Hot MedFax

It almost seems like it's out of vogue. Morality , that is.   We have a president who lies just about every time he opens his mouth, a congress that looks the other way, an attorney general who fidgets and flushes uncomfortably when asked to speak the truth (and doesn't). But how do we find out way back? Experts say it's how guilty we feel when we do something wrong, and then, what we do about it. I'm ashamed to admit that recently, with my new car and too-big side mirrors, I clipped someone else's mirror driving by.  I think most of the damage was done to my mirror -- I had to have it soldered back into place.  But I didn't leave a note for the other person, and to this day (about a week and a half later), I still feel guilty.  Unlike the teenager who backed into my two-month-old car at a high school event and did leave a sorrowful note under my windshield.  (I was parked in a fire lane so I covered the cost of my new driver's side door.) Accordin...

You probably know that race and ethnicity affect your chances of getting and surviving cancer.  Many women of the Jewish faith carry a gene that indicates the potential for breast cancer. Jewish couples may also be at risk of carrying genes that may result in Tay-Sachs, a fatal disease for their children.  It's also more frequent among French Canadians, Cajuns, and people of Irish/British descent. But did you know marriage is up there, too? A new study has found that that the benefits of being married vary by race and ethnicity, with male non-Hispanic white bachelors experiencing the worst outcome. This group had a 24 percent higher mortality rate than their married counterparts.Previous studies have shown that married patients with cancer fare better than unmarried cancer patients, surviving more often and longer. Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine report that unmarried women also had higher mortality than married women, but the ...

We know that stress can harm relationships, make us ill, even make us sad or depressed.  But did you know it can also erode your memories? A new study says that, sustained stress erodes memory, and the immune system plays a key role in the cognitive impairment, according to a new study from researchers at The Ohio State University, newswise.com reports.  “This is chronic stress. It’s not just the stress of giving a talk or meeting someone new,” says lead researcher Jonathan Godbout, associate professor of neuroscience at Ohio State. Mice that were repeatedly exposed to an aggressive intruder had a hard time recalling where the escape hole was in a maze they’d mastered prior to the stressful period.  They also had measurable changes in their brains, including evidence of inflammation brought on by the immune system’s response to the outside pressure. This was associated with the presence of immune cells, called macrophages, in the brain of the stressed m...

I've always been a risk-taker. Well, if you consider someone who jogs in the snow when she's broken her wrist and nose (3 times) doing it, that is. Maybe just stupid! Anyway, a new study has found that once a risk-taker, always a risk-taker.  People who are risk-takers in their youth also tend to take relatively more risks than their peers as they age, according to an analysis of more than 44,000 German citizens, newswise.com reports. “The data suggests risk-taking is similar to a personality trait in that it remains relatively stable throughout most of adulthood,” says Gregory R. Samanez-Larkin, assistant professor of psychology and a co-author of the paper appearing in the   Journal of Personality and Social Psychology . The results show that individuals’ level of risk-taking remains stable over time, relative to their peers. The results suggest that a person who went bungee jumping in their 20s may be more likely than their more risk-averse peers to, say, ride ...

This shouldn't surprise anyone but police are more likely to be killed on duty in states that have high gun ownership . In fact, in states with high private gun ownership, they're more than three times more likely to be killed on the job than those in states with the lowest gun ownership. newswise.com points out that Camden and Newark, New Jersey, are perceived as two of the most violent cities in the nation, yet New Jersey’s police officers are among the least likely to get shot on the job. Montana, with its serene landscapes and national parks, has among the highest homicide rates for law enforcement officers. Why? Simple.  There are many more guns in Montana. Across all 50 states and the District of Columbia, homicides of police officers are linked to the statewide level of gun ownership, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health . Previous studies have linked firearm ownership with higher overall firearm death rates in the United ...

Air pollution and suicide. Did you know there's a connection? According to a new study , a growing body of research links air pollution exposure to suicide, newswise.com reports.. Researchers found an increased risk of suicide associated with short-term exposure to nitrogen dioxide and fine particulate matter among Salt Lake City residents who died by suicide between 2000 to 2010. In particular, men and Salt Lake City residents between 36 to 64 years of age experienced the highest risk of suicide following short-term air pollution exposure. “We are not exactly sure why risk of suicide was higher in these two groups but suspect that it might be because these two groups were either exposed to higher levels of air pollution or that other additional factors make these two groups more susceptible to the effects of air pollution,” says author Amanda Bakian, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Utah. The odds of completing suicide were 20 per...

The more things change, the more they remain the same.  Remember when all the sages were saying, wait for Mr. Right , no matter how long it takes, rather than settle for something (-one) less?  Well now, they're all saying it's okay to go for Mr. Second Best. I've been very lucky.  I met someone I knew I wanted to marry the night I met him.  Of course, it took ten years to get him to the altar, but I've never been one to settle.  And it certainly hasn't been all wine and roses but knowing now how hard marriage is, there's no way I would have survived this long (31 years in March), if I'd had to go through these struggles with someone I only slightly cared for. I remember, right before meeting my husband, how I'd come off a disastrous relationship with an older (married) man, only to meet a guy through friends who really wasn't my type, but he was nice and we seemed to get along.  So I began dating him, and before I knew it, we were in a relations...

A new study has found that women see risk a lot more negatively than men. According to newswise.com, "Risky situations increase anxiety for women but not for men, leading women to perform worse under these circumstances." “On the surface, risky situations may not appear to be particularly disadvantageous to women, but these findings suggest otherwise,” the Web site quotes study author Susan R. Fisk, a doctoral candidate in sociology at Stanford University, who defines a risky situation as any setting with an uncertain outcome in which there can be both positive or negative results, depending on some combination of skill and chance. And it doesn't have to be whether it's only just when you consider jumping out of an airplane with only a parachute on your back.   According to Fisk, people often think of an extreme physical or financial risk when they think about a “risky situation.” Yet, in reality, people encounter risky situations all of the time. Fi...

I found this really disturbing.  Thanks to what's been heralded as ground-breaking new innovations in medicine, we may be more at risk than ever. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have found that the risk of patient harm increased two-fold in 2006 – the peak year that teaching hospitals nationwide embraced the pursuit of minimally invasive robotic surgery for prostate cancer, according to newswise.com. “This study looked at the stages of innovation and how the rapid adoption of a new surgical technology—in this case, a surgical robotic system—can lead to adverse events for patients,” said Kellogg Parsons, MD, MHS, surgical oncologist, UC San Diego Health System and first author of the paper. “There is a real need for standardized training programs, rules governing surgeon competence and credentialing, and guidelines for hospital privileging when novel technologies reach the operating rooms of teaching and community hospitals.” ...

Now here's something new for older fathers to worry about.  A father's age at birth may affect a daughter's risk of breast cancer later in life. First it's schizophrenia that may appear in children, with older fathers.  Then it was autism.  And now this.  I'm ashamed to say this but I'm glad sperm is starting to get the same treatment as old eggs. But wait a minute.  We're talking about really young fathers, with some kinds of cancers. While the team of researchers did not find an association for maternal age at birth for any type of cancer, they found that paternal age is linked to an increased adult-onset cancer risk for daughters – and the link was not only to advanced paternal age. Newswise.com reports that " parental age, especially paternal age, at conception appears to be associated with a wide range of effects on the health and development of the offspring. Women born to a father under the age of 20 had a 35 percent greater risk of...

Wonderful.  Something new for women over 60 to worry about (and maybe stop worrying about, too).  You're far more likely to develop Alzheimer's than breast cancer.  (Guess I'm OK.  I had breast cancer at 50.) A new study has found that one in eight women will develop breast cancer over their lifetimes, but for Alzheimer's? It's one in six, according to CNN.com. And for men?  Only one out of 11 men over 60 will develop Alzheimer's. How do we always manage to get the short end of the stick?!   Age is the greatest risk factor for gender differences among Alzheimer's patients, but it's not the only reason. Researchers are also looking at genetic and hormonal differences, according to Maria Carrillo, vice president of medical and scientific relations for the Alzheimer's Association , CNN reports. The disease affects more than 5 million Americans, two-thirds of them women. The new details about this disease and its impact on women come from a surv...

I once moved across country in my early 20s to a new job, where I knew no one, to get over a broken love affair. Years later, I met a man who was clearly commitment-phobic but I stuck it out for 10 years, ignoring all my family and friends' advice to find someone else, and we've now been happily (mostly) married for 20 years.  Probably the biggest dare of my life was accepting an egg from an anonymous donor to have my son. Yes, I'm a risk taker.  My husband, on the other hand, likes eating in the same restaurant at the same time on the same day every week.  He also likes to keep his money in a savings account (last time I looked, the interest rate was under 1%).  Recently he moved his money to an annuity based on stocks and hasn't been sleeping nights. So some of us take risks, and some of us don't.  But a new study has found that we take risks because we just can't stop ourselves.   According to newswise.com, " A new study correlating brain activity...

Just when I thought it was safe to come out of the water . . .or something like that.  Diagnosedwith breast cancer in 2005 and 2007, I took the blood test commonly referred to by its initials, BRCA1 and BRCA2, to see if I had the gene mutation for the disease.  Of course, I'd already had breast cancer so the horse was kind of already out of the barn (oh, those mixed metaphors!). But as breast cancer is also related to ovarian cancer, I wanted to see if I had the gene.  My grandmother was Jewish and many Jewish women carry -- or pass on -- this mutation.  Thankfully, I was negative, but the fact remained that I had developed breast cancer even without the gene, and now scientists have found that women without the gene mutation are not completely clear of getting the disease. According to newswise.com, those of us not carrying the gene mutation may have thought our risk of cancer had receded. But that's turning out not to be true.  Just because you have a neg...

Can the researchers just stop scaring us?  If you, like me are a woman and sniffle and snort and cough your way through the spring and fall with allergies to plants, grass and trees, you may be more at risk of blood cancers than those who don't. According to newswise.com, men are not at the same risk and scientists theorize it may be because of "a possible gender-specific role in chronic stimulation of the immune system that may lead to the development of hematologic cancers." Woo.  A lot of words to say that allergies can make some of us more susceptible to certain cancers than others. Researchers say the immune system’s potential role in cancer causation is a focus of intense scientific interest. “If your immune system is over-reactive, then you have problems; if it’s under-reactive, you’re going to have problems," the Web site quotes first author Mazyar Shadman, M.D., M.P.H., a senior fellow in the Clinical Research Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Resear...

Over the years artificial sugars have been blamed for many things -- possible causes of cancer, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, even, believe it or not, weight gain (turns out what's in those little blue and yellow packets makes us crave more sweets). But now sugary sodas are coming under the gun not just for the weight they can also make you gain, but because a new study has linked them to endometrial cancer . According to NBC News, "Women who drank the most sweet soft drinks had a 78 percent increased risk of the cancer, researchers found." Oddly, other sweet treats, such as baked goods, didn’t have an effect, and even better news, nor did natural fruit juice, even though it’s full of naturally occurring sugars. The findings fit in with other research linking sugar intake, obesity and a lack of exercise with the cancer, which kills more than 8,000 U.S. women a year, NBC News reports. It may be for a very simple reason. Cancer can be linked to estrogen and obe...

If you tan well, you may be at higher risk of testiculat cancer, a new study has found.  We've long been warned about the skin cancer risk, but now here's one men might not brush off so lightly. A gene important in skin tanning has been linked to higher risk for testicular cancer in white men, according to newswise.com.  "Nearly 80 percent of white men carry a variant form of this gene, which increased risk of testicular cancer up to threefold in the study," newswise.com reports. “It appears that this particular (gene) variant could help protect light-skinned individuals from UV skin damage, like burning or cancer, by promoting the tanning process, but it permits testicular stem cells to grow in the presence of DNA damage, when they are supposed to stop growing," the Web site quotes Douglas Bell, Ph.D., author on the paper and researcher at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of NIH. In the study, conducted by Xuting Wang...

We all know that obesity is causing more heart attacks and strokes. But a really scary new study has found that the people having strokes are getting younger and younger. According to newswise.com, "15 percent of the most common type of strokes occur in adolescents and young adults, and more young people are showing risk factors for such strokes," quoting a report in the journal Neurology . U.S. hospital discharges for stroke among persons ages 15 to 44 increased 23 to 53 percent between 1995-1996 and 2007-2008, depending on age and gender of the group. That's more than doubling. “The impact of strokes in this age group is devastating to the adolescent or young adult, their families and society,” neurologist Jose Biller of Loyola University Medical Center, a co-author of the report, a consensus statement developed by the American Academy of Neurology, tells newswise.com. About 85 percent of all strokes are caused by blockages that block blood flow to the bra...

Yet something new involving teenage use of alcohol, and critically important to worry about.  School-age girls who drink have a 13% greater risk of breast cancer. According to newswise.com, a new study has shown that, for young girls and women heading back to school, "The more alcohol they drink before motherhood, the greater their risk of future breast cancer." This is the first time research has been able to find links between increased breast cancer risk and drinking between early adolescence and first full-term pregnancy. Previous studies have looked at breast cancer risk and alcohol consumption later in life or at the effect of adolescent drinking on noncancerous breast disease. "More and more heavy drinking is occurring on college campuses and during adolescence, and not enough people are considering future risk. But, according to our research, the lesson is clear: If a female averages a drink per day between her first period and her first full-term p...