Published on December 3rd, 2009no comments

As the weather turns colder and the sunlight hours dwindle, more and more Americans flock to indoor tanning salons to get that much desired straight-from-the-beach bronze glow. In fact, nearly 30 million people in the United States tan in salons every year, most of them women between the ages of 16 and 49. But before you start baking under the lights, you might want to consider the numerous health risks associated with tanning bed use.
Let’s begin with infections. If the surface of the tanning bed isn’t cleaned properly or if the towels you use aren’t washed in hot water, you can get infections like pubic lice (crabs) and warts caused by the human papillomavirus, or HPV. Tanning beds and exposure to UV rays can have a detrimental effect on your immune system as well because it reduces the activity level of natural killer cells and T cells.
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Published on December 3rd, 2009no comments

It’s no secret that being a couch potato can lead to ill effects on your health. Scientists have long known that regular exercise can go a long way in the prevention of heart disease and cancer. However, a group of German researchers have discovered that the secret to maintaining youth may also be connected to physical activity, and that the key to slowing the aging process may be revealed by looking at the body’s cells. The report was recently published in the journal of the American Heart Association, Circulation.
Dr. Ulrich Laufs, a professor of clinical and experimental medicine in the department of internal medicine at Saarland University in Homburg, Germany, and colleagues, found that the white blood cells of endurance athletes had longer telomeres than those of healthy, nonsmoking adults who did not follow a regular exercise program. Telomeres are DNA located at the ends of chromosomes that protect the tips of the chromosomes from damage.
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Published on November 30th, 2009no comments

A new treatment has been discovered to help treat erectile dysfunction, however, the men might wince at the thought of this idea. Researchers from Israel have reported promising preliminary results from using low-intensity shock wave therapy to help treat vasculogenic erectile dysfunction (ED).
In fact, 15 out of the 20 patients who suffered from mild or moderate ED who have been treated so far had a significant improvement with their erectile function, and in most cases were able to discontinue treatment with phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE-5) inhibitors.
Yoram Vardi, M.D., chief of the neuro-urology unit at the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, presented the recent findings at the annual meeting of the European Society for Sexual Medicine. He explained that the low-energy shock wave therapy is being increasingly used to help induce regeneration of small coronary vessels in patients that have angina and who are not suitable for angioplasty or coronary surgery.
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Published on November 30th, 2009no comments

Stop for a moment, especially if you’re about to take a big bite of chocolate cake, and think about what happens to your kitchen drain pipes when you pour meat grease or chicken fat down the sink. Over time, this sludge builds up in the pipes, causing them to drain slower or blocking them completely. The same thing can happen to our blood vessels when they are exposed to high levels of cholesterol. LDL slowly builds up in artery walls, causing a thick plaque that can narrow arteries, restrict blood flow, and lead to blood clots. A blocked blood vessel in the brain can trigger a stroke. If the coronary arteries of the heart become blocked, a heart attack occurs. Heart attack is a major risk factor for heart failure, a condition in which damaged or weakened heart muscle is unable to pump enough blood to meet the body’s needs for blood and oxygen. But a new study shows that high levels of cholesterol may significantly raise the risk of heart failure, even for people who never have a heart attack.
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Published on November 24th, 2009no comments

Moderate-to-high intensity exercise such as jogging, swimming or tennis may help reduce stroke risk in older men but not in women, researchers report.
The study included almost 3,300 men and women, average age 69, in Manhattan who were followed for about nine years. During that time, there were 238 strokes among the participants. At the start of the study, 20 percent of the participants said they did regular moderate-to-high intensity exercise, while 41 percent said they did no physical activity.
Men who did moderate-to-high intensity exercise were 63 percent less likely to have a stroke than people who didn’t exercise. Over five years, the baseline risk of ischemic stroke (the leading type of stroke) for all study participants was 4.3 percent; 2.7 percent for those who did moderate-to-high intensity exercise and 4.6 percent for those who didn’t exercise.
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Published on November 24th, 2009no comments

Men who bottle up their anger over unfair treatment at work could be hurting their hearts, a new Swedish study indicates.
Men who consistently failed to express their resentment over conflicts with a fellow worker or supervisor were more than twice as likely to have a heart attack or die of heart disease as those who vented their anger, claims a report in the Nov. 24 online edition of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
In fact, ignoring an ongoing work-related conflict was associated with a tripled risk of heart attack or coronary death, the study of almost 2,800 Swedish working men found.
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Published on November 24th, 2009no comments

More than four in five parents say their children use the Internet without adult supervision, but at the same time almost two-thirds are worried about online predators, a new survey has found.
The findings, released online Nov. 19 by the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health, show that parents have a variety of concerns about their children’s safety on the Internet.
The researchers found that 81 percent of parents surveyed said their children aged 9 to 17 use the Internet without being supervised by an adult. Almost half have profiles on social-networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook; the number grows to two-thirds among kids aged 13 to 17.
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