Hot MedFax

Born in May?  Lucky for you.  How about October?  Not so much. Apparently the month you were born in can tell you a lot about your health.  (I was born in June.  Does it count that I was born four days late, and was actually due in May?) Turns out Columbia University scientists have developed a computational method to investigate the relationship between birth month and disease risk. The researchers used this algorithm to examine New York City medical databases and found 55 diseases that correlated with the season of birth. But before you start panicking, by identifying what's causing disease disparities by birth month, researchers hope to figure out how they might close the gap.Earlier research on individual diseases such as ADHD and asthma suggested a connection between birth season and incidence, but no large-scale studies had been undertaken. This motivated Columbia's scientists to compare diseases against birth dates and health histories. An...

Finally I'm doing something right. Experts now claim you'll live longer if you run .  According to newswise.com, a new Iowa State University study found running for just five or 10 minutes a day can significantly reduce your risk of death from cardiovascular disease. I run two to three miles a day.  Does that mean I'll live forever? Seriously, though, DC (Duck-chul) Lee, lead author of the study and an assistant professor of kinesiology at Iowa State, says runners were 45 percent less likely to die from heart disease or stroke than non-runners. Researchers followed more than 55,000 adults for 15 years to gauge the benefits of running, newswise reports. Lee says runners reduced their risk of cardiovascular disease regardless of distance, duration and speed. Which is good.  Because I barely run a 10-minute mile (although it used to be a 15-!). “Most people say they don’t have time to exercise or to increase their physical activity, but I think most everyon...

If you l ive in Switzerland, the answer is yes.  According to a story at smartplanet.com, "Residents of Switzerland born in 2011 are expected to live 82.8 years -- as they are generally healthier, and do not have such high rates of obesity-related illnesses, cardiovascular disease, and cerebrovascular disease such as strokes and aneurysms." Here in the U.S., while our average life span has risen from 70.9 years in 1970 to 78.7 years in 2011, not so much.  We only come in 26th on a global list. It used to be thought that spending on healthcare and average household income made for longer lives. But, as smartplanet.com reports, according to the Organizations for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) report Health at a Glance 2013 , this is turning out to no longer be true. Why does Switzerland -- and Italy and Japan and Iceland (Iceland?) -- rate so high?  Probably because their inhabitants are thinner.  In Italy, life expectancy is 82.7 years (must be ...