Healthy News for Healthy Nation

Since the dawn of time, people have looked toward elixirs and potions to improve their sex lives. Why else, after all, would one consume ground tiger penis, horny goat weed and Spanish Fly?

Perhaps because nearly one in five men in the U.S. suffer from erectile dysfunction, according to a recent study in the American Journal of Medicine. Some researchers have estimated that as many as 40% of U.S. women have low libido or inability to reach orgasm. Most quick fixes simply don’t work, and some, like Spanish Fly, a supposed aphrodisiac derived from beetles that can cause kidney damage, are harmful.

But modern medicine has found ways–both proven and experimental–to improve your sex life. One place to start: old-fashioned remedies, which some say work best. Regular exercise can actually improve erectile function in most men, says Andrew McCullough, a urologist at New York University Medical Center–and we’re talking jogging, not the acrobatic feats found in the back of a magazine. Not particularly athletic? Therapists say that paying attention to your feelings is as important as any pill, nose spray or cream.

“Have a really wonderful role-play with your partner, have a really great dinner out or watch a romantic movie together,” says Robert Dunlap, who has researched aphrodisiacs at the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco. “The greatest aphrodisiac is your mind.”

Hope In A Bottle
But that’s not stopping the $600 billion global pharmaceutical industry from trying to think up new sex drugs. Viagra, the little blue pill Pfizer launched a decade ago, brings in $1.7 billion in sales every year. Cialis, the longer-acting imitator made by Eli Lilly, rakes in another $1 billion, with several hundred million more for Levitra, from Bayer and Schering-Plough. Other remedies increase blood flow, like the penis injection Caverject, and bring in $30 million more.

A product that could improve women’s sexual function might bring in even more money, if it were truly effective. So far, though, companies have been unsuccessful. Viagra failed in tests on women. Procter & Gamble tried to push a testosterone patch for female sexual dysfunction through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) but in 2004 the agency balked, citing a lack of long-term safety data.

Now the idea of using testosterone as a sex-booster for women is being pushed by Lincolnshire, Ill.-based BioSante Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Its LibiGel is rubbed on the upper arm daily, delivering testosterone, which is thought to increase libido, to the bloodstream over time. The company just began late-stage trials, and, after discussions with the FDA, will start a big safety trial before submitting data to regulators in 2009.

Palatin Technologies, of Cranbury, N.J., is trying to get in on the game, developing a nose spray, called bremelanotide, to treat men and women with sexual dysfunction. Applied 10 to 15 minutes prior to sex, it travels through the central nervous system to increase blood flow in the penile or vaginal tissue. The company hopes to get FDA approval for men in 2009 and women around 2011. “On the female front, we’ve got a chance to be first to market,” says CEO Carl Spana. “People wonder how many women will come in for treatment, but my gut tells me they will come in.”

What Really Works
Right now, the treatment available for women with female sexual dysfunction that has been reviewed by the FDA is a handheld vacuum that can be used with a doctor’s prescription to increase blood flow to the clitoris. Called Eros Therapy, it is made by NuGyn of Minnesota. Devices such as this go through fewer hurdles than drugs; the Eros device has been tested in several dozen people, compared with hundreds for a pill such as Viagra.

Joy Davidson, a Manhattan-based certified sex therapist, worries that all this technology may cause some people to ignore important cultural factors that can cause sexual dysfunction. “There are agendas here that are not health-based, they’re profit-based,” she says. “If you’re not looking at these elements–the emotional, psychological and cultural–then giving somebody a so-called magic pill is not going to solve the problem.”

Future Fixes
Meanwhile, drug researchers keep coming up with even more out-there approaches. For instance, a gene therapy, which seeks to fix erectile function by altering the DNA of cells in the penis, then injecting them back in to the patient. It should work for six months, according to inventor Arnold Melman, the researcher at New York’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He has co-founded a tiny biotech, Ion Channel Innovations, to develop the product, which even he doesn’t expect to reach the market before 2012. No gene therapy has ever been approved.

“People always say gene therapy doesn’t work, but at one point it will,” says Melman. “We think this is the one.”

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For some, the thought of abandoning antiperspirants gives them the cold sweats. For others, it’s the thought of using them. Underarm antiperspirants guard against odor and wetness, but could the aluminum-based compounds that reduce sweat actually cause Alzheimer’s disease and breast cancer?

The antiperspirant finger-pointing began more than 40 years ago with new discoveries about Alzheimer’s, a progressive dementia that affects more than five million Americans. Antiperspirants use compounds—such as aluminum chloride, aluminum chlorohydrate and aluminum zirconium—to form a temporary sweat duct plug. Researchers back then found that exposure to aluminum caused rabbits’ brains to develop nerve cell damage—thought to be a precursor to Alzheimer’s at the time—and long-term dialysis patients with high levels of the metal developed dementia.

Critics charge that rabbits are not good animal models for human brain diseases and note that the dialysis patients suffered from dialysis encephalopathy, or “dialysis dementia,” not Alzheimer’s disease. But neuropathologist Daniel P. Perl at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City has found evidence of aluminum in the neurofibrillary tangles that characterize Alzheimer’s disease.

“Just because the rabbit is not a good model doesn’t mean that there is not a problem,” he says. “There are a zillion examples of things that are clearly toxic to humans, but when exposed to rats—even monkeys—show no problem.”

On average, most people take in approximately 30 to 50 milligrams per day of aluminum from food; those using over-the-counter medications such as antacids and buffered aspirins ingest larger amounts, roughly five grams a day. At that level, there is little evidence of harm, most experts say.

Skeptics cite such a lack of epidemiologic evidence in the decades since the concern was first raised and say avoiding the third most common element in Earth’s crust is impossible. Even if people were to ban aluminum pots and pans, chuck soda cans or cap antiperspirants, the ubiquitous metal would still be in the food they eat, the water they drink and, sometimes, even in the air they breathe.

“Everyone’s been exposed, which makes it very difficult to study,” says epidemiologist Amy Borenstein of the College of Public Health at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Her 1990 case-control study, reported in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, found no association between aluminum-containing products and Alzheimer’s disease. “If it even plays a role at all,” she says, “it’s negligible.”

William Thies, vice president of medical and scientific relations at the Alzheimer’s Association in Chicago, calls the notion that antiperspirants could cause Alzheimer’s disease an old legend. “One of the things that happens in Alzheimer’s brains is that they shrink,” he says. “So, you have accumulated a certain amount of aluminum in your brain, and as your brain shrinks, the concentration is going to appear high.”

Cancer has also been a source of concern for some, which may have originated with instructions that women avoid antiperspirants, deodorants, powders and lotions before mammograms in order to avoid confusing shadows on X-rays. This may have led to confusion about a potential link between cancer and personal care products.

Adding to uncertainty, in the 1990s an anonymous e-mail chain letter warned that antiperspirants caused breast cancer. Ted Gansler, director of medical content at the American Cancer Society in Atlanta, says that in the past seven years, his organization has received thousands of e-mails and phone calls in response to this chain letter.

The letter claims that inhibiting perspiration causes harmful substances to be trapped in the body where they form cancer. But sweat is mostly electrolytes and water, Gansler says, and sweating is not a significant mechanism for expelling unwanted compounds, more commonly eliminated in urine and feces. “It would be nice if as many people as [those who] forwarded the e-mail about antiperspirants, urged their friends and relatives to get a mammogram every year starting at age 40,” he says. “We would have saved a lot more lives.”

The idea that toxics would enter the body through the underarm, migrate to the lymph nodes and then travel to the breast may have more to do with geography than biology. “Why you would think that antiperspirant would somehow go upstream and get into your lymph nodes and then somehow get into the breast is unclear,” says Timothy Moynihan, education chair and consultant for the division of medical oncology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. “It doesn’t make sense other than the fact that it’s in the neighborhood.”

Ultimately, lifestyle changes like exercising are more important than whether or not your underarms are sweaty while you are walking around or working out. “Everyone worries about underarm antiperspirants,” Moynihan adds, “but nobody quits smoking.”

Original here 

At least one in 10 teenage girls is carrying a sexually-transmitted disease which could give them cancer, shocking figures revealed last night.More and more girls aged under 16 are infected with the human papilloma virus - putting them at risk of developing cervical cancer later in life.

Last night the Health Protection Agency warned that the risk a girl is carrying the HPV virus rises ’substantially’ after the age of 14 - two years before they can legally have sex.

By the age of 18, around 20 per cent of girls will have contracted the virus, while by the age of 24, 40 per cent will have done so.

HPV is linked to most cases of cervical cancer, which kills more than 1,000 middle-aged women in Britain every year.

A vaccine against the sexually-transmitted disease is available but must be given before puberty to be effective.

In June the Government said it would start vaccinating girls as young as 12 against HPV - saying it would save at least 700 lives a year.

The decision caused controversy, with some claiming the jab would promote promiscuity among young girls.

Pregnancies among under-18s rose in 2005 to 39,683 - up from 39,593 in 2004 and much higher than the 35,400 recorded a decade earlier in 1995.

And rates of chlamydia and genital herpes are also climbing, despite Government attempts to reduce the number of teenagers with sexual infections.

The latest figures, published in the British Journal of Cancer, reveal for the first time just how many young women are catching HPV.

Scientists tested blood samples from 1,483 girls and women between the ages of 10 and 29.

They found that 21 per cent had the virus and that the risk of infection increased sharply at the age of 14.

Most HPV infections show no symptoms and clear on their own. But they can cause genital warts in men and women, and cervical cancer in women.

Professor Pat Troop, chief executive of the Health Protection Agency, said: “This study is a valuable addition to our understanding of HPV infection in women in England and should contribute to effective policies to prevent genital warts and cervical cancer.

“With the Government’s recent announcement of the possible introduction of HPV vaccination, such research will help us and other public health experts to determine the impact of HPV vaccination.”

Juliet Hillier, of the sexual health charity Brook, said: “Statistics like this demonstrate a real need to improve education and prevention programmes which target young people.

“The Government must urgently implement a vaccination programme for girls and boys before they become sexually active and ensure resource is available to do so.

“Sex and relationships education must be made a statutory part of the national curriculum. Young people must also have access to information and advice before they become sexually active.’

Norman Wells of Family and Youth Concern said: “These disturbing figures highlight the failure of sex education programmes which tell children that there is nothing wrong with sex at any age so long as they use a condom. “So long as the government continues to encourage teenage sexual activity by making contraception freely and confidentially available in school clinics and other settings, sexually transmitted infection rates will continue to rise. “The real need is not to normalise condom use, but to normalise saving sex for marriage and then remaining faithful to your husband or wife for life.”

Official figures show that sexually-transmitted diseases among the young are continuing to rise - up 2 per cent in 2006.

Experts have expressed particular concern over a 16 per cent rise in the number of girls with the incurable and unpleasant condition of genital herpes.

Chlamydia rates increased by 4 per cent and genital warts by 3 per cent.

Concerns over HPV led the Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation to recommend that girls aged 12 and 13 should be offered injections of the vaccine Gardasil from autumn 2008.

Ministers accepted the advice in principle, subject to an independent analysis of the benefits compared to the costs. The final verdict is due next month.

The vaccine, which is given in three injections over six months, must be given before puberty to be most effective.

Like all vaccination programmes, the scheme will be voluntary and parents will be able to refuse permission for their daughter to have the jab.

Experts say it could be 20 years before the first health benefits are seen - but they insist it will save thousands of lives.

Each jab costs £300 and if every first-year secondary school child receives it, it will cost £100 million.

But the anti-vaccination pressure group Jabs says the injection has not been tested enough on young girls, meaning possible side effects such as birth defects and juvenile arthritis have not been properly assessed.

 Original here

Photo by tagp

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Sara Ost of www.healthbolt.net. Every Friday is Health Tip Day at Zen Habits.

The belly: it’s the first spot to get paunchy and the last place to look sleek. A tight core is the one thing we all want (possibly even more than another new online community).

Unfortunately, biology couldn’t care less about our six-pack fantasies, for the human body is built to treasure precious calories, and our midsections are especially talented at storing the excess ones. Couple our genetic predisposition to adiposity with the modern lifestyle of excessive calories and stress, and it’s no wonder a trim midsection eludes many of us!

No problem: my six steps will have you rockin’ a toned torso in no time. They worked for me. The best part? No sit-ups required!

1. No more sit-ups! I’ve tried many ab gadgets and committed to several determined bouts of daily crunch torture on my road to fitness – and I never got anywhere. Sound familiar? Forget the isolated exercises. Many of the fittest people on earth – from Navy SEALs to professional athletes – never do a single sit-up and shun crunches. In fact, some military training guides actually discourage isolated abdominal exercises. There are many paths to sleek abs, so if crunches happen to work for you, please skip this post. I personally recommend following a fitness regimen that is comprehensive in nature. While isolated movements can tone individual muscle groups, for true core fitness, it’s better to do integrated exercises that strengthen your entire body – with defined abs being the happy side effect. Point 5 will explain this further, but two simple, highly-effective integrative exercises you can try are the standing weighted arm lift and the hot potato.
2. Lose weight. (I know, I know!) Many fitness guides will instruct you in all manner of stomach exercises, and we’ve all seen those “sexy abs in just three minutes” infomercials! Save your money. Until you drop excess pounds, you simply won’t see your abs, whatever their state of fitness. (Yes, your abs – everyone has a natural six-pack under there somewhere!) Lose weight and your abs will show up quite nicely, even if you never do a single sit-up. Men generally need to maintain about 8-14% body fat; women should add 10 to that.
3. Reduce empty calories drastically. Lose the belly roll by eliminating as many sources of empty calories from your diet as possible. Yes, this means carbs! Not only do empty calories prompt bouts of irritability, headaches, cravings, mood swings, and possible nutritional deficiencies, empty calories readily convert to fat in the midsection. If you’ve read Tim Ferris’s success story with the “slow carb” diet or heard of Atkins (and I know you have!), you already know where I’m going with this. Cutting empty carbohydrates and sugars out of your life will not only trim your middle; you’ll reduce your risk of diabetes, too. That said, I don’t think you have to become a bloodthirsty carnivore or suffer on low-carb beer for the rest of your life. That’s an approach that is certainly immoderate and definitely not healthy. But do cut back on refined, worthless calories from cakes, cookies, pastries, crackers, chips, big bowls of pasta, and white bread.
4. Going a step further, eliminate all liquid calories. Most of us are aware that soda is full of nothing but sugar (or unhealthy sugar substitutes like corn syrup). But be mindful of drinking any calories. Many coffee drinks are essentially glorified milkshakes, and smoothies that contain ice cream and juice instead of real fruit and protein powder are no better. And while it’s commonly accepted that juice is healthy, I suggest cutting back. Even 100% juice is still going to spike your blood sugar. A real piece of fruit provides fiber and fills you up; juice just gives you extra calories you don’t need.
5. Practice an integrative exercise system and get good at it. Beyond the vanity of wanting a taut middle, your health will benefit, too. What do I mean by an “integrative” exercise system? Anything that incorporates resistance, stretching and weight-bearing movement. Excellent choices are yoga, pilates, the Bar Method, martial arts, dance, boot camp classes, and any sports. I’ve had great personal success with yoga; after shedding the excess tummy pudge, it only took a few weeks of yoga for the abs to peek out. Furthermore, an integrative exercise program elongates your muscles, lubricates your joints, and releases the pressure that compacts your vertebral column. Better posture = better abs.
6. Reduce stress, balance hormones. Did you know that a sluggish metabolism can often be perked up by switching from table salt to sea salt? (Iodine helps the thyroid gland, which plays a role in metabolism.) That’s just the beginning. Our hormones have a direct relationship to immunity, metabolism, and much more. And stress is a very sure way to disrupt healthy hormone regulation. If you’d like to know more about hormonal issues and the relationship to weight gain, please feel free to respond in the comments and I’ll provide some helpful links. Bottom line: reduce stress! It’s so important to find a way to reduce and manage any stress in your life (again with that yoga!). However you choose to handle stress, don’t shirk this aspect of weight management and health. Your abs are depending on you!

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