Healthsifter by mary desmond pinkowish, since 2003

Hideous Noises: Vote Now!

Link: Sound 101 :: Bad Vibes Horrible Sounds.
What a funny site. Maintained by a university in the UK, "Bad Vibes" lets you listen to about 30 sounds that you vote on according to exactly how intolerable you find the noise. Sounds include a jet taking off, someone vomiting, someone else farting, babies crying, and an obvious beginner on the violin. You get to see how your vote stacks up against the average. This is actual research: The investigators are trying to determine why we find certain noises so obnoxious. Vote early, vote often.

Noisy environments associated with heart attack risk

Link: news @ nature.com�-�Noise raises risk of heart attack �-�High sound levels at home or in the workplace increase heart danger..
These German researchers say that among their patients, living or working in a noisy place increases heart attack risk. Smoking and obesity are still much stronger risk factors, though. The noise link interesting, but so far, no one has proven a cause-and-effect relationship. Some people are stressed by noise, but in this group the heart attck patients didn't seem to be more bothered by noise than folks without heart disease. So far, this is just interesting.

Second opinion, electronically

Link: Second E-pinion.
Need a second opinion about a medication or surgery? Read Kathy Orton's story in today's Washington Post about her experiences getting an e-pinion from the Cleveland Clinic, without ever visiting Cleveland.  This is how she describes the program:

"My Consult" is a Web-based second opinion service offered by e-Cleveland Clinic, the facility's Internet service. Patients who have received a diagnosis of any of more than 600 life-threatening or life-altering conditions can request an electronic consultation with a Cleveland Clinic doctor. For $565, a physician provides a written second opinion and a treatment recommendation -- all within five to seven working days of receiving a completed request."

Find out more about the Cleveland Clinic program here. Orton also discusses a similar program based in Boston and affiliated with Harvard called Partners Telemedicine.

The relationship between depression and medical illness

Link: The relationship between depression and medical illness - Patient Care.
I edited this article on how depression affects medical illnesses for Patient Care, a journal for primary care docs. It's a bit technical, but if you need information on how depression affects conditions like diabetes and heart disease, among others, it might be useful.

Sweets against Stress?

Link: Sweet Snacks Could Be Best Medicine For Stress.
Could a bit of sugar help you deal better with stress, preventing you from making too much glucocorticoid? This hormone has been linked to obesity, especially fat around the middle, and production rises during periods of stress. Hey, it seems to work for rats.

CPR changes: 2 to 30

Link: Heart Association Offers CPR Guidelines - Yahoo! News.
This is important: The American Heart Association has changed the recommended way to do CPR. If you've taken the course, you know that the old ratio of rescue breaths to chest compressions was 2 to 15. The new way is 2 rescue breaths for every 30 compressions. It's believed that this method gets more oxygen to brain, heart, and other organs more quickly than the old way.

A Totally Practical Way to Treat Depression

Swimming with dolphins alleviates depression, say these researchers. I know I'd feel great if I swam with dolphins from time to time, but I don't expect to see therapists offering this approach to depression on a wide scale. And do the dolphins have an opinion?

Pregnancy after weight-loss surgery

Link: Normal Birth Outcomes After Laparoscopic Gastric Banding - Journal Watch (General).
It's a good question: What effect does weight loss surgery have on pregnancy? If the results of this small study hold up, it seems that the news is all good. Australian doctors compared 3 types of pregnancies: 79 in women who had had surgery, 40 in the same women before surgery, and 79 in women with so-called morbid obesity who did not have surgery. Compared to the pre-surgical pregnancies and pregnancies in obese women who hadn't had surgery, pregnancies after weight loss surgery resulted in less weight gain, less high blood pressure, and less pregnancy-associated diabetes. Babies born after the surgery were good and healthy.

Do you REALLY want to know what that whole-body CT Scan will find?

Link: Findings of Whole-Body CT Screening - Journal Watch (General).

One of the arguments against whole-body CT scanning for people without symptoms of any illness is that the scan will find "irregularities," "abnormalities," or "positive findings." Lots of them, in lots of people. Many, if not most of these things turn out to be benign. Your outside has plenty of bumps and lumps, so you can imagine what your insides look like. This is the problem: Once you and your doctor know about these "issues" revealed by the CT, you'll probably want an investigation. This could mean a biopsy--or worse. Lots more worry, lots more $$$. In the end, the "problem" may turn out to be nothing. Better safe than sorry, you say?  I understand that attitude, too.  It's up to you.

Baldness in guys

Link: LA Daily News - News.
This is a topic of perenial interest to men, I know. Malcolm Ritter writes about what causes baldness in men and provides an update on what progress, if any, is being made. One doctor claims that this is "the best time in history to be going bald" because so much progress is being made in the quest to regrow hair. Another says that in the near future, baldness will be "a choice, rather than something you have to suffer. Any bald person will have chosen to be bald."
We'll see.