Health Front

Too little and we freeze, too much and we cook. Indeed the regulation of our internal body heat, our homoeostasis, is no small miracle of life that requires a constant balancing act. Read More →

Men who are physically fit in middle age have a lower risk of developing and dying from cancers, new research indicates. “Fitness is a huge predictor of cancer risk,” said Dr. Susan Lakoski, professor of internal medicine at the University of Vermont. “You need to be fit to protect yourself against a cancer diagnosis in older age.” This fact verifies that cancers are avoidable and preventable and not fatalistically written in genetic code. Read More →

Efforts by insurance companies to contain the costs of health care may be jeopardizing sound health care. The California Progress Report.com proclaims that efforts to contain costs have apparently given rise to dangerous financial arrangements between health insurers and pharmacists. A newly designed loophole in California law allows your health insurer to give a financial kickback to your pharmacist every time the pharmacist switches your medication to older, cheaper, non-chemically equivalent drugs from those prescribed by your doctor. Read More →

K'ima:w Medical Center in Hoopa held their first annual Breast Cancer Awareness Walk last weekend on May 4, 2013. The walk was dedicated to Ruthie McCovey-McCurdy and Jodi Moon. Read More →

There has been a dramatic increase in the number of emergency-room visits related to Ambien and other top sleep aid medications. Adverse reactions to Ambien and other sleeping pills with the active ingredient Zolpidem rose 220 percent between 2005 and 2010, researchers at the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found. The study authors concluded that the use of these drugs for short term insomnia needs to be carefully monitored. Read More →

Rescuers at the Boston Marathon bombings utilized a very old medical device that may have saved people from dying of blood loss. They used the technique of tourniquets. Using belts, t-shirts and any other material they could find, they tied off bleeding limbs to prevent major blood loss and shock. Physicians in Boston now admit that the tourniquet undoubtedly saved some lives. Read More →

Reducing dietary salt intake and boosting levels of potassium would prevent millions of deaths from heart disease and stroke throughout the world each year, according to three new studies. The new studies, which reviewed prior research, were just published in the British Medical Journal. One study examined the findings of 34 clinical trials involving more than 3,000 adults and found that even a modest reduction of salt intake led to significant decreases in blood pressure. Read More →

Low levels of melatonin, a hormone involved in the regulation of sleep, may boost the risk of diabetes, a new study suggests. Researchers at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital expected to find some association between melatonin, a brain hormone that balances most hormones, and diabetes risk. They were surprised by the magnitude of what they found. Over a twelve year period, women with the lowest levels of melatonin were more than twice as likely to develop type-2 diabetes, compared to those with the highest levels of the brain hormone. Read More →