Hot MedFax

Uh oh. Just when I thought I was getting out of the woods as a potential Alzheimer's patient, now a new study is saying that older women (ok, so I'm not over 70 or anywhere near it) with memory complaints may well be on their way to this dreaded disease. According to newswise.com, new research suggests that older women who complain of memory problems may be at higher risk for experiencing diagnosed memory and thinking impairment decades later. I drew a complete blank when trying to come up with my allergist's name for another doctor.  Usually the name will come to me sometime over the next hours or days.  But this one didn't.  Then I panicked when my son and I were listening to music and I wanted to tell him about a singer who sounded just like the person singing.  And I couldn't for the life of me remember her name. (I knew the first name, "Phoebe."  But the rest totally eluded me.  I came up with "Swann" but I knew that wasn't ri...

Let's face it.  The Internet has become a wonderful resource to look up symptoms and treatment and other health concerns. But a group of people is taking it too seriously, without making sure of its credibility or accuracy.  Who are they?  Younger, college-educated men and women. A new study says consumers are increasingly turning to forums, video-sharing sites, and peer support groups to gather anecdotal information and advice, which may distract them from more reliable and trustworthy sources, according to newswise.com. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer nine years ago, I immediately went online the minute it was even suspected I might have it.  Days before my diagnosis, I learned that what was spotted on my mammogram -- calcification -- is 80% of the time completely benign.  It didn't really help me relax all that much, but when it turned out to be malignant instead, I was horribly upset (probably more because of the diagnosis than the informatio...

Here's a horrifying fact.  We're giving ourselves cancer .  Or so says a New York Times op-ed. Rita F. Redberg and Rebecca Smith-Bindman write that all the CT scans and MRI's and PET scans and full-body imaging we get for just about anything medical are assaulting our bodies with radiation, which, as we all know, can cause cancer.  (I had 6 1/2 weeks of radiation for breast cancer and I think about that all the time.) " The use of medical imaging with high-dose radiation — CT scans in particular — has soared in the last 20 years," according to the writers. "Our resulting exposure to medical radiation has increased more than sixfold between the 1980s and 2006. . . The radiation doses of CT  scans. . . are 100 to 1,000 times higher than conventional X-rays." They give credit to the technologies for early diagnosis (which, I suppose, I certainly should be grateful for), but note " there is distressingly little evidence of better health outcomes ...

Wouldn't it be great if, instead of having to go for a colonoscopy (and all that icky prep), you could just, well, breathe. A new device using people's breath is now diagnosing diseases from asthma to kidney and liver disease. According to a story at mdtmag.com, "The highly sensitive, low-power, low-cost infrared emitter developed by Cambridge CMOS Sensors (CCMOSS) is capable of identifying more than 35 biomarkers present in exhaled breath in concentrations as low as one part per million, and is being developed for use as a non-invasive medical testing device and other applications." In English this means you just breathe into a tube and software does all the rest.  Asthmatics (like me) emit higher than normal levels of nitric oxide (news to me!), while glucose can be a sign of kidney failure. Experts are coming up with new ways to do just about anything non-invasively.  A new test can tell whether you have or will develop Parkinson's simply by talking on th...

Very scary.  Scientists are now finding that those with Type 2 diabetes are more likely to be diagnosed with cancer than those without.  One study found that one in five diabetes patients developed a cancer. It may be because those who are overweight are prone to diabetes and weight has also been proven a factor in cancer. But it may be deeper than that.  Some think it may have something to do with insulin levels. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/04/diabetes-increases-risk-of-cancer-death-2/