Cranberry prevents bacteria from sticking to the bladder wall long enough to cause an infection

Cranberry for Urinary-Tract Infection

Cranberry prevents bacteria from sticking to the bladder wall long enough to cause an infection. Finnish researchers divided 150 recurrent UTI sufferers into three groups. One drank cranberry juice (50 milliliters a day). Another took Lactobacillus. The third took nothing. After six months, 36 percent of the no-treatment group and 39 percent of the Lactobacillus group reported at least one recurrence. Of the juice drinkers, only 16 percent had recurrences. Other options are dried cranberries (Craisins) and cranberry-extract capsules. "I recommend cranberry for UTI," Duke says. "But if you drink the juice, you have to drink a lot. It's usually easier to munch on the dried berries or take capsules."

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Study 2010 stop smoke

A new study shows that smokers who quit have healthier arteries a year later and probably will have less risk of heart disease as a result.

Doctors say the improvement came even though people who kicked the habit gained an average of 9 pounds. The study at the University of Wisconsin in Madison involved 1,500 smokers who were given one of five methods, such as nicotine patches or lozenges, to help them quit.

About one-third were successful, regardless of which method they used. Ultrasound tests were used to measure the health of their arteries before and after the study.

Results were reported Monday at a cardiology conference in Atlanta.

Stronger placebo effect

Like massage, acupuncture is difficult to study because it's hard to give a "fake" massage or "placebo" acupuncture. Says Clauw: "In 'sham' or placebo controlled trials in chronic pain, more studies have shown that acupuncture doesn't work. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it's not effective—it might be that there really is no such thing as sham acupuncture. Acupuncture might somehow be effective in engendering a placebo response." Whether that matters if someone feels significant pain relief is a question only the patient can answer. "The best evidence that it's effective is that a lot people will pay out of pocket to use it," he says.
Clauw himself conducted a fascinating imaging study of acupuncture, finding that while patients with fibromyalgia reported decreased pain with both fake and real acupuncture, fake acupuncture affected brain opioid receptors in a way that was more comparable to that seen with placebo. "Sham acupuncture may work via placebo effects and active acupuncture may work by more specific effects. That could help explain why trials don't show much difference," he says.
Some have claimed that electroacupuncture—which runs a small current through acupuncture needles—is more effective than needles alone, but Clauw says it's even harder to parse out placebo effects here. "It may give a stronger placebo effect," he says. For people in pain, however, that could be a good thing.

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Ergotamine/caffeine (Rectal)
Caffeine (KAF-een), Ergotamine (er-GOT-a-meen)
Treats or prevents migraine and cluster headaches.
Brand Name(s):
Cafergot,Migergot
There may be other brand names for this medicine.
When Cafergot Should Not Be Used:
You should not use this medicine if you have had an allergic reaction to ergotamine or caffeine, or if you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. You should not use this medicine if you have high blood pressure, kidney disease, liver disease, heart disease, blood vessel disorders, or problems with circulation.
How to Use Cafergot:
Suppository
Your doctor will tell you how much of this medicine(Cafergot) to use and how often. Do not use more medicine or use it more often than your doctor tells you to. Never take rectal suppositories by mouth.
Wash your hands with soap and water before using Cafergot. Remove the foil or wrapper from the suppository before inserting it.
To make the suppository easier to insert, you may use a lubricating gel such as K-Y® Jelly, but do not use petroleum jelly (Vaseline®).
Lie on your left side with your left leg straight or slightly bent, and your right knee bent upward. Gently push the pointed end of the suppository into the rectum about 1 inch.
Keep lying down for about 15 minutes to keep the suppository from coming out before it melts. Then, wash your hands again.
How to Store and Dispose of Cafergot:
Store Cafergot at room temperature, away from heat and direct light. Follow the directions on the medicine package label about storing the suppositories in the refrigerator, but do not freeze them.
Keep all medicine out of the reach of children and never share your medicine with anyone.
Drugs and Foods to Avoid:
Ask your doctor or pharmacist before using any other medicine, including over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal products.
Make sure your doctor knows if you are also using dopamine (Intropin®), sibutramine (Meridia®), antibiotics (such as Biaxin®, Dynabac®, Ery-Tab®), blood pressure medicine (such as atenolol, metoprolol, Inderal®, Toprol®), medicines to treat HIV/AIDS (Agenerase®, Crixivan®, Invirase®, Norvir®, Rescriptor®, Sustiva®, Viracept®), or other medicines to treat migraine headaches (Amerge®, Imitrex®, Maxalt®, Zomig?).
Do not drink alcohol while you are using this medicine. Avoid caffeine (coffee, tea, soft drinks, chocolate).
Smoking may make your headaches worse or increase the side effects of this medicine.
Warnings While Using This Medicine:
Make sure your doctor knows if you are breastfeeding, or if you have a stomach ulcer, glaucoma, or history of a stroke.
If you feel that the medicine is not working as well, do not use more than your prescribed dose. Call your doctor for instructions.
Possible Side Effects While Using Cafergot:
Call your doctor right away if you notice any of these side effects:
Fast or slow heartbeat
Lightheadedness or fainting
Numbness or tingling in your fingers or toes
Pain or discomfort behind your breastbone
Pain, itching, or irritation around your rectum
Skin rash, swelling, or itching
Vomiting, numbness, tingling feeling, or pain and blue discoloration of your hands and feet
If you notice these less serious side effects, talk with your doctor:
Muscle pain
Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, or stomach pain
Nervousness, irritability, dizziness
Weakness in your legs
If you notice other side effects that you think are caused by this medicine, tell your doctor.

Bunch of grapes help to fight high blood pressure

Could eating a bunch of grapes help to fight high blood pressure related to a salty diet? Could they also calm other factors that are also related to heart diseases such as failure of the heart? You'd be amazed at what those oval rounds of goodness have packed inside their black, red or green skin.

A new study conducted by the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center gives tantalizing clues to the potential of grapes in reducing the risk of cardiovascular complications. The effect is thought to be due to the high level of phytochemicals, which are naturally occurring antioxidants that grapes contain.

The current study was performed on laboratory rats. The researchers studied the effects that regular table grapes (a blend of black, green and red grapes) that were mixed into the rat diet in a powdered form, as part of either a diet low in salt or a diet high in salt. The researchers then performed many comparisons between the rats that were consuming the test diet and the control rats that were receiving no grape powder—including some that had received a mild dose of a common blood pressure medication. All of the rats were from a research breed that is prone to developing high blood pressure when they are fed a salty diet.

Mitchell Seymour, M.S., who lead the research as part of his doctoral work in nutrition science at the Michigan State University, said that in all, after 18 weeks, the rats that had received the diet with the grape-powder had reduced inflammation in their bodies, lower blood pressure, better heart function, and fewer signs of heart muscle damage that the rats that had eaten the same salty diet but did not receive any grapes. The rats that received the blood pressure pill, hydrazine, along with the salty diet also had lower blood pressure, but their hearts were not protected from damage as the rats in the grape-fed group. "These findings support out theory that something within the grapes themselves has a direct impact on cardiovascular risk, beyond the simple blood pressure-lowering impact that we already know can come from a diet rich in fruits and vegetables."

Steve Bolling, M.D., who is a professor of cardiac surgery at the U-M Medical School, notes that the rats in the study were in a put in a similar situation as millions of Americans, who have suffered from high blood pressure related to their diet, and who develop heart failure over time because of the prolonged hypertension. He also stated that the inevitable downhill sequence from hypertension to heart failure was changed by adding the grape powder to a high salt diet. Bolling explained, " Although there are many natural compounds in the grape powder itself that may have an effect, the things that we think are having an effect against the hypertension may be the flavanoids—either by direct antioxidant effects, by indirect effects on cell function, or both. These flavanoids are rich in all parts of the grape—skin, flesh, seed, all of which were in our powder."

Although the current study  was supported in part by the California Table Grape Commission, which also supplied the researchers with the grape powder, the authors note that the commission played no role in the design of the study, analysis, conduct, or preparation of the journal article for publication. Seymour has also received funding from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, through a National Research Science Award.

This does not mean it is time to tell patients to throw all of their medication away and just eat grapes. However, the research on the grapes and other fruits that contain high levels of antioxidant phytochemicals continues to show promise. So does the research on the impact of red wine on the heath of the heart, though that issue is also far from being settled.

Bolling suggested that if people wish to lower their blood pressure, reduce the risk of having heart failure, or help their weakened hearts retain as much pumping power as possible should follow tried-and-true advice: Cut down on the amount of salt that you get through your drink and food. "There is, as we know, a great variability, perhaps genetic even, in sensitivity to salt and causing hypertension. Some people are very sensitive to salt intake, some are only moderately so, and there are perhaps some people who are salt resistant. But in general we say stay away from excess salt."

He also notes that the popular DASH diet, which is low in salt and high in vegetables and fruits, has been proven to reduce mild high blood pressure without taking any medications. The dose of whole table grape powder that was consumed in the new study was roughly equivalent to a person eating nine human-sized servings of grapes daily. Currently, five to nine servings of vegetables and fruits are recommended as part of the Dash diet plan.

In all, the researchers say that this study demonstrates that a diet enriched with grapes can have broad effects on the development of hypertension and the risk factor that come along with it. Whether the effect can be replicated on humans, the researchers say, remains yet to be seen.


http://www.healthnews.com/nutrition-diet/grapes-newest-heart-healthy-food-2044.html

Globally more than 30 million people are infected with HIV

University of Michigan scientists have identified a new reservoir for hidden HIV-infected cells that can serve as a factory for new infections. The findings, which appear online March 7 in Nature Medicine, indicate a new target for curing the disease so those infected with the virus may someday no longer rely on AIDS drugs for a lifetime. "Antiviral drugs have been effective at keeping the virus at bay. However once the drug therapy is stopped, the virus comes back," says senior author of the study Kathleen L. Collins, MD, Ph.D., associate professor of both internal medicine and microbiology and immunology at the U-M Medical School. In people infected with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), the virus that causes AIDS, there's an unsolved problem with current antiviral drugs. Though lifesaving, they cannot root the virus out of the body. Infected cells are able to live on, undetected by the immune system, and provide the machinery for the virus to reproduce and spread. Important new research by U-M has discovered that bone marrow, previously thought to be resistant to the virus, can contain latent forms of the infection. "This finding is important because it helps explain why it's hard to cure the disease," Collins says. "Ultimately to cure this disease, we're going to have to develop specific strategies aimed at targeting these latently infected cells." "Currently people have to take antiviral drugs for their entire life to control the infection," she says. "It would be easier to treat this disease in countries that don't have the same resources as we do with a course of therapy for a few months, or even years. But based on what we know now people have to stay on drugs for their entire life." Using tissue samples, U-M researchers detected HIV genomes in bone marrow isolated from people effectively treated with antiviral drugs for more than six months. While further studies are needed to demonstrate that stem cells can harbor the HIV virus, the study results confirm that HIV targets some long-lived progenitor cells, young cells that have not fully developed but mature into cells with special immune functions. When active infection occurs the toxic effects of the virus kill the cell even as the newly made viral particles spread the infection to new target cells. "Our finding that HIV infects these cells has clear ramifications for HIV disease because some of these cells may be long-lived and could carry latent HIV for extended periods of time," she says. "These HIV cell reservoirs can be induced to generate new infections." The new research gives a broader view of how HIV overwhelms the body's immune system and devastates its ability to regenerate itself. Globally more than 30 million people are infected with HIV, including millions of children. Improvements have been made since the 1990s in the way the disease is treated that has led to an 85 percent to 90 percent reduction in mortality. "Drugs now available are effective at treating the virus, making HIV more of a chronic disease than a death sentence," Collins says. "This has made a huge impact in quality of life, however only 40 percent of people worldwide are receiving anti-viral drugs and unfortunately that means that not everybody is benefiting."




http://www.hivplusmag.com/NewsStory.asp?id=21870&StoryDate=03/09/2010

Fear of anthrax infection.People Want the Drug Cipro

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson asked Americans not to buy and hoard the pharmaceuticals, although there is some controversy over whether the country has enough drugs on hand. Claude Allen, HHS deputy secretary, told the House Committee on Veterans Affairs that part of $1.5 billion the department has requested, would be used to increase the pharmaceutical stockpile of anthrax treatment. The $1 billion-a-year drug, manufactured by German drugmaker Bayer AG, has been used in the United States since 1987 to treat a variety of infections. The Food and Drug Administration approved it for anthrax treatment last year. Fear of anthrax infection has taken hold across the country and even in Europe where several recent scares have been reported. People Want the Drug Dr. Daisy Merey, who runs a family practice in West Palm Beach, said she prescribed Cipro for several people who wanted it around just in case they got sick. "A lot of people who are coming in for checkups are also asking about Cipro," Merey told Reuters. "We don't recommend taking antibiotics as a preventive measure because there are side effects. If people really want it just to have in case something happens, we'll prescribe it to them." One reason doctors don't like to have people procuring prescriptions for Cipro online is that it's a very strong antibiotic that is generally reserved for tough cases, said Dr. Nancy Snyderman on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. "It's not even a first-line drug of choice for most infections," Snyderman said. "This is a kind of medication you use when other things fail." Since anthrax doesn't widely disperse itself, there is no need to stock up on Cipro, said Stephen Ostroff, chief epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. "And in all of the current situations that we're aware of, it's really mostly been confined to people who've had direct contact with these contaminated envelopes," Ostroff told Good Morning America.




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