Hot MedFax

Next time you drink, make sure you don't fall down and break any bones.  A new study  has found that drinking -- well, binge drinking -- impairs the healing of bone. According to newswise.com, alcohol "slows healing on the cellular and molecular levels." “Many bone fractures are alcohol-related, due to car accidents, falls, shootings, etc.,” the Web site quotes Roman Natoli, MD, PhD, a study author. “In addition to contributing to bone fractures, alcohol also impairs the healing process. So add this to the list of reasons why you should not abuse alcohol.” Researchers studied the effects that alcohol consumption had on bone healing in mice, newswise.com reports. One group of mice was exposed to alcohol levels roughly equivalent to three times the legal limit for driving. A control group was exposed to equal amounts of saline (salt water). Sure enough, the study found three ways in which alcohol impaired bone healing after a fracture: The alcohol-exposed mice h...

Forget everything you've heard about sleep.  Eight hours a night helps you fight bugs and viruses.  It will help you lose weight. It can be affected by snoring. But now, in addition to how much you sleep, the quality of your sleep is even more important.  A new study has found how well you sleep can affect your skin "function," and aging. According to a story at newswise.com, the study found that "poor sleepers had increased signs of skin aging and slower recovery from a variety of environmental stressors, such as disruption of the skin barrier or ultraviolet (UV) radiation." Now when I tell you who commissioned the study, you might have a few reservations.  It was Estee Lauder. But you ignore the conclusions at your own risk.  "Our study is the first to conclusively demonstrate that inadequate sleep is correlated with reduced skin health and accelerates skin aging," newswise.com quotes Elma Baron, MD, director of the Skin Study Center at UH C...