Turmeric extract may protect heart after surgery: study

Reuters – 9 hrs ago (Reuters) - Extracts from turmeric spice, known for their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, may help ward off heart attacks in people who have had recent bypass surgery, according to a study from Thailand.

During bypass surgery the heart muscle can be damaged by prolonged lack of blood flow, increasing the patient's risk of heart attack. But the new findings, published in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Cardiology, suggest that curcumins - the yellow pigment in turmeric - may ease those risks when added to traditional drug treatment.

The conclusions are based on a relatively small group of subjects and needs to be confirmed in larger studies, said researchers led by Wanwarang Wongcharoen from Chiang Mai University. Turmeric extracts have long been used in traditional Chinese and Indian medicine.

Research has suggested inflammation plays an important role in the development of a range of diseases, including heart disease, and curcumins could have an effect on those pathways, said Bharat Aggarwal, who studies the use of curcumins in cancer therapy at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

"It's very, very encouraging," said Aggarwal of the study, which he did not take part in.

The researchers studied 121 patients who had non-emergency bypass surgery at their hospital between 2009 and 2011.

Half of those patients were given one-gram curcumin capsules to take four times a day, starting three days before their surgery and continuing for five days afterwards. The other half took the same number of drug-free placebo capsules.

The researchers found that during their post-bypass hospital stays, 13 percent of patients who'd been taking curcumins had a heart attack, compared to 30 percent in the placebo group.

After accounting for any initial pre-surgery differences, Wongcharoen and his colleagues calculated that people on curcumins had a 65 percent lower chance of heart attack.

Researchers said it's likely that the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of curcumins may have helped limit heart damage in the patients.

"Curcumin has for many years now been shown to reduce inflammation and to reduce oxygen toxicity or damage caused by free radicals in a number of experimental settings," said Jawahar Mehta, a cardiologist at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, who didn't work on the study.

"But that doesn't mean that this is a substitute for medication," he said, noting that drugs like aspirin, statins and beta blockers have been proven to help heart patients and people in the current study were taking those as well.

One limitation was that the study was relatively small. Another is that while curcumins are thought to be safe, there could be side effects at very large doses.

"Taken in moderation or used in cooking, (curcumins) are quite useful. But I wouldn't go to a health food store and start taking four grams of curcumin a day, as was done in this study," Mehta said. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/HEnC5f

(Reporting from New York by Genevra Pittman at Reuters Health; editing by Elaine Lies and Jeremy Laurence)

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Certain Genetic Regions May Be Tied to Osteoporosis

HealthDay – 9 hrs ago SUNDAY, April 15 (HealthDay News) -- A large international group of researchers has identified 32 new genetic regions linked to fractures and osteoporosis.

Variations in these regions could offer protection from, or greater risk for, bone-weakening disease, the investigators reported in a new study published in the April 15 online edition of Nature Genetics.

The study authors added that their findings could lead to the development of new osteoporosis drugs.

"We're learning that the genetic architecture of disease is very complex," one of the study's authors and the methodological leader of the consortium, Dr. John Ioannidis, chief of the Stanford Prevention Research Center, said in a university news release.

The research, which involved 17 studies that compared common genetic variants in more than 100,000 people, pinpointed six regions linked to risk of fractures of the femur (thigh bone) or lower back.

The study authors pointed out, however, that it would still be difficult to predict who is at greater risk for bone disease. People with the highest number of variants associated with decreased bone mineral density were only about one and a half times more likely than people with an average number of variants to have osteoporosis. The risk for fractures was only slightly higher.

Meanwhile, compared to those with the fewest variants, people with the most variants were still just three to four times more likely to have had fractures and lower bone mineral density, the study revealed.

"As a result, the next step of incorporating this information into basic patient care is not clear," Ioannidis concluded. "Each variant conveys a small quantum of risk or benefit. We can't predict exactly who will or won't get a fracture."

The authors noted, however, that by identifying some previously unsuspected pathways involved in bone health, their research could lead to the development of new anti-osteoporosis drugs. But even larger studies are needed to identify all of the genes critical to fighting bone disease, they added.

"We saw many of these regions and genes clustering within specific types of pathways, which suggests certain disease mechanisms. It certainly wouldn't be unexpected to eventually identify many more genetic regions involved in the regulation of osteoporosis and fracture risk," Ioannidis said.

"In reality, there may be 500 or more gene variants regulating osteoporosis. To find all of them, we'll need to study millions of patients. Is this unrealistic? I don't think so. Sooner or later this will be feasible," he added.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases has more about bone-weakening diseases.

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Demolition Derby for Comets

Time.com – 5 hrs ago More From Time.com24 Hours Until Tax Day: 7 Reasons We Procrastinate (and How It Costs Us)Iran Nuclear Talks: Hitting the 'Snooze' Button on the Alarm Clock of ConfrontationTaliban Offensive: Afghan Forces Battle Insurgents in the Streets of KabulA Presidential Hangout: Inside the World's Most Exclusive Clubhouse Astronomy is an imprecise business, and much of what skywatchers see depends on what tool they're using to look. In 1610, Galileo became the first person to spot the rings around Saturn, but through his early telescope, they looked like a pair of moons, or even handle-like formations.

"I have observed the highest planet to be triple-bodied," he wrote in his journal. "This is to say that to my great amazement, Saturn was seen to me to be not a single star, but three together." It wasn't until 1655 that Christaan Huygens, using a more powerful telescope, correctly concluded that what Galileo had seen was a ring.

Something similar is going on now concerning a very different kind of ring in a very different place, though in this case, the separate findings complement, rather than contradict each other. No matter what, they're turning a once-obscure star named Formalhaut into a hot topic of cosmic conversation.

As Time.com reported last week, Formalhaut is a young star -- as little as 200 million years old, compared to our middle-aged Sun's 5 billion years -- located about 25 light years from Earth. Formalhaut is circled by a massive ring, which was first observed by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2004 and was assumed to be made of gas and dust left over from the stellar formation process. The star made news so recently because of a new showing that it is also circled by two previously unknown planets -- one larger than Mars but smaller than Earth and the other larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. Exoplanets are becoming increasingly common, but these were special because of the way they were detected: the two worlds orbit on either side of the ring, sharpening its inner and outer edges, much the way pairs of moons around Uranus and Saturn keep those planets' rings tidy. Such so-called shepherding moons were well-known, but shepherding planets are a whole new thing.

That ought to be enough news from one star for one week, but a subsequent report from Belgian astronomer Bram Acke and his colleagues, working with the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory, have added an elegant dimension to the Formalhaut ring. Observations in the infrared spectrum, which is how Herschel sees the universe, suggest that the formation is made up not just of primordial gas and dust, but of fluffy, snowy debris left over from collisions among comets. And since such cosmic frost dissipates fast, the collisions must be occurring all the time -- and in enormous numbers.

Infrared telescopes work, in effect, by taking the universe's temperature, as opposed to taking its picture like the Hubble does. While the Formalhaut ring may orbit a fiery star, it does so at such a distance that it is exceedingly cold, ranging from -170 C to -130 C (-382 F to -234 F). The variation in temperature is the result of the fact that the disk is not perfectly centered around the star, meaning its southern half is warmer and brighter than its northern one.

The temperature of any ring is determined not just by its proximity to its star, but also by the size of the grains that make it up, and at these temperatures, the Formalhaut grains must be tiny: just a few micrometers (or thousandths of a millimeter -- or millionths of a meter) across. That's way too small to be part of the star's primordial cloud. "We are sure this is not left-over dust from the proto-planetary disk," wrote Acke in an e-mail exchange with Time, "because the radiation pressure of the star pushes such small grains immediately out of the system."

To match both the thermal properties the Herschel's infrared sensors observed and the light-scattering properties detected by Hubble's cameras, a great deal of the ring must be made up of icy aggregates of particles similar to those that stream off of comets in our solar system. It would take cometary collisions, however, to produce that much particulate matter spread over that vast an area. And if, as Acke says, such debris would quickly be blown away, it must somehow be getting constantly replaced or the ring would simply vanish.

"To be able to collect such a large amount of small dust, we need to infer a small-grain reproduction rate of 2,000 comet

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Demolition Derby for Comets

Time.com – 5 hrs ago More From Time.com24 Hours Until Tax Day: 7 Reasons We Procrastinate (and How It Costs Us)Iran Nuclear Talks: Hitting the 'Snooze' Button on the Alarm Clock of ConfrontationTaliban Offensive: Afghan Forces Battle Insurgents in the Streets of KabulA Presidential Hangout: Inside the World's Most Exclusive Clubhouse Astronomy is an imprecise business, and much of what skywatchers see depends on what tool they're using to look. In 1610, Galileo became the first person to spot the rings around Saturn, but through his early telescope, they looked like a pair of moons, or even handle-like formations.

"I have observed the highest planet to be triple-bodied," he wrote in his journal. "This is to say that to my great amazement, Saturn was seen to me to be not a single star, but three together." It wasn't until 1655 that Christaan Huygens, using a more powerful telescope, correctly concluded that what Galileo had seen was a ring.

Something similar is going on now concerning a very different kind of ring in a very different place, though in this case, the separate findings complement, rather than contradict each other. No matter what, they're turning a once-obscure star named Formalhaut into a hot topic of cosmic conversation.

As Time.com reported last week, Formalhaut is a young star -- as little as 200 million years old, compared to our middle-aged Sun's 5 billion years -- located about 25 light years from Earth. Formalhaut is circled by a massive ring, which was first observed by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2004 and was assumed to be made of gas and dust left over from the stellar formation process. The star made news so recently because of a new showing that it is also circled by two previously unknown planets -- one larger than Mars but smaller than Earth and the other larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. Exoplanets are becoming increasingly common, but these were special because of the way they were detected: the two worlds orbit on either side of the ring, sharpening its inner and outer edges, much the way pairs of moons around Uranus and Saturn keep those planets' rings tidy. Such so-called shepherding moons were well-known, but shepherding planets are a whole new thing.

That ought to be enough news from one star for one week, but a subsequent report from Belgian astronomer Bram Acke and his colleagues, working with the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory, have added an elegant dimension to the Formalhaut ring. Observations in the infrared spectrum, which is how Herschel sees the universe, suggest that the formation is made up not just of primordial gas and dust, but of fluffy, snowy debris left over from collisions among comets. And since such cosmic frost dissipates fast, the collisions must be occurring all the time -- and in enormous numbers.

Infrared telescopes work, in effect, by taking the universe's temperature, as opposed to taking its picture like the Hubble does. While the Formalhaut ring may orbit a fiery star, it does so at such a distance that it is exceedingly cold, ranging from -170 C to -130 C (-382 F to -234 F). The variation in temperature is the result of the fact that the disk is not perfectly centered around the star, meaning its southern half is warmer and brighter than its northern one.

The temperature of any ring is determined not just by its proximity to its star, but also by the size of the grains that make it up, and at these temperatures, the Formalhaut grains must be tiny: just a few micrometers (or thousandths of a millimeter -- or millionths of a meter) across. That's way too small to be part of the star's primordial cloud. "We are sure this is not left-over dust from the proto-planetary disk," wrote Acke in an e-mail exchange with Time, "because the radiation pressure of the star pushes such small grains immediately out of the system."

To match both the thermal properties the Herschel's infrared sensors observed and the light-scattering properties detected by Hubble's cameras, a great deal of the ring must be made up of icy aggregates of particles similar to those that stream off of comets in our solar system. It would take cometary collisions, however, to produce that much particulate matter spread over that vast an area. And if, as Acke says, such debris would quickly be blown away, it must somehow be getting constantly replaced or the ring would simply vanish.

"To be able to collect such a large amount of small dust, we need to infer a small-grain reproduction rate of 2,000 comet

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The K-E Diet: Brides-to-Be Using Feeding Tubes to Rapidly Shed Pounds

(ABC News)

Brides-to-be looking to shed that final 10, 15 or 20 pounds in order to fit into their dream wedding gown have taken a controversial approach to crash dieting that involves inserting a feeding tube into their noses for up to 10 days for a quick fix to rapid weight loss.

The K-E diet, which boasts promises of shedding 20 pounds in 10 days, is an increasingly popular alternative to ordinary calorie-counting programs. The program has dieters inserting a feeding tube into their nose that runs to the stomach. They're fed a constant slow drip of protein and fat, mixed with water, which contains zero carbohydrates and totals 800 calories a day. Body fat is burned off through a process called ketosis, which leaves muscle intact, Dr. Oliver Di Pietro of Bay Harbor Islands, Fla., said.

"It is a hunger-free, effective way of dieting," Di Pietro said. "Within a few hours and your hunger and appetite go away completely, so patients are actually not hungry at all for the whole 10 days. That's what is so amazing about this diet."

Di Pietro says patients are under a doctor's supervision, although they're not hospitalized during the dieting process. Instead, they carry the food solution with them, in a bag, like a purse, keeping the tube in their nose for 10 days straight. Di Pietro says there are few side effects.

"The main side effects are bad breath; there is some constipation because there is no fiber in the food," he said.

Slipping into a wedding gown for a dream wedding is a moment of truth for most brides, but as many say that there is a real fear that it will not quite fit. That's how Jessica Schnaider says she felt with a June wedding approaching and 10 pounds she says she couldn't lose. She was desperate for a quick fix.

"I don't have all of the time on the planet just to focus an hour and a half a day to exercise so I came to the doctor, I saw the diet, and I said, 'You know what? Why not? Let me try it. So I decided to go ahead and give it a shot," she said.

Schnaider said she was never hungry throughout the 10 days she was on the K-E diet, but admits that it still wasn't easy.

"It was emotionally difficult, the 10 days of not eating," Schnaider said. "And sometimes I had to give excuses to people who were asking are you sick? And I was like, 'No, I'm not sick, I'm not dying, I'm fine.'

"I was tired. I didn't feel like exercising. The doctor told me that if you can compliment with walking for a half an hour on the beach, that would be great, but I didn't feel like doing that. I'm a very energetic person, but those days I was a little tired."

Although the K-E diet is new to the United States, it has been around for years in Europe. Dr. Di Pietro charges $1,500 for the 10-day plan, and says the before-and-after pictures sell themselves.

But critics warn that losing too much weight too fast can be dangerous, and it ultimately won't last. Di Pietro warns that people with kidney issues should avoid the diet.

Many doctors also say that with so much pressure on brides to be perfect, it's easy to understand why this kind of rapid weight loss might seem appealing, but might not be healthy.

"If you lose the weight too quickly your mind is not going to be able to catch up with a newer, skinnier you," psychoanalyst Bethany Marshall of Beverly Hills, Calif. said.

Schnaider says that in her case she actually only kept her tube in for eight of the 10 days, skipping the last two because she'd already lost the 10 pounds she wanted.

She has kept it off so far, saying she is looking forward to her big day this summer.

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One in 16 youth play the "choking game:" study

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US warns two drugs may have sexual side effects

The Merck Pharmaceutical Company …

Two Merck drugs for treating male baldness and enlarged prostate will now carry extended labels to add more possible sexual side effects, US regulators said.

The changes involve Propecia and Proscar, both of which contain the active ingredient finasteride, after patients reported additional adverse effects that were not apparent at the time of the drugs' approval, the US Food and Drug Administration said Friday.

The new Propecia label will include "libido disorders, ejaculation disorders, and orgasm disorders that continued after discontinuation of the drug," the FDA said. Propecia is a drug to treat male baldness.

Proscar, which treats symptoms of enlarged prostate, will now have a label that adds "decreased libido that continued after discontinuation of the drug."

In addition, both labels are being revised to "include a description of reports of male infertility and/or poor semen quality that normalized or improved after drug discontinuation," the FDA said.

FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Yao said the drugs were previously known to cause adverse sexual events in a small number of patients, and that information was included on labels at the time of approval.

The latest labeling change "expands the list of sexual adverse events reported to the FDA postmarketing," she told AFP, adding that "no new clinical studies were reviewed to evaluate these adverse events."

Proscar was approved for the US market in 1992 and Propecia in 1997. In 2011, both drugs' labels were "revised to include erectile dysfunction that continued after drug discontinuation," the FDA said.

Last year, labels for Proscar and Propecia were also changed to advise of the possibility of an increased risk of high-grade prostate cancer.

The agency noted that even though "clear causal links between finasteride (Propecia and Proscar) and sexual adverse events have NOT been established, the cases suggest a broader range of adverse effects than previously reported in patients taking these drugs."

Since these side effects may be important to some patients, doctors were urged to discuss them with patients when deciding on treatment options.

In the case of Propecia, clinical trials showed 3.8 percent of men had reported one or more adverse sexual experiences, compared to 2.1 percent who were taking a placebo.

"Propecia and Proscar are generally well tolerated and effective for their respective intended uses in accordance with their approved product labeling," Merck said in a statement.

The company added that "a causal relationship between the use of Propecia or Proscar and continued sexual dysfunction after discontinuation of treatment has not been established," and expressed support for ongoing monitoring of adverse event reports.

ksh/mk

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Hollywood fitness expert Gunnar Peterson shares his workout playlist

Los Angeles-based celebrity fitness …

Kim Kardashian, Jennifer Lopez, Angelina Jolie and Bruce Willis are just a few of the famous faces personal trainer Gunnar Peterson works with every day in his Beverly Hills luxury gym. When it comes to inspiring celebrities to stay in top form, he takes a no-nonsense approach. You have to work out, and you have to work hard.

But what keeps him motivated during his own daily workouts? Peterson shared with Relaxnews his music playlist, emphasizing it is just one of the many he relies on when training.

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Health Tip: Seniors, Boost Your Balance

HealthDay – 1 hr 50 mins ago (HealthDay News) -- A routine that includes a variety of exercises is important to help seniors stay strong. But balance exercises can help reduce the risk of falling and dangerous fractures.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists these exercises that can help improve balance in seniors:

Practice Tai Chi, a Chinese martial art.Walk backward, stepping to the side or walking heel to toe.Practice standing on one foot and holding the position.Take group exercise classes that focus on balance.

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UK mulls plain cigarette packs to cut smoking

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Philippine runners race to survive zombie horde

Reuters – 1 hr 29 mins ago LAGUNA PROVINCE, Philippines (Reuters) - Natural and man-made obstacles studded the course of a Philippine race, but the real danger to the thousands of runners came from the hordes of "zombies".

About five thousand people dashed along the five km (three mile) course of the survival-themed race in Laguna Province, about 38 km south of Manila, dodging an assortment of the walking undead in the contest based on a popular U.S. race.

Two hundred actors dressed as post-apocalyptic zombies hid behind trees, bushes and rocky uphill climbs along the five km (three mile) course to surprise the unsuspecting runners and symbolically feast on their brains by stealing flags attached to the runners' waists.

Once all three flags were stolen, runners were "dead." But they could gain additional flags by carrying out optional tasks that often involved zombies guarding the various prizes.

Organizers said the races helped both amateur and professional runners stay focused without the boredom that can kill some runs.

"We like watching zombie shows and it really tickles our imagination," said Angelo Cruz, organizer of Outbreak Manila, which seeks to promote fitness through the races and plans to hold similar events in the coming months.

"Right now, to have it in reality, it's making everyone's summer - I hope."

There were two different routes available, trading difficulty with length to the finish according to the runner's skills and preference.

To keep both runners and zombies safe from injuries, organizers imposed a rule that forbade the zombies from any physical contact with the runners aside from taking their flags and scaring them witless.

Not all of the zombies, many well known from popular television shows, movies or music videos, used crude fright techniques.

One, from Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video, danced to trick runners into letting down their guard, at which point it snatched their flags.

At the end, runners were awarded prizes for their struggle and tried to express their feelings about surviving a global zombie takeover and what might be needed.

"The well-trained surely have higher endurance," said Rodson Santos, a university student who wore a robot costume as his way of surviving the zombie hordes.

"If you can outrun the zombies, then you'll probably survive. But if you're just a regular person without any exercise, chances are you will be easily caught."

Others drew even harsher lessons from the experience.

"In a zombie apocalypse, I guess it's all about thinking about yourself and your survival," said runner Carlos Cang.

"I mean, even if you're with friends, it's all about you. Because, you know, once you die it's all over."

(Writing by Elaine Lies; editing by Paul Casciato)

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Who is Playing the Choking Game?

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