1. Young and Depressed: More Likely Bullied

Adolescents who are depressed are more likely to be bullied at school, say researchers from Arizona State University.

2. Broken Heart Syndrome Is Real

Broken heart syndrome, or stress cardiomyopathy, is real with symptoms that mimic heart attack, including chest pain and difficulty breathing.

3. Strict Diabetic Diets Difficult to Follow

Overweight patients diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes are often prescribed a diet that significantly restricts carbohydrates. While the diets may be effective short-term, there tends to be a high rate of drop out due to their difficulty to maintain.

(By CalorieLab editors)

Lab Notes: Young and Depressed: More Likely Bullied; Broken Heart Syndrome Is Real is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog

1. Facebook Can Be Rough on Mental Health

Facebook users with lots of friends may compare their achievements with others, which may affect mental health, suggest researchers.

2. Metformin Is Type 2 Diabetes Drug of Choice

Results from a new study reveals that metformin, along with another type 2 diabetes drug, is the best way to lower blood sugar and reduce the risk of other complications due to the disease.

3. Infants Most at Risk for Child Abuse

Children under one are most at risk for child abuse.

4. Potatoes Top List of Weight-Gain Foods

According to a Harvard study of over 120,000 U.S. adults, among all foods, potatoes eaten daily are one of the leading contributors to weight gain over time, while daily servings of nuts and yogurt are surprisingly helpful in limiting weight gain.

5. Elderly Green Tea Drinkers Age Better

Elderly green tea drinkers are less likely to develop disability as they age finds a new Japanese study. Those drinking five cups a day or more were more likely to stay agile and independent versus those who consumed less than a cup a day.

(By CalorieLab editors)

Lab Notes: Facebook Can Be Rough on Mental Health; Metformin Is Type 2 Diabetes Drug of Choice is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog

I don’t talk about being a surgeon in a hospital very often — I guess that would be a busman’s holiday for me — but I thought that today I would talk about some of my experiences with the crazy world of hospitals.

I was born in a very small hospital in a very small town. When the town built a larger hospital, it converted the old one into a house of worship. Years later, I toured a storied old hospital which had been founded in 1669: The Kings Hospital in Dublin, Ireland. Walking through those dingy stone staircases and dark narrow hallways felt more like being in an old cathedral than in a hospital.

As a teenager, my dad, who is a doctor, used to take me to Cook County Hospital in Chicago. I still remember how the nurses in the operating rooms would carry flyswatters in the summer because of all the flies that came in through the open windows with the warm breezes.

That iconic hospital certainly wasn’t a place of worship yet, but I suppose I did have a type of worship for the daring people that worked there, performing, in front of my wide-eyed wonder, miracles.

My first experience as a graduate student in a hospital was on a rotation watching my school’s surgical residents at work. I became friends with several of them and eventually one of them became my boss at Florida.

In the first month of my own surgical residency, I was on call one evening in the emergency room. A patient on the cot right next to where I was working, who had been incorrectly placed there for what was thought to be a minor neck laceration, suddenly had his carotid artery rupture as blood shot three feet into the air with every heartbeat. I immediately went to his aid as he looked up at me, pleading for me to save him. We stabilized him long enough for his primary senior surgeon to take him to the operating room and fix the problem. The next day, when I mentioned it to one of my teachers, he said, “It’s too bad you didn’t get a photo of that!”

Later that year, when I was in the surgical scrub area getting ready for a minor case in an operating room, I noticed a small older man doing his surgical scrub next to me for a procedure in the adjacent surgical suite. He was wearing a “nurse’s” hat with a flowery design.

“Nice hat,” I joked.

He laughed, said thanks, and went into his operating room.

“Do you know who that was?” a much more experienced resident asked sternly.

“No.”

“He’s the ex-chairman of the department of surgery, and he has thrown residents out of the program for less!”

I later learned who he was and that everyone was afraid of him. He was one of the most famous surgeons in the world of his era, already had a medical syndrome named after him, and would have many more honors in the coming years, but I think he actually liked being treated like a normal person. I did not test that reality again, however.

During my anesthesia rotation later in that first year of training, I remember seeing a heart beating for the first time during an open-heart procedure. That was impressive! It was one thing to learn about different heart rhythms in the classroom and very much another to actually see them happening in someone’s chest.

There was another time on that anesthesia rotation that I had to call one of my anesthesiologist attendants in for an emergency case in the evening, and he arrived in the operating room in a full football uniform, cleats on his feet and helmet under his arm. That was also impressive.

Over the next few years, I became a surgeon.

I came to love the time-honored ritual of wearing scrubs, hat and mask, washing our hands and forearms, entering the operating theater, being dressed in the surgical gown, hearing the snap of the surgical gloves as they are fitted to our hands. Then the work begins. Positioning, preparing the operative site, draping the patient and finding our position at the table. Checking with the anesthesiologist, and on his acknowledgement, we begin. Scalpel handed with extreme care and precision, instruments securely slapped into our hands, working with focus and intensity, many people with varied training, one goal in mind. Eventually, with a mixture of gratitude, accomplishment, and relief, it is over.

The surgical regalia is removed, the patient is wheeled to the recovery area, and we complete the busy work, documenting what has transpired. A quick check on the patient, a visit to the family waiting area for their reassurance, then off to the next.

I’ve done thousands of cases over the years. There were times when 30-minute cases turned into 4 hours, and 2-hour cases turned into 2 minutes.

I’ve seen deaths, some a graceful gentle passing, some not. I’ve even managed to help keep a few people around for a little longer. I’ve also learned that where you are in life is not as important as in what direction you are headed.

The storied hospital I studied at in France had a teaching surgical amphitheater like in the Rembrandt painting above called “The Anatomy Lesson.” Sitting in that theater with other students, I could envision many before me for hundreds of years doing the same thing as they watched the mastery and mystery play out below them before their amazed gaze. That French hospital, unlike the American ones I had always known, only had one coed dressing room for all the staff. That also was an eye-opening experience!

I was given a tour of a German hospital during a visit. The chief of surgery apologized to me for all the anti-government graffiti on the walls. I was polite and didn’t say how I actually agreed with much of the sentiment expressed by the artists.

While in South Africa, I marveled at patients in a Soweto hospital, who, rather than walking the halls with an IV pole, just balanced the bags of IV fluids on their heads.

I’ve been in countless hospitals for numerous reasons. I guess the only hospital experience I haven’t had was as a patient myself, other than having a scalp laceration sewed up in the ER during my, shall we say, wild and crazy days. I’m sure that genetics and chance play their roles, but I would like to think that the effort and care I have put into my health and fitness have played a major role in that, and I suggest you sincerely apply that effort to yours.

Hospitals can be a crazy world. Dealing with life, death and disease from whichever side of the experience you are on is rarely easy. Many wonderful dedicated people walk those halls or inhabit those beds, doing the best they can under very trying circumstances.

Except for the unusual one, hospitals are not good examples of health care — after all, they are in the business of sick care. They serve unhealthy food and they, for the most part, make you stay in bed. My best advice as to hospitals is to stay out of them, unless they are one with a coed dressing room, and if you must be in one, do not be a smart mouth with an old man wearing a flowery hat!

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The Crazy World of Hospitals is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog

1. Hundreds of Cruise Passengers Had Norovirus

Almost 500 passengers on two Princess Cruises ships have become ill with Norovirus.

(By CalorieLab editors)

Lab Notes: Hundreds of Cruise Passengers Had Norovirus is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog

1. Half of All U.S. Pets Dangerously Overweight

Based on a survey of U.S. veterinarians, some 88 million cats and dogs, over 50% of all house pets, are so overweight or obese that they run a high risk of hypertension, diabetes, crippling arthritis, cancer, and a lifespan shortened by two or more years.

2. Vitamin Supplements May Cut Colon Cancer Risk

For those who eat a standard Westernized diet (high fat, low fiber), taking a daily multivitamin-mineral supplement may decrease the risk of precancerous lesions that lead to colon cancer.

(By CalorieLab editors)

Lab Notes: Half of All U.S. Pets Dangerously Overweight; Vitamin Supplements May Cut Colon Cancer Risk is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog

1. Komen to Keep Funding Planned Parenthood

The Komen Foundation has reversed their earlier decision to stop providing funding for some Planned Parenthood projects.

2. Genetic Tests May Help with Weight Loss

It’s possible that the simplest way to find the diet that works best for you may be a genetic test.

3. Massage Good for Reducing Muscle Inflammation

A 10-minute massage reduces muscle inflammation in athletes and may help patients with arthritis and inflammation-related chronic conditions.

4. Exercise Improves Survival from Cancer

Vigorous exercise at least three times per week is associated with a reduced risk of prostate cancer progression and death after diagnosis. Genetic expression is positively influenced with physical activity finds researchers at UCSF.

(By CalorieLab editors)

Lab Notes: Komen to Keep Funding Planned Parenthood; Genetic Tests May Help with Weight Loss is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog

1. Triglyceride Levels Predict Strokes

For postmenopausal women, triglyceride levels may be a more important risk factor than cholesterol for predicting strokes.

2. McDonald’s to Phase Out Pink Slime in Burgers

McDonald’s will stop using “pink slime” in their burgers due to pressure from the public incited by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver on his TV show Food Revolution.

3. Diet Soda Linked to Heart Attack and Stroke

Persons who drink diet sodas on a daily basis as a healthier, low-calorie alternative to sugary beverages run a 43 percent higher risk of suffering such vascular events as heart attack and stroke than do persons who consume from zero to six per week.

4. ACIP Recommends Routine HPV Vaccine

The CDC’s Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) has updated its schedule of Recommended Adult Immunizations for 2012. This is intended to guide physicians and other clinicians about the appropriate vaccines for their adult patients.

(By CalorieLab editors)

Lab Notes: Triglyceride Levels Predict Strokes; McDonald’s to Phase Out Pink Slime in Burgers is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog

(CC) Randen Pederson/Flickr

Every Species That Lives With People Gets Fatter

Not only have people around the globe been getting dramatically fatter over the past several decades, it seems that almost anything in the animal kingdom that is foolish or lazy or dependent enough to live with or around us also tends to become overweight. And this goes far beyond our overindulged lapdogs and tabby cats, or livestock animals that we deliberately fatten up to be eaten.

A research group in Britain examined data on more than 20,000 animals representing 24 different populations and eight separate species, their common link being that they lived with people or in the vicinity of people, and not on their own turf in some rural natural habitat, but in populated, industrialized societies.

In every population, they found increasing weight gain over time, paralleling the human track. Animals who lived in humans’ habitat simply got fatter. And this held for animals across the board, ranging from laboratory primates to house pets to rats and other vermin.

The universality of this phenomenon, occurring in every setting from controlled-feeding lab environments to garbage-strewn alleys, has scientists wondering if there may be some underlying weight-inducing agent at work here, one so fundamental that it predisposes every living thing in the developed world to gain weight.

What this agent might be is anybody’s guess, if it exists at all — viruses are one suggestion, and epigenetic factors, inheritable changes in gene function, are another — but the very possibility of such an elemental contributor to human weight gain would make our approach to reducing obesity even more complicated than it already is.

Along with poor diet, lack of exercise, and the “115 Reasons It’s Not Your Fault If You’re Fat” listed in my book, we can now add: “Fatness just goes with the territory, i.e. civilization.”

(By Robert S. Wieder for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News):

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Reason No. 117 Why It’s Not Your Fault If You’re Fat: You’re a Social Animal is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog

1. Taco Bell Source of Salmonella Outbreak

The CDC has masked the source of a salmonella food poisoning outbreak last fall, but health officials in Oklahoma are spilling the tacos, pointing fingers at Taco Bell.

2. Pathway of Alzheimer’s Progression Discovered

A new study using mice as models of human Alzheimer’s disease shows that tau protein accumulates in regions of the brain and travels in a pattern using synapses that connect neurons, offering insight into how to potentially treat the disease.

3. FDA Approves New Cystic Fibrosis Drug

The Food and Drug Administration has approved Kalydeco, a new cystic fibrosis drug that targets a genetic mutation of the disease and improves lung strength in patients.

4. Birth Control Pills Being Recalled

Here’s a little something to get your stress levels up. Pfizer is recalling about 1 million packets of birth control pills in the US because there may not be enough contraceptive in them to prevent pregnancy.

(By CalorieLab editors)

Lab Notes: Taco Bell Source of Salmonella Outbreak; Pathway of Alzheimer’s Progression Discovered is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog

1. Women Are Better at Parking Than Men

Sorry men, but researchers in the UK have confirmed that women are better at parking cars.

2. Mother-Toddler Bond Can Effect Teen Weight

A study of hundreds of families in nine states found that some 26% of teens who had had poor emotional relationships with their mothers as toddlers were obese by age 15, compared to just 13% of those with close mother-child relationships.

3. Calorie Intake Counts Most in Weight Loss

Eating fewer calories counts more towards weight loss than the proportion of protein, fat and carbohydrates in the foods you eat.

4. Milk Drinkers Score Higher on Memory Tests

New research has found that those who drink at least one glass of milk each day score higher on memory and brain function tests. Eight ounces contain key nutrients for health, including vitamin D which has been shown to keep older adults mentally agile.

(By CalorieLab editors)

Lab Notes: Women Are Better at Parking Than Men; Mother-Toddler Bond Can Effect Teen Weight is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog

1. Overweight Smokers Can Damage Baby’s Heart

Overweight women who smoke while pregnant may be damaging their unborn baby’s heart, suggest researchers.

2. Statins Lower HBV Patients’ Liver Cancer Risk

Results from a study that followed people with hepatitis B virus found that statin use lowered the risk of developing liver cancer.

3. 2000 Tubes of Aveeno Baby Lotion Recalled

Johnson & Johnson has recalled more than 2000 tubes of Aveeno Baby Calming Comfort Lotion after US regulators found excessive bacteria in a product sample.

4. Hard Drugs in Middle Age Lead to Early Death

The teen years are a time of experimenting and acting out against authority figures but a new study reveals that people who continue to use hard drugs into their 50’s are five times more likely to die earlier than those who don’t.

(By CalorieLab editors)

Lab Notes: Overweight Smokers Can Damage Baby’s Heart; Statins Lower HBV Patients’ Liver Cancer Risk is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog

Finding our way in life can be a daunting task. There are many voices in our heads. Some are from our parents or other authority figures from our childhoods telling us what we should and shouldn’t do with our lives. Some are from ourselves, but they are more that rebellious voice left over from those formative years, always saying the opposite to all the “shoulds” we’ve heard. Finding your true path amid the many voices may not be as easy a task as we might imagine when we first begin our voyage.

Do What You Love

“Do what you love” is a commonly heard refrain from those in the know. That phrase has probably led a lot of people to either waste their lives looking for “it,” or feeling that they are wasting their lives because they are not doing “it.”

Don’t throw away what you can do for what you can’t do. We have a limited amount of time and energy to live our dream. In my opinion, we will have a much more fulfilling life if we live the dream we can than to try to dream the dream we can’t.

One frustrating behavior I see is where people decide what the “it” is and put all their time and energy into going for it despite the enormous amount of feedback that the world gives them that this dream of theirs is totally unattainable, unrealistic, and destructive both financially and emotionally to their lives and the lives of those near and dear to them.

The other behavior I see is where people are not willing to seek a compromise in their lives. They may have to make the sacrifice and do the often-unpleasant work that is required. Then they will still be able to do what they love, but perhaps as their hobby or avocation rather than their primary job or vocation.

Are Sayings Always Helpful?

Focusing on sayings to justify unhealthy behavioral actions or failures is not always helpful. If we look hard enough, we can always find a saying to support any dysfunctional behavior or failure. I once knew someone that left a serious path of destruction in her wake as she always justified her actions with the saying, “Be true to yourself.” The solution is not in finding a justifiable saying, it’s to stop doing those destructive behaviors and to have some successes!

Behaviors and Feelings That Can Hold Us Back

Always staying within our comfort zone is a behavior that will often keep us from finding our way, and really, that has never kept anyone that comfortable. If we ever want to be successful, we must run, walk or crawl from that form of safety. Why do you think your mother had to push? If it was left up to us, I suspect most of us would have stayed in the womb. It’s too late to get back in, so I suggest you get out of that self-constructed comfort womb you have made, because it will never be as wonderful as that first one, and it is suffocating the person your mom wanted you to be. Remember, she did the pushing.

Pretending that we want to be different when we really don’t is another road to nowhere. Perhaps it’s those secondary gains such as getting sympathy from others, or maybe we enjoy being a martyr. Believe me, some people like the ease of failure more than the exhilaration of success. They are experts in finding ways to fail. Of course, those reasons are never because of their actions.

Another dead-end trail is never being open to hearing the truth about the mistakes we have been making. Digging in and being determined to prove everyone wrong, then suddenly becoming a success, rarely if ever happens. Trust me, if that type of success happens, it will be to someone else. Probably, a friend of your second cousin read about them on the Internet.

Some people get caught in the falsely satisfying way of thinking that they are always trying to change to get out of the trap they are in. There are two main types of trying. If we are trying to climb a mountain, for example, and we get halfway up to the summit, that’s trying. On the other hand, if we are a smoker and we say we are trying to quit, we are still a smoker! It’s important to know the difference.

Behaviors and Feelings That Will Move Us Forward

Focus on what you can do and not on what you can’t. Focus on what you do have, not what you don’t have. There were plenty of things that I have loved to do in life, but I knew I did not have the talent nor makeup to turn them into something that would sustain me. I still do many of them, just not as my primary activity.

Like that old song refrain, if you can’t do what you love, perhaps you can learn to love what you do. There is a lot of truth in this. Every area has things that we enjoy, and things that we do not. Learn to focus on the parts that you like, and learn to deal with the areas you don’t.

Eventually you will realize that your life will be so much better if you can learn to live the dream you can than to continually try to dream the dream you can’t!

Ed. note: Enjoyed this post? Click the “Like” button below and be sure to “Like” the CalorieLab Facebook page.

It is Better to Live the Dream You Can Than to Dream the Dream You Can’t: On Finding Our Best Path in Life is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog

1. Your Texting Friend May Be Telling Lies

It may be much easier to lie while texting than in person, say researchers.

2. Parents Are Inconsistent with Booster Seats

More than 30 percent of parents don’t enforce usage of a booster seat when children are riding with another driver, finds a new study.

(By CalorieLab editors)

Lab Notes: Your Texting Friend May Be Telling Lies; Parents Are Inconsistent with Booster Seats is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog

1. Santorum’s Daughter Hospitalized

GOP Presidential candidate Rick Santorum cancelled some upcoming campaign events after his daughter Isabella, who suffers from Trisomy 18, was admitted to the hospital in Philadelphia.

2. First Giant Pandas in UK in Years Have Colic

Tian Tian (Sweetie), the female giant panda, and Yang Guang (Sunshine), the male giant panda, have arrived at the Edinburgh Zoo, but to the dismay of visitors, both pandas have been ill with colic.

3. Concerned Physicians’ Anti-Cheese Billboards

With Americans eating an average 33 pounds of cheese a year, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has raised anti-cheese billboards in upstate New York, depicting grossly flabby thighs and a swollen belly as body parts “on cheese.”

(By CalorieLab editors)

Lab Notes: Santorum’s Daughter Hospitalized; First Giant Pandas in UK in Years Have Colic is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog

1. Oral HPV Found in 7% of Americans

The human papillomavirus affects 7 percent of the American population, finds a new study.

(By CalorieLab editors)

Lab Notes: Oral HPV Found in 7% of Americans is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog

1. Two Drugs Increase Breast Cancer Stem Cells

Avastin and Sutent which fight many types of cancer by preventing blood vessel growth, but increase the number of stem cell cancers in mice with breast cancer which likely explains the very temporary benefits in women who used it.

2. What Happens If You Only Eat Chicken Nuggets

Stacey Irvine, 17, collapsed recently from her 15-year-long diet consisting of mostly just chicken nuggets.

3. More Moms Are Giving Birth at Home

More mothers are choosing to give birth at home, says the National Center for Health Statistics.

4. Physician Weight Affects Obesity Diagnosis

Prevention (CDC) obesity affects more than one-third of the U.S. adult population, but a new study reveals those results might not be entirely accurate because your doctor’s own weight might also play a role.

5. Fight Alzheimer’s with an Active Brain

A new study indicates that keeping your brain active by doing things like reading, writing, and playing games can reduce the levels of protein that form amyloid plaque, which is used by doctors and researchers to identify Alzheimer’s Disease.

6. Bill Gates Pledges $750 Mil to Global Fund

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged $750 million to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

7. Men Have Higher Rates of Cognitive Impairment

New research from the Mayo Clinic finds that men are more likely than women to develop a condition known as “Mild Cognitive Impairment,” or MCI, a confirmed risk factor for dementia. Education level is also a factor.

(By CalorieLab editors)

Lab Notes: Two Drugs Increase Breast Cancer Stem Cells; What Happens If You Only Eat Chicken Nuggets is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog

1. Odds of Depression Increased by Long Work Day

Working 11 or more hours each day doubled the odds of experiencing a major depressive episode compared to working just seven or eight hours, find researchers in Britain.

2. Sex Safe for Most Heart and Stroke Patients

Sex is safe for most heart and stroke patients says doc who adds it’s no more strenuous than golf.

3. Health Insurance No Benefit for Unemployed

Chalk up another strike against the recession because a recent study revealed that having health insurance really isn’t beneficial if you’re unemployed.

4. Pork Used As

The Detroit Medical Centre has successfully used the insertion of cured salt pork into a patient’s nostrils to quickly and effectively halt uncontrollable, life-threatening nosebleeds without drugs or surgery, reviving a dormant folk-medicine cure.

5. Fight Gout with Enriched Skim Milk

Gout, a form of arthritis caused by a buildup of uric acid in the blood, can be made more tolerable by drinking enriched skim milk, according to a recent study published in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

(By CalorieLab editors)

Lab Notes: Odds of Depression Increased by Long Work Day; Sex Safe for Most Heart and Stroke Patients is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog

(CC) Alaina Abplanalp Photography/Flickr

Eating Like You Had a Cab Waiting

Maybe you’re always running late, or impatient by nature, or get absolutely ravenous, but whatever the reason, you tend to bolt your food as fast as possible. Not a good idea, according to Japanese researchers, who found a relationship between rapid eating and overweight. And it won’t slake your hunger any quicker, since the brain doesn’t start registering fullness for about 10 minutes, whatever your eating pace.

So relax, take small bites, chew everything slowly and methodically, repeatedly take leisurely sips of a non-caloric beverage, especially if carbonated, and pause now and then just to experience the taste.

Eating to Feel Better

When events crank up our emotions, making us feel either celebratory or gloomy, we routinely respond by hitting the cupboard or fridge for something to consume. With all the ambient stress in everyday life these days, this response to pressure can wind up moving the numbers on your bathroom scale.

The solution here is to release that pressure in ways other than feeding it. Engage in some physical activity that will get your pulse up, for openers. Talk to someone about the situation, or about anything else, if only to keep your mouth occupied. Take a hot bath. Do a crossword puzzle. Play a musical instrument. Whatever takes you away from wherever the food is located.

Snacking the Day Away

Far too many of us don’t view a “few bites” of something whenever the urge strikes us as real food, and over the course of a day, we may stash away the equivalent of an actual meal, calorie-wise, a munchie at a time. This is because most things that fall into the “few bites” category also fall into the “junk food” one as well: sugary, salty, fatty, starchy snack items. If munch you must, follow these rules:

• Replace all snacks of the junk variety with healthy alternatives: yogurt, veggie slices, dried fruit, fat-free popcorn — Google “low-cal snacks” for several million suggestions.
• Make a list of “quicksand” snacks, the kind that you can’t stop eating once started, and don’t let them in the house.

Snacking the Night Away

The old saw that the later you eat, the more the food stays with you, may be right on the money. Test animals who are given high-fat meals when they’d ordinarily be sleeping gain considerably more weight than those fed the same diet during their normal waking hours.

If the problem is nocturnal hunger, limit yourself to raw fruits and vegetables. If you’re just antsy, try the hot bath or crossword gambit. If it’s simple insomnia, have a glass of warm nonfat milk or bouillon, curl up and read a book. I would suggest my own eBook, “115 Reasons Why It’s Not Your Fault If You’re Fat,” but that would more likely make you laugh out loud than nod off. Go with a history book, the more obscure the better. A biography of Calvin Coolidge — that should do it.

(By Robert S. Wieder for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News):

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4 Types of ‘Bad Eating,’ and How to Avoid Them is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog

1. Embryonic Stem Cells Improve Vision Loss

Results from a new study involving two women with different diseases that led to vision loss demonstrated that an embryonic stem cell transplant was safe and improved their vision.

2. Grieving to Become Depression?

Is grieving a part of depression? The answer is no, according to the current definition, which is now being reviewed by the American Psychiatry Association as they work on the 5th edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

3. Men Are More Likely to Get 32 of 35 Cancers

Men are at much greater risk of developing 32 of 35 cancers, and the reason may be biological, finds an international study by American and Swedish researchers.

4. Magic Mushrooms Could Help Depression

People that attend certain types of parties are probably already familiar with the effects of magic mushrooms but one study indicates those happy ‘one with the universe’ feelings could help fight depression in a clinical setting.

5. Acid Reflux Drug Doesn’t Help Asthma in Kids

While doctors frequently prescribe the gastroesophageal reflux drug lansoprazole for children with asthma, a new study shows that the addition of the drug with standard inhaled steroid treatment doesn’t improve asthma symptoms.

6. Women Feel Pain More Acutely Than Men

Women report feeling pain more acutely than men, but is this a matter of perception or biology?

7. Black Tea Can Help Lower Blood Pressure

A study has found that drinking black tea can help lower blood pressure. In a study of 95 volunteers, those drinking black tea had a lower 24-hour systolic and diastolic blood pressure of between 2 and 3 mmHg over those drinking a placebo.

(By CalorieLab editors)

Lab Notes: Embryonic Stem Cells Improve Vision Loss; Grieving to Become Depression? is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog

1. Abortion 14 Times Safer Than Giving Birth

Results gathered from government information on pregnancy show that abortion is significantly safer than giving birth and challenge the reasons behind state laws the regulate what a doctor can tell a woman about having an abortion.

2. Starbucks to Sell Wine, Beer in Atlanta

Some Starbucks stores in Atlanta and Southern California will begin offering wine and beer along with premium foods, such as hot flatbread sandwiches.

3. Man Wants Legal Right to Be Killed

Tony Nicklinson had it all – a successful career and an active life that included playing rugby and skydiving. Then, seven years ago, he had a paralyzing stroke. Now, he wants to die and he doesn’t want anyone that helps to be charged with murder.

4. Health Insurance Has to Cover Contraception

The Obama administration has decided that most health insurance plans must cover contraceptives for women free of charge, and it’s a rule that even Catholic hospitals, colleges, and charities must follow.

5. Hospital Care for the Wealthy

When you think of hospitals, you probably think of sterile environments, shared rooms, and bland food, but many hospitals are now focusing on a trend known as hospital tourism and catering to an elite group that believes in living in comfort.

6. Pomegranate Seed Oil of No Menopause Benefit

Pomegranate Seed Oil is marketed as an alternative remedy for menopausal symptoms, including hot flashes, but a study appearing in the journal Menopause finds that the supplement has no more benefit than a placebo filled with sunflower oil.

7. Many with Cancer Still Smoke After Diagnosis

Many cancer patients continue to smoke after diagnosis finds a new study.

(By CalorieLab editors)

Lab Notes: Abortion 14 Times Safer Than Giving Birth; Starbucks to Sell Wine, Beer in Atlanta is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog