healthknot.com

Privacy policy  ▪  About

▼ DECEMBER

Migraine study
Can a migraine study give you migraine? Perhaps, if something about it have you upset, and reduces your brain blood supply; if you are low on magnesium, that could trigger cerebral vascular spasms and - voila! - there you have it: if it looks, walks and talks like migraine headache, it's got to be migraine headache...» MORE

Genes and breast cancer
The most important part of breast cancer research is establishing specific genetic malfunction within the cancer cell making it abnormal. While the inherent genetic flaws account for only about 10% of breast cancers, those resulting from gene mutations - of altered gene expression (epigenetic damage) - during the lifetime are to blame for the remaining 90%. Thus, understanding the link between genes and breast cancer nearly equals understanding of the disease itself...» MORE

Breast cancer studies
Should you be afraid of breast cancer? Maybe not, but there is certainly a reason for concern and, with it, need for quality information. The question is: where do you get it...» MORE

▼ NOVEMBER

Stem cells cure promise
Can you imagine having diseased body or organ tissue simply dissolved, and replaced by a brand new, healthy tissue grown by your own body? This is the stem cells cure promise...» MORE

Imprinted genes
Are you having imprinted genes, and why should you worry? Genetic research is beginning to unravel mysterious inner workings of human genes, and at least partial answers are surfacing. Recently, as reported by Associated Press, Duke University scientists have created the first map of imprinted genes...» MORE

Children medications: danger, danger...
As more detail surfaces about the ongoing FDA focus on over-the-counter children cough medications, there is only more reason for concern. How aware are we of the effects these particular drugs - as well as others - can have on children's health, especially the little ones'...» MORE

Deep vein thrombosis (DVT)
The update on new official guidelines for assessing risk of DVT complications for each patient admitted in UK hospitals is: it isn't working well. According to the parliamentary Thrombosis group, only 1/3 of hospitals do follow the guidelines. The estimate is that in the last 7 months some 11,000 people have died, unnecessarily, as a result...» MORE

▼ OCTOBER

Epigenetic therapy
Can what and how your grandma ate make you sick? According to the new kid on the block, epigenetic medicine, it can. Not only diet, but pretty much any significant prolonged exposure to challenging environmental, physiological and psychological factors can cause inheritable epigenetic changes in your basic body functions...» MORE

Chemical body burden
You don't see them, don't smell them, don't feel their touch. Yet they are everywhere around you, and everywhere inside you. Why should you worry about industrial chemicals piling up inside your body, or inside those that you love? Why is it named chemical body burden?...» MORE

Depression and work
Can your workplace give you depression? A Forbes.com article goes over a number of ways that office people can get seek while working, from exposure to physical discomfort to poor air quality. Another unhealthy "ingredient", constant stress, also can cause depression. Of course, it is not only office workers that can be exposed to it, and it is not limited only to a working environment...» MORE

▼ SEPTEMBER

Pneumococcal vaccine
Those reading health articles this month may have noticed media lamenting over a developing crack in the efficacy of pneumococcal vaccine Prevnar (Wyeth), for children under the age of 2. It turned out that its limited action - it only protects from 7 most common, out of over 90 strains of pneumococcus bacteria - opens up room for more virulent strains, such as the antibiotic-resistant superbug named A19, to flourish...» MORE

Hyperactivity, attention deficit and food additives
If we were fruit flies, many of us would die from hyperactivity caused by consuming yellow food dye. Luckily, we're not that small, but it doesn't mean we can't be adversely affected... » MORE

Health and exercise
How are health and exercise related? Are seemingly better short term results necessarily also better long-term? An interesting small Danish study, reported by Associated Press/AP Online, may be a good example... » MORE

Kids meds
How protected are children from hard marketing of variety of kids' drugs? Apparently, not well. It is not surprising in today's drug-abducted medicine. The recent FDA move to curb the marketing of cold medicines for children provokes some thoughts on children and drugs... » MORE

▼ AUGUST

Alternatives to statins
The fact that cholesterol imbalance (particularly high "bad", and low "good" cholesterol) is only a part of the problem - actually, part of body's attempt to remedy oxidative/inflammatory damage to the cells and tissues - implies that alternative (and better) treatments for primary and secondary cardiovascular disease prevention are available... » MORE

Cholesterol effects
In order to remedy the cholesterol plaque problem, we have to start with what is causing it. It is not cholesterol itself - a waxy, non-sticky substance, which normally won't deposit on blood vessel walls, be it "good" (HDL) or "bad" (LDL). What makes things change is... » MORE

Statins side effects
The benefit of statin-reduced cholesterol production - less of arterial build-up and insomuch lower risk of cardiovascular complications - is accompanied by some major drawbacks. One is that the main cause of all evil, inflammation-causing free radicals, toxic and pathogen inflicted damage to your blood vessels (and other tissues) is left out... » MORE

Statins effects: benefits
For the specific benefits of statin drugs, we need to turn to the only source we have: clinical trials and statistical studies. According to one large statistical study on the effects of statin drugs (Vrecer et al., International Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 12/2003), which used data from 16 statin studies... » MORE

▼ JULY

Statins: benefits, dangers and alternatives
First came high-cholesterol paranoia. Hard marketing of cholesterol-lowering drugs - statins being the head runner for the past two decades - followed. As a part of it, statins side effects are routinely downplayed, while alternatives are downgraded or ignored... » MORE

Exhaust smoke kills, doesn't it?
It sure does, and it's no news: fine particulates alone, produced mainly by vehicle exhaust emission, kill 20,000 Americans each year (EPA). And that is only about 1/5 of total deaths attributable to main air pollutants - nitrogen dioxide, coarse particulate matter (PM10), fine particulate matter (PM2.5), carbon monoxide, ozone and sulphur dioxide - combined (Stieb et al. 2002) ... » MORE

Benefits of organic foods
Is organic food healthier than conventionally grown foods? Significantly lower pesticide residue, combined with higher average nutritional value, seem to make the answer easy. What are the most recent news? ... » MORE

Is your exercise healthy?
How healthy is exercise in the polluted air? New York Times article by Gretchen Reynolds gives you a reason to take this question seriously. Recent studies seem to be positively linking the outdoor air pollutants - in particular "fine particulates" (soot) - not only to respiratory system ailments, but also to increased risk of heart attack... » MORE

▼  JUNE

Causes of back pain
When you have bad back, one thing you want to know is how to make pain go away. And that is much easier to accomplish if you know what is causing it. But what is it that causes back pain? You've been told it is caused by degenerating disc, or bone, or both; this may be precipitated by an old or fresh injury, spinal misalignment or nutritional/metabolic deficiency, or imbalance... » MORE

Why did little Becky die?
There is something especially mysterious and frightening about epilepsy; even more so about the Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP). Disturbed brain circuitry throw you into an epileptic seizure, when any control over your body is lost; occasionally, it can even take your life... » MORE

Vitamin D and cancer
Is your low vitamin D level you are not aware of increasing your risk of developing cancer? Even if vitamin D cancer preventing ability is steadily indicated over decades, in a number of (mostly animal) studies, as well as from statistical data, the answer still sounds much like: "Yes, but..." ... » MORE

Vaccines and autism
A lot has been written about the link between early childhood vaccines and autism, but the controversy is still alive. What could be a decisive moment in tipping the balance to one or the other side is taking place in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (USCFC) ... » MORE

▼   MAY

Sudden cardiac death
Can the death toll from sudden heart attack be reduced? According to a recent study, it strikes a young athlete in the US once in every three days, on average, and that is underestimate. In all age groups, it affects over 400,000 people each year ... » MORE

Blood pressure numbers
At the mention of blood pressure numbers, most people think of the official standards for healthy blood pressure - 115 to 125 systolic by 70 to 80 diastolic, with 145/90 being the cut off between pre-hypertension and hypertension. But there is another kind of blood pressure numbers, much more alive and disturbing ... » MORE

More side effects from osteoporosis drugs?
The results of two fairly large recent studies published in The New England Journal of Medicine (05/03/2007) indicate yet another possible side effect of so called "bone-building" medications, most often used for osteoporosis prevention ... » MORE

▼ APRIL

Death may come from your legs
The British government is publishing official guide which specifies how to check every hospital patient for deep vain thrombosis (DVT) risk. It is estimated that it causes some 25,000 deaths a year in UK hospitals alone (BBC) ... » MORE

Ovarian cancer and HRT
A recent UK study on nearly 1 million postmenopausal women has found that hormone replacement therapy (HRT), increases risk of ovarian cancer by 20%; an estimated 1,000 woman developed ovarian cancer between 1991 to 2005 and died, as a result of HRT ... » MORE

Asthma difficult to medicate
Recent statistics show that only one in five asthmatic children in the U.S. has their symptoms under "good control". On the other hand, children on the Mediterranean island Crete barely need any asthma related medical assistance. What makes the difference? ... » MORE

▼   MARCH

FDA pulls Parkinson's drug from US market
Pergolide, Parkinson's disease drug is withdrawn from the market, after being linked to potentially fatal heart valve damage (New York Times) ... » MORE

Longer term effect of sedatives
The usual phrase is that little is known about long-term side-effects of tranquilizers. It doesn't quite fit the data. Results of a recent 5-year investigation into their use on dementia patients in UK nursing homes (BBC) are just another stark reminder: anything that can affect neural function, has also the potential of damaging it ... » MORE

Why new "good cholesterol" drugs don't work?
They tried it all to curb heart disease with a cholesterol pill. First by lowering so called "bad cholesterol" with statin drugs (Lipitor, Zokor, and others), which are not working as expected. Then they tried by raising so called "good cholesterol" instead. Results? ... » MORE

Beef chemicals and infertility
A recent study at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York concluded that mothers eating lots of beef while expecting risk compromising fertility of their sons (CNN, BBC) ... » MORE

To aspirin or not to aspirin
A 24-year Nurses' Health Study by the researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, turned in statistical results showing that low-to-moderate aspirin users had cancer deaths lower by 12% and cardiovascular by 38%, and a total of 25% lower death rate from any cause (CNN, BBC) ... » MORE

▼ FEBRUARY

Evidence-based medicine
It may be hard to believe, but the idea of evidence-based medical practice (also, "scientific medicine") - in a sense of relying on the actual performance data - has been soundly formulated as little as 35 years ago ... » MORE

Health study results misleading?
In his Time Magazine health article (February 2007), Michael D. Lemonik argues that the usual manner in which results of health studies are presented doesn't convey the whole truth ... » MORE

▼ JANUARY

Psychological stress and health
A well researched, informative article about psychological stress by Christine Gorman in Time Magazine brings some important facts of its biological mechanism and effects on health ... » MORE

TOP

YOUR BODY ┆ HEALTH RECIPE ┆ NUTRITION ┆ TOXINS ┆ SYMPTOMS