For Some, Glaucoma Strikes at a Young Age

HealthDay – 14 mins ago FRIDAY, April 20 (HealthDay News) -- Though only 15 when diagnosed with juvenile open-angle glaucoma, A.J. Esguerra said he's tried not to let the potentially devastating eye disease slow him down.

"It's not the end of the world," said Esguerra, now 23 and living in Cambridge, Mass. "I've continued on with all of my activities, and I look at it as just one other thing I have to deal with, and I find a way to manage."

Like many people with the disease, Esguerra had no idea he was losing some of his peripheral vision to glaucoma. It wasn't until he went for a routine eye exam that doctors discovered he had higher than normal pressure in his eyes.

Before he was diagnosed, he'd already lost some peripheral vision in his left eye, which he said is noticeable when he reads.

Since being diagnosed, Esguerra has had three surgeries, uses eye drops daily and gets frequent follow-up eye care. "I see the eye doctor every three months unless my eye pressure goes up, and then it can be as much as once a month," he said.

Despite his many medical appointments and procedures, Esguerra said, he never took time off from his schoolwork to recover from his surgeries, nor did he ask for extra time to complete the work. He recently graduated with a degree in business from Northeastern University in Boston, and he completed three six-month, full-time internships at major financial services companies while going to school.

"Living with glaucoma, I control what I can," Esguerra said. "I limit my caffeine. I get regular exercise, and as a kid, I didn't hang upside down because that can raise your eye pressure. In my teen years, I really didn't think anything of it."

He also seems to have found a positive side of having to deal with a chronic illness.

"I think I look at things from a different perspective than most people my age," Esguerra explained. "I think I have a lot more empathy, not just for people with glaucoma but any disease in general. You start to have an understanding of what people go through."

The toughest part of living with glaucoma, he said, is the uncertainty.

"It's chronic, and there's no cure," Esguerra said. "I'm always trying to figure out what lowers my eye pressure and what activities raise it, but with glaucoma, there's no real end. There's no goal to shoot for."

He also acknowledged that there are definitely days when having glaucoma gets to him, though he tries to stay positive most of the time.

"I've tried not to let it slow me down," he said. "Looking forward is the key thing. I just graduated

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Glaucoma Need Not Steal Sight, Experts Say

HealthDay – 14 mins ago FRIDAY, April 20 (HealthDay News) -- Though glaucoma has been nicknamed the silent thief of sight, eye experts now say it generally doesn't have to be that way.

"For most people, if you treat early, you should have vision for a lifetime," said Dr. Mark Fromer, an ophthalmologist at Lenox Hill Hospital and medical director of the Fromer Eye Centers, both in New York City, and the eye surgeon director for the New York Rangers hockey team.

Glaucoma isn't just one disease but a group of conditions that cause damage to the optic nerve, which connects the eye to the brain. Left untreated, glaucoma can in fact cause blindness. And because the disease can progress for long periods undetected, experts stress that checkups and early detection are key to maintaining vision.

Most forms of glaucoma develop because of increased pressure in the eye, according to the Glaucoma Foundation. High eye pressure, also known as intraocular pressure, is the biggest risk factor for developing glaucoma. However, some people have what's called normal tension glaucoma, and they can have optic nerve damage even when eye pressure is normal.

"Some people are just more susceptible to optic nerve damage," Fromer noted.

The most common form of glaucoma is called primary open-angle glaucoma, he said. The angle referred to is where the cornea and the iris meet. Fluid normally drains through the angle. Sometimes, however, the fluid drains too slowly, which allows it to build up and increase the pressure in the eye. The increased pressure causes optic nerve damage, and, as the damage increases, so does peripheral vision loss.

If the angle narrows or closes completely, an acute form of glaucoma can develop. The pressure rises quickly and causes pain, blurred vision and halos around lights. This is a medical emergency that requires immediate treatment to save vision.

"If you develop severe pain in your eye, get seen right away at the ER," said Dr. Gregory Harmon, a New York City ophthalmologist who's chairman of the Glaucoma Foundation. "Without treatment, you can have a permanent loss of vision."

People who have a family history of glaucoma are more likely to develop glaucoma themselves. Harmon said that blacks and Hispanics have a four to five times higher risk for glaucoma than whites. Older people, especially those who are also developing cataracts, have an increased risk of glaucoma as well, according to Fromer. And those who take any type of steroid medication -- whether it's oral, inhaled or even a topical cream -- also face a higher risk for glaucoma, he noted.

The American Academy of Ophthalmology recommends that people older than 40 have a baseline eye exam and then discuss how often follow-up visits are necessary based on their particular glaucoma risk factors. After 65, testing is recommended every year or two.

The most commonly used test for glaucoma is called tonometry, which involves looking into a device that blows a small puff of air into your eye. Though it can be slightly startling, the test is painless. Another important tool for detecting glaucoma is the dilated eye exam, which Harmon said "allows us to look at the optic nerve and evaluate the optic nerve health."

If there's evidence of optic nerve damage, your eye doctor will probably conduct a visual field test as well. You'll be asked to click a button whenever you see flashes of light, which lets the doctor determine whether you've lost any peripheral vision.

If the doctor diagnoses glaucoma, treatment usually begins with eye drops that help lower pressure in the eyes. Eye drops can decrease fluid production, or they can help open the drainage ducts. There are also oral medications that can be used, according to Harmon. Eye drops may need to be used as many as four times a day, but Fromer said that most eye doctors start with once-daily drops given at night.

"We try to keep it simple," he said, "but if one eye drop doesn't work, we'll add another for a synergistic effect."

If eye drops aren't effective, the next step is usually laser treatment. If those treatments don't work, then surgery to implant more effective drainage tubes can be done.

What's important to know is that these treatments can be effective at preventing vision loss -- but if you've already lost vision, they can't get it back.

"We can prevent but not reverse vision loss," Harmon said.

He also said that regular exercise -- 20 minutes of aerobic exercise most days of the week -- can help lower eye pressure. "The healthier your body is, the healthier your eyes are," he noted. Just be sure to clear any exercise program with your doctor first because some types of exercise can raise eye pressure.

The bottom line, to Fromer, is that you can't prevent the development of glaucoma but you can protect your sight.

"If you're gonna get glaucoma, you're gonna get glaucoma," he said. "But you don't have to lose your vision. It can be protected with appropriate medications."

More information

The Glaucoma Foundation has more on glaucoma.

A companion article looks at one man's story of living with glaucoma after being diagnosed as a teenager.

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U.S. Children Exposed to Hours of Background TV Daily

HealthDay – 14 mins ago FRIDAY, April 20 (HealthDay News) -- American children are being exposed to background TV for nearly four hours every day, new research finds.

For the study, researchers surveyed over 1,400 English-speaking households with children ranging in age from 8 months to 8 years old. After taking other variables into consideration, such as the children's gender, ethnicity, race, age and family income, the researchers also found black children and younger children had the highest rate of exposure to background TV.

Prior research has suggested that too much background TV may have negative consequences for children's learning and development, including reading ability, according to the study authors.

The new findings are slated to be presented at the International Communication Association's annual meeting, held May 24 to 28 in Phoenix.

"Considering the accumulating evidence regarding the impact that background television exposure has on young children, we were rather floored about the sheer scale of children's exposure with just under four hours of exposure each day," Matthew Lapierre, of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, said in an association news release.

Parents should remove televisions from their children's bedrooms and remember to turn the TV off when they are finished watching it, experts urged.

"As evidence begins to grow that background television exposure has negative consequences for young children, we need to take notice of the dramatic levels of American children's exposure to background television documented by this international team of communication researchers," Cynthia Stohl, a professor of communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said in the news release.

"This study should be a warning to parents and day-care providers to shut off the television when no one is watching, and certainly to consider the consequences of having a television in a child's bedroom no matter how young they may be," Stohl added.

The conclusions and results of studies presented at medical conferences should be considered preliminary under published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry has more on children and TV watching.

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Talking to Yourself Could Have Mental Benefits

HealthDay – 14 mins ago FRIDAY, April 20 (HealthDay News) -- People who talk to themselves while searching for specific objects may be able to find them faster, researchers say.

Previous studies have suggested that when children talk to themselves it helps guide their behavior. For example, kids may talk themselves through tying their shoes to help remember how it's done. The authors of the new study set out to determine if the same was true for adults.

The findings, from Gary Lupyan, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Daniel Swingley, of the University of Pennsylvania, were published online in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.

In the experiment, adult participants were shown 20 pictures of different objects and asked to find one of them (for example, a jar of peanut butter on a supermarket shelf, or a stick of butter in the refrigerator). In some tests, they saw only a text label informing them what they had to find.

In other tests, the participants were told to locate the object again. This time, however, they were instructed to say the name of the object to themselves. The study revealed that by talking to themselves, people found the objects more quickly.

In a second experiment, participants completed a virtual shopping task. They were shown pictures of items commonly found on supermarket shelves and asked to identify those items whenever they appeared. Once again, the researchers found that by telling themselves the name of familiar objects the participants often were able to find them faster.

The study authors concluded in their report, however, that "although the present results provide evidence that self-directed speech affects some aspect of the visual search process that is specific to the target category, there is no evidence at present that self-directed speech affected the efficiency of locating the target."

More information

Harvard Medical School has more about the human brain and how it works.

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'Catastrophic' Head Injuries to High School Football Players Rising

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Men More Prone to Complications After Brain, Spine Surgery

HealthDay – 13 mins ago FRIDAY, April 20 (HealthDay News) -- Men are twice as likely as women to have complications after brain or spinal surgery, and also spend more time in the hospital after the operation, a new study finds.

The findings suggest that a patient's gender, along with other factors, should be taken into account to provide the best possible estimates of risk for patients scheduled for neurosurgery, the University of Michigan Medical School researchers said.

The researchers analyzed data on more than 900 people who had brain or spinal surgery between 2006 and 2009. The overall complication rates within 30 days after surgery were 18.6 percent for brain surgery patients and 10.8 percent for spinal surgery patients.

The complication rate for men was 20.3 percent, compared to 11.3 percent for women. The rate for men remained twice that of women even after the researchers adjusted for other factors such as age, tobacco and alcohol use, and health problems such as high blood pressure, coronary artery disease and diabetes.

Complications also were more common in older patients and in those with coronary artery disease.

Men spent an average of 7.5 days in the hospital, compared with 5.7 days for women. But gender did not affect the average length of stay in the intensive care unit after surgery.

Multiple factors likely contribute to the different complication rates in men and women, including "psychosocial, hormonal or underlying disease differences," the researchers said.

For example, the lower complication rate in women could be due to better social support, "neuroprotective" effects of estrogen or lower rates of cardiovascular disease.

The study appears in the April issue of the journal Neurosurgery.

More information

MedlinePlus has more about neurosurgery.

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Health Highlights: April 20, 2012

HealthDay – 13 mins ago Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:

U.S. Women Trail Men in Life Span Gains: Study

American men's lifespans increased by an average of 4.6 years between 1989 and 2009, while women's increased by only 2.7 years, a new study says.

It also found large variations in average county-to-county life spans across the nation, ranging from 66.1 to 81.6 years for men and 73.5 to 86 years for women, USA Today reported. In many counties, women's life spans are shorter than they were 20 years ago.

Even though women are still expected to outlive men by 4 years, these finding are cause for concern, according to the study by researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

"A gain in life expectancy should be equal among men and women," said research team director Ali Mokdad, USA Today reported. "This is a wake-up call for all of us. It's tragic that in a country as wealthy as the United States, and with all the medical expertise we have, that so many girls will live shorter lives than their mothers."

Preventable causes of death, such as smoking, obesity and alcohol, are key reasons for the differences between men and women.

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Vietnam Seeks Help With Mystery Illness That's Killed 19

Vietnam's health ministry has asked international health experts for help after a mystery illness killed 19 people and sickened 191 others in a poor district in the central area of the country.

Children and young people have been hit hardest by the infection, which begins with a high fever, loss of appetite and a rash that covers the hands and feet. If not treated early, patients can develop liver problems and eventually suffer multi-organ failure, CBS News/Associated Press reported.

Nearly 100 people are still in hospital, including 10 in critical condition. Patients with milder symptoms are being treated at home.

Vietnam's Ministry of Health sent a team to the Ba To district earlier this month but they couldn't determine the cause of the illness. The ministry has asked for help from the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Health Care Disparities Persist for U.S. Minority Groups: Report

Access to health care did not improve for most racial and ethnic minorities in the United States between 2002 and 2008, says a report released Friday by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

The National Healthcare Disparities Report looks at about 250 health care measures and found that about half of the measures that track disparities showed no improvement, while 40 percent got worse.

Compared to whites, Hispanics, American Indians and Alaska Natives had worse access to care on more than 60 percent of the access measures, blacks had worse access on slightly more than 30 percent, and Asian Americans had worse access on 17 percent.

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Gulf Seafood Safe to Eat: FDA

Despite continuing concerns about the safety of seafood from the Gulf of Mexico, U.S. officials insist that Gulf seafood on the market is safe to eat.

Two years after the massive BP oil spill, some scientists say that lesions and other deformities on some Gulf fish indicate lingering environmental damage.

"It's important to emphasize that we're talking about a low percentage of fish," Dr. Robert W. Dickey, head of the Food and Drug Administration's Gulf Coast Seafood Laboratory, told the Associated Press. "It doesn't represent a seafood safety hazard."

He noted that wholesalers and seafood processors must follow FDA rules on what constitutes a safe and usable catch. Fish with lesions or signs of parasites or disease can't be sold.

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U.S. Team Heads to Everest to Study Effects of High Altitude

U.S. researchers plan to establish a laboratory at the base of Mount Everest in order to study the effects of high altitude on humans.

The Mayo Clinic team flew to the Mount Everest region on Friday and plans to monitor nine climbers attempting to conquer the world's highest mountain, the Associated Press reported.

Learning more about the effects of high altitude on the heart, lungs, muscle loss and sleep could help patients with heart conditions and other health problems, the researchers explained.

The team's laboratory at the Mayo focuses on lung congestion in heart failure patients and lung congestion often kills mountain climbers, team leader Dr. Bruce Johnson told the AP.

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Starbucks Eliminating Bug-based Dye From Products

A crimson food dye made from crushed bugs will be phased out of four food and two beverage products, Starbucks says.

Instead of using the bug-based dye called cochineal extract, the company says it will use lycopene, a natural tomato-based extract using for coloring, CBS News reported.

Starbucks was the target of a social media campaign after it became known that the company used cochineal extract in some of its products.

Cochineal extract is safe and food and cosmetic product labels must state if the dye is present, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said. They dye, which has been used for thousands of years to color fabrics, is often found in yogurts, candies, ice creams, ketchup, fruit drinks, lipsticks, nail polish, eye shadow and other pink and red products, CBS News reported.

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Could Your Personality Be Reflected in Your Pooch?

HealthDay – 13 mins ago FRIDAY, April 20 (HealthDay News) -- The breed of dog a person chooses may mirror his or her own personality and outlook, a new study suggests.

The online survey of 1,000 dog owners by researchers at Bath Spa University in Bath, England, found certain personality traits, such as extroversion, agreeableness and emotional stability, are linked to specific breeds.

The research is to be presented Friday at the British Psychological Society annual meeting in London.

"This study indicates that we might be able to make predictions about someone's personality based on the breed of dog that they choose to own," study author Lance Workman said in a society news release. "It seems likely that personality types are subconsciously drawn to certain breeds."

Researchers divided the breeds owned into seven groups:

Gundogs, such as golden retrieversHound dogs, such as greyhoundsPastoral, such as German shepherdsTerriers, such as Staffordshire bullsToys, such as chihuahuasUtility, such as bulldogsWorking, such as dobermans

Owners of pastoral and utility dogs were more extroverted, while those who chose gundogs and toy dogs were more agreeable. The study also found those who owned utility, toy and gundogs were more conscientious, while owners of hound dogs were more emotionally stable. Toy dog owners were more open to new experiences.

"The differences in personality factors found between owners of different breeds might arguably be related to the lifestyle of the owner," Workman said. "For example, more extroverted individuals might be better suited to the pastoral breeds such as German shepherd or border collie, whereas those who are particularly emotionally stable might be suited to ownership of hound dogs such as a beagle or greyhound."

The findings and conclusions of studies presented at medical meetings should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The American Psychological Association provides more information on personality.

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Half-Siblings of Those With Autism at Raised Risk for Disorder: Study

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Childhood Obesity May Raise Odds of Adult Liver Cancer

HealthDay – 13 mins ago FRIDAY, April 20 (HealthDay News) -- Adults who were obese as children are at increased risk for liver cancer, a new study suggests.

Researchers looked at the birth weight and body-mass index (a measurement of body fat based on height and weight commonly called BMI) of more than 165,000 men and 160,000 women in Denmark born between 1930 and 1989.

Of those participants, 252 developed hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common form of liver cancer in adulthood.

The study authors calculated that at age 7, the risk of developing hepatocellular carcinoma increased by 12 percent for every one-point increase in BMI. By age 13, that risk increased to 25 percent. Therefore, as units of BMI increased into adulthood, so did the risk of developing hepatocellular carcinoma. This was consistently similar across both genders and all ages.

Other factors associated with liver cancer include alcoholism, infection by hepatitis B and C, and other liver diseases. But the study results did not change when participants with these factors were removed from the study, which indicates that childhood obesity was the major factor in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma, the researchers said.

The study was slated for presentation Thursday at the International Liver Congress in Barcelona.

"Childhood obesity not only leads to the development of many adverse metabolic conditions -- such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease -- but also fatty liver disease, which may subsequently result in liver cancer," Dr. Frank Lammert, a scientific committee member of the European Association for the Study of the Liver, said in an association news release.

"The importance of maintaining a healthy childhood BMI cannot be underestimated," Lammert said in the release. "These alarming study results point to a potential correlation between childhood obesity and development of liver cancer in adulthood."

Data and conclusions presented at meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

More information

The American Liver Foundation has more about liver cancer.

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FDA: Gulf seafood safe despite oil spill concerns

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Vietnam asks WHO to help identify killer disease

Vietnam has asked international health experts to help investigate a mystery illness that has killed 19 people and sickened 171 others in an impoverished district in central Vietnam, an official said Friday.

The infection has mostly affected children and young people. It begins with a high fever, loss of appetite and a rash that covers the hands and feet. Patients who are not treated early can develop liver problems and eventually face multi-organ failure, said Le Han Phong, chairman of the People's Committee in Ba To District in Quang Ngai province.

Nearly 100 people remain hospitalized, including 10 in critical condition. Patients with milder symptoms are being treated at home. The illness responds well to treatment if detected early, but 29 patients have been reinfected, Phong said.

The Ministry of Health sent a team of health officials to the area earlier this month, but they were unable to determine the cause of the illness. The ministry has since asked the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help investigate.

A WHO spokesman said the Geneva-based body hadn't yet received the request from Vietnam.

"We can't investigate without an official request," said Tarik Jasarevic.

The ailment was first detected last April, but the number of cases had died down by October. A fresh spate of infections started last month, with 68 cases and eight deaths reported between March 27 and April 5, Phong said.

Most of the patients are from Ba Dien village in Ba To. It is one of the poorest districts in the province and home to many from the Hre ethnic minority.

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