacks in the United States tend to have sudden cardiac arrest an average of six years earlier than whites, Chugh said.

In his study, he found other major differences as well. “Blacks, in addition to being younger, tended to have more diabetes, more high blood pressure and more kidney problems, or chronic renal disease,” he said.

Chugh said he isn’t certain what’s driving the differences in sudden cardiac arrest between blacks and whites. It’s possible it might be genetics, cultural differences in lifestyle or other factors, he suggested. Inadequate health coverage may be another factor, he said.

The study is published in the July 20 online edition of the American Heart Association journal Circulation.

Chugh and his team collected data on almost 1,300 white people and more than 120 black people. They all had experienced sudden cardiac arrest between 2002 and 2012.

Sudden cardiac arrest happens about 350,000 times a year in the United States, Chugh said. Survival is no higher than 10 percent, he added. Many people die almost instantaneously, often with no prior warnings, according to the researchers.

While most whites who suffer sudden cardiac arrest are over age 65, most blacks are under age 65, Chugh said.

The study findings point to the need to pay attention to the diseases that raise heart disease risk and tend to accompany sudden cardiac arrest in blacks, such as high blood pressure, diabetes and kidney problems, he said.

While 33 percent of the whites in the study had diabetes, 52 percent of the blacks did. High blood pressure was a problem for 77 percent of the blacks, compared to 65 percent of the whites. Chronic kidney failure was nearly twice as likely in blacks, with 34 percent of them having the condition, the researchers found.

The study findings “fit in with the general pattern of blacks having adverse health outcomes” in relation to heart health, said Dr. Christopher Granger, a spokesperson for the American Heart Association and professor of medicine at Duke University in Durham, N.C. Granger reviewed the study’s findings, but wasn’t involved in the study.

The take-home message is clear, he said. “This is yet another set of data to reinforce the need and priority and opportunity to control risk factors in African Americans in order to reduce their consequences of cardiovascular disease.”

Learning that controlling high blood pressure may reduce the risk of sudden cardiac death may increase a patient’s motivation to work harder to do so, he suggested.

More information

To learn more about sudden cardiac arrest, visit the American Heart Association.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1LoaiDx

10 mood-boosting foods

 Want to boost your mood and energy? The nutrients in these foods will make you feel a million bucks.

 

 

Tomatoes:

High in lycopene, an antioxidant necessary for optimum mental functioning and resilience.

---

 

Oats:

Traditionally used to soothe nervous exhaustion and fatigue and jam-packed full of nutrients, oats also help reduce cholesterol, improving blood circulation to the brain.

---

Spinach:

Containing folic acid, it helps to protect the brain. Low levels of folic acid can impair concentration.

---

Ginger:

Stimulates circulation and, according to traditional Chinese medicine, keeps the good chi flowing.

---

Avocado:

Rich in potassium, provides the body with stamina. A deficiency of which may cause fatigue and 3-oclock-itis.

---

Eggs:

A convenient and versatile protein source during those lazy winter evenings. Omelette…nom.

---

Cashews:

High in iron for strength, cashews also contain some tryptophan and the other healthy brain fat, omega-9.

---

Beans:

The vegetarian protein of choice, crammed full of nutrients, fibre and complex carbs.

---

Parsley:

Lauded for its flavour, it’s packed with B vitamins that promote better memory and mental alertness.

---

Dark chocolate:

Contains magnesium, tryptophan and anandamide, a chemical that is produced by our brains when we are happy and increases motivation. Hallelujah!

 

5 ways to boost your happiness>>

{nomultithumb}

 

Source : Diet & Nutrition http://ift.tt/1LnZOnU

This Colorblind Man Can’t Believe His Eyes When He Sees Purple for the First Time

The vibrancy and beauty of all the colors we experience day in and day out is something generally taken for granted. For example, the color purple, as pretty as it may be, is just another part of every day life once you’re used to seeing it— in store windows, in advertisements, in flowering rosebushes. But to Ethan Scott, a colorblind student living in Los Angeles, purple was something he’s never seen before, and never thought he’d ever get to see.

That was until his boyfriend James surprised him with a pair of EnChroma CX Lenses for his birthday. These lenses look like regular sunglasses, but they are designed to correct red-green color blindness, also known as “poor color vision.”

Related: Best Sunglasses for Healthy Eyes

Without telling Scott what the glasses were, James filmed his boyfriend’s reaction and the results are equal parts funny and sweet.

Scott warns audiences before the video starts: “Please pardon the profanity, I’m Italian and easily excitable.” At first, he doesn’t know what the glasses are, saying “These are nice!” as anyone opening a gift would. But he quickly realizes these are not normal sunglasses.

“What are these?” he asks.

It’s hard not to feel his emotional reaction at seeing purple for the first time ever, as well as seeing the true vibrancy of green and pink. And that’s before he even gets outside to see the grass!

Related: User’s Manual: Eyes

He explains in the video: “I was honestly just shaking and couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing.”

It’s pretty impossible for people without this particular vision issue to comprehend what life would look like, but if you want to get a more accurate picture of the difference Scott experienced, there’s actually an app for that, called Colorblind Vision ($3, iTunes). According to the creators’ website, it “simulates the most severe deficiencies” when you wave your smartphone camera over something, so that people with normal vision can relate to and help design for people with colorblindness.

RELATED: Here’s What Color and Vision Experts Have to Say About the Blue and Black (or White and Gold?) Dress

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1ecing1