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Teeth, or maybe I should say mouths, have been in the news lately.   First, vitamin D and cavities.  According to The New York Times, low levels of vitamin D in pregnancy are associated with the development of cavities in babies, researchers say. Children in the study had dental examinations when they were an average of one year old, and their mothers completed another questionnaire on  breast-feeding , introduction of solids and other health and behavioral factors, The NYT reports. "About a third of the women were deficient in vitamin D, 22 percent of the infants had deficient or thinning enamel and 23 percent had cavities," according to The Times. After controlling for other factors, they found that the lower the prenatal vitamin D level in the mother, the higher the number of cavities in the child. Defective enamel and prenatal vitamin D levels were both independent predictors of cavities. So the answer is clear.  Pregnant or planning to be?  Take...

Want relief from you allergies? Get stress out of your life. According to newswise.com, " Stress doesn’t cause allergies, but easing your mind might mean less allergy flare-ups this spring." “Stress can cause several negative effects on the body, including causing more symptoms for allergy sufferers,” said allergist Amber Patterson, MD, lead study author and ACAAI member. “Our study also found those with more frequent allergy flares also have a greater negative mood, which may be leading to these flares.” In a recent study , w hile there were no significant findings between allergy flares and stress on the same day, a number of sufferers reported allergy flares within days of increased daily stress, the Web site reports. “Symptoms, such as sneezing, runny nose and watery eyes can cause added stress for allergy sufferers, and may even be the root of stress for some,” said Dr. Patterson. “While alleviating stress won’t cure allergies, it may help decrease episodes of i...

We've all seen the commercials, the handsome middle-aged man taking his wife's hand and the next shot is of a slowly filling bathtub or, in the old days, a couple smoking side by side on the terrace with smiles on their faces. But medications like Viagra and Cialis are on the air all the time, as are ads for testosterone .  Now, while most men don't really need this hormone, did you know that men with truly low levels may suffer from sleep apnea?  And that sleep apnea can kill? Sleep apnea is a disorder that can happen to anyone but usually affects those who are overweight or obese. What happens is that, when you're sleeping, you stop breathing, as many as hundreds of times a night.  You don't know you're doing this because you're asleep, but it can hurt your heart, even over time cause heart attacks, and it can be a silent killer. According to the the NIH's National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, breathing pauses can last from a few seconds to...

Mindfulness .   The concept has been kicked around for some time.  You know, closing your eyes (or not) and just letting thoughts come in and out of your mind without following them, just being there, in the moment.  It's kind of like meditation but that word scares a lot of people away, so mindfulness was coined. You'd certainly want your doctor to do a little of this, before surgery, wouldn't you?  Well, now, Pauline Chen, herself a doctor, is writing at her New York Times blog that practicing it may just may help physicians avoid stress and burnout. " Research over the last few years has revealed that unrelenting job pressures cause two-thirds of fully trained doctors to experience the emotional, mental and physical exhaustion characteristic of burnout," she reports. "Health care workers who are burned out are at higher risk for substance abuse, lying, cheating and even suicide. They tend to make more errors and lose their sense of empathy for others....

So it's true, what we've known all along.   Sleep better, look better.  According to a story at newswise.com, it's not just getting rid of the bags under the eyes (or, in my case, brown puddles), over time it actually has "shown specific improvement in facial appearance after at-home treatment for sleep apnea, a condition marked by snoring and breathing interruptions." Sleep apnea affects millions of adults – most undiagnosed -- and puts them at higher risk for heart-related problems and daytime accidents. Some people stop breathing as many as 120 times an hour. Researchers used a sensitive “face mapping” technique usually used by surgeons, and a panel of independent appearance raters, and they "detected changes in 20 middle-aged apnea patients just a few months after they began using a system called CPAP to help them breathe better during sleep and overcome chronic sleepiness." It stands to reason that if you're getting enough sleep, yo...

OK, all you smokers out there (are there any?).  A new study has revealed that quitting smoking leads to higher wages. According to The Wall Street Journal, "Former smokers earn higher wages than smokers and people who have never smoked, according to new research." Whjy? Data in the report shows that nonsmokers, which include people who never smoked, and former smokers, "bring in about 95% of the hourly wages of former smokers." Smokers earn about 80% of what nonsmokers and former smokers earn, the survey notes.  Is it because of a lack of productivity?  You know, all those poor souls standing out in the cold with their noxious clouds of fumes you have to walk through to get to your building.   The study did not find this. "They determined that differences in the characteristics of smokers and nonsmokers, such as educational attainment, as well as unmeasured factors like an employer’s tolerance to smoking behavior are mostly driving the wage gap,...

I've heard of standing on your head to clear hiccups (doesn't work).  And throwing salt over your shoulder to ward off bad luck, after you've spilled it. But singing when you have trouble breathing? Apparently it's all the craze in London, where the AP says sessions held to help those with chronic lung disease get better, singing.  According to a story at yahoo.com, people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), who have trouble breathing because they can't get enough air in and out of their lungs, find that singing can help them learn how to better manipulate their breathing.  "Since many people enjoy singing, we thought it would help them associate controlling their breathing with something pleasant and positive rather than a standard physiotherapy technique," Dr. Nicholas Hopkinson, Royal Brompton Hospital's top chest physician, was quoted. in the article "It's almost accidental that they learn something about their breat...

Have you had to move to another bedroom because of your spouse's snoring?  It's possible he (or she) has  sleep apnea , a period of not breathing during the night that can happen hundreds of times during the night.   Not only does this not allow the person to get real sleep, it can also kill him. Experts estimate that between 10 and 20% of the population who are middle-aged suffers from sleep apnea, where breathing is briefly interrupted or becomes very shallow during sleep. But here's where the death part comes in. Sleep apnea can lead to serious health problems over time, including diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, and weight gain. And now they're even connecting it to Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Markers for the disease are present 15 to 20 years in people with sleep apnea, before the disease manifests itself, according to newswise.com. You just have to know what you're looking for. Strangely enough, markers for AD were only found in...

It's true.  We all know sleep deprivation robs us of health and energy.  But did you know it can also kill? It's called sleep apnea and it sneaks up on you in the middle of the night, especially if you are overweight, male, black or Latino.  Sleep apnea is a disorder that is characterized by abnormal pauses in breathing throughout the sleep cycle, experts say.  Sometimes you even  stop  breathing.  That's where the death part comes in.  According to experts, those with this disorder can stop breathing anywhere from 10 seconds to whole minutes and can occur from five to 30 times -- a night?  An hour. Experts estimate about 12 million in the U.S. have it, including one in 10 kids Most people who have it don't even know it, though their partners do. It often results in heavy snoring or something worse, sleep paralysis, where people become so afraid of falling asleep that they can't, leading to fatigue, lack of alertness, depression, even ...