Fitness centers stocked with the latest in high-tech machinery and staffed by fitness professionals can be a huge help for those interested in getting or staying in shape.
For the days you don’t have time to get to the gym, or you’d like a change of pace, there’s always a home gym.
Studies show the closer a gym is to your house, the more likely you are to use it. And home gyms receive the most use of all. So, if you’re intent on keeping your Read the rest of this entry »

But more research on the newer generations of contraceptives is needed to delineate the specific effects. This is especially true because more women over age 35 are taking hormonal contraceptives, they’re taking them for longer periods of time, and the U.S. population is increasingly obese, said the authors of the study, published in the Jan. 20 issue of the
.
“Newer formulations that have come out in the last decade do not appear to raise blood Read the rest of this entry »

When her mother died in late October, Wendy Krakosky of Madison Heights wondered what to do with all her unused medications.
“They were just sitting there,” she said, holding open a bag of orange bottles and blister packs containing the drugs her mother took to prevent organ rejection, nausea and inflammation following a 2004 lung transplant.
Krakosky was one of many who descended upon the Detroit Medical Center Surgery Center in Madison Heights Read the rest of this entry »

BALTIMORE – The Baltimore City Health Department has issued a flu alert for across the region.
Health Department Commissioner Dr. Joshua Sharfstein said the city has seen an increase in patients testing positive for influenza in the last two weeks, including at Sinai Hospital.
“Probably for the next two months we’ll continue to see the flu. We’ve been seeing it since November. So yeah, we see a lot,” said Sinai Hospital nurse Jere Waddy.
One Read the rest of this entry »

New drugs for the painful joint condition rheumatoid arthritis have made a big difference to some patients’ lives. But there is a down side. They dampen down the immune system, which can leave people at more risk of infection. And new research suggests they may also increase the chances of getting shingles, a condition that causes painful blisters.
What do we know already?
Rheumatoid arthritis happens when the body’s own immune system (which usually Read the rest of this entry »

Washington (dbTechno) – A new study has found that common drugs to help people with osteoporosis actually increase the risk of developing a disease in the jaw known as osteonecrosis of the jaw.
The jaw disease, also known as ONJ, is attributed by pain in the jaw.  On top of that, it can also lead to loose teeth, as well as swelling of jaw tissue and infection.
The study was conducted by researchers from th eUniversity of Southern California in Read the rest of this entry »

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 31 (HealthDay News) — Women who took the osteoporosis drug Fosamax for up to three years saw an increase in their number of osteoclasts, or cells that remove old, brittle bone, a new study says.
These women also had “giant” osteoclasts — single cells fused together — with as many as 40 nuclei. Normally, one would see only seven or eight nuclei in one grouping, the study authors said.
At this point, it’s unclear what these findings Read the rest of this entry »

Scientists found that patients who took the drugs were twice as likely to suffer a condition called atrial fibrillation, in which the heart beats irregularly.
Symptoms include chest pains, shortness of breath, palpitations and the disease can even cause heart failure.
The drugs, called alendronate and zoledronic acid, are taken to build bone density and as well as to slow down the progression of osteoporosis, which affects more than 3million people Read the rest of this entry »

ScienceDaily (Feb. 26, 2009)
— Researchers at Purdue University have precisely measured the impact of a high-fat diet on the spread of cancer, finding that excessive dietary fat caused a 300 percent increase in metastasizing tumor cells in laboratory animals.
The researchers used an imaging technique to document how increasing fat content causes cancer cells to undergo changes essential to metastasis. Then they used another technique to count Read the rest of this entry »

TUESDAY, Dec. 9 (HealthDay News) — Deaths from overdoses of prescription drugs, primarily pain relievers, appear to be on the rise throughout the United States, new research suggests.
West Virginia, in particular, has seen a large increase in such unintentional deaths, say government researchers, who have uncovered patterns of “doctor shopping” for drugs and overdosing on medications not used as prescribed.
“We found that two-thirds of these Read the rest of this entry »