Subcategories
-
مقالات
- Article Count:
- 87
Researchers have recently found that it is possible to easily predict extent of violence and aggression among boys only through conducting a simple test.
In the said test, a study has been done on 17 boys of 7-9 years old and value of Testosterone and Androsterone (DHEA) hormones and that of Cortisol existing in the saliva of the said boys have been measured daily.
The results of researches have revealed that concentration of the said hormones in the sample saliva shall predict extent of violation and aggression among the said kids.
Quick and simultaneous evaluation of extent of violence among adolescences is of great importance for psychiatric and clinical treatments.
Awareness about extent of stress and study of emotional conditions of adolescences, especially during maturity period, sets a desirable model for parents and educational instructors and it causes that least hurts occur for the adolescences during said period accordingly.
WEDNESDAY, March 2, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- Prostate cancer may be more aggressive in men who are deficient in vitamin D, new research suggests.
A study of nearly 200 men having their prostate removed found those with low vitamin D levels were more likely to have rapidly growing tumors than those with normal levels of the "sunshine" vitamin.
"If men with vitamin D deficiency are more likely to have [more advanced disease] at the time of prostate surgery, then perhaps men should be tested for this when they are diagnosed with prostate cancer and subsequently supplemented with vitamin D if they are deficient," said researcher Dr. Adam Murphy. He is an assistant professor of urology at Northwestern University in Chicago.
However, another expert isn't ready to go that far.
This study can't prove that vitamin D deficiency causes aggressive prostate cancer, only that the two are associated, said Dr. Anthony D'Amico, chief of radiation oncology at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
But D'Amico thinks the results are important enough to spur further study into the possible connection between vitamin D and prostate cancer. "It's a hypothesis that's worth testing," he said.
For now, though, D'Amico doesn't think enough evidence exists to recommend vitamin D supplements to prevent prostate cancer or make it less aggressive.
Murphy said he has been exploring the link between prostate cancer and vitamin D for some time. He said racial distinctions were noted in this study, too, with black men having more aggressive tumors and lower vitamin D levels than white men.
These findings suggest that one reason black men have higher odds of developing -- and dying of -- prostate cancer is because of their "higher propensity for having vitamin D deficiency from the sun-blocking effects of melanin and perhaps dietary intake differences," Murphy said. The study could not prove this, however.
The human body gets vitamin D from certain foods. These include fortified products (such as milk, orange juice and cereal), and certain fish (such as salmon), according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The body also makes the vitamin when the skin is exposed to sunlight. Dark-skinned people have more melanin, which prevents burning.
Murphy said men with dark skin, low vitamin D intake or low sun exposure should be tested for vitamin D deficiency when diagnosed with prostate cancer or elevated PSA (prostate specific antigen), which is associated with the cancer. He believes supplementation is warranted for those with low vitamin D levels.
The study included 190 men having prostate surgery. The researchers found that nearly 46 percent of the men had aggressive cancer, and these men had vitamin D levels about 16 percent lower than men with slower-growing tumors.
After accounting for age, PSA levels and abnormal rectal exams, Murphy and his colleagues found that vitamin D levels below 30 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL) of blood were linked to higher odds of aggressive prostate cancer.
Low iron levels can raise your risk of stroke by making your blood more sticky, a new study indicates.
Investigators looked at data from nearly 500 people with a rare hereditary disease that causes them to have enlarged blood vessels in the lungs. Typically, blood vessels in the lungs don't allow clots to enter the arteries. But in these patients, clots can escape the lungs, travel to the brain and cause a stroke.
Those who had an iron deficiency had stickier platelets -- which are small blood cells that trigger clotting when they stick together -- and were more likely to suffer a stroke, according to the researchers at Imperial College London in the U.K.
Even those with moderately low iron levels were about twice as likely to suffer a stroke as those with iron levels in the middle of the normal range, according to the study published Feb. 19 in the journal PLoS One.
The researchers noted that many people have other types of conditions that let blood clots bypass the lung's filtering system, and they added that their findings could eventually help with stroke prevention.
Iron deficiency affects about 2 billion people worldwide, and recent research has shown that it may be a risk factor for stroke, but how iron deficiency could boost stroke risk was unknown.
"Since platelets in the blood stick together more if you are short of iron, we think this may explain why being short of iron can lead to strokes, though much more research will be needed to prove this link," Dr. Claire Shovlin, from the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London, said in a college news release.
"The next step is to test whether we can reduce high-risk patients' chances of having a stroke by treating their iron deficiency. We will be able to look at whether their platelets become less sticky," Shovlin said.
"There are many additional steps from a clot blocking a blood vessel to the final stroke developing, so it is still unclear just how important sticky platelets are to the overall process," she added.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly one in three American adults suffers from high blood pressure. This is a problem of great concern, since this condition puts people at higher risk for even more serious health issues like heart attacks and strokes and is considered the number one risk factor for fatal heart attacks. While there are a number of prescription medications available to help treat high blood pressure, they all come with unwanted side effects ranging from the mild (dizziness when standing) to the severe (permanent kidney damage).
There are however, more natural options that people with high blood pressure have to treat this condition. Extract of certain plants, for instance, have been found to be extremely beneficial to normalize blood pressure levels. Read on to find out more about how these extracts can improve cardiac health.
Olive leaf extract
Olive leaf extract contains compounds called secoiridoid glycosides. These compounds, in the body, react with the angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE), with the result that angiotensin is not able to cause the blood vessels to constrict and the result is a wider blood vessel and lower blood pressure. In short, these act much like the prescription drug group called ACE inhibitors, but also can lower cholesterol. In one study, participants taking olive leaf extract showed, at the end of eight weeks, a drop of 13mn Hg in systolic blood pressure (the upper number) and 3mm Hg in the diastolic blood pressure (the lower number).
Celery seed extract
Celery seed extract is another natural way to lower the blood pressure; it acts much like the drug group calcium channel blockers. These act different than ACE inhibitors and are able to lower the blood pressure through dilating (widening) the arteries. There appear to be no serious side effects to this extract, and in one clinical trial, patients with mild to moderate high blood pressure took a dosage of 75 mg of this extract every day and on average, at the end of the study, both systolic and diastolic blood pressure dropped around eight points.
Garlic extract
It is not surprising that garlic, long known for its positive effects on the heart, should be able to help treat blood pressure as well. One clinical trial studied patients whose blood pressure was treated but uncontrolled and found that, with use of garlic extract supplements, participants showed as much improvement in their blood pressure at the end of 12 weeks as would have been expected if they had been taking front-line drugs.
In conclusion, then, before considering traditional treatment for blood pressure and risking the unwanted side effects, consult with a naturopath or similar practitioner to discuss these and other natural remedies for normalized blood pressure that will improve cardiac health without unintended consequences like kidney damage or other serious complications.
L-carnitine significantly improves cardiac health in patients after a heart attack, say a multicenter team of investigators in a study published today in Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Their findings, based on analysis of key controlled trials, associate L-carnitine with significant reduction in death from all causes and a highly significant reduction in ventricular arrhythmias and anginal attacks following a heart attack, compared with placebo or control.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. Although many of the therapies developed in recent decades have markedly improved life expectancy, adverse cardiovascular events such as ventricular arrhythmias and angina attacks still occur frequently after an acute myocardial infarction (heart attack).
It is known that during ischemic events L-carnitine levels are depleted. Investigators sought to determine the effects of targeting cardiac metabolic pathways using L-carnitine to improve free fatty acid levels and glucose oxidation in these patients. By performing a systematic review and meta-analysis of the available studies published over several decades, they looked at the role of L-carnitine compared with placebo or control in patients experiencing an acute myocardial infarction.
L-carnitine is a trimethylamine which occurs in high amounts in red meat and is found in certain other foods, and is also widely available as an over-the-counter nutritional supplement which is claimed to improve energy, weight loss, and athletic performance. Its potential role in treating heart disease was first reported in the late 1970s.
A comprehensive literature search yielded 153 studies, 13, published from 1989-2007, were deemed eligible. All the trials were comparison trials of L-carnitine compared with placebo or control in the setting of acute myocardial infarction.
This systematic review of the 13 controlled trials in 3,629 patients, involving 250 deaths, 220 cases of new heart failure, and 38 recurrent heart attacks, found that L-carnitine was associated with:
There were numerically fewer myocardial reinfarctions and heart failure cases associated with L-carnitine, but this did not reach statistical significance.
First author James J. DiNicolantonio, PharmD, Wegmans Pharmacy, Ithaca, NY, observes, "Although therapies for acute coronary syndrome (ACS), including percutaneous coronary intervention, dual antiplatelet therapy, b-blockers (BBs), statins, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs), omega-3 fatty acids, and cardiac rehabilitation, have markedly improved clinical outcomes, adverse cardiovascular (CV) events still occur too frequently after ACS. One promising therapy for improving cardiac health involves using L-carnitine to improve free fatty acid levels and glucose oxidation."
"The potential mechanisms responsible for the observed beneficial impact of L-carnitine in acute myocardial infarction are likely multifactorial and may, in part, be conferred through the ability of L-carnitine to improve mitochondrial energy metabolism in the heart by facilitating the transport of long-chain fatty acids from the cytosol to the mitochondrial matrix, where b-oxidation occurs, removing toxic fatty acid intermediates, reducing ischemia induced by long-chain fatty acid concentrations, and replenishing depleted carnitine concentrations seen in ischemic, infarcted, and failing myocardium," says DiNicolantonio.
L-carnitine is proven to be safe and is readily available over the counter. The investigators agree that the overall results of this meta-analysis support the potential use of L-carnitine in acute myocardial infarction and possibly in secondary coronary prevention and treatment, including angina. They advocate for a larger randomized, multicenter trial to be performed to confirm these results in the modern era of routine revascularization and other intensive medical therapies following acute myocardial infarction. But, says DiNicolantonio, "L-carnitine therapy can already be considered in selected patients with high-risk or persistent angina after acute myocardial infarction who cannot tolerate treatment with ACE inhibitors or beta blockers, considering its low cost and excellent safety profile."
These findings may seem to contradict those reported in a study published earlier this month in Nature Medicine by Robert A. Koeth and others (Koeth, R. A. et al. Nature Med. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nm.3145), which demonstrated that metabolism by intestinal microbiota of dietary L-carnitine produced trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) and accelerated atherosclerosis in mice. They also noted that omnivorous human subjects produced more TMAO than did vegans or vegetarians following ingestion of L-carnitine, and suggested a possible direct link between L-carnitine, gut bacteria, TMAO, and atherosclerosis and risk of ischemic heart disease.
"The Nature Medicine paper is of interest," agrees senior investigator Carl J. Lavie, M.D.,FACC,FACP,FCCP, Medical Director of the Cardiac Rehabilitation and Prevention Center at the John Ochsner Heart and Vascular Institute at the University of Queensland School of Medicine in New Orleans, "but the main study reported there was in animals, and unlike our study, lacks hard outcomes." He also notes that "there are various forms of 'carnitine' and our relatively large meta-analysis specifically tested L-carnitine on hard outcomes in humans who had already experienced acute myocardial infarction."
Source:
Elsevier Health Sciences
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly one in three American adults suffers from high blood pressure. This is a problem of great concern, since this condition puts people at higher risk for even more serious health issues like heart attacks and strokes and is considered the number one risk factor for fatal heart attacks. While there are a number of prescription medications available to help treat high blood pressure, they all come with unwanted side effects ranging from the mild (dizziness when standing) to the severe (permanent kidney damage).
There are however, more natural options that people with high blood pressure have to treat this condition. Extract of certain plants, for instance, have been found to be extremely beneficial to normalize blood pressure levels. Read on to find out more about how these extracts can improve cardiac health.
Olive leaf extract
Olive leaf extract contains compounds called secoiridoid glycosides. These compounds, in the body, react with the angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE), with the result that angiotensin is not able to cause the blood vessels to constrict and the result is a wider blood vessel and lower blood pressure. In short, these act much like the prescription drug group called ACE inhibitors, but also can lower cholesterol. In one study, participants taking olive leaf extract showed, at the end of eight weeks, a drop of 13mn Hg in systolic blood pressure (the upper number) and 3mm Hg in the diastolic blood pressure (the lower number).
Celery seed extract
Celery seed extract is another natural way to lower the blood pressure; it acts much like the drug group calcium channel blockers. These act different than ACE inhibitors and are able to lower the blood pressure through dilating (widening) the arteries. There appear to be no serious side effects to this extract, and in one clinical trial, patients with mild to moderate high blood pressure took a dosage of 75 mg of this extract every day and on average, at the end of the study, both systolic and diastolic blood pressure dropped around eight points.
Garlic extract
It is not surprising that garlic, long known for its positive effects on the heart, should be able to help treat blood pressure as well. One clinical trial studied patients whose blood pressure was treated but uncontrolled and found that, with use of garlic extract supplements, participants showed as much improvement in their blood pressure at the end of 12 weeks as would have been expected if they had been taking front-line drugs.
In conclusion, then, before considering traditional treatment for blood pressure and risking the unwanted side effects, consult with a naturopath or similar practitioner to discuss these and other natural remedies for normalized blood pressure that will improve cardiac health without unintended consequences like kidney damage or other serious complications.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/049854_cardiac_health_blood_pressure_plant_extracts.html#ixzz3hqOh8kTV