Archive for the ‘Hormone Physician’ Category

By Lisa Rapaport

(Reuters Health) Young men who care about their sperm quality might want to lay off the cheeseburgers and fries, according to a new study that links a typical Western diet with a lower sperm count.

Men in the study who ate a mostly Western diet characterized by pizza, fries, sweets, sodas and red and processed meats typically had a lower sperm count by about 26 million than men who ate far less of these unhealthy foods. With a Western diet, men also had lower levels of reproductive hormones needed for optimal fertility.

Conversely, men with the healthiest eating habits with lots of fish, chicken, vegetables, fruits, and water typically had a sperm count 43 million higher than those who ate the lowest amounts of these foods.

Your sperm is what you eat, said coauthor Dr. Feiby Nassan of the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.

Diets rich in seafood, poultry, nuts, whole grains, fruits and vegetables provide antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids that are essential for good sperm production, Nassan said by email.

Our results suggest the possibility of using dietary intervention as a possible approach to improve sperm quality of men in reproductive age, Nassan said.

A normal sperm count can range from 15 million to 200 million sperm per milliliter of semen.

Sperm quality and certain sex hormone levels have decreased substantially over the past few decades, driven in part by worsening diets in many parts of the world, the researchers note in JAMA Network Open.

The current analysis included 2,935 healthy men in Denmark, ages 19 or 20 on average. Researchers divided them according to how closely their diets matched four patterns: a Western diet; a healthy diet described as a prudent pattern of eating; a so-called open-sandwich diet consisting of whole grains and lots of cold cuts, fish, condiments, and dairy; and a vegetarian-like diet with lots of veggies, soy, milk, and eggs and little if any red meat or chicken.

Total sperm count with the Western diet was significantly lower than with any of the other three eating patterns.

The study wasnt designed to prove whether diet directly affects sperm or fertility. Researchers also focused on young, healthy men who might not yet be trying to conceive, and they didnt examine what happened in older men who wanted to become fathers.

Still, the study adds to evidence suggesting a healthy diet is good for mens reproductive health, Dr. Muhammad Imran Omar of the University of Aberdeen in the UK said by email.

And, men, like women, should try to adopt a healthy diet, cut back on alcohol and stop smoking months before they want to start trying for a baby.

However, men should be aware that it takes three months to produce sperm, said Allan Pacey, a researcher at the University of Sheffield in the UK who wasnt involved in the study.

If a man alters his diet on a Friday it wont improve his sperm by Monday, Pacey said by email.

SOURCE: https://bit.ly/2VQrYmr JAMA Network Open, online February 21, 2020.

See the rest here:
Even among young men, healthier diet tied to higher sperm counts - Physician's Weekly

Simple methods to take care of your body and business.

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

The following article is written by Ben Angel. Author of the book, Unstoppable: A 90-Day Plan to Biohack Your Mind and Body for Success. Buy it now from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | IndieBound. And be sure to order The Unstoppable Journal, the only journal of its kind based on neuroscience, psychology and biohacking to help you reach your goals.

As we all grow accustomed to life in the age of novel coronavirus COVID-19, and scientists continue working on antivirals and vaccines,many experts are suggestingthe public take a holistic approach to general health maintenance. And as biohackers know better than most, positiveimmune responsecan beessential to staying healthy.While the following suggestionsare not ways to prevent you from contracting the virus, they areeasyways to keep yourself as healthy as possible.

As noted in a recent studyfrom the Sleep Foundation, "Without sufficient sleep, your body makes fewer cytokines, a type of protein that targets infection and inflammation, effectively creating an immune response. Cytokines are both produced and released during sleep, causing a double whammy if you skimp on shut-eye. Chronic sleep loss even makes the flu vaccine less effective by reducing your bodys ability to respond."

onsequently, the study advises taking two 30-minute-or-less daily napsto help mitigatesleep deprivation's effects on the immune system. But if you're having a difficult time getting to sleep, you can try the many binaural beats found on YouTube (Jody Hattons Power Napsis a good place to start)to help grab some winks on your coffee break.

Getting rid of sugar biohacks your immune system by removing a food source for the bad bacteria in your gut that can kill off your good bacteria. Autoimmune problems anddigestive issues are telltale signs of gut imbalance. Ideally, your gut should be 85 percentgood bacteria or probiotics.

You can check for gut dysbiosis through gut-microbiome tests from companies like Thryve Inside, as well as take stock of what youre eating on a daily basis. Fermented foods like sauerkraut, kombucha and kimchi can all help repopulate the good bacteria in your gutas well, leaving you with more energy and vitality.

Its been known for centuries that fasting has been used as a health protocol. Paracelsus, a great healer in the Western tradition, wrote 500 years ago that,Fasting is the greatest remedy, the physician within. In 2014, Dr. Valter Longo of the University of Southern California discovered that fasting for threedays (having nothing but water) could essentially reset the immune system. As summarized on Humann.com, holding off on eating for at least 16-18 hours after your last meal allowsyour bodys attention to become "focused on the current immune cells, recycling them and getting rid of the damaged cells. This means that during the fast, your body is running lean and mean with its white blood cells."

This practice, of course, should only be done if youre already healthy. But provided that's the case, who wouldnt want more time to completeprojects at workand get healthier at the same time?

Stress causes an inflammatory response within the body that can greatly affect your fight-or-flight response by releasing too much of the stress hormone cortisol. It also leaves us more vulnerable to infections and disease, both in and out of the office. That's why mindfully meditating has become a must forany biohacking entrepreneurs. There arevarious forms of mindfulness practices, ranging from the slow-moving poses ofyoga and tai chi to myriad breathing techniques. And arecentstudyinTranslational Psychiatry adds that "there seems to be something intrinsic about meditation itself that can shift gene expression and even boost mood over time."

Many airlines are now monitoring travelers's health before and after flights. According to the CDC, those with no respiratory symptoms do not need to wear a medical mask. The CDC also recommends the use of masks for people who have symptoms of the virus and for those caring for individuals who have symptoms, such as cough and fever.

In his book, Cockpit Confidential, author Patrick Smithstates that in an airplane, Between 94 and 99.9 percent of airborne microbes are captured, and theres a total changeover of air every two or three minutes far more frequently than occurs in offices, movie theatersor classrooms.

This is all the more reason why taking your vitamins during stressful times is important, since many of our essential minerals and vitamins can become depleted during stress. Vitamins C,B and D, as well as zinc,all support your immune system. Research shows that zinc alone can help keep inflammation at bay so that your immune response is better supported.

Related: Coronavirus and a Looming RecessionHow to Raise Capital in Uncertain Times

Although we are in uncertain times, we dont have to wait to see if we are healthy enough to overcome any type of sickness or disease. By implementing some of these holistic steps to boost your immune system, it will inevitably be a win-win situation for not only your health and well-being, but for keeping your business running like a well-oiled machine.Bottom line: Dont panic, and take advice from the medical professionals who are specialists in this area.

This article solely reflects the opinion of the author and is not intended as an alternative to recommended official government guidelines. For more updates and information about the novel coronavirus, visit the CDC's website.

Are you ready to become unstoppable?

Visit http://www.areyouunstoppable.com and take your FREE 60-second online quiz now. By answering a series of simple questions, my software will analyze your results and provide you with a comprehensive report that will indicate your identity type and lead you to the tools and tips you need to close that gap between who you are and who you could be. Take the quiz to get started!

Visit link:
How to Boost Your Immune System During the Coronavirus Outbreak - Entrepreneur

The Covid-19 crisis is triggering global fears that are beginning to cross over into panicky feelings (especially if you or a loved one is over 80 and in a nursing home). That state of mind is called dread.

In this piece I will endeavor describe and explain what is going on in your brain and mind when you are in a state of dread.

A disclaimer. It is empirically (i.e. observationally and experience) based and neither evidence nor research based. In fact, I would ask such researchers to weigh in and make what follows more scientifically sound.

Nevertheless, I hope it will help you better understand what is going on inside you and in so doing be calming, reassuring to you and even inform you and others who read this about what might psychologically stem the tide of rising fears.

When youre fearful, its because the way you have been living your life and the reassuring assumptions about the world that keep you calm enough to make good decisions are suddenly upended. Its as if the beliefs you have that help you to maintain your daily sanity and orientation are suddenly ripped away and the future you were living into, is suddenly extremely gone.

When thisoccurs a stress hormone called cortisol is released by your adrenal glands toalert your body to doing what it needs to do to survive. Added to that isanother hormone secreted by your adrenal glands called adrenaline whichdirectly gets your body physically ready to deal with stress which can comefrom either fear or excitement.

As your cortisol and adrenaline rise, so too does dread and a part of your brain which deals with emotions, also referred to as your mammalian/middle brain (more on that later), called your amygdala becomes highly activated.

Your amygdala is a combination emotional sentinel and point guard rolled into one. If your amygdala senses this is a time for survival it can hijack you away from accessing the prefrontal part of your cerebral cortex, that helps you assess as situation, consider options and then make rational decisions. The hijack actually coincides with more blood flow going into your middle and then lower/reptile brain to take action to survive and away from going to your upper/human brain where you can think and consider options.

When an amygdala hijack causes blood flow to go more to your middle and lower brains an interesting thing happens to something called your Triune Brain.

Paul MacLean was a physician and neuroscientist who first coined the phrase Triune Brain to go along with his theory that we have three brains: an upper/human/thinking brain, a middle/mammalian/emotional brain, and a lower/reptile/fight or flight brain. He postulated that they developed through evolution and have learned to align with each other when were functioning at our best. They are kept in alignment when they are all aimed a future that were living into.

However, when a relatively predictable future becomes completely uncertain and an amygdala hijack occurs with resultant blood flow change, your three brains can become decoupled with each brain functions separately from each other. We even have metaphors that reflect that: wigged out, unglued, out of sorts, out of you mind, freaked out, etc. When that happens, you have entered into a state of dread.

When that amygdala hijack occurs and each of the three brains fend for themselves, the upper/human/thinking brain can flip into obsessive thinking (thinking the same thoughts repetitively), the middle/mammalian/emotional brain can flip into high anxiety (with dread causing it to flirt with terror and then panicky feelings), and the lower/reptilian/fight-flight-freeze can flip into compulsive repetitive behaviors where you run, become angry or just freeze in your tracks.

When thisoccurs, you have what I refer to as Triunal Rigidity, where the three brainshave become rigidly connected to each other after the future they were aimingtowards gets stripped away. Triunal Rigidity is what makes your mind brittleand prone to feeling fragile as if it could break and shatter (= lose yourmind). It is that feeling of brittleness leading to fragility leading toshattering that can cause a sense of impending doom, terror and panic.

What is thesolution to this?

That is what Irefer to as Triunal Agility where whatever uncertainty and unpredictability isthrown at you, you can pivot, realign with what you need to do and then takeaction. And if that action is a littleoff, your Triunal Agility can enable you to re-pivot and realign some more.

What is necessary to transform your brittle Triunally Rigid mind that is consumed by dread into a rapidly adapting Triunally Agile mind that can reason?

Lets use theCoronavirus as an example.

It is the following information regarding Covid-19:

Generalized non-factually founded reassurances or worse, consistently inconsistent messages from President Trump who doesnt appear to grasp the situation or even understand the virus rather than being assuring actually appear to increase uncertainty and dread, because he makes it difficult to believe him.

The person best qualified to deliver the message must be highly trained, experienced in such matters, calm, clear, with specific directions and someone we can believe. Dr. Anthony Fauci who is head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases appears to be the current go to person to advise us.

See Glossary of terms above

Read this article:
When Dread Becomes You - Thrive Global

CBD Cannabidiol (or cannabis)

Since CBD products hit the market, thousands of products hit the market, some good, some not good at all. If you are taking CBD, please check to see if your product meets label claims at CBDverify.com. To understand what they do when assaying products this is the assay of our 500 mg sleep CBD:

DESCRIPTION: PLANT HEALTH R.E.M. CBD

BOTTLE: 30 mil, 1 fl oz.

CBD CONTENT ON LABEL: 500 mg

RESULT: PASS

FINAL TEST RESULT

CBD TOTAL: 513.60 mg

CBG TOTAL: 3.04 mg

THC TOTAL: ZERO

Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive part of the marijuana plant and it is in only one of our products, Pachamama, which comes from Colorado. It meets the federal regulations of the amount of THC allowed in a CBD product. For anyone who may be tested in the work force, I would not allow them to get this product.

We have within us an endocannabinoid system which is made up of two types of CBD receptors CBD 1 and CBD 2. CBD 1 receptors are highly concentrated in the brain and other parts of the body and CBD 2 receptors are in the immune system and in the periphery. There are studies on CBD for the treatment and prevention of cancer through the CBD 2 receptors, regulating immune function. Not only does the research show promise with CBD in cancer patients, it also can help with nausea that comes with cancer treatment and can improve appetite.

There is also research on Multiple Sclerosis and Alzheimers Disease showing that there are more CBD receptors than in patients without either condition. It is called a compensatory response, so that, if a person with these conditions takes CBD, there is a stronger cellular response to repair.

There are contraindications with using CBD listed below:

1. If you are on medications, CBD can compete for liver pathways, leading to higher levels of the medication in your system (consult your physician)

2. It can raise liver enzymes in certain individuals, not most though. I believe this to be in patients that take multiple medications, however it can also be from a CBD product that is not organic and has pesticides and other chemicals in it. The last thing we should do is take a product for our health that is not clean, otherwise we are poisoning ourselves.

In our clinic, I prescribe CBD mainly for sleep, anxiety and pain as when CBD locks into our receptors it induces rest and relaxation as well as acting as an anti-inflammatory agent. We only carry products that are clean, meet label claims and the ones that we consistently get good clinical responses from and they are listed below.

1. The first one by Plant Health, REM 500 we prescribe for sleep.

2. The second one by Plant Health, Nutritional Tincture 2000 mg is full spectrum used mostly for pain.

3. Valo product is a capsule with 25 mg of CBD and 1 mg of Melatonin (works amazing for sleep in most patients)

4. The last one in the picture is from Pachamama in Colorado, which contains an FDA approved amount of THC, is full spectrum and they target pain with pepper, sleep with valerian, anti-inflammatory with turmeric and more.

Our topical CBD from Plant Health works wonders for local pain. Due to the fact that many CBD products do not work, have contaminants and dont meet label claims, CBD gets a bad name. Please only use reputable products where you can see the third-party testing for purity. From there dosing depends upon your needs and everyone doses slightly different to titrate to their benefit.

Dr. Theresa Ramsey is a practicing physician, speaker, lifestyle expert, author of the best-selling book, Healing 101: A Guide to Creating the Foundation for Complete Wellness & a guest expert on Arizonas top morning television show, Your Life A to Z, as their Medical Expert since 2007. Selected as a Certified Hormone Specialist, serving both local and out of state patients as her approach is Evidence Based and her prescribing is like nobody else in the valley when it comes to Quality of Life Enrichment as well as significant Aging Risk Reduction. Most physicians and lay people are uneducated on the safety and necessity of supporting our aging process which is considered a deficient state. Her prescribing is risk free. Dr. Ramsey has also been chosen as one of Phoenix Magazines Top Doc, was chosen as the Natural Choice Awards winning (1) Top Naturopathic Physician, (2) Top Womens Health Specialist and (3) Top Best Holistic M.D. in 2012 and 2013. She is also an eHow health expert. Dr. Ramsey elegantly bridges the gap between Allopathic & Naturopathic medicine as she has worked as an RN for 10 years before pursuing her career as a physician and appreciates what both sciences have to offer. The 10 years that she worked as a Registered Nurse was in Heart Surgery and ICU and then transitioned into Functional Medicine in 1996. An understanding of the cause of dis-ease is paramount in her education and inspiration for those seeking disease prevention and reversal. Her focus in her clinical practice is in Preventive Aging with Bio-Identical Hormone Replacement Therapy. Her second book, The Hormone Book covers all of the rich history through research on HRT prescribing and is anticipated to be released in the fall of 2020. https://revitalizeparadisevalley.com/: 480.970.0077.

The rest is here:
Benefits and Risks of Using CBD Products | Your Life Arizona - AZFamily

On this page:BasicsHormone TherapyNon-estrogen OptionsPerimenopause TreatmentSex After MenopauseNatural RemediesHot Flashes

Menopause symptoms getting in the way of living? There used to be only two treatment options: hormone therapy, or Just Deal With It (official Rx name, obviously). Thats far from the case now. Read on to find the right menopause solutions tailored specifically for you. And if you dont want to treat menopause, you dont have to. It's a normal phase of life, and the remedies are here for you only if you want 'em.

Menopause affects everyone uniquely. Its possible you could be in the menopause minority and experience a gradual spacing out and then stop of your periods, wonder what all the fuss is about, and feel positively liberated that you no longer have to shell out for tampons.

Or you may be one of the women who has hot flashes and night sweats. You could experience vaginal pain and urinary symptoms. Or you might be surprised at just how much your moods seem to shift along with your body. All of these menopause experiences are completely normal, and all are related to the drop in (or erratic behavior of) the reproductive hormones estrogen and progesterone.

Once you begin experiencing menopausal symptoms, it helps to find a clinician who has been trained specifically in menopause, whether its your gynecologist, PCP, or even another specialist you see who has received the training, such as an oncologist or reproductive endocrinologist. Youre looking for a pro who has certification from The North American Menopause Society (NAMS). The group has a function on its website where you can type in your zip code to search for a NAMS certified medical practitioner (NCMP) in your area.

People tend to have strong preconceptions about hormone therapy, or HT (previously called hormone replacement therapy, or HRT). But a lot of them are based on an outdated study from the Womens Health Initiative conducted in 2002, which implied that women who were put on HT had higher rates of heart attack, stroke, and breast cancer.

Turns out, the average age of the women enrolled in that study when they started HT was 64, while the average age most women have menopause symptoms and seek treatment is in their early fifties.

In the 17 years since the WHI hubbub, numerous new studies and reviews have shown that the safety of HT depends on how old you are when you start the hormones, your personal family history and other medical conditions, and the strength of the dosage.

The best time to begin (any type of) HT? The first time your symptoms start bugging you. The current recommendation for women without contraindicationssuch as a history of breast or uterine cancer (estrogen can help some breast cancer cells grow)is to start as early as possible on the lowest effective dose, and stay on it for the shortest time necessary.

The sooner you start taking hormones, the less potential risks they carry; these vary depending on your medical history but can include an increased risk of certain cancers, blood clots, and heart disease. Start right as menopausal symptoms become bothersome, and those risks significantly drop for most women.

It also helps when the hormones are administered transdermally, in lower doses, such as through a patch or gel or vaginally. As opposed to oral hormones, this method of delivery keeps the effects localized and therefore less likely to substantially affect other parts and systems of the body.

This is particularly the case for women in their 60s or ten years post menopause: For them, docs typically recommend lower-dose or more localized HT (such as vaginal-specific options) or nonhormonal medications (scroll down to read about SERMs and SSRIs).

Your NAMS-certified physician will discuss your particular symptoms and risks before prescribing any medication.

She may come to the conclusion that HT is not right for you, if you have a family history of breast, uterine, or ovarian cancer or heart attacks or blood clotsor if you are already over the age of 59, when risks of certain cancers, blood clots, and heart disease increase.

If youre low-risk, there are a variety of HT options available, but dont try any (or any meno treatment, for that matter) without first discussing with your doctor what other meds youre on.

Forty percent of women have vaginal issues during menopause. Prepare for such delightful things as dryness, irritation, pain during sex or exercise, and having to pee frequently and often.

Your doctor can help you find the right low-dose hormone therapy, localized around the vagina, if you only have vaginal and urinary symptoms. These include:

If youre really super-duper lucky, youll get symptoms that are vaginal and beyond! Oh yay!

This could mean hot flashes, sleep issues, mood swings, or bone loss. If this is you, youll likely want hormone therapy that isnt localized to the vagina.

As with contraceptive hormones, choosing the right hormone delivery method for menopause often comes down to personal preference. Some women like a patch they dont have to reapply as often, while others can't stand something stuck to them and go instead with gels or pills. The goal is finding something that feels natural for you.

Transdermal estradiol estrogen patch. Stick this on your lower belly or upper butt and get on with your life. Sold by the brands Estraderm and Vivelle.

Transdermal estrogen gel. Rub this gel, sold under the brand name Divigel, into the skin of your thigh each day and ahhhh, relief. It comes in varying strengths so you can experiment with your doctor to find the lowest effective dose.

Steroidal vaginal cream. This is not technically estrogen, but steroids that stimulate the nerves in vaginal tissue to help with sexual arousal. Steroids are hormones that affect, signal to, and act as catalysts for other hormonesin this case, for estrogen.

Look for the brand Interosa (prasterone, also known as dehydroepiandrosterone, or DHEA). It may help with depression and bone loss prevention as well.

Unfortunately, this cream is still off limits for women who cannot take estrogen, such as breast cancer survivors or women with a family history of breast cancer. And it can have adverse interactions with most psychiatric medications, including SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors), antipsychotics, sedatives, anticonvulsants, and sedatives, as well as other hormones such as estrogen and testosterone.

Oral estrogen and progesterone. For some women who are experiencing a barrage of systemic symptoms, a combination of oral estrogen and progesterone can be #treatmentgoals. The progesterone balances out the higher estrogen dose, helping to counteract the estrogen-related risks mentioned above.

These oral hormones do carry a larger risk for women with contraindications (such as a family history of breast, uterine, or ovarian cancer) than transdermal and vaginal hormones, because they tend to be prescribed at a higher dosagebut it is still considered low for most women who do not have contraindications and begin HT early. Specifically, women who start and undergo these treatments between the ages of 50-59 have a low risk compared to those who take them later. If you continue using them after 59, you should come in for more checkups to be monitored by your doctor.

Systemic hormone therapy can also cause spotting after menopause. Still, if youre on it and notice vaginal bleeding, talk to your doctor to make sure there isnt another cause.

Bioidentical hormones are hormones that are chemically similar in structure to hormones that naturally exist within the body. FDA-approved hormones for HT are, for practical reasons, bioidenticalotherwise, they would not be effective, because they would not work in the body.

But its not a medical phrase; "bioidentical hormones is mostly a marketing term for unregulated hormone products without a prescription. For example: companies selling unregulated yam creams and pharmacists whipping up their own (a big no!) compounded hormones (see Any non-prescription menopause treatments I can try? for more deets).

Its being used in the same way wellness, food, and beauty companies have co-opted the term all natural: Both sound good but are essentially meaningless labels with no real scientific definition or basis.

In the case of hormones, choosing something because it says bioidentical can be quite risky. The dosage is unregulated, so you simply dont know what youre getting. In fact, the term irks many doctors, as patients come to them after trying bioidentical hormones from an unreputable place and experiencing negative results.

The takeaway: If hormones are not FDA-approved, they are dangerous, whether they are bioidentical or not. There is no situation in which you should get hormones without a prescription. Ask your doctor for the FDA-approved hormones that are right for you.

As weve mentioned, there are various reasons people arent able to use estrogen, including certain preexisting health conditions or a genetic predisposition to breast cancer. Here are the most common no-estrogen options.

A SERM acts like and redirects estrogen to parts of the body that need it (see: bones, uterus) but not to the breasts. It can be a boon for women concerned about osteoporosis, because SERMs can also redirect existing estrogen to the bones, where it can help to prevent bone loss.

Some SERMssuch as Nolvadex, Soltamox, Tamoxen, Tamofen, Emblon, and Tamosin (all tamoxifen), and Evista (raloxifene)are even prescribed for the prevention and treatment of breast cancer. So, in all, SERMS can be a good option for breast cancer survivors, those with a family history of BC, or if youre at a high risk for bone loss or osteoporosis.

These increase the amount of serotonin in the brain by blocking its reabsorption. Though the exact relationship between estrogen, serotonin, and hot flashes is still being investigated, we do know that estrogen boosts serotonin production. When serotonin drops in menopause as a result of decreased estrogen, SSRIs have been found to reduce hot flashes and night sweats that can accompany the estrogen/serotonin deficit. These can be good options for women without psychological concerns who dont want to go on HT.

But! If you are experiencing emotional as well as physical symptoms (thanks, Lady M!), the beauty of an SSRI is it can knock out both. Estrogen increases production of the feel-good neurotransmitter serotonin; as it drops, you can have a steep decline in feelings of well-being and contentment. Not to mention crappier sleep. There can also be emotional stress as related to issues with sex and self-image. Enter: an antidepressant.

Do know that many psychiatric medications get served with a steaming side of sexual issues (such as lack of libido), so many women combine one with a low-dose vaginal product (as opposed to just higher-dose systemic HT). Its a balancing act that your doctor can help guide you through. The goal: the fewest symptoms, the lowest risk of side effects, and the best quality of life overall.

Another class of antidepressants used to treat anxiety, SSNRIs increase not just serotonin in the brain but also norepinephrine. This latter neurotransmitter is linked to learning, attentiveness, emotions, and sleep.

These are non-SSRIs that are also commonly prescribed for women during menopause.

If you are in the perimenopause part of menopausea years-long phase before you hit full meno in which your periods start getting wonkyconsider the hormonal options below if you are experiencing:

Both options were going to tell you about tap into the hormone progesterone, which can lighten heavy bleeding, lessen the length of time your period lasts (if its become prolonged), and even out your hormone levels. That latter part? Stabilized hormones = less extreme mood swings and sleep disruption.

Why choose one over the other? Its just personal preference.

Chant it with us (and Obama): Yes, we can!

The best treatment for menopausal dryness, irritation, and pain is an FDA-approved, low-dose vaginal estrogen (ring, gel, cream, or tablet). See deets on this above, in the section hormone therapy for vaginal symptoms.

If your vagina feels irritated even when youre not having sex and youd rather not go on HT, or you want more soothing, theres such a thing as a vaginal moisturizer. Yep, its like a daily, over-the-counter moisturizer you put on your face when your skin is dry, only its specifically formulated for your vagina and vulva.

You can go with an over-the-counter vaginal moisturizer or a lubricant. Its fine to use lube as moisturizer, if you find one you like. For both, heres how to pick a good one:

The brands Ah! Yes and Good Clean Love make a variety of moisturizers and lubes in this sweet spot of osmolality and pH.

Also remember: Sex is not just intercourse. Give other stuff a try!

Use menopause as an opportunity to explore other types of intimacy and pleasure. Outercourseany foreplay and sexual activities not dependent on penetration as the main eventcan be revelatory for women at any age.

Like most OTC supplements and tinctures that claim to help with medical issues, those for menopause are running around like its the Wild West! Here are a few things to know:

Remember: The FDA does not regulate supplements that sell without a prescription. The North American Menopause Society (NAMS) recently did a full review of unregulated supplements currently being marketed specifically for menopause, with the conclusion that they all did more harm than good. Black cohosh (the root of an herb), for example, was found to be no more effective than a placebo, and in some cases even caused liver damage.

Any hormone-product that you can buy without a prescription is dangerous and unregulated, even if it is a natural cream, gel, spray, or pill.

There are also compounded hormonescombinations of various estrogens and sometimes other hormones, which are often DIY recipesmixed by pharmacists, doctors, or other people trying to profit on menopause.

Theyre not a good idea: They arent mixed in labs, arent regulated by the FDA, and some have been found to contain hugely varied estrogen amounts, many at dangerously high levels that could cause blood clot. Others have so little estrogen, theyre a waste of money.

There are some standard vitamins not specifically marketed as menopause supps but that can be beneficial during this time.

For example, magnesium has been shown to aid sleep, and calcium can protect against bone loss. Getting enough calcium as you age can help prevent osteopororis; this is because estrogen is an instigator of osteoblasts, the cells that build bone.

Both of these well-tested vitamins are safe to add to your regimen if you are having sleep issues or not getting enough calcium from food alone. Calm Plus Calcium, which comes in a drink or gummies you can take before bed, has both.

These dried, powdered mushrooms and other plants may help with focus, alertness, memory, and mood. They have not been shown to have any ill effects and even help some people cut down on caffeine (which can contribute to insomnia in menopause).

MUDWTR is a tea that is a mix of chai herbs and spices as well as adaptogenic mushrooms and plants including lionsmane, cordyceps, reishi, chaga, turmeric, and cacao.

With zero sugar and less caffeine than coffee, it is a safeand tasty!morning substitute that (because of the adaptogens) may also help with some menopausal symptoms, such as mood swings and brain fog, according to recent studies.

Ye olde weed may be a political lightning rod, but products containing its compounds are relatively safe sleep and sex abettors. The two main compounds in marijuana are:

Some people like cannabis for menopause because it has fewer dangerous side effects and contraindications and a lower risk of being addictive than many prescription drugs for sleep or sex problems.

The product options for both CBD and THC include:

If youre trying an edible or tincture for the first time, start with a small dose and see how you feel, whether it is THC, CBD, or a combination of the two. A vaginal lube or moisturizer with THC is unlikely to give you the giggles and the munchies; instead, itll feel slightly numbing, warm, or tingling, effects some women find help with arousal.

In states where marijuana is legal, you can find products with THC from companies such as Foria which will direct you to dispensaries and other suppliers in your state for purchase. For online CBD products, we like Lord Jones. Its CBD goodies are shippable to states even where marijuana is illegal.

If you dont need HT or other meds and are looking for help for mild or occasional flashes, your best bet is to chill out! Like, litrally (said with British accent). Get cool with the basics (drink ice water, sleeping with the windows open) or these six tricks, no Rx necessary.

No matter which menopause symptoms you experience, know that relief is available. That said, your body is experiencing a naturalwe repeat, naturalchange. We hope this guide helps you assess talking points when discussing treatment options with your doctor. And if you decide you want to embrace your symptoms sans-treatment, we salute you.

Menopause care is different than other types of womens health care, because it is less important that the doctor is an ob/gyn and more important that she has NAMS (North American Menopause Society) certification. (This doc could also be your primary care physician, fertility specialist, reproductive endocrinologist, or even your cancer specialist, for example.) Generally, doctors, including gynecologists, receive little to no menopause training in medical school. NAMS offers its own training and certification specifically for menopause; you can do a search on their site by zip code to find all of the NAMS certified physicians in your area.

It means hormones mixed together without any medical or regulatory supervision; even if done by a pharmacist or an entrepreneurial doctor, these are not FDA-regulated or -approved. Creams, gels, supplements, or any other product containing compounded hormones have been found to contain wildly varying amounts of estrogen, which is dangerous. Too much can cause blood clots and other avoidable health issues, and too little means theyre ineffective and a waste of moolah. FDA-approved prescription hormones are both safer and more affordable: Your doc will make sure the dosage is kept as low as possible, while your insurance will likely cover the cost.

The best way to get vitamins during menopause is through a balanced diet. However, if you are concerned that you may be lacking, have your doctor check your blood work to determine if there is something specific you need. Just feeling a little run down and want to make sure your bases are covered? The Smarty Pants brand of multivitamin gummies has a Masters variety for women over 50, whch contains an arsenal of energizing vitamins such as B and D that menopausal women sometimes lack, and which are often not found in basic multis. They also boast DHA, omega-3, and CoQ10 for heart health, vitamin K for bones, lutein for eyes, as well as your daily RDA of everything else youd expect in a good womens multi.

There are many cannabis solutions for sexual dysfunction, so you definitely dont have to start inhaling to get your groove back. First, lets clarify: THC is the psychotropic compound in marijuana that can make you high and only legal in certain states. CBD is the part of the plant that relaxes you, almost like a mild sedative, to help you get in a chill mood without the high. In states where marijuana is legal, you can find lube, vaginal moisturizers, and low-dose edibles with THC from the brand Foria. (A topical vaginal product with THC isnt likely to get you high; it should feel slightly numbing, warming, or tingling, which some women find helpful for arousal.) In states where marijuana is still illegal, you can find the same wide array of products with CBD only; check out the brand Lord Jones.

See the original post here:
Menopause Treatment: Hormone Therapy & Other Remedies - HealthCentral.com

The World Health Organization just declared the novel coronavirus a pandemic.

In the past few weeks, weve seen schools closed, events canceled, transportation services halted and stores emptied of sanitation products. These disruptions are not caused by the outbreak itself but rather peoples response to the outbreak -- a public panic or "mass hysteria."

"When our wellbeing is endangered, we are easily influenced by behaviors of others who face similar endangerment," Dr. Shinwoo Kang, a psychiatrist in New York City, told ABC News. "Although technological and social advances have allowed people to be better prepared, it has also created as much anxiety, amplified by incorrect statements or egregious opinions."

When panic is present, people tend to become doubtful, fearful, pessimistic. Panicked people subconsciously make reactionary decisions to avert risk without stopping to think about the consequences of their actions. We have witnessed this first hand -- residents stocking up on hand sanitizer, toilet paper and bleach in bulk, or hoarding face masks needed by hospitals for medical personnel -- despite repeated announcements from health agencies not to do so.

Shelves of paper products sit nearly empty at a Target in Alexandria, Virginia, March 12, 2020.

The massive stock market volatility of the last few weeks, including the worst week since the 2008 financial crisis, is another example.

A study from Oxford University published in the journal Nature Neuroscience helps explain what panic does to the human brain. Researchers found that when panic and anxiety are present, these stimuli create a glitch in the brains higher-order decision-making center. More simply said, anxiety and panic can cloud our judgment.

Individuals under high stress may struggle to gauge environmental cues that could help them avoid worse outcomes, according to the Oxford researchers.

Additionally, neuroscientists at the University of Pittsburgh have found that anxiety and panic disrupt neurons in the prefrontal cortex -- the area of the brain responsible for decision making -- and that can affect long-term planning, understanding rules, calculating the consequences of various risks and rewards, regulating emotions and problem solving.

"Panic leads your brain to think with emotion rather than intellectual higher processes of your brain," said Mona Degan, a primary care physician in Los Angeles. "This can lead to irrational decisions, especially if we are part of a large group of people trying to do the same thing, such as stocking up on household supplies, which leads to unnecessary shortages."

Panic prevention should be a crucial goal of emergency management, because panic is contagious and destructive.

A woman covering her face walks down Whitehall, as a meeting takes place addressing the government's response to the coronavirus outbreak at Cabinet Office in London, March 12, 2020.

Outbreaks from recent history have evoked similar responses, including Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2002 and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2012.

So why does mass hysteria impede more appropriate responses to containment?

"Anxiety triggers our bodies to go into flight-or-fight mode, a natural human response to danger, which in turn secretes cortisol," a stress hormone, Degan explained. When activated, stress hormones can hinder a person's immune system.

Excess anxiety also can affect other hormones, including adrenaline, said Dr. Alexander Sanchez, a psychiatrist in New York City.

"This imbalance of hormones can lead to the areas [of the brain] responsible for making responsible decisions, like the prefrontal cortex, to lose function," Sanchez added. "People lose sense of proportion and start to imagine the worst possible scenario, even if it is unlikely."

It also can lead to xenophobia and discrimination, even though, as Degan reminded us, "This virus does not infect people based off race -- anyone is susceptible."

"It is important to keep calm and act logically in the face of a potential crisis. Take a moment to take a deep breath," Sanchez said. "Read the recommendations from a trustworthy news source, develop a rational plan and then try not to dwell on all the possibilities.

"What you should do instead is all of the things that we know help people to relax in general: Get good sleep, eat well and exercise if you are healthy enough."

Yalda Safai M.D., M.P.H., is a psychiatry resident in New York City and a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit.

See more here:
How to avoid panicking with coronavirus outbreak - ABC News

"Develop a rational plan and then try not to dwell on all the possibilities."

By Dr. Yalda Safai

ABC News The World Health Organization just declared the novel coronavirus a pandemic.

In the past few weeks, weve seen schools closed, events canceled, transportation services halted and stores emptied of sanitation products. These disruptions are not caused by the outbreak itself but rather peoples response to the outbreak a public panic or mass hysteria.

When our wellbeing is endangered, we are easily influenced by behaviors of others who face similar endangerment, Dr. Shinwoo Kang, a psychiatrist in New York City, told ABC News. Although technological and social advances have allowed people to be better prepared, it has also created as much anxiety, amplified by incorrect statements or egregious opinions.

When panic is present, people tend to become doubtful, fearful, pessimistic. Panicked people subconsciously make reactionary decisions to avert risk without stopping to think about the consequences of their actions. We have witnessed this first hand residents stocking up on hand sanitizer, toilet paper and bleach in bulk, or hoarding face masks needed by hospitals for medical personnel despite repeated announcements from health agencies not to do so.

The massive stock market volatility of the last few weeks, including the worst week since the 2008 financial crisis, is another example.

A study from Oxford University published in the journal Nature Neuroscience helps explain what panic does to the human brain. Researchers found that when panic and anxiety are present, these stimuli create a glitch in the brains higher-order decision-making center. More simply said, anxiety and panic can cloud our judgment.

Individuals under high stress may struggle to gauge environmental cues that could help them avoid worse outcomes, according to the Oxford researchers.

Additionally, neuroscientists at the University of Pittsburgh have found that anxiety and panic disrupt neurons in the prefrontal cortex the area of the brain responsible for decision making and that can affect long-term planning, understanding rules, calculating the consequences of various risks and rewards, regulating emotions and problem solving.

Panic leads your brain to think with emotion rather than intellectual higher processes of your brain, said Mona Degan, a primary care physician in Los Angeles. This can lead to irrational decisions, especially if we are part of a large group of people trying to do the same thing, such as stocking up on household supplies, which leads to unnecessary shortages.

Panic prevention should be a crucial goal of emergency management, because panic is contagious and destructive.

Outbreaks from recent history have evoked similar responses, including Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2002 and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2012.

So why does mass hysteria impede more appropriate responses to containment?

Anxiety triggers our bodies to go into flight-or-fight mode, a natural human response to danger, which in turn secretes cortisol, a stress hormone, Degan explained. When activated, stress hormones can hinder a persons immune system.

Excess anxiety also can affect other hormones, including adrenaline, said Dr. Alexander Sanchez, a psychiatrist in New York City.

This imbalance of hormones can lead to the areas [of the brain] responsible for making responsible decisions, like the prefrontal cortex, to lose function, Sanchez added. People lose sense of proportion and start to imagine the worst possible scenario, even if it is unlikely.

It also can lead to xenophobia and discrimination, even though, as Degan reminded us, This virus does not infect people based off race anyone is susceptible.

It is important to keep calm and act logically in the face of a potential crisis. Take a moment to take a deep breath, Sanchez said. Read the recommendations from a trustworthy news source, develop a rational plan and then try not to dwell on all the possibilities.

What you should do instead is all of the things that we know help people to relax in general: Get good sleep, eat well and exercise if you are healthy enough.

Yalda Safai M.D., M.P.H., is a psychiatry resident in New York City and a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit.

Original post:
How to avoid panicking in coping with coronavirus outbreak - Abccolumbia.com

In India, one woman is diagnosed with breast cancer every four minutes, accounting for 25 to 32 percent of all female cancers across the country. Furthermore, only 60 percent of women who are treated for breast cancer, survive for at least five years post-treatment in India as compared to 89 percent in the US. While these statistics paint a grim picture, a Bengaluru-based startup, OncoStem, is trying to turn things around.

Dr Manjiri Bakre, has a postgraduate doctoral degree in cell biology, OncoStem was built with a vision to develop innovative and affordable tests to personalise cancer treatment.

Dr. Bakres earliest encounter with breast cancer was during her PhD days, when a friend was diagnosed. But since it was diagnosed early, the tumour could be removed. However, soon the cancer relapsed, and spread to multiple organs. It was so sudden; we tried helping by sending her for various therapies, even non-traditional ones, but nothing helped, she says.

The sudden demise of her friend got Dr Bakre thinking about why, despite early detection, so many patients like her friend were unable to survive? When the tumors are small and detected early, typically, such patients should be doing well, she says.

During this time, companies in the West were developing tests that could analyse tumor biology and determine the risk of relapse in patients with early-stage breast cancer. These tests could help personalise a patients treatment plan based on their individual risk of relapse.

However, since these tests were very expensive, Dr. Bakre approached doctors in India and pitched her idea of developing a home-grown and affordable version of a similar test, which eventually led to the birth of OncoStem in 2011.

OncoStems flagship product, CanAssist Breast, is a machine learning-based prognostic test that helps personalise treatment for early-stage breast cancer patients who are hormone receptor-positive (HR+) and HER2-negative. It took 7+ years to develop, validate and get international accreditations for CanAssist Breast before going to market.

CanAssist Breast analyses a patented combination of five biomarkers, digitises historical medical records of patients, feeds into an AI-algorithm and produces a risk score. This score is used to categorise patients based on the risk of cancer recurrence clearly as either 'low or high' with no grey area in between. Patients classified as low-risk can potentially avoid chemotherapy, its costs, and side-effects. CanAssist Breast is performed in OncoStem's NABL and CAP-accredited laboratory in Bangalore. The product is also CE marked.

If the patient is low-risk as per CanAssist Breast, they can avoid chemotherapy and in turn its associated side-effects and financial burden. Chemotherapy can affect multiple different body parts causing nausea, hair loss, infection, anemia, appetite changes, fatigue nerve and muscle problems, urinary bladder and kidney problems, and fertility problems. Febrile neutropenia, a life-threatening complication, is a serious side effect of many forms of chemotherapy.

CanAssist Breast makes customised treatment possible by analysing the patients tumor in depth, and providing a patient specific report indicating if the patient has low or high risk of cancer recurrence. This clear distinction of patients based on risk of cancer recurrence allows doctors to devise chemotherapy treatment in tune with the prognosis, maintaining a balance between the benefits and side effects.

Most tests available in the market that help decide if chemotherapy is required, are from the USA and in turn prohibitively expensive and not validated on Indian patients, Dr Bakre says, adding that CanAssist Breast, launched recently, is the only test validated on Indian patients and is also the most affordable option available currently anywhere in the world at 1/5th the cost of competing tests available in the US.

OncoStem performed a study which is published in Indian Journal of Surgical Oncology, to assess the impact of CanAssist Breast on treatment of early-stage breast cancer patients. In it, they found that CanAssist Breast helped 70 percent of early-stage breast cancer patients avoid chemotherapy. Not only did these patients avoid the physical hardship, but also the financial toxicity of chemotherapy. Moreover, with 93 percent of doctors complying with the test recommendation of avoiding chemotherapy, showed that physician confidence in the test is high.

Since its founding, OncoStem has grown leaps and bounds. Based in Bengaluru, Dr Bakre today has a team of 35 people, including Pathologists, scientists and statisticians, who worked on CanAssist Breast and continue to work on new products and a sales team spread across the country.

However, this upward trajectory had to overcome its share of challenges, particularly when it came to fundraising.

Finding space to set up her laboratory to get the deep science based R&D work going was also a tough task. After months of searching for the ideal space, her investors kindly offered to use part of their office space to set up the laboratory.

Next came the daunting task of working with hospitals and doctors, especially when the company had no track record. Convincing the doctors of the science was the key to get them interested in working with us. I must have approached 50-60 hospitals to work on developing and validating CanAssist Breast, which ultimately led to 10+ large hospitals signing up.

OncoStem's mission is optimising treatment for cancer patients and helping to avoid overtreatment. Dr Bakre says that every member of her team has had interactions with their user base, and has direct knowledge of what information doctors are looking to get from their test, how to improve the user experience, etc. We also are in constant touch with our patients to counsel them, explain the test and follow up on them. OncoStem wants real world evidence of how the test is performing. So they ask patients who took the test if their treatment was as per the test result (i.e no chemotherapy if they were low risk), and also how patients are faring. OncoStem uses this data to publish new clinical utility and decision impact studies.

In the near future, OncoStem plans to expand access to CanAssist Breast to South East Asia & Middle East, while working on the complete automation of CanAssist Breast so that it can be packaged as a Kit in the future. We are also working on developing new tests for two additional cancers and partnering with hospitals across India to clinically validate these tests. We currently have a solution for hormone-positive breast cancer that is already in the market and are working on another subtype of breast cancer as well as ovarian cancer, she concludes.

Read more here:
This diagnostics startup is revolutionising cancer treatment in India - YourStory

Photo: Philipp Nemenz | Getty Images

How to Boost Your Immune System During the Coronavirus Outbreak

The following article is written by Ben Angel. Author of the book, Unstoppable: A 90-Day Plan to Biohack Your Mind and Body for Success. Buy it now from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | IndieBound. And be sure to order The Unstoppable Journal, the only journal of its kind based on neuroscience, psychology and biohacking to help you reach your goals.

As we all grow accustomed to life in the age of novel coronavirus COVID-19, and scientists continue working on antivirals and vaccines,many experts are suggestingthe public take a holistic approach to general health maintenance. And as biohackers know better than most, positiveimmune responsecan beessential to staying healthy.While the following suggestionsare not ways to prevent you from contracting the virus, they areeasyways to keep yourself as healthy as possible.

As noted in a recent studyfrom the Sleep Foundation, "Without sufficient sleep, your body makes fewer cytokines, a type of protein that targets infection and inflammation, effectively creating an immune response. Cytokines are both produced and released during sleep, causing a double whammy if you skimp on shut-eye. Chronic sleep loss even makes the flu vaccine less effective by reducing your bodys ability to respond."

onsequently, the study advises taking two 30-minute-or-less daily napsto help mitigatesleep deprivation's effects on the immune system. But if you're having a difficult time getting to sleep, you can try the many binaural beats found on YouTube (Jody Hattons Power Napsis a good place to start)to help grab some winks on your coffee break.

Getting rid of sugar biohacks your immune system by removing a food source for the bad bacteria in your gut that can kill off your good bacteria. Autoimmune problems anddigestive issues are telltale signs of gut imbalance. Ideally, your gut should be 85 percentgood bacteria or probiotics.

You can check for gut dysbiosis through gut-microbiome tests from companies like Thryve Inside, as well as take stock of what youre eating on a daily basis. Fermented foods like sauerkraut, kombucha and kimchi can all help repopulate the good bacteria in your gutas well, leaving you with more energy and vitality.

Its been known for centuries that fasting has been used as a health protocol. Paracelsus, a great healer in the Western tradition, wrote 500 years ago that,Fasting is the greatest remedy, the physician within. In 2014, Dr. Valter Longo of the University of Southern California discovered that fasting for threedays (having nothing but water) could essentially reset the immune system. As summarized on Humann.com, holding off on eating for at least 16-18 hours after your last meal allowsyour bodys attention to become "focused on the current immune cells, recycling them and getting rid of the damaged cells. This means that during the fast, your body is running lean and mean with its white blood cells."

This practice, of course, should only be done if youre already healthy. But provided that's the case, who wouldnt want more time to completeprojects at workand get healthier at the same time?

Stress causes an inflammatory response within the body that can greatly affect your fight-or-flight response by releasing too much of the stress hormone cortisol. It also leaves us more vulnerable to infections and disease, both in and out of the office. That's why mindfully meditating has become a must forany biohacking entrepreneurs. There arevarious forms of mindfulness practices, ranging from the slow-moving poses ofyoga and tai chi to myriad breathing techniques. And arecentstudyinTranslational Psychiatry adds that "there seems to be something intrinsic about meditation itself that can shift gene expression and even boost mood over time."

Many airlines are now monitoring travelers's health before and after flights. According to the CDC, those with no respiratory symptoms do not need to wear a medical mask. The CDC also recommends the use of masks for people who have symptoms of the virus and for those caring for individuals who have symptoms, such as cough and fever.

In his book, Cockpit Confidential, author Patrick Smithstates that in an airplane, Between 94 and 99.9 percent of airborne microbes are captured, and theres a total changeover of air every two or three minutes far more frequently than occurs in offices, movie theatersor classrooms.

This is all the more reason why taking your vitamins during stressful times is important, since many of our essential minerals and vitamins can become depleted during stress. Vitamins C,B and D, as well as zinc,all support your immune system. Research shows that zinc alone can help keep inflammation at bay so that your immune response is better supported.

Related: Coronavirus and a Looming RecessionHow to Raise Capital in Uncertain Times

Although we are in uncertain times, we dont have to wait to see if we are healthy enough to overcome any type of sickness or disease. By implementing some of these holistic steps to boost your immune system, it will inevitably be a win-win situation for not only your health and well-being, but for keeping your business running like a well-oiled machine.Bottom line: Dont panic, and take advice from the medical professionals who are specialists in this area.

This article solely reflects the opinion of the author and is not intended as an alternative to recommended official government guidelines. For more updates and information about the novel coronavirus, visit the CDC's website.

Are you ready to become unstoppable?

Visit http://www.areyouunstoppable.com and take your FREE 60-second online quiz now. By answering a series of simple questions, my software will analyze your results and provide you with a comprehensive report that will indicate your identity type and lead you to the tools and tips you need to close that gap between who you are and who you could be. Take the quiz to get started!

Related:Amazon Asks All Employees to Work From Home#4 Tips On How To Effectively Pitch Your Story To The Media HousesDelivery Apps, Ride Hailing Firms Call For Caution Amid Coronavirus Scare

See the original post:
How to Boost Your Immune System During the Coronavirus Outbreak - Thehour.com

Friday the 13th and Fear of Coronavirus: The Positive Mindset I Hope We'll Adopt

On average, there is a Friday the thirteenth every 212 days. Such a day occurs in any month that begins with a Sunday. Fear of this day has been given the scientific name, paraskevidekatriaphobia, from the Greek words for Friday, thirteen, and fear.

By contrast, we dont yet have a scientific name for fear of coronavirus, but that makes such fear no less real. Or less dangerous.

Sophie Trudeau, wife of the Canadian prime minister, has tested positive for coronavirus. The Capitol, White House, and Supreme Court have been closed to the public.

US stocks had their worst day since the 1987 stock market crash. The NCAA canceled its basketball tournaments for the first time in history. All eleven Disney theme parks in North America, Europe, and Asia have been closed. The PGA has canceled the Players Championship and the next three events on the schedule.

These are frightening days, indeed.

One psychologist notes, Fear influences how we react to media coverage of health hazards. In times of anxiety, we tend to pay more attention to threat-related information, which drives up our anxiety and distress.

This bias for threat can exacerbate our reaction to the disease, leading to panic. And panic is an irrational fear reaction that, by definition, your bodys reaction and adrenaline response take over from your ability to actually rationally evaluate the situation.

Responding appropriately to fear is therefore vital not just for our psychological wellbeing but for our physical health as well.

According to Cleveland Clinic, stress causes our bodies to produce greater levels of the hormone cortisol and can cause anxiety and depression. These can lead to elevated inflammation that can compromise our immune system.

Stress also decreases the bodys lymphocytesthe white blood cells that help fight infection. The lower our lymphocyte level, the more we are at risk for viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

Since, as one professor notes, the main way we relate to information about the world is through feelings and gut intuitions, it is vital that we focus on objective medical advice and practical steps we can take today.

And it is vital that we turn to resources that can provide peace we cannot produce ourselves.

This week, weve focused on ways the Christian faith uniquely helps us in times of crisis such as the coronavirus pandemic. Weve discussed Jesus responses to our prayers, his invitation to trust him with our fears, the power that comes from submitting to the power of God, and the relevance and hope found in Christian community.

Unfortunately, many in our culture believe we have a binary choice: we can trust God or we can trust science, but we cannot do both. This is a false dichotomy.

Scientists use minds and abilities given to them by the God who calls us to steward his creation with excellence (Genesis 2:15; Philippians 4:8). Christianity has made dramatic contributions to the development of hospitals and the advancement of medical care.

According to a University of Chicago study, 76 percent of doctors say they believe in God and 55 percent say their religious beliefs influence their practice of medicine.

It is a mistake for scientists to discount Gods wisdom, just as it is a mistake for Christians to discount scientific wisdom. The Great Physician uses physicians in his continued ministry on earth.

In John 4, it says that Jesus had to pass through Samaria (v. 4). As you may know, Jews typically avoided Samaria on their way from Judea to Galilee and vice versa.

But Jesus went where other Jews would not go. In fact, had to translates a Greek word meaning must or to be necessary. Every time we find this word in Johns Gospel, it indicates divine direction and necessity (cf. 3:7, 14, 30; 9:4; 10:16; 12:34; 20:9).

Jesus had to pass through Samaria because his Father sent him to those who could not or would not come to him. Our Lord now continues his earthly ministry through us. We are his hands and feet, the physical expression of his spiritual presence (1 Corinthians 12:27).

As a result, here is the positive mindset I hope well adopt: lets join God as he is already at work in this crisis.

He calls physicians just as he calls pastors. He uses their expertise to advance his healing ministry in our broken world. Lets pray for them, encourage them, and follow their guidance.

In addition, he calls us to use our gifts, abilities, resources, and influence in proactive ways as he leads and empowers us. People may be more open to their need for God now than they were a month ago. They may be more aware of their mortality and limitations. They may be more willing to seek help. And they may be more open to our witness and compassion.

The coronavirus pandemic is indeed unique and frightening., but it also presents a unique opportunity to take Christ to our frightened culture. The God who redeems all he allows wants to redeem this physical threat for eternal spiritual good.

How can you join him today?

Publication date: March 13, 2020

Photo courtesy: Getty Images/Elena Volf

For more from the Denison Forum, please visit http://www.denisonforum.org.

The Daily Article Podcast is Here!

Click to Listen

The rest is here:
Friday the 13th and Fear of Coronavirus: The Positive Mindset I Hope We'll Adopt - Christianheadlines.com

Varicose veins are incredibly common especially among adult women and they are also distinct in appearance: Blue, purple-tinted twists and turns underneath the skin, which usually take shape on the legs. For some people, varicose veins are merely a cosmetic issue (that can easily and quickly be fixed, thanks to advancing technologies and approvals by the Food and Drug Administration). While for others, the presence of these swollen, enlarged veins can bring on a host of painful side effects.

Here, we asked a handful of experts to explain everything about varicose veins, including what they are in the first place, why they form, and the potential risk factors that contribute to their development. If you're an adult of any age but especially if you've ever taken oral contraceptives this is what you need to know about varicose veins.

In simple terms, varicose veins are veins that become enlarged, twisted, and pooled with blood (which gives them their distinct bluish, purple-colored appearance). Technically speaking, "varicose veins are a condition where the deeper, large veins of the legs stop working normally and cause the vein to back up with blood, [thereby] becoming stretched out and dilated," explains George Skandamis, a board-certified dermatologist in Ohio.

The result of this backlog is swelling of the veins, which causes them to become visible on the surface of the skin. Varicose veins are often diagnosable simply by their appearance, although your doctor may use an ultrasound to confirm that the valves aren't working properly.

Varicose veins can range in severity from thin, threadlike veins (spider veins) to "deeper vessels called reticular veins which appear as medium-sized bluish veins under the skin," explains Laura Haygood, a board-certified dermatologist in Tyler, Texas. "The largest deep connecting varicose veins are not usually visible unless special ultrasound devices are used. " Varicose veins are most commonly found on the lower leg and inner thighs, as well as the shins, calves, and ankles (we'll explain why).

For some people, varicose veins are purely a cosmetic issue. For others, however, varicose veins can cause potentially debilitating physical symptoms like pain, aching, cramping, and restless legs. They might also cause the skin to become irritated or itchy, and some research suggests these symptoms can potentially worsen in warmer weather.

To understand what causes veins to become varicosed, it helps to first understand the body's venous system. Our veins, when functioning properly, operate as one-way streets: Moving blood from our peripheries (legs, arms, everywhere else) back to the heart.

Healthy veins "have little trap-door valves that don't allow blood to go backward," Skandamis explains. "When the vein is overworked from having to push blood up the body against gravity, the valves seals become leaky and blood is allowed to go backward, leading to the vein becoming enlarged."

This explains why varicose veins almost always occur on the legs because when we're standing or sitting, our veins have to work against gravity to do their job. "As gravity pulls everything down, veins tend to accumulate blood and it becomes harder for blood to travel upwards back towards the heart," says Danny Del Campo, a board-certified dermatologist in Chicago. "As time goes on, this backup of pressure leads to collapse of valves in the veins."

Varicose veins often develop as part of the aging process, after years of "increased venous pressure caused by standing or sitting in one position for prolonged periods," explains Haygood.

Other potential risk factors for developing varicose veins include, "family history, pregnancy, lack of exercise, and weight gain," she says.

Everyone, but especially those who are pregnant and/or have had more than one child, are at a higher risk for developing varicose veins than the general public. In fact, varicose veins affect nearly twice as many women as men, and spider veins may be an issue for half of all women, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Office on Women's Health. Why?

Read the rest here:
Varicose Veins: Everything You Need to Know About How They Form Expert Advice - Allure

Two bills that would affect transgender Idahoans are moving through the Idaho Legislature. KPVI spoke with two transgender women, and a doctor specializing in transgender patients, about the legislation.

Meet Katie Burdick.

She works at a local call center and moved to Pocatello at 18 years-old. Burdick says she first knew she was a girl at four-years-old.

I had this epiphany, says Burdick. I believeclose to my exact words were: Mom. Im a girl.

But while Burdicks mom is super accepting today, at the time, she wasnt.

She wasnt too keen on it then, I was young and it was a very conservative time, says Burdick.

I had two parents who love me, but they didnt understand.

20 year-old Rosetta Roberts had a similar experience.

I dont really talk to my family anymore because I dont have that much acceptance from them, says Roberts. They still mis-gender me. My mom tries to gender me correctly, which I greatly appreciate, but it still hurts and I avoid her.

Roberts is an Idaho State University student double-majoring in computer science and applied mathematics. She hopes to one day be a professor.

She says she didnt realize she was transgender until 17-years-old, when she moved out of her parents home.

Id heard about it [transgender people], but I had the misconception that they were just men wearing dresses at the time.

Even though she didnt know the word for it, she knew something was wrong.

I started having dysphoria around when I started to hit puberty and things just didnt feel right, says Roberts.

I felt like my body was fighting me and that it wasn't going the direction that I wanted.

House Bill 500

January 19, 2015 and April 23, 2018 are significant dates for Burdick and Roberts.

Roberts says April 23 is more important to her than her birthday.

"That's when my life turned around, that's when I started feeling happy," says Roberts.

Thats the date she started hormone treatments to become a woman.

Very quickly I felt a lot better in the head, says Roberts. Its also had visual effects on my appearance, which Ive grown to love. I love my body now. I still sometimes struggle with not loving my body but Im usually pretty confident now.

For Burdick, January 19 was the start of what would become a long medical journey.

Ive always wanted to be as womanly as I can, so at 24, 25, 26, the hormones werent really taking and so I was kind of still mildly depressed, says Burdick. But about a year ago they started to take effect. From an emotional standpoint I was so much happier.

Both women are now living their most authentic lives, but are worried about legislation like House Bill 500 which would ban transgender women and girls from female sports.

"I think it's archaic and almost draconian," says Burdick.

Representative Barbara Ehardt of Idaho Falls is the bill's sponsor.

She says the legislation is about protecting women and girls.

"It's been disheartening to watch through the years this slow but fast infiltration of biological boys and men participating in women's sports," says Ehardt.

Ehardt cant name an active Idaho case of a transgender woman or girl taking advantage of her strength in female sports, but says its only a matter of time before it happens.

She points to an active lawsuit in Connecticut in which three girls are suing two transgender sprinters who have frequently outperformed their cisgender competitors, according to NBCs Connecticut affiliate.

(You can read more about that case here: https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/girls-sue-to-block-participation-of-transgender-athletes/2222777/)

The NCAA and the Idaho High School Activities Association lets transgender girls and women to play on girls or womens teams if theyve been on testosterone suppression drugs for at least a year.

Ehardt says thats not enough. House Bill 500 sites a 2019 study from the Karolinska Institute which found that "Muscle strength, size and composition following 12 months of gender-affirming treatment in transgender individuals: retained advantage for the transwomen.

Doctor Neil Ragan has specialized in transgender care for seven years, and he now sees around 143 transgender patients from across southeastern Idaho. He pushes back on the Karolinska study sited in House Bill 500, saying thisissue is more nuanced thanhow it's being approached.

In my opinion they're picking and choosing, says Dr. Ragan. And you can find a study that will support any position that you want to take."

What I have observed with my own transgender women on estrogen is that their body strength clearly declines, says Dr. Ragan.

He also points out that theres a broad range of natural strength in both the male and female sex.

Burdick can relate to this.

Even though I was born with a male chromosome the hormones can work wonders, says Burdick. There are cis-gender women who are stronger than me and Im stronger than some cis-gender women.

The bill also includes a section about establishing an athlete's sex if its called into question.

The bill text says:

A student may establish sex by presenting assigned physician's statement that shall indicate the student's sex based solely on:

Dr. Ragan and other transgender advocates worry these examinations could be invasive.

Ehardt calls this a false narrative and misguided. She claims the test would be no more invasive than a routine physical, a cheek swab or a urine test.

But Dr. Ragan says it isnt always that simple.

These exams may not prove anything. There is such a thing as an intersex condition, disorders of sexual development, babies are born and you cant tell initially what sex or what gender they are. Sometimes that is an adrenal issuethere are people who have chromosomal abnormalities, says Dr. Ragan.

"The diversity in human biology is astonishing and I think that when we start trying to legislate who fits into what category, we're going to have difficulty because there will be people who dont fit neatly into either categories."

Ehardt argues that sex cannot be fluid. We are not taking away your ability to identify. You can still identify however you want. But you will have to compete under the category of your biological sex.

Roberts says it's about letting people pursue their dreams.

"I dont want these people to be blocked from their dreams. I myself have dreams if I was blocked from my dreams I would be really really hurt. I don't think transgender people in sports should be blocked."

House Bill 509

Burdick destroyed her childhood photos.

"At first it was like almost anger but then it very quickly went into like a peace and serenity of 'this is gone now'," she says.

Burdicks parents wouldnt allow her to transition, so she was forced to go through male puberty.

"It was just a part of me that I'm like 'I don't even want to look."

Roberts was also forced to grow up in a boy's body.

It made me depressed and I felt more like my body was a vehicle for my head than like a part of me. It felt like puberty was destroying my body.

Roberts can't change her past, but after a 2018 court ruling, she could change the sex on her birth certificate, which saysprotects her frombeing outed.

"One of the big problems with being trans, is that if people find out, a lot of people often become discriminatory," says Roberts.

Blackfoot Rep. Julianne Young sponsored House Bill 509, which would ban changes to sex on birth certificate after a year.

She says this would protect the state's population records.

In a statement Young says:

"Safeguarding the accuracy of our vital records is a vital part of protecting the public health and safety. In addition, many public and private policies and contracts rely on a biologically informed definition of sex.

Dr. Ragan doesnt agree with that argument.

"The sheer number of transgender patients...the number is so small it's not going to significantly skew the demographics."

Many transgender people change theirsex on other documents like drivers licenses or social security documents.

I haveall my insurance cards changed. I have legal name changed. An affidavit from Dr. Ragan saying Im legally female, says Burdick.

Dr. Ragan believes its vital that transgender people have consistent documentation.

"In order for an individual to comfortably navigate this complicated world we live in it's really important that all of their documents align."

Living comfortably sounds good to Roberts.

"I just don't want them to bother us. I want to not have to worry about things like this."

In an email to Rep. Young, Roberts asked her to stop sponsoring the bill. She never heard back.

KPVI also reached out to Rep. Young for further comment, and never got a response.

Looking Forward

Both Roberts and Rosetta say they want to move out of Idaho.

Maybe even the U.S. eventually, says Roberts.

I dont like the atmosphere that the government has towards transgender people.

Roberts has a message for Rep. Young andEhardt:

The bills that theyre sponsoring are very very hurtful to the trans community and I would ask them to stop sponsoring these bills, and to try to help the trans community as much as possible.

Burdick says she wants to live in a bigger city because she feels people are ignorant, especially at the highest levels of government.

Because they have that power, they dont really get stuff. I think they put aside the hoi polloi, the common people.

Like Roberts, Burdick hopes Idaho politicians will start focusing on legislation to help transgender people, like creating more safe spaces for transgender youth.

Try to have more empathy try to listen and understand, she says.

When asked what shes done with support the trans community, Ehardt says shes been working on curbing LGBTQ youth suicide.

Burdick hopes to educate people as much as possible.

I think educating people about transgender issues and rights is a good thing. Yelling back doesnt work, says Burdick.

She wants people to know that Were not cross dressers. Were not drag queens. Were not putting on a show.

Both House Bill 500 and 509 have passed the Idaho House of Representatives.

500 will be discussed in the State Affairs committee Friday. House Bill 509 is also set to be heard in the same committee.

Link:
Transgender in Idaho: a conversation with two trans women on House Bills 500 and 509 - KPVI News 6

All federal limits on testing will be lifted, Pence says.

Vice President Mike Pence said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was lifting all restrictions on testing for coronavirus, and would be releasing new guidelines to fast-track testing for people who fear they have the virus, even if they are displaying mild symptoms.

Today we will issue new guidance from the C.D.C. that will make it clear that any American can be tested, no restrictions, subject to doctors orders, Mr. Pence told reporters at the White House.

The federal government has promised to significantly ramp up testing, after drawing criticism for strictly limiting testing in the first weeks of the outbreak. But health care supply companies and public health officials have cast doubt on the governments assurances, as complaints continue that the need for testing remains far greater than the capacity.

The estimates were getting from industry right now by the end of this week, close to a million tests will be able to be performed, the head of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Stephen Hahn, said at a White House briefing on Monday.

But some companies developing tests say their products are still weeks away from approval.

And even if a million test kits were available, public health laboratories say they would not be able to process nearly that many within a week. A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services said on Monday that public health labs currently can test 15,000 people daily, though that figure is expected to grow.

The F.D.A. said that Dr. Hahn was taking into account the anticipated increased production of test kits by an outside manufacturer, Integrated DNA Technologies, which is now selling kits to the federal government and other buyers.

The C.D.C. botched the first attempt to mass produce a diagnostic kit, a discovery made only after hundreds of kits had been shipped to state laboratories. A promised replacement took several weeks, and still did not permit state and local laboratories to make final diagnoses.

Right now, Id say wed need more capacity, Dr. Hahn said at the White House briefing.

The Department of Veterans Affairs confirmed on Tuesday that a veteran had tested positive for the virus and was transferred to the V.A. hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., presenting the federal government with a new challenge a coronavirus infection in its sprawling veterans health care system.

The patient was diagnosed on Monday and is being cared for in isolation, a V.A. spokeswoman said on Tuesday. It was not clear whether local public health officials had already announced the case; Santa Clara County, Calif., has had several previous coronavirus cases, including two announced on Tuesday without any specifics.

The veterans health system, responsible for caring for more than nine million former service members, has been struggling with an overhaul of its $16 billion medical records system, which has been delayed amid technical and training glitches.

Last week, the U.S. military announced its first active-duty case, an American soldier stationed in South Korea, the country with the second-largest coronavirus outbreak after China. In response, Army officials closed the office buildings the infected soldier had used, called off social events on the base and sent clean teams to disinfect anywhere the soldier had been. A civilian employee at another American military base in South Korea has also tested positive for the virus.

[Read: China pushes back as the coronavirus crisis damages its image.]

President Trump said on Tuesday that he may further tighten limits on international travel in hopes of blocking the arrival of more visitors infected by coronavirus, but he ruled out for now any restrictions on domestic travel within the United States.

Were not looking at that at all. Theres only one hot spot, he told reporters. But were looking at other countries and were being very stringent.

The Trump administration has already imposed limits on travel from China, barred all travel to Iran and issued warnings to Americans not to travel to parts of Italy and South Korea.

Later, at the National Institutes of Health, Mr. Trump added that he was not actively considering restrictions on travel to Mexico but expressed concern about Japan, which is hosting the Summer Olympics in Tokyo and has just constructed a new stadium for the competition.

I dont know what theyre going to do, he said. They have this fabulous facility.

As for Mexico, he played down the prospect of travel limits. Were not looking at it very strongly, he said. Were not seeing a lot of evidence in that area.

Two people who died last week in the Seattle area were infected with coronavirus, officials said on Tuesday, suggesting that the virus had spread in that region days earlier than health officials had previously known.

That brought the death toll in Washington State, and in the United States, to nine. So far, those deaths have all been in the Seattle area.

The confirmation of additional deaths adds to an escalating emergency in a region that has rapidly emerged as a focal point for the virus in the United States, where there have now been at least 120 cases of coronavirus in more than a dozen states, as local health authorities from coast to coast raced to assess the risk to schools, medical centers and businesses.

The other deaths, all announced over the last few days, included residents of a nursing care facility in Kirkland, a Seattle suburb.

Health officials in North Carolina announced that states first case of coronavirus on Tuesday afternoon. They said the patient there had traveled to Washington and been exposed at a long-term care facility where there was an outbreak, an apparent reference to the Life Care nursing center in Kirkland, Wash.

The North Carolina patient was said to be doing well and isolated at home in Wake County.

Officials in Washington State were rushing to take steps to contain the spread. Health officials were asking the State Legislature for an additional $100 million in funding to help respond to the virus. Some leaders were weighing more widespread closings of events, and around Seattle, immediate steps were being taken.

In King County, officials were in the process of purchasing a motel in the region that could house people needing isolation. They were also working to repurpose modular homes that had been originally meant to be used by homeless people.

When the coronavirus first broke out in January, its impact on the travel and hospitality businesses appeared limited to China. But the outbreak has now spread to every continent except Antarctica, and the cities and industries that rely heavily on travel and tourism are bracing for pain.

One city that is anxiously watching the spread of the virus is Las Vegas, which had more than 42.5 million visitors last year, 6.6 million of them to attend business conferences, according to the citys Convention and Visitors Authority.

Some big upcoming conferences have already been canceled, including an annual Adobe Systems event with 20,000 attendees and celebrity speakers like Gwyneth Paltrow and Tom Brady. Adobe said it planned to host portions of the event online.

Major companies like Facebook, Twitter and Intel have said their employees will not attend the popular South by Southwest festival in Austin, Tex., which starts next week, but organizers insisted on Tuesday that the festival would go on.

The New York subway will be disinfected every 72 hours, officials say.

If theres one place where being packed in close quarters with crowds of strangers is unavoidable, it is the New York City subway system well known not just to the locals, but to millions of tourists and anyone who has ever watched a television show or movie set in the city. And that makes it a focus of public worry about contagion.

Officials said on Monday that industrial-grade disinfectants would be used to clean everything from train cars to MetroCard machines every 72 hours. The safety of our customers and employees is our first priority as we continue to monitor the coronavirus, said Patrick T. Warren, chief safety officer at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

From Monday evening to midday Tuesday, transit workers disinfected nearly all of the systems 472 subway stations, more than 1,900 subway cars and nearly 2,000 buses, officials said. Transit officials in neighboring New Jersey, which has its own vast commuter rail and bus network, have also ramped up its cleaning regimen.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends keeping essential services like public transit in operation, in part so that health care workers and other emergency responders can get to work.

Other major cities experiencing outbreaks have announced similar precautions. In Tehran, public health officials have said they are disinfecting buses at least four times a day and cleaning trains after each trip. In Italy, buses, trains and ferries are also being disinfected regularly.

Although research on the coronavirus is still in the early stages, a 2011 study on a possible influenza outbreak in New York City found that only 4 percent of infections would occur on the subway.

Iran frees 54,000 inmates to avoid spread in prisons.

The number of people in Iran infected by the coronavirus surged past 2,300, the death toll rose to 77, and the countrys head of Parliament said that nearly two dozen lawmakers had tested positive and should avoid meeting with members of the public, the authorities announced on Tuesday.

The new tallies were reported as the judiciary, apparently hoping to minimize the risk of contagion in Irans penal system, said it had temporarily freed more than 54,000 prisoners considered to be symptom-free. But it was unclear from the announcement how many of the prisoners had actually been tested, given the shortage of testing equipment in Iran.

Gholamhossein Esmaili, a judiciary spokesman, who announced the prisoner releases, did not specify whether any of the reported cases or deaths so far have included prisoners.

Iran now has 2,336 reported cases, more than any country other than China and South Korea, and 11 more people have died, according to figures cited by the deputy health minister, Alireza Raisi, on state TV.

State news media reported on Tuesday that Ahmad Toysarkani, an adviser to the judiciary, was among those who had died. The virus has been felt at the highest levels of Iranian society, with Masoumeh Ebtekar, the presidents deputy for womens affairs and the highest-ranking woman in the government, among those who have become infected.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, was pictured in state news media wearing plastic gloves, and he told the Iranian people to follow medical advice to help combat the outbreak, saying anything that facilitates its spread is a sin.

The death toll in Italy surges while the pope has a common cold.

The death toll in Italy jumped to 79 on Tuesday, an increase of 27 deaths in one day, Italian officials said.

Those who had died in the previous 24 hours ranged in age from 55 to 101, said Angelo Borrelli, the head of Italys Civil Protection Agency who is coordinating the countrys response to the crisis.

Most were over 70, and some had pre-existing conditions. But for the others, we still arent sure, he said at a news conference in Rome.

Of the 2,502 infections so far up from the 1,835 announced on Monday 90 percent were located in the northern Italian regions of Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia Romagna, Mr. Borrelli said. Italy has had by far the largest outbreak outside of Asia.

Meanwhile, the Vatican said Tuesday that Pope Francis was ailing with a common cold, and did not have symptoms that could be related to other pathologies.

On Tuesday, France, which has the second highest number of cases in Europe, announced 21 new cases of coronavirus on its soil, raising the total number of cases to 212. A top official at Frances health ministry also announced one new fatality from the virus, a 92-year-old man in the western Morbihan region, bringing the death toll up to four.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Tuesday morning a second confirmed case of the coronavirus in New York, saying that a man in his 50s in Westchester County, just outside of New York City, had tested positive.

The man initially went to a hospital in Westchester about four or five days ago, before it was confirmed he had the virus, the authorities said, acknowledging that he may have exposed doctors, nurses and others to the infection.

On Tuesday, health officials told the mans synagogue, Young Israel of New Rochelle, to call off its religious services for the foreseeable future. Citing guidance from state officials, the county also told congregants who attended Shabbat services on Feb. 22 or went to a funeral or a bat mitzvah there on Feb. 23 to quarantine themselves; the county said it would order quarantines if the affected people did not do so voluntarily.

The patient, whose test was confirmed overnight in New York City, is a lawyer who works in Manhattan and lives in New Rochelle. Mr. Cuomo said the new patient had an underlying respiratory illness and is now at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in the city. The mayors office said he was in serious condition.

Though he traveled recently to Miami, he had not traveled to any of the areas that are known hubs of transmission for the virus. For New York, this means the new coronavirus can no longer be thought of as an external threat that has yet to arrive.

Health authorities in New York are now scrambling to trace the chain of transmission in both directions: who infected him, and who he may have infected.

Two of the mans children have links to New York City. One child attends a Jewish high school in Riverdale, which was closed on Tuesday as a precaution. The other, a college student in the city who officials believed lives on campus, has exhibited symptoms associated with the illness.

Both of them have been quarantined and are being tested for coronavirus, according to Mr. de Blasio.

On Sunday, officials announced the states first case, a 39-year-old woman in Manhattan who had been visiting Iran, one of the epicenters of the viruss rapid worldwide spread.

Symptoms of the infection include fever, cough, difficulty breathing or shortness of breath, and gastrointestinal problems or diarrhea.

Serious cases cause lung lesions and pneumonia. But milder cases may resemble the flu or a cold, making detection of the more deadly coronavirus difficult.

Current estimates suggest that symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days after exposure.

If you think youre sick, stay home, except to get medical care. If you have symptoms, the C.D.C recommends that you call a medical professional if you have recently been in an area with a coronavirus outbreak, or have had close contact with someone who has been to such an area.

Fed rate cut fails to quell investor fears of a coronavirus hit to the economy.

The Federal Reserve delivered the emergency rate cut investors had been clamoring for at 10 a.m. on Tuesday. The market rally that followed lasted about 15 minutes.

By the end of trading on Tuesday, stocks were sharply lower and bond yields had plummeted to previously unthinkable lows, suggesting that investors think theres little the Federal Reserve can do to keep the coronavirus from hammering the U.S. economy.

The S&P 500 fell about 2.8 percent, undoing much of Mondays 4.6 percent surge. The yield on 10-year Treasury notes dropped below 1 percent.

Both moves suggest investors see growing threats to the outlook for economic growth and corporate profits over the next 10 months.

Economists around the globe sharply downgraded their economic growth expectations for the year. JPMorgan Chase economists and market analysts estimated that investors are pricing in a 90 percent chance of recession, according to a research note published Tuesday afternoon.

India curbs medicine exports, affecting supplies worldwide.

In response to the epidemic, the government of India on Tuesday curbed exports of 26 drugs and drug ingredients, including a wide range of antibiotics and certain vitamins, meaning that the new coronavirus could soon have ripple effects on people worldwide with other ailments.

The world relies heavily on Indias huge pharmaceutical industry for generic drugs, but Indian officials are concerned about safeguarding the supply for their own country.

Indian drug makers depend on Chinese factories for key drug ingredients, particularly for antibiotics and vitamins. The Covid-19 outbreak in China and quarantine of Hubei province, where much of the production is centered, has severely hampered Chinas ability to produce those ingredients.

Although Indian companies had stockpiled extra ingredients ahead of the annual Lunar New Year holiday, those reserves are now running low.

Its unclear whether Indias exports of the specified drugs will be completely stopped. The governments order said that exports of the drugs are restricted, which means a government permit is required before they can be shipped out of the country.

The antibiotics facing export limits are tinidazole, metronidazole, chloramphenicol, erythromycin salts, neomycin, clindamycin salts and ornidazole.

Other drugs on the restricted list include the painkiller acetaminophen, the hormone progesterone, the antiviral drug aciclovir, and the vitamins B1, B6 and B12.

Cruise ship passengers in the U.S. being released from quarantine.

Many of the more than 120 American evacuees from the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan were set to be released from quarantine on Tuesday from a military base in Texas, after state and local officials said the C.D.C. modified its release protocol in response to their concerns.

The former passengers have been at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio for roughly two weeks since being evacuated from the cruise ship. Those being released have tested negative for the virus and have not shown symptoms while in quarantine.

They were scheduled to go home on Monday, but their release was delayed at the urging of San Antonio and Texas state officials. The city tried and failed to obtain a federal court order barring the C.D.C. from releasing more people.

None of those released on Tuesday will stay at local hotels, city officials said, but instead will be taken on buses from the air base to the airport.

Quarantined people who have been infected must be symptom-free and have two negative test results within 24 hours are eligible for release.

Reporting and research were contributed by Jennifer Steinhauer, Katie Rogers, Christina Goldbaum, Reed Abelson, Sarah Kliff, Azi Paybarah, Jesse McKinley, Katie Thomas, Knvul Sheikh, Choe Sang-Hun, Peter Baker, Benjamin Mueller, Marc Santora, Joseph Goldstein, Michael Gold, Luis Ferre-Sadurni, Eric Schmitt, Helene Cooper, Roni Caryn Rabin, Russell Goldman, Paul Mozur, Raymond Zhong, Noah Weiland, Emily Cochrane, Aaron Krolik, Claire Fu, Elaine Yu, Elisabetta Povoledo, Vindu Goel, Manny Fernandez, Mitch Smith, Patrick J. Lyons, Richard Prez-Pea, Dagny Salas, Iliana Magra and Constant Meheut.

Continue reading here:
U.S. Will Drop Limits on Virus Testing, Pence Says - The New York Times

By Warren Slaten, M.D. | March 05, 2020

Menopause is not a disease. It is a normal phase of life that marks the end of the menstrual cycle. However, during early adulthood, women are protected by several hormones including estrogen and progesterone. These hormones help women maintain good heart health and help women maintain their bones. They also help women think clearly. When these hormones are lost at menopause, women become more vulnerable to heart diseases, osteoporosis with hip fractures and Alzheimers disease. These happen to be the three leading causes of death in older women.

Since the famous Womens Health Initiative (WHI) study, which was initially published in 2002, the use of hormones declined dramatically. Thats because the study authors and the media exaggerated the studys negative findings and underemphasized the studys many positive findings. As a result, a mass panic developed about hormone replacement such that most physicians stopped prescribing it and most women wanted nothing to do with it.

Unfortunately, when they stop using hormones, which is the most effective way to prevent the three greatest causes of womens death, women are more vulnerable to these three diseases. There have been several medical journals in the last two years that have published articles highlighting the decreased life expectancy for women as a result of not protecting themselves with hormone replacement.

The most common response I hear when I speak to women about hormone replacement is that they are afraid of breast cancer. However, this is pure myth. Estrogen does not cause breast cancer. In fact, the compendium of studies reveal that estradiol actually mildly reduces the incidence of breast cancer. The one hormone that was associated with breast cancer was Provera, which is a synthetic version of progesterone. The natural or bioidentical version actually protects against cancer as progesterone is anti-proliferative. This means that progesterone reduces the progression of cancers. The ironic thing is that as the subjects continued to be followed over the ensuing five years, even Proveras cancer association weakened, but this did not make for good headlines so even most doctors are not aware of this result. The bottom line is that estrogen does not cause cancer and, if anything, provides some protection against breast cancer. Bioidentical progesterone further protects against cancer.

The other error that many doctors make is the misconception that hormone replacement causes strokes and heart attacks. This is because in the WHI study, some of the older women started on hormone replacement had an increased risk for cardiac events during the first year they took hormones. As noted above, estrogen protects against heart disease and younger women had cardiac benefit in the WHI study. The presumed basis for these events is that estrogen causes clots to be dislodged. The older women in the study were more likely to have clots and once the clot is dislodged, strokes and heart attacks can result. Interestingly, these events tend to occur in the first year. After that, even older women received cardiac benefit from estrogen.

Another source of the cardiac error is that in the WHI study, Premarin was used. Premarin is a truncated word for pregnant mares urine. Animal rights issues aside, the biggest concern about Premarin is that it is a stronger estrogen than estradiol, which is the bioidentical version of what humans naturally produce. As a stronger estrogen, Premarin has a tendency to dislodge clots but no study has ever shown that estradiol has such a tendency. Thus, bioidentical estradiol is not associated with heart attacks or strokes. To the contrary, the relative risk of heart disease for women who take estradiol is 0.4 compared to women who do not take estradiol. That means that if a woman does not take estradiol, she is 2.5 times more likely to get heart disease.

The most costly error is that medical societies and organizations have generally recommended hormone replacement for women only when they are having menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes and to take them for the shortest possible time at the lowest dose that reduces symptoms. However, we have learned that women who have hot flashes are at higher risk of the diseases associated with menopause, including heart disease, osteoporosis and Alzheimers. One study found that women with hot flashes had increased white matter loss on brain MRIs. Even insulin resistance, which is associated with diabetes mellitus, is increased in women with hot flashes. By taking hormone replacement, women significantly reduce the risk of these diseases. The misconception that women should minimize hormone use has deprived them of a key tool to reduce the risk of such deadly diseases.

Women have been led to believe that hormone replacement is very dangerous. Many women do not even consider hormone replacement because of this; I often see a visceral reaction against hormones that is based on misleading information. I am optimistic to see the medical community starting to realize the harm caused by discouraging hormone use.

Menopause is a challenging time for many women. It is often accompanied by weight gain of 10-20 pounds, increased fatigue, insomnia, depression, decreased libido and even increased joint and muscle pain. I hope that women are encouraged that with bioidentical hormones, women can reverse all these symptoms with weight loss, improved energy, improved mood, improved sleep and improved libido. At the same time, women can reduce the risk of the three leading causes of death for older women, including heart disease, osteoporosis with deadly hip fractures and Alzheimers disease. So by starting bioidentical hormone replacement, you reduce your risk of disease and improve your quality of life.

Dr. Slaten is a wellness physician specializing in regenerative pain treatments and lifestyle counseling. He is certified in advanced bioidentical hormone replacement.

Visit link:
Misinformation That May Be Costing Women Their Lives - Jewish Link of New Jersey

Reasons why you're gaining weight out of nowhere

Its understandable when you gain a few pounds after a vacation or if you break your ankle and spend six weeks propped on the couch binge watching cooking shows (and the sweets to go with them).

But when you can't zip your jeans for no reason at all you swear youre not eating any more or exercising any less it can feel like theres some dark magic at play. You may find yourself standing on the bathroom scale, screaming into the void:

Most likely, theres something in your life thats shifted just enough to make a difference, but not so much that youd notice, says Dr. Alexandra Sowa, an obesity specialist and clinical instructor of medicine at NYU Langone Health. I see this all the time. You may not step on the scale for a while, and you feel like you havent changed anything, and all of a sudden you go to the doctors office and notice youve gained 10 or 20 pounds, she says.

But that doesnt mean its your destiny to go up another size every year. Here are some of the most likely reasons for unexplained weight gain, and how to stop it in its tracks.

If youve been battling weight issues for a while and none of your efforts are moving the needle, make an appointment with your primary care doctor or a weight-management physician, who can assess you for insulin resistance or prediabetes. Your doctor can also test you for hypothyroidism, in which your thyroid gland doesnt produce enough hormone, slowing down your metabolism and potentially leading to weight gain.

Insulin is the hormone that signals the body to pull glucose out of the bloodstream and store it in the muscles, liver and fat, explains Dr. Tirissa Reid, an obesity medicine specialist at Columbia University Medical Center and Diplomate of the American Board of Obesity Medicine. But when youre overweight, the cells dont recognize the insulin as well, so the pancreas has to pump out more and more sometimes two or three times the normal amount until the cells respond. This is also common in women who have polycystic ovary syndrom, a condition in which the egg follicles in the ovaries bunch together to form cysts.

These high insulin levels keep the body in storage mode and make weight loss more difficult, says Dr. Reid. The beginning of this road is insulin resistance when your pancreas is working overtime, but blood sugar levels are still normal. All that extra work wears out the pancreas until it can barely do the job of keeping the blood sugar in normal range. Left unchecked, insulin resistance can lead to prediabetes, in which blood-sugar levels are slightly elevated; if thats not treated, you can develop full-blown type-2 diabetes.

What you can do: The most effective way to reverse this trend is to eat a diet low in refined carbs and added sugars, and to become more physically active, since muscles respond better to insulin after exercise, says Dr. Reid.

She recommends either investing in a fitness tracker or simply using the one that comes with your phone. People hear you need 10,000 steps each day, which sounds intimidating, but you can also use it just to see where youre at and make doable increases, Dr. Reid says. If youre at 2,000 steps, try to go up to 2,500 a day next week and continue to increase. Swapping to foods with a lower glycemic index (GI) which means theyre digested more slowly, keeping blood-sugar levels steady is also important for controlling your insulin levels. Dr. Sowa recommends these lower-GI food swaps: riced cauliflower instead of white rice; zucchini spirals or shirataki noodles (made from plant fiber) instead of pasta; and pumpernickel or stone-ground whole wheat bread instead of white bread or bagels.

If youre up at night worrying about your aging parents or your kids, this can affect your metabolism. Stress and lack of sleep can cause a cascade of hormonal changes that change your metabolism and affect your sense of hunger and fullness, Dr. Sowa explains.

Stress pumps up the hormones ghrelin and cortisol, which increase your appetite and can make you crave carbs; at the same time, it dials down the hormone leptin, which helps you feel full. Not surprisingly, a 2018 Swedish study of 3,872 women over 20 years found the more stressed you are by work, the more likely you are to gain weight. Stress also affects your ability to get a good nights sleep, and we know that lack of sleep can also throw off your metabolism rates and hunger cues.

What you can do: You can manage your stress by downloading an app such that helps you work toward personal goals such as thinking positively and decreasing anxiety by sending you meditations and visualizations to do throughout the day. To sleep more soundly, you already know you should put down your phone, computer and iPad an hour before bedtime, but research shows that shutting out all light including that sliver of moon through your window can help with both sleep and metabolism. A study at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine found that after subjects spent just one night of sleeping in a room with dim light, insulin levels the next morning were significantly higher than those who slept in complete darkness, potentially affecting metabolism rates. So consider investing in some good blackout curtains.

Were not 100% sure why, but its believed that histamines, chemicals produced by your immune system to fight allergens, have a role in appetite control, says Dr. Reid. That means that antihistamines may cause you to eat more, she says. A study from Yale University confirmed that there is a correlation between regular prescription antihistamine use and obesity. Dr. Reid points out that some antihistamines such as Benadryl also cause drowsiness, which could make you less apt to exercise.

What you can do: If you suffer from seasonal allergies and are constantly taking antihistamines, talk to your allergist about alternative treatments such as nasal steroid sprays, nasal antihistamines (which have less absorption into the bloodstream, and therefore less effect on hunger), leukotriene inhibitors such as Singulair or allergy shots, suggests Dr. Jeffrey Demain, founder of the Allergy Asthma and Immunology Center of Alaska. He also says that managing your environment using a HEPA filter, washing your sheets frequently in hot water and keeping pets out of your bedroom can help reduce the need for allergy medication. While youre at it, do an inventory of any prescription medications youre taking that are known to cause weight gain (including certain antidepressants, beta blockers, corticosteroids and the birth control shot) and discuss with your doctor if there are equally effective alternatives that dont affect weight, says Dr. Reid.

Anyone whos ever sat in a vinyl booth staring down a big bowl of pasta knows that portion sizes in America are large. But research from the University of Liverpool published in 2018 found after being served large-size meals outside the home, people tend to serve themselves larger portions up to a week later, meaning supersizing appears to be normalized, says Dr. Lisa R. Young, author of Finally Full, Finally Slim.

Here's what to do: First, Young suggests you spend a few days getting a reality check on how much food youre actually eating at each meal. When you pour the cereal in the bowl in the morning, pour it back into a measuring cup. What you thought was one cup might actually be three cups, especially if youre using a large bowl, she says.

Also, instead of relying on a government agency (or the chef at your favorite restaurant) at to tell you how much to eat, learn to listen to your own body, says Young. Serve yourself just one modest portion on a small plate, and when youre done, wait 20 minutes, she says. It takes that long for the hormones in your belly to reach your brain and tell it youre full. If you get to 20 minutes and your stomach is grumbling, have a few more bites.

Lets say you switched jobs recently, and dinner is now at 9 p.m. instead of 6:30. Or your new habit of streaming Neflix until the wee hours also involves snacking well past midnight. Even if youre not eating more, per se, this change might account for the extra pounds.

Theres a delicate balance between your circadian rhythm (the way your body and brain respond to the daily cues of daylight and darkness) and your calorie intake. That can mean that same sandwich that you eat at lunchtime may actually cause more of a weight gain when eaten at night. A 2017 study at Brigham and Womens Hospital found when college students ate food closer to their bedtime and therefore closer to when the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin was released they had higher percentages of body fat and a higher body-mass index. The researchers theorize this is because the amount of energy your body uses to digest and metabolize food drops as your inner clock tells it to get ready to snooze.

What you can do: There are a few life hacks to keep the late-night snacking to a minimum. Dr. Sowa suggests you commit to writing down every bite you eat after dinner: Whether its on a sticky pad or on an app, keeping track of what youre eating, how much youre eating and how youre feeling when you eat it will hold you accountable for the calories, and it will also help you figure out if youre truly hungry or just bored, she says. She also suggests capping off your evening meal with a brain-and-heart-healthy tablespoon of fish oil. Its a healthy fat that coats your stomach and makes you feel less hungry later, she says.

Each birthday you celebrate brings on one undeniable change: your basal resting metabolism (the rate at which your body at rest burns the energy you take in from food) slows down. Its not a dramatic drop, says Dr. Cheskin. But as you age, youre probably also getting less active and more tired, and your body tends to lose muscle mass, which burns calories more efficiently than fat. So even if youre eating the exact same amount of food as you did when you were younger, your body is simply not burning it off as effectively as it did during the glory days of your 20s.

Here's what to do: You can only budge your BMR a little, but there are a few things you can do to make the math work in your favor. The first is to build up your calorie-burning muscle, says fitness expert Dr. Michele Olson, a professor of sports science and physical education at Huntingdon College. Keep up cardio three times a week for 30 minutes, but add challenging weight training on top of that, she says.

Another metabolism-boosting strategy: Replace some of the carbohydrates in your diet with proteins, which take more energy to digest, therefore burning off more calories through diet-induced thermogenesis, as well as making you feel fuller for longer. Dr. Sowa suggests you eat about 100 grams of protein over the course of the day, filling your plate with lean chicken, fish, shrimp or plant-based proteins such as garbanzo beans, tempeh and edamame, to give your meals more metabolism bang for your buck. This may only add up to a weight loss of a few pounds per year, but combined with exercise, the cumulative effect can be significant, says Dr. Sowa.

Read more here:
Reasons why you're gaining weight out of nowhere - The Advocate

-- Retrospective chart review assessing Acthar Gel treatment utilization and patterns in 92 patients suggests improvement in symptoms across three disease states in a real-world setting --

STAINES-UPON-THAMES, United Kingdom, March 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --Mallinckrodt plc(NYSE: MNK), a global biopharmaceutical company, today announced findings from a retrospective medical record analysis to assess practice patterns and outcomes of Acthar Gel (repository corticotropin injection) in the treatment of the immune-mediated diseases rheumatoid arthritis (RA), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and dermatomyositis/polymyositis (DM/PM). Results of the study were recently published online in Open Access Rheumatology: Research and Reviews.

Acthar Gel is a naturally sourced complex mixture of adrenocorticotropic hormone analogs and other pituitary peptides. Acthar Gel is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as adjunctive therapy for short-term administration (to tide the patient over an acute episode or exacerbation) in RA, including juvenile RA (selected cases may require low-dose maintenance therapy), and for use during an exacerbation or as maintenance therapy in selected cases of: systemic lupus erythematosus, systemic dermatomyositis (polymyositis).1Please see Important Safety Information for Acthar Gel below.

The study, titled "Treatment with Repository Corticotropin Injection in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis, Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, and Dermatomyositis/Polymyositis," examined 92 adult patients (18 years of age) 54 with RA, 30 with SLE and 8 with DM/PM who were treated at 14 U.S. clinical sites with Acthar Gel between January 1, 2011 and February 15, 2016. Researchers collected data on patient demographics, disease and treatment history; Acthar Gel dosing, frequency and duration; concomitant medication use; and physicians' assessments of outcomes and adverse events. Results of the analysis showed that across all three patient populations, the most frequently reported reasons for initiating treatment with Acthar Gel were inadequate response to prior therapies, acute exacerbation or flare of disease, and need for an alternative therapy. The findings also suggest that patients' symptoms improved with Acthar Gel as reported by physicians' impression of overall change after treatment initiation and over the course of the study. Among 57 patients with data on physician impression of change, 78.1 percent of patients with RA, 94.7 percent of patients with SLE and 66.7 percent of patients with DM/PM had a rating of improved. Further, the mean time to best impression of change was 3.42.5 months for RA, 4.32.7 for SLE, and 3.41.6 for DM/PM.

"All three immune-mediated diseases examined in this study can be difficult to manage, and patients can often experience debilitating disease flares and exacerbations," said Tunde Otulana, M.D., Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Mallinckrodt. "The study suggests that Acthar Gel may have been associated with an improvement in disease exacerbations and symptoms, and it provides insights into real-world practice patterns and outcomes associated with Acthar Gel therapy that may help inform decision-making among clinicians in managing these conditions."

Story continues

Further, the study builds on the company's Phase 4 study of Acthar Gel in RA patients (open-label portion, n=259; randomized, placebo-controlled, blinded, withdrawal portion, n=154) presented at the European Congress of Rheumatology 2019 (EULAR), June 12-15 in Madrid. The randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind two-part study demonstrated that significantly more patients with persistently active RA who met response criteria at week 12 (63 percent of patients in the open-label period who achieved low disease activity (LDA) as assessed by Disease Activity Score 28-joint count Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate (DAS28-ESR) of <3.2 at 12 weeks) maintained LDA with Acthar Gel (62 percent) versus placebo (43 percent, P<0.05) at week 24. In the double-blind period of the study (weeks 12-24), adverse events (AEs) were reported in 33 percent of the Acthar Gel treatment group and 40 percent of the placebo group. In the open-label period of the study (weeks 0-12), AEs were reported in 38 percent of patients. Overall AEs observed in the study were consistent with previous trials of Acthar Gel. The study was subject to study limitations, including that the results may not be solely attributable to Acthar Gel.

Key Findings:2

Study Limitations:2

The study was funded by Mallinckrodt.

About Rheumatoid ArthritisRA is an autoimmune disease. It is a chronic condition that causes pain, stiffness, and swelling of the jointsall symptoms and signs caused by inflammation.3 An estimated 1.5 million U.S. adults are living with RA.4 Treatment is aimed at stopping inflammation to put the disease in remission and relieve symptoms.5 Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are used to ease symptoms whereas corticosteroids, disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs and biologics are used to slow down the disease activity.5

About Systemic Lupus ErythematosusSLE is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system produces antibodies to cells within the body leading to widespread inflammation and tissue damage.6 It is the most common form of lupus, a condition that impacts an estimated 1.5 million Americans.7 Ninety percent of those diagnosed with lupus are women, often between the ages of 15-44.8 Lupus is characterized by periods of illness "flares" and remissions and the disease can affect the joints, skin, brain, lungs, kidneys, and blood vessels. Symptoms and signs may include fatigue, pain or swelling in joints, skin rashes, and fevers.6

About Dermatomyositis/PolymyositisDM/PM are rare inflammatory diseases that cause progressive muscle weakness.9 For instance, muscle weakness associated with PM involves those in the hips, thighs, shoulders, upper arms and neck.10 DM also causes skin rashes.9 People of all ages can be affected, though it usually occurs in adults between the ages of 45-60 and is more common in women.11,[12]

ActharGel (repository corticotropin injection) Indications

Acthar Gel (repository corticotropin injection) is indicated for:

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION

Contraindications

Warnings and Precautions

Adverse Reactions

Other adverse events reported are included in the full Prescribing Information.

Please see fullPrescribing Informationfor additional Important Safety Information.

ABOUT MALLINCKRODTMallinckrodt is a global business consisting of multiple wholly owned subsidiaries that develop, manufacture, market and distribute specialty pharmaceutical products and therapies. The company's Specialty Brands reportable segment's areas of focus include autoimmune and rare diseases in specialty areas like neurology, rheumatology, nephrology, pulmonology and ophthalmology; immunotherapy and neonatal respiratory critical care therapies; analgesics and gastrointestinal products. Its Specialty Generics reportable segment includes specialty generic drugs and active pharmaceutical ingredients. To learn more about Mallinckrodt, visit http://www.mallinckrodt.com.

Mallinckrodt uses its website as a channel of distribution of important company information, such as press releases, investor presentations and other financial information. It also uses its website to expedite public access to time-critical information regarding the company in advance of or in lieu of distributing a press release or a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosing the same information. Therefore, investors should look to the Investor Relations page of the website for important and time-critical information. Visitors to the website can also register to receive automatic e-mail and other notifications alerting them when new information is made available on the Investor Relations page of the website.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENTS RELATED TO FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTSThis release includes forward-looking statements concerning Acthar Gel including its potential impact on patients and anticipated benefits associated with its use. The statements are based on assumptions about many important factors, including the following, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements: satisfaction of regulatory and other requirements; actions of regulatory bodies and other governmental authorities; changes in laws and regulations; issues with product quality, manufacturing or supply, or patient safety issues; and other risks identified and described in more detail in the "Risk Factors" section of Mallinckrodt's most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and other filings with the SEC, all of which are available on its website. The forward-looking statements made herein speak only as of the date hereof and Mallinckrodt does not assume any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events and developments or otherwise, except as required by law.

CONTACTSFor Trade Media InquiriesCaren BegunGreen Room Communications201-396-8551caren@greenroompr.com

For Financial/Dailies Media InquiriesJim HeinsH+K Strategies212-885-0463jim.heins@hkstrategies.com

Investor Relations Daniel J. Speciale, CPAVice President, Investor Relations and IRO314-654-3638daniel.speciale@mnk.com

Mallinckrodt, the "M" brand mark and theMallinckrodt Pharmaceuticalslogo are trademarks of aMallinckrodtcompany. Other brands are trademarks of aMallinckrodtcompany or their respective owners.2020Mallinckrodt.US-2000329 03/20

References

1 Acthar Gel (repository corticotropin injection) [prescribing information]. Mallinckrodt ARD LLC.2Ho-Mahler N, Turner B, Eaddy M, Hanke ML, Nelson WW. Treatment with repository corticotropin injection in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, and dermatomyositis/polymyositis. Open Access Rheumatology: Research and Reviews. 2020:12 21-29.3Mayo Clinic website. Rheumatoid Arthritis. Overview. Available at: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/rheumatoid-arthritis/symptoms-causes/syc-20353648. Accessed November 5, 2019.4Arthritis Foundation. What is Rheumatoid Arthritis? Available at: http://www.arthritis.org/about-arthritis/types/rheumatoid-arthritis/what-is-rheumatoid-arthritis.php. Accessed November 5, 2019.5Arthritis Foundation. Rheumatoid Arthritis Treatment. Available at: http://www.arthritis.org/about-arthritis/types/rheumatoid-arthritis/treatment.php. Accessed November 5, 2019.6The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE or lupus). Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/lupus/facts/detailed.html. Accessed March 21, 2019.7Kabadi S, Yeaw J, Bacani AK, Tafesse E, Bos K, Karkare S, et al. Healthcare resource utilization and costs associated with long-term corticosteroid exposure in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus. Lupus. 2018;27:1799-1809. doi: 10.1177/0961203318790675.8Pons-Estel GJ, Alarcon GS, Scofield L, Reinlib L, Cooper GS. Understanding the epidemiology and progression of systemic lupus erythematosus. Semin Arthritis Rheum. 2010; 39(4):257268.9Medline Plus. Myositis. https://medlineplus.gov/myositis.html. Accessed November 3, 2016.10 Mayo Clinic. Polymyositis. http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/polymyositis/basics/symptoms/con-20020710. Accessed November 3, 2016.11Bernatsky S, Joseph L, Pineau CA, et al. Estimating the prevalence of polymyositis and dermatomyositis from administrative data: age, sex and regional differences. Ann Rheum Dis. 2009;68:1192-1196.12Cheeti A, Panginikkod S. Dermatomyositis and Polymyositis. [Updated 2019 Nov 13]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2020 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK532860/.

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mallinckrodt-announces-publication-of-new-data-on-acthar-gel-repository-corticotropin-injection-in-rheumatoid-arthritis-systemic-lupus-erythematosus-and-dermatomyositispolymyositis-published-in-open-access-rheumatology-resea-301016020.html

SOURCE Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals

Read the original here:
Mallinckrodt Announces Publication of New Data on Acthar Gel (Repository Corticotropin Injection) in Rheumatoid Arthritis, Systemic Lupus...

Anxiety disorders, which affect 40 million U.S. adults every year, are often characterized by nervousness, near-constant worry, racing thoughts, and other consuming mental health symptoms. But anyone who lives with anxiety knows that it not only affects their mental well-being but their physical comfort, too, from their digestion to their likelihood of getting a decent nights sleep.

Here, well look at some of the ways in which anxiety can affect your physical health and what you can do to reduce its impact on your everyday life.

RELATED: 5 Simple Ways to Be Less Stressed at Work

Gastrointestinal issues, such as indigestion, nausea, diarrhea, cramping, or heartburn, are some of the most common ways in which anxiety manifests itself physically, explains Rebecca Hedrick, M.D., a psychiatrist at Cedars-Sinai. Anxiety triggers the same fight-or-flight reaction in the brain that mortal danger triggered in our prehistoric ancestors, and when those instincts kick in, more blood flows to our muscles and away from our GI tract. As a result, our normal digestive processes slow down or stop. Back in the prehistoric era, wed have a chance to return to a state of rest after confronting a stressor like a predator, but nowadays our stressors come in the form of social media, the 24-hour news cycle, or financial woes theyre chronic, as Dr. Hedrick describes them, and can be too prevalent to avoid.

In addition to chronic gut issues caused by existing in this constant state of responsiveness, rather than rest, there's another factor at play. Digestive issues can also spike with anxiety because when the bodys main stress hormone, cortisol, increases in production, so does stomach acid, explains Michael E. Ford, M.D., an internal medicine physician with NewYork-Presbyterian Medical Group Hudson Valley. Taking an antacid (like Pepcid) should help mitigate this issue, Dr. Ford says.

Again, anxietys effect on sleep is closely tied to that fight-or-flight response when the body is in survival mode, sleep is not a priority. And, as described earlier, living with anxiety means that you shift into that mode pretty easily, and have a hard time shifting out of it. The brain is turned on to either fight or escape, and patients often times awake with ruminative or excessive worry about events in their life, preventing them from falling back asleep, Dr. Ford explains.

Naturally, sleep disturbances can lead to excessive tiredness when youre awake, and thats on top of the fatigue that mental distress naturally causes. Anxiety takes a lot of brain power. It burns a lot of calories; it uses a lot of energy to have all of those anxious thoughts, Dr. Hedrick says. She points out that many people will try to address this problem with caffeine, which only makes their anxiety worse. Instead, she suggests practicing healthy sleep habits like avoiding caffeine, alcohol, and screens before bed, and using a sleep mask or earplugs if needed.

RELATED: Here's How Weighted Blankets Actually Work for Anxiety and Insomnia

According to Jessica Chan, M.D., an assistant professor and ob-gyn specializing in reproductive endocrinology at Cedars-Sinai, anxiety can contribute to irregular periods, fertility issues, and even worse symptoms of menopause. Its impact on menstruation in particular is once again due to the fight-or-flight response that awakens when we feel anxious. That same increase in cortisol that messes with our GI tract also decreases our levels of reproductive hormones, which leads to a lack of ovulation and, in turn, irregular periods, Dr. Chan explains. She adds that if your period has been irregular for three months, you should get in touch with your gynecologist.

The relationship between anxiety and fertility is more complex, Dr. Chan says. On one hand, research shows that people dealing with fertility experience anxiety, stress, and depression at higher rates than those who arent. On the other hand, Dr. Chan believes pre-existing anxiety can lead to issues with fertility, considering anxietys effect on ovulation and menstruation, for one thing. Beyond that, she notes that anxiety can have a negative impact on couples relationships and even lower sufferers libidos, which makes simply having sex, the initial step to conceiving, difficult.

Finally, anxiety can intensify such menopausal symptoms as sleep disturbances and hot flashes (which, Dr. Chan says, can feel very similar to an anxiety attack), as a result of the reproductive hormones estrogen and progesterone decreasing in production. Dr. Chan also says people who had been living with anxiety prior to transitioning into menopause may notice that their anxiety worsens at this point.

This symptom usually crops up as soon as a bout of anxiety begins and it can set off a vicious cycle that only makes those feelings of anxiety worse. Once somebodys heart rate starts racing, a lot people will have palpitations they feel the fluttery feeling of their heartbeat and that feeling itself can trigger worsening anxiety, which can trigger a full panic attack, Dr. Hedrick says. This is yet another side effect of the bodys survival mode, which can be addressed with therapy and practiced relaxation more on that below.

Right off the bat, Dr. Hedrick says to get in the habit of practicing any of the following relaxation techniques: diaphragmatic breathing, where you breathe into your belly as opposed to your chest; progressive muscle relaxation, where you tense and relax your main muscles one at a time; body scanning, where you simply observe the sensations surrounding your body from head to toe; and, finally, mindfulness, in which you observe your feelings and environment in the moment without judgment. Try them out when you dont feel particularly stressed, so that when your anxiety does rise to the surface, you have these techniques down pat.

RELATED: How to Meditate If You Have Anxiety

Itll be incredibly useful to have these tools in your back pocket, but you should also make an appointment with a mental health care professional to learn more about the roots of your anxiety. And, if youre experiencing these physical symptoms on top of anxious thoughts, visit your primary care provider as well as a therapist. Even though anxiety can contribute to issues around sleep, menstruation, and digestion, its important to make sure there isnt an underlying physical condition or illness thats causing them, too.

Continue reading here:
How Your Anxiety Might Be Affecting You Physically and What to Do About It - Yahoo Lifestyle

Dr. Brian Coleisa nationally acclaimed orthopedic surgeon and sports-medicine doctor who cohosts the popular radio showSports Medicine Weekly.Whether you want to know about bunions, better sleep, or running your first marathon without getting hurt, Dr. Cole can offer an experts take. Eric Haunschild, his research assistant, also contributes to this column.Have a question? Email AskADoctor@outsideim.com. The doctor is in.

I keep hearing conflicting things about ibuprofen. My doctor prescribed a steady dose400 milligrams in the morning and 400 in the eveningfor tendonitis, but I always thought it was something to take on an as-needed basis for pain. And 800 milligrams a day sounds like a lot! Also, isnt it bad for my stomach lining? Whats the best, safest way to use ibuprofen?

It sounds like you and your doctor are both right. Ibuprofen can be used to reduce pain and inflammation, but the way you dose depends on which effect you are predominantly trying to achieve. The pain-reducing effects of ibuprofen begin rapidly, usually within 30 minutes of taking a dose, so you can take it as needed, whether you have a headache or an achy knee. To reduce inflammation, ibuprofen and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like aspirin and Aleve need to be taken regularly over days to quiet the bodys inflammation-producing pathways. For persistent relief of joint pain, you should follow your doctors instructions and take a regular dose as prescribed, even if you arent feeling pain right at that moment.

Its true that ibuprofen can be bad for your stomach and intestines. This is because the same pathway in your body that generates pain and inflammation also produces the mucus in your stomach that protects it from stomach acid. NSAIDs work by blocking cyclooxygenase enzymes, which play a role in producing a type of lipid called prostaglandins, which in turn act like a hormone throughout the body to initiate myriad biologic processes. In particular, they initiate the sensitization of our nerves to send pain signals to the brain, the generation of inflammation in areas where white blood cells signal them to do so, the inhibition of platelet aggregation needed for blood to clot, and the production of the mucous needed to line the stomach. When you take an NSAID, you alter all of these mechanisms, which can, over long periods of time, lead to stomach ulcers and bleeding. Thats why people with gastrointestinal conditions like peptic ulcer disease or Crohns disease, as well as people over the age of 65, shouldnt take NSAIDs without first talking to a doctor. More commonly, taking ibuprofen can cause a mild upset stomach. If you get queasy, take it with food.

As a rule of thumb, you should opt for smaller, more frequent doses when taking NSAIDs. A usual dose is 200 to 400 milligrams every six to eight hours for no more than two weeks. If you miss a dose, dont double up on the next one. Just continue dosing as usual. If you have any questions related to the safety or specific use of NSAIDs, you should consult your physician.

I roll my ankles all the timeon the trail, in heels, when Im just running on the sidewalk. Why? Does this mean I have weak ankles? Are there exercises I can do to make them stronger?And should I be wearing special shoes?

Tweaking your ankle is incredibly common: Americans make more than a million emergency-room visits each year for fractures and sprains of the joint. The ligaments of your ankle are exposed to a lot of stress. They can be torn or strained from a bad ankle roll, but theyre also prone to wear and tear over time with normal movements like walking. Every time you twist your ankle, you contribute to a snowball effect: the ligaments become weaker and more stretched out, which then increases your risk of rolling your ankle again. Without proper treatment, you can develop chronic instability, pain, and degeneration.

Physical therapy that targets and strengthens your ankle stabilizers can go a long way in ensuring your ankle heals correctly. Simple exercises that promote ankle movement in all directions, such as drawing the alphabet in the air with your toes, can help restore range of motion. Calf raises, balancing on one foot, and heel walks can all help strengthen the joint. Once you progress through these exercises, you can further strengthen the ankle with hopping exercises and training with other movements specific to your sport or activity. Find a physical therapist to help you develop your ownpersonalized program.

There arent many conclusive studies about the role of shoe selection in reducing the risk of rolling your ankles. High-top shoes are thought to provide more support, but a number of studies comparing ankle sprains in athletes havent found a meaningful difference between high-top or low-top shoes. There are a number of ankle bracesand taping techniques that can offer supplemental help in stabilizing the ankle. If you feel that additional support helps, theres no reason not to use itbut remember that strong ankle stabilizers are much more critical in preventing future ankle rolls.

For more expert advice, you can follow Dr. Cole on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Follow this link:
Are You Overdosing on Ibuprofen? - Outside

If youre looking for a mainstream, or allopathic, physician, there are many ways to find one through a referral from your family doctor, from your health insurance plans network, or from various directories and its easy to check their credentials.

But when seeking practitioners in naturopathic, holistic, integrative and non-Western health care, the search is not so straightforward.

A group of Berks County practitioners in these fields are beginning to solve that problem with Downtown Wellness Berks, or DWB, an organization officially started in November 2018 to create a network of local affiliates, including both practitioners and suppliers of related products such as organic and locally sourced foods. It will share resources, hold informational events and provide a directory for people seeking to live a healthier life.

DWB is the brainchild of Courtney Shober, a certified integrative health coach and other local practitioners who gathered around the Farmhouse Kitchen, a restaurant in West Reading owned by Martie Samuel.

Shober calls the restaurant the gold standard when it comes to clean eating, and it has become a gathering place not only for dining, but for learning about healthful food.

Shober, as the Farmhouse Kitchens educational coordinator, has been facilitating speakers and moderating panel discussions at the Farmhouse Classroom in the restaurant since returning to Berks County three years ago after a 10-year absence.

The 2001 Schuylkill Valley High School graduate had earned a bachelors degree in music industry studies and worked in that field in the New York City area. Finding herself dissatisfied with her career, she decided to make a change, focusing on helping others achieve a healthier life. She enrolled in the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in New York and earned her certification.

When her husband was hired as a teacher in the Reading School District, they moved into the GoggleWorks Apartments in Reading, and Shober embarked on her new career. She quickly found many friends and colleagues in various integrative health fields in the area, and began inviting them to speak at the Farmhouse events.

It was at these events that she and her colleagues saw how hungry their audiences were for information on how to find various healers and places to shop for healthful, organic foods.

Around 2017, they started discussing how they could help with this problem, and, thanks to a suggestion by another of their colleagues, naturopathy practitioner Dr. Henriette Alban, Living in Balance, 103 S. Fifth St., they came up with a plan to establish Humanitarian Social Innovations, a Bethlehem, Northampton County nonprofit, as their fiscal sponsor. They applied for support and were accepted.

They have 21 affiliates who pay $120 a year to be part of DWB, which has a website, http://www.downtownwellnessberks.com, where the affiliates are listed with their contact information and a bit about who they are and what they offer.

These are basically pre-vetted businesses with a shared philosophy and set of values, Shober said. We have spent the past year building a strong foundation, clarifying our mission and establishing committees. Next we will hold community events, probably starting with a Meet the Affiliates night.

Jennifer Dillow, who started Awakened Aloha Health Coaching in Hamburg five years ago, is part of the core group who created DWB.

A Pottsville native who started out as an X-ray technician and taught high school biology, Dillow switched careers when she had her own health problems and was unable to find relief from allopathic physicians.

While studying at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, she saw that they have a more proactive approach to health care and were open to Eastern and Western medicine. She called this her Aha! moment, and decided to learn about integrative medicine.

She began integrated health coaching about 20 years ago, and is working on a doctorate in natural medicine from Quantum University in Honolulu, Hawaii.

In addition to her own practice, Dillow works for Dr. Jeffrey L. Marrongelle, a nationally known doctor of integrative medicine and owner of Bio Energymed Metabolic Institute, with offices in Schuylkill Haven, Schuylkill County and Fogelsville, Lehigh County.

Ive seen a lot of people who dont have something major going on, she said, but they have chronic fatigue, weight gain where they cant seem to lose any pounds and hormone imbalance. Theres lots of stress, and that wreaks havoc on your body. It affects the pancreas and the thyroid. Once that starts, it sets you up for the perfect storm: the metabolism is off, and all the hormones are affected.

Many people have forgotten what it feels like to feel good. Their body has adapted to accommodate the stress.

Dillow, who is affiliated with Culture Shock Performing Arts Center, a dance studio in Hamburg, encourages clients to do yoga and take classes in the studio, as well as to walk in nature or simply bounce on a trampoline for a while to reduce stress.

She also counsels them, over a six-month period, on healthy eating, the use of essential oils and other tools to maintain their well-being. Each client receives a personalized plan to help them reach their goals. If they wish, she also refers them to specialists in other modalities.

When Dillow was in the process of trying to connect local organic farmers with local eateries, she reached out to Samuel at Farmhouse Kitchen, and stumbled on the community of like-minded people there. She brought in her friend, Crystal Kulpcavage, whose solo practice, A Sense of Purpose, Wyomissing, coaches people in transition.

I help people design and achieve meaningful lives and meaningful careers, Kulpcavage said. No matter how well you eat, how much you exercise or care for your body, youll have difficulty sustaining physical health if something is wrong in your heart and soul.

We all have an inner craving to be proud of who we are and what were doing with our time in this world. My specialty is to help people with their professional wellness.

She said many people want to make a major change in their careers, but inner fears and other barriers keep them stuck. She first helps them with healing practices and character-building practices, developing self-esteem and confidence, and looking at their strengths and weakness and how to improve the latter.

Then she and the client work on setting goals that are both achievable and meaningful. She gives the client support, accountability and motivation as they work together for a minimum of six months.

Kulpcavage said on of her clients, within four months, resigned from a career with which she was unhappy, decided what business to start, got her first paying client, moved across the country, quit smoking and grieved the loss of her father.

Another client, after 35 years in a corporation and many failed attempts at starting a business, within six months retired, chose a business he was proud of and got it off the ground and running. Two years later, he is set to make $500,000 in revenue.

Kulpcavage said she was a software engineer for 12 years, and found herself unsatisfied after some major life-changing events. She went through a program similar to what she does now and added a certification in professional coaching to her bachelors degree in computer science and her MBA.

When she started coming with Dillow to the Farmhouse Kitchen, she was elated to hear about DWB and got on board.

Ive wanted this for a long time, Kulpcavage said. There just wasnt a great place to find out what kind of practitioner people needed to help them. We can refer people. we all understand each other and can match clients with the right practitioner.

Contact Susan L. Pena: specialsections@readingeagle.com.

Follow this link:
Downtown Wellness Berks helps those who seek alternative health care - Reading Eagle

Women considering hormone therapy for menopausal symptoms can find lots of advice on what they should do and a lot of it isn't so good. It's just something we have to figure out, says Barbara Younger, 61, a children's book author based in North Carolina. It's very confusing now to know what to do.

For decades, people thought hormone therapy (also sometimes called hormone replacement therapy) for menopause symptoms also protected women's hearts, maintained bone strength, and helped prevent cancer. But evidence from the Women's Health Initiative research study found otherwise. The large population study found that American women over the age of 60 who took estrogen and progestin were actually at greater risk of breast cancer, stroke, and dangerous blood clots.

With the publication of one article, hormone replacement therapy went from making women live longer to killing them, says Owen Montgomery, MD, chairman of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia.

In fact, Dr. Montgomery says, risks and benefits of hormone therapy depend on a woman's age and family history of heart disease and cancer, among other factors. I spend a lot of time educating my patients about appropriate use of hormones for their specific case, he adds. Individualization is really important.

Women who have used hormone therapy and leading physicians have a variety of perspectives on the risks and benefits. Here are 10 things your own doctor might not tell you about hormone replacement that you need to know to make the best decision for yourself.

1. I might not be the right doctor for you. Some doctors are better at treating menopausal symptoms than others. Many OB/GYNs know the latest evidence for the benefits and risks of hormone therapy, but others do not. Bedside manner also matters. If your medical professional is not helping you, find another one! says Ellen Dolgen, a speaker, author, and health and wellness advocate who blogs about menopause.

The first doctor I went to didn't help me. So, I decided to find a new one, she adds. I decided to interview three doctors, and then I selected the doctor I felt would be the best business partner for me.

Dolgen suggests finding a provider who specializes in perimenopause and menopause. Menopause is a journey, and you want to go on this journey with a specialist who is up on the latest information and [someone] you feel comfortable speaking openly and honestly with, she says.

2. Hormone therapy may help stabilize your mood swings. Women who've used hormone therapy say it has helped them cope with the irritability and dramatic mood shifts that can accompany perimenopause and menopause. Barbara Younger had already gone through menopause without too much trouble. But after she had her uterus and ovaries removed to treat endometrial cancer, her normally upbeat mood plummeted. She suspected her ovaries had been making just enough estrogen that losing them made her feel PMS and menopausal stuff times three.

Her gynecologist prescribed a low-dose hormone patch. Within 24 hours my mood lifted, and I've been basically fine ever since, she says.

Younger, who blogs about menopause and endometrial cancer at Friend For The Ride, says she's a bit worried about taking hormones given her cancer history. She is planning to begin tapering off hormone therapy soon. For now, she adds, she's staying in close touch with her gynecologist and oncologist.

3. Bioidentical hormones are not better for you, and could be worse. Hormone preparations specially tailored to patients by compounding pharmacies, known as bioidentical hormones, are widely touted as being safer and more natural than Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved versions of hormones. But this simply isn't true, says Margery Gass, MD, the executive director of the North American Menopause Society (NAMS) and a NAMS-certified menopause practitioner at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

There is no hormone out there that women can use that can be harvested from the field, or the trees, or anyplace else, Dr. Gass says. All go through laboratories and have to be processed with multiple chemical steps to be in the form that humans can use.

Still, many women who take bioidenticals swear by them. Bioidenticals work, and it's a great option, says Candice Storms, 45, of Puyallup, Washington, who suffered severe menopausal symptoms after surgery to treat uterine cancer in which her ovaries were also removed.

4. Compounded hormone drugs are not FDA-tested for safety. Custom-compounded formulations of hormones are not made with FDA oversight, Gass warns. They are also not regulated by the FDA, not tested for safety, nor for quality or effectiveness, notes NAMS. Custom-made compounded drugs could have less, or more, of the hormone than a woman needs, and can also have added ingredients that may affect your safety. Unlike a prescription drug, a compounded preparation is not necessarily the same each time you pick up a new supply, and can vary among pharmacists and pharmacies.

5. You don't need blood or saliva tests of your hormone levels before starting hormone therapy. No physician organization recommends testing hormone levels before prescribing hormone therapy. Since symptoms of thyroid problems can mimic menopausal symptoms, however, doctors will typically test your thyroid function before prescribing hormone therapy. Also, Montgomery says, testing for levels of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH, a hormone that helps regulate your menstrual cycle) can determine whether a woman's ovaries are still functioning. But testing hormone levels in saliva is nonscientific and almost useless, he adds, and whats more, insurers don't cover it.

6. Hormone therapy means having a new conversation with your doctor every year. Timing matters, when it comes to hormone therapy risks. The biggest misconception among his patients considering hormone therapy, according to Montgomery, is that it causes cancer, stroke, and heart disease in anyone who takes it. In fact, a large research review of studies, published in March 2015, found a slightly decreased risk of heart disease with hormone therapy for women who were younger than 60. However, hormone therapy was associated with a greater risk of stroke in older women.

A study reported in 2015, called the ELITE trial, found that women who took hormone therapy within six years of the onset of menopause saw heart-related benefits. They had slower progression of plaque buildup in their arteries (known as atherosclerosis, this buildup increases the risk of stroke and heart attack) than women who took placebo. But taking hormones later, 10 years or more after menopause onset, did not affect atherosclerosis progression.

Risks and benefits for an individual woman change as she ages, Montgomery says, and women who choose to take hormone therapy should not continue indefinitely. It needs to be a conversation with your doctor every year.

7. Hormone therapy can be tailored to your symptoms and needs. These days, hormone treatment comes in many forms. Systemic estrogen, in which the hormone is delivered to the entire body, can be taken via pills, patches, creams, gels, even sprays. You can also use creams, tablets, or rings to deliver low-dose estrogen directly to the vagina.

For example, if a woman's only problem is vaginal dryness and painful experiences with sexual activity, we can use a very low dose vaginal product that just treats the vagina and has for the most part a local effect, says Gass.

8. Vaginal hormone therapy may help when you have overactive bladder symptoms. Many women begin to experience frequent urination and even incontinence as menopause nears. Hormone therapy delivered locally to the vagina may help ease these symptoms, according to a research review of 34 studies published in 2012.

On the other hand, the same review found evidence that so-called systemic hormone therapy pills and patches that deliver the hormone to your entire body could actually make urinary symptoms worse.

RELATED: 10 Things Your Doctor Wont Tell You About Hysterectomy

9. You can take hormone therapy while you are in perimenopause. You're considered to have gone through menopause if you haven't had your period for a full year. But women often experience symptoms for years before menopause actually happens. This time in a woman's life, when she's still menstruating but her body has begun to phase out of childbearing mode, is known as perimenopause.

And perimenopause may last a lot longer than previously thought. The Study of Women's Health Across the Nation, which is following 3,302 women as they transition to menopause, found more than half had hot flashes and night sweats for longer than seven years.

Women in perimenopause can take hormone therapy to address their symptoms, Montgomery says, although he may prescribe a lower dose for these women than for those who have already reached menopause.

10. If you are going through menopause you don't necessarily need to have your hormones replaced. Menopause isn't much fun, to say the least, but it's a normal part of life. In fact, while treating menopausal symptoms with hormones used to be called hormone replacement therapy, Montgomery says, experts now prefer the term hormone therapy. While hormone therapy is great for menopausal symptoms, it won't keep you young forever, no matter what bioidentical hormone advocate Suzanne Somers says.

We take the position that menopause is a normal and natural occurrence in a woman's life, no more pathological than puberty, says Gass. It's a little bit like puberty, in reverse.

See the original post:
10 Things Your Doctor Won't Tell You About Hormone Therapy

A new study upends the conventional belief that women who experience early menopause (45 years old or younger) have more cardiovascular health issues later on than women who develop menopause closer to the normal age. The study, published in February 2020 in the journal Heart, found that women who go through menopause at an earlier age dont later have more troublesome blood pressure levels, blood cholesterol, or other traditional heart disease risk factors compared with women who go through menopause later in life.

Doctors had previously assumed the premature cardiovascular deaths in these women were likely caused by the increase in traditional risk factors, such as weight gain, that often happen as women go through the menopausal transition and estrogen levels drop, says Tomas Ayala, MD, a board-certified cardiologist at the heart center at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, who was not involved in the study.

RELATED: 12 Women Over 60 Who Inspire Wellness and Living Your Best Life

The study, conducted by researchers at British medical centers, looked at females in Britains comprehensive UK Medical Research Council National Survey of Health and Development, which has followed participants over many years.

In roughly 1,000 women they were able to track the numbers for their blood pressure, unhealthy blood fats, body mass index (BMI), fasting blood glucose, and waist circumference (an indicator of the most dangerous fat around the abdominal organs) from midlife or even earlier, through age 69.

What they found was that by age 69, women who had gone through early menopause whether naturally or from surgery did not have unhealthier levels of these markers than women who entered the change later.

Our findings suggest that the impact of timing and type of period cessation on conventional cardiovascular disease intermediates from midlife is likely to be small, the authors conclude.

RELATED: 10 Ways to Beat Menopausal Belly Fat

Still, all women have a higher risk of heart disease once they reach menopause and lose the bulk of their estrogen. The clock starts ticking at menopause for increased cardiovascular disease risk, Dr. Ayala says. Thats why all women of menopausal age need to take heart disease seriously, he says.

A womans cardiovascular system is hugely impacted by the loss of ovarian hormones, agrees Felice Gersh, MD, a board-certified gynecologist and integrative medicine physician in Irvine, California, and a consultative faculty member at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. Dr. Gersh, who cowrote an editorial that accompanied the study, notes that disease and death from heart issues start happening as early as womens fifties and sixties, not only in older ages.

There are numerous theories about how estrogen in premenopausal women helps the heart, but none are proven. Most have to do with the way estrogen protects the lining of your blood vessels, known as the endothelium. According to the editorial, estrogen offers anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anti-proliferative pathways in the endothelium, and its steep reduction after menopause contributes to dysfunction in the vessels.

RELATED: Fitness After 40 and Beyond: What to Know About Midlife Exercise Needs

The study presents another example of how womens heart health is different from mens, Gersh says. For example, women have different symptoms when having a heart attack, are more likely than men to die from their first heart attack, and develop heart failure through a different pathway, she observes.

Rather than labeling female symptoms as atypical, they should be labeled as what they are: female-typical symptomatology, Gersh says.

The results of this study are likely to change the way cardiologists treat womens heart risks.

Before this study, if a patient had gone through menopause early, we would have been very aggressive in treating her high blood pressure, cholesterol, and other traditional risk factors, Ayala says. Doctors should still treat these, he says, but maybe we dont have to go overboard or be super-aggressive because these factors are not impacted by the earlier age of menopause the way doctors had thought.

Regardless of a womans age when she enters menopause, getting serious about heart disease prevention is paramount. How best to do that remains controversial, but Gersh and her coauthor wrote in the editorial that hormone therapy (HT, or HRT) likely offers the best hope.

The current state of research is enough to justify the use of human-identical HRT with most women as they go through menopause, they wrote in the editorial, although they call for additional studies to document the benefits more fully.

HT had previously been used after menopause in part to aid a womans heart. But many abandoned this treatment after the famed Womens Health Initiative (WHI) trial was prematurely stopped in 2002 due to concerns about detrimental health effects. Many doctors, including Ayala, now think the panic over the results was excessive. The risks for cardiovascular disease in the study were well overblown, Ayala observes.

Gersh says the WHI shouldnt have tarnished HT the way it did, because that study included women well past their menopause transition and it used conjugated estrogens made from horse urine.

RELATED: Some Hormone Therapies Are More Effective Than Others in Preventing Heart Disease

Ayala says that he generally recommends HT to his female cardiology patients in their forties and early fifties and will continue to do so in the face of the revelation that treating traditional heart risks is not enough.

Gersh advocates that most women at the start of menopause should be offered HT with human-identical transdermal estradiol also known as bioidentical estrogen delivered by a patch or gel into the skin, along with micronized progesterone for women who have not had a hysterectomy. The key exception: women with diagnosed cancers involving estrogen receptorpositive tumors.

Much of what is viewed as the consequence of aging is actually a consequence of hormonal deficiency, especially when it comes to the heart, Gersh says. With proper informed consent, each woman can then decide for herself what path she chooses to follow.

Read more from the original source:
Early Menopause Does Not Increase Your Risk of Heart Disease, Study Finds - Everyday Health

Photo by Hean Prinsloo on Unsplash

*Affiliate disclosure.

Seasonal depression is real, and millions of Americans have a form of Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD. The darker, colder times of year is thought to be when SAD is the worst for many people.

Organic Authority has written about how you can add more healthy, natural light to your days with red light therapy. This article focused on the skin and anti-aging benefits of red light therapy (RLT), used by Hollywood stars like the Kardashians and Jessica Alba for all-natural beauty and collagen treatments.

Im the co-founder of Joovv, and we make some of the leading in-home RLT devices that many estheticians and Hollywood A-listers are using every day. But RLT is hardly just for skin and beauty. In fact, it has a huge base of clinical research behind it that shows a wide range of natural health benefits like improved sleep, pain relief, hormone regulation, and fitness & performance gains. Some leading mental health researchers and physicians are even using it to treat patients and reduce the symptoms of SAD.

During a red light therapy session, your body absorbs wavelengths of natural red and near infrared light. Its just like the wavelengths youd get from sunlight, but without the heat or damaging UV rays. This is why red light therapy is gaining popularity as a solution for SAD: its a safe, easy way to add natural light to your day without the need for sunny weather.

Natural light stimulates the mitochondria in your cells and helps your body increase your adenosine triphosphate (ATP) energy production. (To understand why this is so important, check out Organic Authority's guide to keeping your mitochondria healthy and strong.)

This increased cellular energy from natural light makes a big difference for skin health, sleep, and inflammation relief. And new science and research shows big potential for SAD and depression as well. In 2018, the Elated-2 Pilot Trial tested the effects of red light therapy treatments on people with major depression over the course of eight weeks. The research team wrote that RLT showed antidepressant properties and was safe, easy to use, and well-tolerated.

Most people already know about SAD lamps. These are the lamps that mimic the sun with super-bright artificial light. They definitely light up a dark room, but ultimately its still just artificial blue light, not natural light like the sun.

By contrast, a medical-grade red light therapy device like Joovv actually lets your body bask in a clinically-relevant dose of natural light in just 10-15 minutes. Its quick, easy, and there are almost no risks or side effects.

Dr. Marc Schoen of UCLA Medical School has over 25 years of experience treating mental health disorders.

In tandem with psychotherapy, using red light therapy appears to catapult patients out of an acute depressive state faster than any other modality.

Dr. Schoen has also spoken about how red and near infrared light therapy can improve anxiety and compulsive disorders. Hes one of a growing number of researchers and physicians using Joovv devices or other RLT products to improve mental health outcomes.

Many people who struggle with depression have sleep disorders too, and this is another area where red light therapy treatments are making a big impact on natural health.

Light is a major cue for your brain, telling you when your body should sleep and be awake. When people are surrounded by bright, artificial light from screens all the time, it can seriously throw your circadian rhythm out of whack. Every time we look at our phones or watch TV or use a laptop, were subjecting our eyes to intensely bright lightlight with a higher color temperature than the noonday sun.

Red light therapy is a much gentler color of light, and its been shown in studies to help your brain re-establish a consistent sleep cycle and produce more natural melatonin. Getting quality sleep can go a long way for your mental health, especially in the winter.

With the recent clinical successes around natural light, and given how easy it is to use a red light therapy device in your home, I expect RLT to become a bigger part of peoples mental health and self-care routines. More and more studies are coming out all the time showing a huge range of health benefits from natural light. The work on SAD and depression is especially promising for people with the Winter Blues.

Theres nothing we can do about how early it gets dark at this time of year. But with a quality red light therapy device like Joovv, you can make sure your body is getting all the natural light it needs.

If red light therapy interests you, check out Joovv. When you purchase a Joovv device through Organic Authority and use the code, OA, you'll receive a free gift with purchase!

Related on Organic AuthorityBlue Light Might Be Disrupting Your Sleep Cycles: Here's What to Do About ItDon't Do Early Mornings? You May Have a Sleep DisorderDo These 10 Daily Tasks at the Best Time of Day for Your Body Clock (Sex Included!)

*Note! This article contains affiliate links that are independently sourced and vetted by our editorial team which we may earn a commission on. This helps us reduce the number of ads we serve on Organic Authority and help deliver you a better user experience. We are here to help you navigate the overwhelming world of consumer products to source and uncover thoughtfully made, conscious clean products for you and your family.

Note! The opinions and views expressed by the authors at Organic Authority in blogs and on social media and more, are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions or position of Organic Authority, Inc and do not necessarily represent the views of Organic Authority sponsors and/or partners. Organic Authority content is for informational and entertainment purposes, and any views expressed should not be accepted as a substitute for qualified expertise. Any highlighted alternative studies are intended to spark conversation and are for information purposes only. We are not here to diagnose or treat any health or medical conditions, nor should this be relied upon as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, even if it features the advice of medical practitioners and physicians. When making any lifestyle or health changes, consult your primary care physician.

Continue reading here:
Here's Why Red Light Therapy Might Be the Best Natural Solution for Seasonal Depression - Organic Authority

At 8 PM on the evening of Friday, July 13, 1934, German Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler stepped to the speakers lectern of the Reichstag in Berlins Kroll Opera House to explain his murderous conduct during the recent Nazi Blood Purge against the top leadership cadre of the brownshirted SA Stormtroopers during the weekend of June 30-July 2, 1934.

In front of him stood steel-helmeted, armed SS troopers, and there were more placed strategically throughout the chamber, the first and only time such an event occurred throughout the 12 years of the Third Reich. Indeed, Hitler feared assassination from his own followers as a result of the national murder weekend, and rightly so, for some of the victims had been his most intimate followers, such as his SA Chief of Staff, Captain Ernst Rohm.

During his address, the chancellor for the first time made public mention of the sex life of the man who had been reputedly closest to him, a man whose alleged homosexuality was reportedly well known throughout Nazi Germany and even abroad.

The life which the Chief of Staffand with him a certain circle of othersbegan to lead was intolerable from any National Socialist point of view, Hitler said. As if it were not terrible enough that he himself and his circle of devotees broke every single law of decency and modesty, still worse, this poison now began to spread in ever-increasing circles.

But worst of all was the fact that, out of a certain common predisposition, a sect gradually began to form in the SA which made up the nucleus of a conspiracy directed not only against the normal conceptions of a healthy people, but against the security of the state as well.

Thus, the Fhrer was officially acting as if he had not known about Rohms homosexuality since the first days of their association in 1920, when, in fact, he had turned a blind eye toward it from the start because he needed such men as the burly brawler and his thugs in the movement.

In his book The Hidden Hitler, German author Lothar Machtan claims that the Fhrer himself was gay and that the two men may have been lovers.

Ironically, just as the Nazis persecuted the Jews in part because some of their own top leaders were, in fact, at least partly Jewish, including SS General Reinhard Heydrich and Luftwaffe Field Marshal Erhard Milch, so, too, did they also do the same with homosexuals, as a means of covering their tracks in a sense.

States Andrew Hollinger, assistant director of media relations and communications for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, As part of the Nazis attempt to purify German society and propagate an Aryan master race, they condemned homosexuals as socially aberrant.

Soon after taking office on January 30, 1933, Hitler banned all homosexual and lesbian organizations. Brownshirted Stormtroopers raided the institutions and gathering places of homosexuals. Greatly weakened and driven underground, this subculture had flourished in the relative freedom of the 1920s, in the pubs and cafs of Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Bremen and other cities.

Indeed, by 1928, there were an estimated 1.2 million homosexual men in the Weimar Republic. Legal prosecution of homosexuals did not begin under the Third Reich, however, but under the Second Reich of Kaiser Wilhelm I in 1871, the year the new German Empire was established by Reich Chancellor Prince Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor.

Paragraph 175 of the criminal code outlawed acts of unnatural indecency between men. Six years later, this was redefined by the German Supreme Court as an intercourse-like act alone, thus making arrests and convictions of homosexuals relatively difficult. On the other hand, since 1900 under the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the German Regular Police or Kripo had been compiling lists of suspected homosexual men called pink lists from all across the Reichbut little or no use was ever made of them.

By 1932, however, on the eve of the Nazis assumption of governmental power, Berlins municipal leaders began enforcing public morality laws to close bars and social clubs catering to homosexual customers. On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was named Chancellor of the German Reich by President and Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, and everything began to change as the Nazis espoused a platform of law and order, traditional values, an ideology of virulent anti-Semitism, and the persecution of unwanted social groups.

Dr. Magnus Hirshfeld, a homosexualphysician, was the victim of Nazi violence when his Institute for Sexual Science was vandalized bystudent groups in May 1933.

Recalled one homosexual, Then came the thunderbolt of January 30, 1933, and we knew that a change of political climate had taken place. What we had tried to prevent had taken place. Over the years, more and more of my political friends disappeared, of my Jewish and of my homosexual friends. Fear came over us with the increasingly coordinated pressure of the Nazis.

For Heavens sake not to attract attention, to exercise restraint, [and] 1933 was the starting point for the persecution of homosexuals. Already in this year we had heard of raids on homosexual pubs and meeting places. Maybe individual, politically uneducated homosexuals who were only interested in immediate gratification did not recognize the significance of the year 1933, but for us homosexuals who were also politically active, who had defended the Weimar Republic, and who had tried to forestall the Nazi threat, 1933 initially signified a reinforcing of our resistance.

In order not to mutually incriminate ourselves, we decided to no longer recognize each other. When we came across each other in the street, we passed by without looking at one another. There were certain possibilities for us to meet, but that never happened in public.

For a politicized homosexual, visiting places which were part of the homosexual subculture was too dangerous. Friends told me that raids on bars were becoming more frequent, and someone had written on the wall of the Hamburg S-Bahn between Dammtor Station and the main station, Street of the Lost.

That was some sort of film or book title. We found this graffiti very amusing, for most of us tried to cope with the thing by developing a sort of gallows humor.

On May 6, 1933, Nazi student groups and sympathizers ransacked the Institute for Sexual Science founded by Dr. Magnus Hirshfeld, a Jewish homosexual physician. According to Hollinger, Dr. Hirshfeld was one of Germanys leading advocates of civil rights for homosexuals. Four days later, much of his Institutes library was destroyed in a public book burning. The notorious event was sponsored by Nazi Germanys Minister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment Dr. Josef Goebbels.

The institute had sponsored research and discussion on marital problems, sexually transmitted diseases, and laws relating to sexual offenses, abortion, and homosexuality. For 30 years, Dr. Hirshfeld spearheaded efforts to decriminalize homosexuality. In 1933, he happened to be in France, where he remained until his death.

On June 8, 1933, and in November 1934, the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee and the Human Rights League, both homosexual rights organizations, were dissolved. Captain Rohm was shot on July 2, 1934, without trial, and the previous April 20, the Gestapo, established by Luftwaffe chief and Prussian Prime Minister Hermann Gring, was taken over by Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler. In October Himmler set up a division to deal with homosexuals within the department.

One of its first acts was to instruct the Kripo to gather all the pink lists from across the Third Reich. On June 28, 1935, the Nazis published their revised Paragraph 175 provisions, and subsequent judicial interpretations expanded the range of punishable indecencies between men. These now included simple looking and simple touching.

The harsher, amended version of Paragraph 175 went into effect on September 1, 1935, thus punishing a broader range of lewd and lascivious behavior between men. In 1936 Himmler became national chief of the German Police, and on October 10 created the Reich Central Office for Combatting Homosexuality and Abortion, or Special Office (II S), a subdepartment of Executive Department II of the Gestapo.

During 1936-1939, a total of 78,000 men were arrested under the new, broadened Paragraph 175. Prosecutions reached their peak between 1937 and 1939, asserts Hollinger. Half of all convictions for homosexual activity under the Nazi regime occurred during those years. The police stepped up raids on homosexual meeting places, seized address books of arrested men to find additional suspects, and created networks of informers to compile lists of names and make arrests.

On February 18, 1937, Reichsfuhrer Himmler addressed his higher SS and police leaders at Bad Tolz on the subject of homosexuality as he saw it. With a static number of women, we have two million men too few on account of those who fell in the war [of 1914-1918]. You can well imagine how this imbalance of two million homosexuals and two million war dead, or in other words a lack of about four million men capable of having sex, has upset the sexual balance sheet of Germany, and will result in a catastrophe.

Ernst Rohm, head of the notorious SA, was an early member of Hitlers inner circle until he was killed in the blood purge of 1934. Rohm was a homosexual.

There are those homosexuals who take the view that what I do is my business, a purely private matter; however, all things which take place in the sexual sphere are not the private affair of the individual, but signify the life and death of the nation, signify world power or Swissification. The people which has many children has the candidature for world power and world domination. A people of good race which has too few children has a one-way ticket to the grave, for insignificance in 50 or a hundred years, for burial in 250 years

Therefore, we must be absolutely clear that if we continue to have this burden in Germany, without being able to fight it, then that is the end of Germany, and the end of the Germanic world.

The Nazis also felt that homosexuals formed self-serving groups, the emergence of a state within a state that could disrupt the social harmony and fabric of the Reich. In addition, Nazi policy asserted that homosexual men carried a degeneracy that threatened the disciplined masculinity of Germany. In some cases, homosexuality was deemed a mental illness, and thus many men were institutionalized while others were forced to choose between voluntary castration and imprisonment.

This voluntary castration, encouraged openly after 1935, was so that homosexual men could free themselves from their degenerate sex drive, or so the euphemisms went. In the Nazi concentration camps, they were subjected to forced castration in medical experiments as well.

Indeed, at Buchenwald, SS Dr. Karl Vaernet performed operations designed to convert men to heterosexuals, including the surgical insertion of a capsule that released the male hormone testosterone. Such procedures reflected the desire by Himmler and others to find a medical solution to homosexuality, explains Hollinger.

During the 12 years of the Third Reich from 1933 to 1945, an estimated 100,000 of the approximately 1-2 million homosexual men in Germany were arrested, and of these 50,000 officially defined as gay were sentenced under Paragraph 175. Most of these were held in regular prisons, while from 5,000 to 15,000 more were incarcerated in concentration camps. How many of the latter died? No one knows for sure, but researcher Rudiger Lautmann believes that the death rate for the 175ers may have been as high as 60 percent.

States Hollinger, All prisoners of the camps wore marks of various colors and shapes, which allowed guards and camp functionaries to identify them by category. The uniforms of those sentenced as homosexuals included a large black dot and a 175 drawn on the back of the jacket. Later, a pink triangular patch appeared. Many survivors have testified that men with pink triangles were often treated particularly severely by guards and inmates alike because of widespread biases against homosexuals.

The vast majority of homosexual victims were males; lesbians were not subjected to systematic persecution. While lesbian bars were closed, few women are believed to have been arrested. Paragraph 175 did not mention female homosexuality, and lesbianism was seen by many Nazi officials as alien to the nature of the Aryan woman. In some cases, the police arrested lesbians as asocials or prostitutes.

One woman, Henny Schermann, was arrested in 1940 in Frankfurt and was labeled a licentious lesbian on her mug shot, but she was also a stateless Jew, a sufficient cause for deportation and gassing in a euthanasia killing center in Germany in 1942, a year after the program was to have been officially halted at Hitlers order.

On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland and World War II began, vastly increasing Himmlers powers across the whole of German-occupied Europe, although the SS did not generally persecute and arrest homosexuals outside the Reich. In July 1940, Himmler issued orders to the officers of the Kripo that homosexuals convicted under Paragraph 175 who were known to have had more than one sexual partner were to be sent directly to a concentration camp after their formal release from prison. Beginning in 1943, the SS, in concert with the German Ministry of Justice, launched an explicit program of extermination through work to destroy Germanys habitual criminals, including homosexuals.

The vast majority of homosexuals persecuted by the Nazis included native Germans and acquired Austrians after the 1938 annexation of that nation. Asserts Hollinger, Unlike Jews, men arrested as homosexuals were not systematically deported to Nazi-established ghettos in Eastern Europe, nor were they transported in mass groups of homosexual prisoners to Nazi extermination camps in Poland.

The war ended on May 8, 1945, with the total defeat of the Third Reich and the collapse of the Nazi state, and yet Paragraph 175 remained in effect under the new Allied governments that partitioned the former Nazi Germany. Some homosexuals liberated from Nazi camps were even transferred to German prisons to serve out the remainder of their sentences under Paragraph 175.

Standing mutely at attention in bitterly cold weather, prisoners at the Sachsenhausen concentrationcamp are under the watchful eyes of Nazi guards. This photo was taken on December 19, 1938.

Eleven years after the war ended, in June 1956, the Federal Republic of Germany Reparation Law for Victims of National Socialism declared that internment in a concentration camp for homosexuality disqualified an individual from receiving state compensation. In 1969, Paragraph 175 was revised to decriminalize homosexual relations between men over the age of 21.

On May 8, 1985, the 40th anniversary of the end of the war, homosexuals murdered by the Nazis received their first public acknowledgment in a speech by West German President Richard von Weizacker, and in 1994 after the reunification of East and West Germany, Paragraph 175 was abolished altogether. Finally, in 2002, the German Parliament pardoned homosexuals convicted by the Nazis under Paragraph 175. Thus, the wheel had finally come full circle to where it was prior to 1871.

Towson, Maryland, freelance writer Blaine Taylor is the author of 12 books on World War II.

This article first appeared at the Warfare History Network.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

See the rest here:
Nazi Germany's Forgotten Victims: Homosexuals and Jehova's Witnesses - The National Interest Online

The weather is hot. I can hardly sleep at night because I sweat profusely leaving my bed and pillow so wet. I have to wake up about two times in the night to take my bath. It is no any better in the day, because I am always drenched in sweat.

These are some of the complaints of most Nigerians due to the current hot and humid weather nationwide, even in coastal areas, such as Lagos.

Indeed, the situation is causing concern across the country as meteorologists and medical experts warn of its dangers on human and natural resources.

From an average temperature of 33 degree Celsius and 70 per cent humidity in Lagos to 39 degree Celsius and 11 per cent in Maiduguri, the excessive sweating and heath rashes have become regular these days, making it difficult for many, especially children, to sleep comfortably at night.

Medical experts warn that the extreme weather could lead to more dire consequences, such as kidney failure, stroke, excessive bleeding and skin cancer in Albinos.

On their part, scientists blame the situation on increased Ultra Violet (UV) rays caused by the depletion of the ozone layer, warning that this could sterilise trees.

But to the meteorologists, the hot weather is a normal phenomenon around this period of the year due to transition from dry to rainy season.

According to a research review, an increase in heat waves worldwide linked to climate change might be behind the epidemics of kidney disease detected in workers, who are increasingly exposed to heat and dehydration.

A Consultant Public Health Physician at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba, Prof Akin Osibogun, had told The Guardian: When the weather is persistently hot and humid, as being experienced now, what happens is that there will be heat exhaustion and dehydration.

When this loss of bodily fluid continues without adequate replacement, it will affect the body organs, especially the kidney that is involved with ultra-filtration. This can lead to kidney failure. Rapid water loss causes the kidneys functioning to slow down, resulting in temporary or permanent kidney failure.

Extreme heat causes rapid water loss, resulting in acute electrolyte imbalance. The kidney, unable to cope with the water loss, fails to flush out the requisite amount of creatinine and other toxins from the body. Coupled with a lack of consistent water intake, this brings about permanent or temporary kidney failure.

He continued: Another thing that can happen under this kind of hot and humid weather is that it will affect the brain and blood. It makes the blood less viscous and can easily escape from the vessels, causing excessive bleeding and haemorrhagic stroke.

It can also cause skin cancer, but only in Abinos. People with black (dark) skin are protected from the carcinogenic effect of direct ultra-violet rays from the sun, because their skins have melanin. In most cases, they develop rashes, which can be very discomforting.

Previous study published in Asian Journal of Pharmaceutical and Clinical Research found that burden of renal diseases might increase, as the period of hot weather becomes more frequent, and this is further aggravated in advanced age and people with chronic diseases, such as diabetes and hypertension.

Another study published in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology noted that extreme heat exposure could have immediate health effects, causing dehydration, heat exhaustion and heat stroke, as well as worsening pre-existing chronic disease, which can be fatal.

The researchers said although chronic kidney disease is often caused by diabetes or high blood pressure, it could also be the result of recurrent heat exposure with physical activity and not enough hydration, which puts a heavy strain on the kidneys.

Meanwhile, new research has shown people really do get hot and bothered in warm weather. A study has found stress hormones rise in tandem with the thermometer.

The discovery sheds fresh light on a phenomenon that has puzzled scientists for years.

Dubbed the summertime blues there is a wealth of evidence from the past few decades linking heat exposure to aggression, suicide and violence.

Now a Polish team has found this all boils down to the fact that levels of the stress hormone cortisol are lower in winter than summer, and the heat-driven rise makes us tetchy.

It could have implications for public health because the chemical is vital to regulating sugar, salt and fluids throughout the body.

The report was first published in DailyMailUK Online.

Dr. Dominika Kanikowska, a pathophysiologist at Poznan University of Medical Sciences, said having more circulating when it is warm was a surprise.

She said: These non-intuitive findings contradict traditional concepts of the taxing physical toll of winter and the relaxed ease of summer.

The original data that first associated heat with hostility came from crime statistics. Analyses noted those involving violence increased in summer especially when it was warmer than average.

Numerous theories have been suggested including raised temperatures causing an increase in heart rate, testosterone and other metabolic reactions that trigger the sympathetic nervous system.

This is responsible for the fight-or-flight response so people are more inclined to fight.

Kanikowska and colleagues say the reason is simple: it all boils down to the effect of the weather on cortisol.

It is referred to as the stress hormone because it is released into the bloodstream during difficult or upsetting situations.

Kanikowska said: The hormone helps reduce inflammation and is essential for maintaining overall health.

Cortisol levels are typically highest in the morning and gradually drop throughout the day. Levels are lower in the evening to maintain healthy sleeping patterns.

Illness, lack of sleep and certain medications can affect cortisol levels more than normal daily fluctuations.

Her researchers studied a group of female medical students on two separate days in both winter and summer. They found cortisol levels to be higher on the latter dates. Inflammation levels did not change significantly between seasons.

Kanikowska said there have been studies into the seasonal variability of the hormone but these have shown inconsistent results.

This is possibly because participants were tested in their own homes and not in a uniform setting.

She said her study presented at an American Physiological Society meeting in San Diego was the most thorough of its kind.

They took saliva samples every two hours during each testing period a full 24-hour cycle to measure levels of cortisol and markers of inflammation.

The volunteers also completed a lifestyle questionnaire during each session about their sleep schedule, diet and physical activity levels.

Also, a new research suggests that drinking sugary, caffeinated soft drinks while exercising in hot weather may increase the risk of kidney disease. The study is published ahead of print in the American Journal of PhysiologyRegulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology.

A research team from the University at Buffalo in New York studied healthy adults in a laboratory environment that mimicked working at an agricultural site on a hot day (95 degrees Fahrenheit). The volunteers completed an hour-long exercise cycle consisting of a 30-minute treadmill workout followed by three different five-minute lifting, dexterity and sledgehammer swinging activities. After 45 minutes of exercise, the volunteers rested for 15 minutes in the same room while drinking 16 ounces of either a high-fructose, caffeinated soft drink or water. After the break, they repeated the cycle three more times for a total of four hours. Before leaving the laboratory, the volunteers were given more of their assigned beverage to drink before consuming any further fluids. The volume was either 1 liter or a volume equal to 115 percent of their body weight lost through sweating, if that amount was greater. The researchers measured the participants core body temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, body weight and markers of kidney injury before, immediately after and 24 hours after each trial. All volunteers participated in both soft drink and water trials separated by at least seven days.

The research team found higher levels of creatinine in the blood and a lower glomerular filtration ratemarkers for kidney injuryafter the soft drink trial. These temporary changes did not occur when the participants drank water. In addition, the participants blood levels of vasopressin, an anti-diuretic hormone that raises blood pressure, was higher and they were mildly dehydrated during and after the soft drink trial. The consumption of soft drinks during and following exercise in the heat does not rehydrate, the researchers explained. Thus, consuming soft drinks as a rehydration beverage during exercise in the heat may not be ideal. Further work will need to discern the long-term effects of soft drink consumption during exercise in the heat, and its relation to the risk of kidney disease.

Also, according to a study titled Investigating Effects of Climate Change on Health Risks in Nigeria and published in ONLINE FIRST by Ilevbare Femi, cerebra-spinal meningitis is one of the infectious diseases likely to be caused by climate change. Incidences of meningitis, for instance, have been on the rise in Nigeria due to excessive heat. According to Akingbade, cases of meningitis have been reported to increase in Nigeria as a result of excessive heat.

Meningitis is a disease caused by an infection due to bacteria, viruses and protozoa, of the meanings, which is the thin lining that surrounds the brain and the spinal cord.

The results of another study suggest future temperature increases due to climate change have the potential to significantly increase meningitis cases in both the early (20202035) and late (20602075) twenty-first century, and for the seasonal onset of meningitis to begin about a month earlier on average by late century, in October rather than November.

Also, climatic conditions have been shown to affect water-borne diseases in Nigeria. The changes in climatic conditions are germane to lengthen the transmission seasons of important vector-borne diseases and alter their geographic range. Malaria has been identified to be caused by climate conditions due to unicellular organism known as Plasmodium and transmitted by the bite of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes. Evidence shows that malaria accounted for over 45 per cent of all outpatients and about 50 per cent of the Nigerians suffer from at least one episode of malaria each year.

Scholars have argued that global warming, a consequence of climate change, could be linkeddirectly or indirectlyto the persistence as well as the re-emergence of malaria epidemics. The association between climate change and malaria spread is complex and remains a subject of controversy and debates. Therefore, Adewuyi and Adefemi posited that the spread and severity of malaria in several places and the increased incidences of the disease in some regions could indeed be associated with the effects and consequences of climate change. With this assertion, Adewuyi and Adefemi suggest that the biology of the Plasmodium spp, the ecology of mosquitoes and even the susceptibility of humans to malaria could all be affected directly/indirectly by extreme climatic events.

In Nigeria, evidence suggests an estimated 137,600 diarrhoeal deaths in children under-15 years of age in the baseline period of 2008. Furthermore, it was reported that under a high emissions event, diarrhoeal deaths which are linked to climate change in children under 15 years of age are projected to be 9.8 per cent of the over 76,000 diarrhoeal deaths predicted in 2030.

Evidence has proven that climate change has environmental and economic consequences on human health. The effects on human diseases such as skin cancer have been relatively under-emphasised. There is a direct link between ultraviolet (UV) exposure from the sun and the development of malignant skin disease.

One profound effect of climate change is among the aged persons in Nigeria. According to Aina and Adewoyin, the vulnerable age are particularly more at risk of climate-related diseases because of the effect of their age on their physiological and immunological compositions. Research has provided credence that the aged are more at risk of climate-related diseases because they have a lower physiological reserve, possess a slower rate of metabolism and a weakened immune system and have a higher morbidity rate.

SolutionsOn what Nigerians should do to protect themselves, Osibogun, who is the immediate past Chief Dedical director (CMD) of LUTH, said: We should reduce our exposure to the sun. It depends on the kind of work you do, but reduce the number of hours you stay under the sun, or rather outside, although some people, like bricklayers, cannot help but stay in the sun all day.

The negative effect could also be reduced by drinking enough water to replace the lost fluid from excessive sweating. Try and carry bottled water wherever you go and drink at least three litres of water daily.

A consultant meteorologist, Mr. Cyprian Okoloye, formerly with the Central Forecast Office of the Nigeria Meteorological Agency (NIMET), noted: The weather is not unusual. We are approaching the transition period between the dry season and rainy season. Usually, during the transition period, you experience very hot and humid weather. In a couple of days, you may see some showers.

The situation will return after the showers, even harsher conditions.

According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), people at greatest risk for heat-related illness can take the following protective actions to prevent illness or death:*Stay in air-conditioned buildings as much as you can. Contact your local health department or locate an air-conditioned shelter in your area. Air-conditioning is the number one way to protect yourself against heat-related illness and death. If your home is not air-conditioned, reduce your risk for heat-related illness by spending time in public facilities that are air-conditioned and using air conditioning in vehicles.*Do not rely on a fan as your main cooling device during an extreme heat event.*Drink more water than usual and dont wait until youre thirsty to drink.*Check on a friend or neighbor and have someone do the same for you.*Dont use the stove or oven to cookit will make you and your house hotter.

Even young and healthy people can get sick from the heat if they participate in strenuous physical activities during hot weather:*Limit your outdoor activity, especially midday when the sun is hottest.*Wear and reapply sunscreen as indicated on the package.*Pace your activity. Start activities slow and pick up the pace gradually.*Drink more water than usual and dont wait until youre thirsty to drink more. *Muscle cramping may be an early sign of heat-related illness.*Wear loose, lightweight, light-colored clothing.

If you play a sport that practices during hot weather, protect yourself and look out for your teammates:*Schedule workouts and practices earlier or later in the day when the temperature is cooler.*Monitor a teammates condition, and have someone do the same for you.*Seek medical care right away if you or a teammate has symptoms of heat-related illness.

Everyone should take these steps to prevent heat-related illnesses, injuries, and death during hot weather:*Stay in an air-conditioned indoor location as much as you can.*Drink plenty of fluids even if you dont feel thirsty.*Schedule outdoor activities carefully.*Wear loose, lightweight, light-colored clothing and sunscreen.*Pace yourself.*Take cool showers or baths to cool down.*Check on a friend or neighbour and have someone do the same for you.*Never leave children or pets in cars.*Check the local news for health and safety updates.

See the article here:
Coping with extremely hot, humid weather - Guardian

Women with multiple sclerosis (MS) who have never given birth and those who began menopause prematurely tend to develop progressive forms of the disease earlier, a study from theMayo Clinicsuggests.

These findings were presented at the Americas Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ACTRIMS) Forum 2020, running through Saturday, Feb. 29, in Florida.

Burcu Zeydan, MD, a Mayo Clinic physician, shared the results in the oral presentation Nulliparity Or Early Menopause Are Associated With Earlier Evolution Of Progressive Multiple Sclerosis In Women.

Being a woman is the strongest risk factor for developing MS, Zeydan said.

The disease is more common in women, with recent studies suggesting that it affects three times more women than men.

Gender also has an influence on the different stages of the disease. In those with relapsing-remitting MS(RRMS), women tend to have disease onset at earlier ages, while disability worsening is faster in men. The opposite is seen in the diseases progressive phase, with men tending to have onset at earlier ages and women showing faster disability worsening.

Pregnancy is known to potentially slow disability worsening and reduce relapse rates in women, while menopause potentially speeds up disability worsening,Zeydan said.

However, the influence of pregnancy and menopause on progressive MS has not been thoroughly studied.

Mayo Clinic researchers set out to explore the potential association of progressive MS with female sex, pregnancy, and menopause.

Their study enrolled 134 women and 68 men with progressive MS, and they analyzed various patient characteristics, such as the number of completed pregnancies, the age at menopause considered premature, or early, if it started at or before age 45 as well as age at onset of progressive MS andRRMS.

A group of postmenopausal women without MS, serving as controls, were also assessed.

Results showed that women who had never given birth, referred to as nulliparous (32 patients), developed progressive MS at earlier ages, a mean of 41.4 years old, than did women who had given birth at least once (95 patients), a mean age of 47.1.

Interestingly, nulliparity was more common among MS patients (23%) than among controls (15%).

The higher the number of viable pregnancies (those that conclude with a birth), the older the age at onset of progressive MS, the researchers found. Onset ranged from a mean of 41.4 years old in women with no pregnancies, to 52.6 for women with four or more viable pregnancies.

Similar trends were observed insecondary progressive MS (SPMS) and RRMS patient subgroups. Women who never had a viable pregnancy developed SPMS at an earlier age a mean of 41.5 than did women who gave birth once or more (47.3 years old). Among those with RRMS, nulliparous women had disease onset at a mean age of 27.5, and women with one or more viable births at a mean age of 33.

Most patients with RRMSeventually develop SPMS, the researchers noted.

The number of pregnancies also had an effect on the age of SPMS onset ranging from 41.5 years old for no pregnancies, to 52.6 for four or more. A similar effect was seen for RRMS onset from 27.5 years old for women with no pregnancies, to 35.8 for those four or more.

Among patients with SPMS, women developed RRMS at an earlier age (mean of 31.4) than did men (mean age, 36).

The transition from RRMS to SPMS was faster in women with early menopause (12.9 years) than in patients who began menopause at whats considered a normal age (17.8 years). This transition, nevertheless, took longer in women than it did in men, who moved from RRMS to SPMS in a mean of 10.4 years.

Among woman who developed SPMS after going through menopause, progression from RRMS was faster in those with premature menopause (13.9 years) than in those who did not go into early menopause (25.4 years).

Overall, nulliparity or premature/early menopause seem to be associated with earlier onset of progressive MS, Zeydan said. But she emphasized that the study does not establish a direct causality between the two.

There is further need for a larger study to understand whether these factors lead to earlier development of progressive MS, or whether MS-associated factors lead to nulliparity or earlier menopause, the researchers wrote.

Based on these results, Zeydan suggested that women with MS, especially, should rethink how pregnancy and surgical menopause counseling is done, and consider the option of menopausal hormone therapies.

Our observations are intriguing as there is evolving knowledge of the impact ofestrogenon neuroprotection associated withastrocyteandmicroglianetworks, and their relevance to progressive MS,she said.

Estrogen levels rise above whats typical during pregnancy; they drop below typical levels when women go through menopause. Microglia and astrocytes are types of cells that provide support to nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord; both have been implicated in thedamaging immune reactionsand theformation of lesionsseen in MS.

Ana is a molecular biologist with a passion for communication and discovery. As a science writer, her goal is to provide readers, in particular patients and healthcare providers, with clear and quality information about the latest medical advances. Ana holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Lisbon, Portugal, where she specialized in infectious diseases, epigenetics, and gene expression.

Total Posts: 1,053

Patrcia holds her PhD in Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases from the Leiden University Medical Center in Leiden, The Netherlands. She has studied Applied Biology at Universidade do Minho and was a postdoctoral research fellow at Instituto de Medicina Molecular in Lisbon, Portugal. Her work has been focused on molecular genetic traits of infectious agents such as viruses and parasites.

More:
#ACTRIMS2020 Pregnancies and Menopause Affect Age of Progressive... - Multiple Sclerosis News Today