Monday, April 26, 2010
The best way to prevent skin cancer is to defend your skin from the sun.
Protect your skin from the sun today to help avoid skin cancer later in life. Most skin cancer appears after age 50, but spoil from the sun can start during childhood.
Staying out of the sun and by sunscreen can also help prevent:
Ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun is the major cause of skin cancer. UV radiation can also arrive from tanning booths or sunlamps.
Anyone can get skin cancer. The risk is main for people with:
You are at higher risk for the most unsafe kind of skin cancer if you have:
- 1. Stay in the shade as much as probable between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
2. Apply sunscreen with SPF 15 or higher.
3. Cover up with lengthy sleeves and a hat.
Protect your skin from the sun today to help avoid skin cancer later in life. Most skin cancer appears after age 50, but spoil from the sun can start during childhood.
Staying out of the sun and by sunscreen can also help prevent:
- 1. Wrinkles
2. Blotchy or spotty skin
3. Other damage caused by the sun
Ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun is the major cause of skin cancer. UV radiation can also arrive from tanning booths or sunlamps.
Anyone can get skin cancer. The risk is main for people with:
- 1. White or light-colored skin with freckles
2. Blond or red hair.
3. Blue or green eyes
You are at higher risk for the most unsafe kind of skin cancer if you have:
- 1. Unusual moles
2. Large number of moles
Labels: Health care tips
Monday, April 5, 2010
Stroke (also known as cerebrovascular disease) occurs when the supply of blood to the brain is unexpectedly disrupted. Blood is passed to the brain by blood vessels called arteries. Blood may stop affecting through an artery because the artery is blocked by a blood clot or plaque, or because the artery breaks or bursts.
A stroke can take place in two main ways:
1. Ischaemic stroke (blocked artery)
OR
2. Haemorrhagic stroke (bleed in the brain)
When blood is blocked, the brain cannot get the oxygen it needs, brain cells in the area die and the brain can become permanently damaged. Brain cells usually die within an hour from the beginning of the stroke but can carry on, at times, up to a few hours after the stroke starts. Areas of brain where the blood contribute is reduced but not completely cut off are areas that can survive for some hours. These cells are in a position of shock and can either recover or die depending on what happens in the minutes and hours that follow. Without immediate medical treatment, this area of brain cells will also die.
Effects of stroke
The brain controls the method we move, think, speak, and eat. Everything we do is restricted by different parts of the brain. When a stroke happens, we lose the capacity to do things that, that part of the brain controls. We may not be able to move one side of the body or have trouble view or speaking.
The way in which public are affected by stroke depends on where in the brain the stroke occurs, and on the size of the stroke. For example, someone who has a small stroke may understanding only minor effects. On the other hand, someone who has a larger stroke may be left completely paralysed on one side, in a coma or may die due to the extent of the damage.
Stroke is constantly a medical emergency. It is vital to recognise the early signs of a stroke or TIA.
Preventing a stroke
It is essential to understand that stroke is preventable. There are many factors that can enlarge your chance of having a stroke. Some of these, such as age, gender and a family history of stroke, cannot be restricted. However, there are a number of risk factors for stroke which you can manage. Taking steps to control these risk factors can lower your possibility of having a stroke.
You can lessen you risk of stroke by managing the following risk factors:
Treatment For Stroke
What happens for people after a stroke is different for everyone. It depends on what variety of stroke a person has had and where in the brain the stroke has happened. Different people will get better in different ways. Generally, most of the improvement takes place in the first six months after a stroke. However, public can keep improving for many years. For many people, they get improved as they get used to living with the changes that have happened after the stroke.
The care that people get after stroke is also unusual. Some people will be cared for in a hospital and go to another hospital for treatment. Some people will go home after a very short term of time while others may need months of rehabilitation.
When someone has a stroke, the doctors and the team will require to work out what has happened (diagnosis). Then the team works with the person and his or her family to make definite the best recovery happens. The team will also make sure that each stroke survivor is able to acquire the support he or she needs at home.
Stroke units supply the best treatment for acute stroke.
Specialized stroke unit care is provided in hospitals by doctors, nurses and rehabilitation clinicians, such as physiotherapists, in a coordinated and paying attention way, much like a coronary care unit.
When people go home after a stroke it can take some time to acquire used to the changes that have happened. This might be changes to how the someone can move or talk. It may be changes with work or hobbies. There are carry services for stroke survivors when they go home. These make it easier to get used to life following stroke.
A stroke can take place in two main ways:
1. Ischaemic stroke (blocked artery)
OR
2. Haemorrhagic stroke (bleed in the brain)
When blood is blocked, the brain cannot get the oxygen it needs, brain cells in the area die and the brain can become permanently damaged. Brain cells usually die within an hour from the beginning of the stroke but can carry on, at times, up to a few hours after the stroke starts. Areas of brain where the blood contribute is reduced but not completely cut off are areas that can survive for some hours. These cells are in a position of shock and can either recover or die depending on what happens in the minutes and hours that follow. Without immediate medical treatment, this area of brain cells will also die.
Effects of stroke
The brain controls the method we move, think, speak, and eat. Everything we do is restricted by different parts of the brain. When a stroke happens, we lose the capacity to do things that, that part of the brain controls. We may not be able to move one side of the body or have trouble view or speaking.
The way in which public are affected by stroke depends on where in the brain the stroke occurs, and on the size of the stroke. For example, someone who has a small stroke may understanding only minor effects. On the other hand, someone who has a larger stroke may be left completely paralysed on one side, in a coma or may die due to the extent of the damage.
Stroke is constantly a medical emergency. It is vital to recognise the early signs of a stroke or TIA.
Preventing a stroke
It is essential to understand that stroke is preventable. There are many factors that can enlarge your chance of having a stroke. Some of these, such as age, gender and a family history of stroke, cannot be restricted. However, there are a number of risk factors for stroke which you can manage. Taking steps to control these risk factors can lower your possibility of having a stroke.
You can lessen you risk of stroke by managing the following risk factors:
- Irregular heart beat (PDF)
- TIA (PDF)
- High cholesterol (PDF)
- High blood pressure (PDF)
- Understand and prevent stroke (PDF)
- Know the signs of stroke (PDF)
Treatment For Stroke
What happens for people after a stroke is different for everyone. It depends on what variety of stroke a person has had and where in the brain the stroke has happened. Different people will get better in different ways. Generally, most of the improvement takes place in the first six months after a stroke. However, public can keep improving for many years. For many people, they get improved as they get used to living with the changes that have happened after the stroke.
The care that people get after stroke is also unusual. Some people will be cared for in a hospital and go to another hospital for treatment. Some people will go home after a very short term of time while others may need months of rehabilitation.
When someone has a stroke, the doctors and the team will require to work out what has happened (diagnosis). Then the team works with the person and his or her family to make definite the best recovery happens. The team will also make sure that each stroke survivor is able to acquire the support he or she needs at home.
Stroke units supply the best treatment for acute stroke.
Specialized stroke unit care is provided in hospitals by doctors, nurses and rehabilitation clinicians, such as physiotherapists, in a coordinated and paying attention way, much like a coronary care unit.
When people go home after a stroke it can take some time to acquire used to the changes that have happened. This might be changes to how the someone can move or talk. It may be changes with work or hobbies. There are carry services for stroke survivors when they go home. These make it easier to get used to life following stroke.
Labels: Health care tips
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
They come loaded with vitamin E, to help more medicine get to cornea, researcher says.
A team of researchers has created special contact lenses for glaucoma patients that come loaded with vitamin E, using a design that could essentially lengthen the amount of time a medication bathes an afflicted eye.
This strategy could reduce the significant waste of medication that happens with traditional eye drops, but so far the concept has only been tested in beagles.
"Currently, the way we deliver medication to the eye is very bad and very ineffective," said study author Anuj Chauhan, an associate professor in the department of chemical engineering at the University of Florida in Gainesville. "And this approach is wonderful because it delivers drugs for a long period of time."
Chauhan and his colleagues are to present their findings Wednesday at the American Chemical Society annual meeting in San Francisco.
According to the Glaucoma Research Foundation, glaucoma starts as a symptom-less disease that, through damage to the optic nerve, can ultimately rob a patient of his or her sight. The disease accounts for approximately 9 percent to 12 percent of all blindness in the United States, and the World Health Organization notes that it is the second leading cause of blindness worldwide.
There is no cure for the estimated 4 million Americans who have the disease, and once vision is lost, it cannot be restored. However, treatments -- including medicine and surgery -- do slow down or halt disease progression.
Vitamin E is thought to aid vision because of its antioxidant capacities, and several studies have already explored the notion that it could help combat glaucoma when used in conjunction with prescription drugs.
The current research focused on contact lenses that can be worn for up to a month.
The authors note that their study has already revealed that contacts pre-loaded with vitamin E can extend drug-delivery duration by upwards of 100 times when compared with regular commercial lenses. Delivery of medications via eye drops only exposes the eye to two to five minutes of treatment, they added.
Human trials to test the approach are still one to two years away, Chauhan said. But he added that, if successful, this drug-delivery method could have multiple applications beyond the goal of improving glaucoma treatment.
"This could have significant benefits for several millions of patients, from both a therapeutic angle and a prevention angle," he said. "Because not only could it provide better drug relief for glaucoma, but it could potentially address a number of other eye diseases, such as cataracts and dry eye. And the neutroceuticals of vitamin E also block UV light exposure."
"But what will actually work out in the future only time will tell," Chauhan cautioned.
Meanwhile, Dr. Alfred Sommer, a professor of ophthalmology and dean emeritus at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, expressed some reservations about the approach.
"A delivery mechanism to essentially bathe the eye in slow and continuous medication to target a whole range of diseases from macular degeneration to glaucoma has been a holy grail for ophthalmology for many years," he noted. "But by and large the efforts to do this have not proven successful, although it would certainly be nice to have."
"But since the most effective glaucoma drops we have today you only have to put in once a day, the question then is, would people really put a contact lens in their eye when they don't really otherwise use contacts?" Sommer asked. "That is speculative, particularly when we strongly advise contact lens wearers never to wear a lens overnight. So, it's not immediately apparent to me what the advantages would be for glaucoma."
At the same meeting, a research team out of Iowa State University is scheduled to report Wednesday on a new technology that might be able to catch glaucoma in its pre-symptomatic, early stages.
Led by Iowa State assistant professor Chenxu Yu, the team said they believe they are on the verge of a diagnostic "breakthrough" with the aid of infrared laser light -- via a method called "Raman spectroscopy" -- that shines through the eye's pupil to take a "snapshot" of the retina. They hope the high-tech picture could one day be used to identify biochemical signs of glaucoma in its infancy.
A team of researchers has created special contact lenses for glaucoma patients that come loaded with vitamin E, using a design that could essentially lengthen the amount of time a medication bathes an afflicted eye.
This strategy could reduce the significant waste of medication that happens with traditional eye drops, but so far the concept has only been tested in beagles.
"Currently, the way we deliver medication to the eye is very bad and very ineffective," said study author Anuj Chauhan, an associate professor in the department of chemical engineering at the University of Florida in Gainesville. "And this approach is wonderful because it delivers drugs for a long period of time."
Chauhan and his colleagues are to present their findings Wednesday at the American Chemical Society annual meeting in San Francisco.
According to the Glaucoma Research Foundation, glaucoma starts as a symptom-less disease that, through damage to the optic nerve, can ultimately rob a patient of his or her sight. The disease accounts for approximately 9 percent to 12 percent of all blindness in the United States, and the World Health Organization notes that it is the second leading cause of blindness worldwide.
There is no cure for the estimated 4 million Americans who have the disease, and once vision is lost, it cannot be restored. However, treatments -- including medicine and surgery -- do slow down or halt disease progression.
Vitamin E is thought to aid vision because of its antioxidant capacities, and several studies have already explored the notion that it could help combat glaucoma when used in conjunction with prescription drugs.
The current research focused on contact lenses that can be worn for up to a month.
The authors note that their study has already revealed that contacts pre-loaded with vitamin E can extend drug-delivery duration by upwards of 100 times when compared with regular commercial lenses. Delivery of medications via eye drops only exposes the eye to two to five minutes of treatment, they added.
Human trials to test the approach are still one to two years away, Chauhan said. But he added that, if successful, this drug-delivery method could have multiple applications beyond the goal of improving glaucoma treatment.
"This could have significant benefits for several millions of patients, from both a therapeutic angle and a prevention angle," he said. "Because not only could it provide better drug relief for glaucoma, but it could potentially address a number of other eye diseases, such as cataracts and dry eye. And the neutroceuticals of vitamin E also block UV light exposure."
"But what will actually work out in the future only time will tell," Chauhan cautioned.
Meanwhile, Dr. Alfred Sommer, a professor of ophthalmology and dean emeritus at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, expressed some reservations about the approach.
"A delivery mechanism to essentially bathe the eye in slow and continuous medication to target a whole range of diseases from macular degeneration to glaucoma has been a holy grail for ophthalmology for many years," he noted. "But by and large the efforts to do this have not proven successful, although it would certainly be nice to have."
"But since the most effective glaucoma drops we have today you only have to put in once a day, the question then is, would people really put a contact lens in their eye when they don't really otherwise use contacts?" Sommer asked. "That is speculative, particularly when we strongly advise contact lens wearers never to wear a lens overnight. So, it's not immediately apparent to me what the advantages would be for glaucoma."
At the same meeting, a research team out of Iowa State University is scheduled to report Wednesday on a new technology that might be able to catch glaucoma in its pre-symptomatic, early stages.
Led by Iowa State assistant professor Chenxu Yu, the team said they believe they are on the verge of a diagnostic "breakthrough" with the aid of infrared laser light -- via a method called "Raman spectroscopy" -- that shines through the eye's pupil to take a "snapshot" of the retina. They hope the high-tech picture could one day be used to identify biochemical signs of glaucoma in its infancy.
Labels: Health care tips
