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Healthwise 74 May 2006
Healthwise is a regular column written especially for laterlife.com members and visitors by Helen Franks, journalist and author. Welcome to healthwise 74. For previous articles in the healthwise series visit 'more healthwise'
The Sexual Dysfunction Association has joined with the Prostate Research Campaign to produce a booklet called Sex and the Prostate. The booklet is aimed at helping men and their partners understand the effects that prostate problems have on sexual function.
Ring the helpline on 0870 7743571 or email
info@sda.uk.net If you want
to know more about the Association, go to
www.sda.uk.net .
Online weight reduction programme declared a success
A ground-breaking weight reduction
project to help workers improve their health and fitness and increase
their life expectancy has been declared an overwhelming success. Over a period of four months, it resulted in 4,400 BT employees losing 10 tonnes of weight between them, an average weight loss of 2.3 kg. More than 16,000 of BT’s 100,000 employees signed up for the programme last year, of whom 4,700 were chosen to take part. BT launched the programme after it emerged that the company was losing one employee every two weeks to a heart-related illness. The programme gave participants the option of taking part as individuals or as members of teams that competed against each other online. More than 500 teams took part. Free kitbags were handed out containing pedometers, tape measures and general information.
The Men's Health Forum is now planning to roll out similar programmes
to other interested companies and will shortly be discussing with
public health minister Caroline Flint how the Department of Health can
back the initiative. See more at
www.menshealthforum.org.uk
and www.malehealth.co.uk
Air purifiers are making their way into mail order catalogues and offers in newspapers. They can help asthma and allergy sufferers and claim to clear the air of impurities.
The Goodsphere uses aromatherapy oils and water to cleanse the air. Go
to www.goodsphere.com
to find out more. Laughing may be as helpful for your heart as taking a statin heart drug. A study of 20 healthy volunteers found that laughter increased the flow of blood to the heart by 22 %, which was similar to the results of starting a statin drug or doing strenuous exercise. Their brachial artery flow-mediated-vasodilatation (FMD) was measured before and after watching the comedy film There’s Something About Mary, showing the blood flow increase. FMD was also measured after they watched the tense and stressful Saving Private Ryan war movie, after which their FMD reduced by 35 %.
Another study showed an increase in beta endorphins and human growth
hormone after watching a funny video. Stress hormones are reduced and
the immune system is boosted says Dr Lee Berk addressing a meeting of
the American Physiological Society. A dressing which enables pain medication was launched at London's Royal College of Physicians. The new type of dressing provides moist wound healing and exudate management. This can enable alleviation of ongoing pain for people with chronic wounds, by delivering ibuprofen directly into the wound. Painful wounds that will not heal such as leg ulcers and pressure sores are a common but overlooked problem. Such chronic wounds are almost twice as common as rheumatoid arthritis. The new dressing called Biatain - Ibu was developed by Danish medical device manufacturer Coloplast. It absorbs and evaporates away large quantities of wound fluid. At the same time it slowly and constantly delivers low-dosage ibuprofen, the pain-reducing drug, directly into the wound, bypassing common side affects of oral pain-reducing drugs.
The effect of the dressing will last for up to 7 days. According to
one study, patients were happier and more relaxed with the new kind of
dressing, simply because they suffered less from ongoing pain. Ask
your GP for more information.
Do we really need to drink eight glasses of water per day? We are dehydrated and need to drink at least eight eight-ounce glasses of water a day? I know that is what I have traditionally been exposed to. I used to advise that people follow an even more refined rule of thumb--for every 50 pounds of body weight you carry, drink one quart of spring or filtered water per day. This would increase daily water intake to 12 to 16 glasses for most of us. However, after awhile I began to question this and I further refined my recommendations to use the color of your urine as a guide to how much water you should be drinking. As long as you are not taking riboflavin (vitamin B2), which fluoresces and turns your urine bright yellow (it is also in most multi-vitamins), then your urine should be a very light-coloured yellow. If it is a deep yellow then you are likely not drinking enough water. So I was delighted to read in my Family Practice Newspaper that an
Institute of Medicine Panel actually reached the same rational
conclusion. They rejected the conventional wisdom that people need to
drink eight glasses of water a day and concluded that on a daily basis
people get enough water from normal drinking behavior, such as
drinking beverages at meals and in other social situations, and by
letting their thirst guide them.
Every day you lose water from the body through urine and sweat, and
this fluid needs to be replenished. However, your body has come
equipped with a mechanism that tells you when you need to replenish
your supply--it’s called thirst! A new product, Litozin, derived from rose hips, provides complementary relief for osteoarthritis sufferers. Assessed to be more effective than glucosamine, it is backed by substantial scientific research. Recently launched in the UK, it has been on sale in Scandinavia for over two years. Litozin is an anti-inflammatory, and it works differently to glucosamine. The most recent study published in the August 2005 issue of the Scandinavian Journal of Rheumatology, found it resulted in a significant reduction in pain. Whereas glucosamine was shown to be effective in 40 % of study participants, Litozin was effective in 82 % of cases. The study also found that after three months, patients noticed a significant decrease in stiffness of the joints and disability. Litozin Joint Health is available from The Nutri Centre at ?19.99 for 120 capsules, ?19.99 for 100g powder by calling 0800 587 2290 or visiting www.nutricentre.com Go to www.food.gov.uk , website of the Foods Standards Agency. It keeps up to date on all kinds of nutritional news, so you can also see latest research on foods sold in supermarkets.
Extracted from Men’s Health If in any doubt about any of the information covered in healthwise articles and it's relevance for you, consult your GP. |
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Essential medical reference that's a must for every home. Published in association with the BMA, it includes comprehensive coverage of every important aspect of health and medicine, as well as user-friendly charts for at-a-glance information and easy reference. Also lists the best medical websites...
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In edition 73:- In edition 73 of healthwise Helen covers 5 new topics: Statins have been hailed as a wonder drug which can decrease harmful cholesterol
Dry eye syndrome is a condition affecting older people
A study shows that HRT can make some women incontinent
The RNID offers a range of products to help deaf and hard of hearing people.
A few things to know if you suffer from asthma..
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They also neutralise cooking smells in living rooms and kitchens, and
if you have a smoker in the house, they work on smoke too.
The
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