Research: Prostrate Biopsies May Increase Risk of Hospitalization

by: continuum wellness - September 25th, 2011   Filed under: men, seniors, wellness Add Comment

Study reveals rise in prostate biopsy complications and high post-procedure hospitalization rate

In a study of complication rates following prostate biopsy among Medicare beneficiaries, Johns Hopkins researchers have found a significant rise in serious complications requiring hospitalization. The researchers found that this common outpatient procedure, used to diagnose prostate cancer, was associated with a 6.9 percent rate of hospitalization within 30 days of biopsy compared to a 2.9 percent hospitalization rate among a control group of men who did not have a prostate biopsy. The study, which will be published in the November 2011 issue of The Journal of Urology, was posted early online.

The researchers emphasize that this new data should serve as a reminder to physicians to carefully weigh the risks and benefits of biopsy for individual patients and take all precautions to prevent infections and other complications.

The Johns Hopkins team’s findings are the result of the largest analysis ever performed of Medicare records of American men age 65 and older who underwent prostate biopsies in the last two decades. They found that having a prostate biopsy makes patients more than twice as likely to need hospitalization in the immediate post-procedure period. Those hospitalized had a range of complications, such as bleeding and infection, as well as flare-ups of underlying medical conditions, such as heart failure or breathing disorders.

Overall, mortality rates in men undergoing prostate biopsies did not increase. However, men hospitalized with biopsy-related infections had a 12-fold higher risk of death compared to men who did not have a biopsy.

“Prostate biopsy is an essential procedure for detecting prostate cancers,” says Edward Schaeffer, M.D., Ph.D., a Johns Hopkins urologist and oncologist and the study’s senior investigator. “Coupled with appropriate screening, prostate biopsies save lives. However, it is important for men to be aware of the possible risks of prostate biopsies, which are often described as simple outpatient procedures,” adds Schaeffer, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and its Brady Urological Institute.

In their study, the researchers examined the frequency of biopsy related complications that required hospitalization in more than 17,400 men age 65 and older from 1991 to 2007. They compared these rates to a cohort of 134,977 men during the same time period with similar characteristics who did not undergo a prostate biopsy. The researchers only looked at hospital admissions, not men whose complications were treated in an emergency department or outpatient setting.

While the rate of hospitalization following prostate biopsy has declined steadily since 1991, the researchers found that the rate of hospitalization during the time period was still two-fold higher among the men who had a biopsy (6.9 percent compared to 2.9 percent).

There was also a steady rise in the rate of serious infection-related complications. At the onset of the study in 1991, fewer than 0.5 percent of men were admitted to the hospital because of an infection diagnosed following a prostate biopsy. This rate remained stable until 2000, when rates of infection-related complications began to increase to more than 1.2 percent in 2007.

“Antibiotics are routinely given to men at the time of biopsy, and the fact that infections serious enough to cause hospital admissions have been on the rise makes us think that these types of complications are occurring because of a steady increase in antimicrobial resistance rates in America,” says Schaeffer.

Co-author H. Ballentine Carter, M.D., professor of urology and oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, says, “Based on these findings, we believe that more needs to be done to reduce potential complications. It is important for urologists to determine if a biopsy is appropriate for an individual patient and also if the patient is at increased risk for a biopsy- related complication.”

The researchers say that prostate biopsies should only be performed with strict adherence to medical guidelines, and after all potential risks and benefits have been reviewed with patients. More than 1 million prostate biopsy procedures are performed each year in the United States to diagnose and monitor prostate cancer, which is the second most common cause of cancer death among men.

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Funding for the study was provided by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the U.S. National Institutes of Health, an American Urological Association Astellas Research Star Award, and the Patrick C. Walsh Prostate Cancer Research Fund at Johns Hopkins.

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Research: Drug Resistant Gonorrhea on the Rise

by: continuum wellness - July 15th, 2011   Filed under: men, women's health 2 Comments

Take care of yourself.  Popular movies, television and cable shows, romanticize tumbling
into bed the moment you meet someone, but it carries risk on a number of levels.  You might want to question the real life wisdom of such action.
It appears that the bacteria responsible for gonorrhea  is fighting back as the
research article below indicates…read on.

Scientists discover first gonorrhea strain resistant to all available antibiotics

An international research team has discovered a strain of gonorrhea resistant to all
currently available antibiotics. This new strain is likely to transform a common and
once easily treatable infection into a global threat to public health. The details of the
discovery made by Dr. Magnus Unemo, Dr. Makoto Ohnishi, and colleagues will be
presented at the 19th conference of the International Society for
Sexually Transmitted Disease Research (ISSTDR) which runs July 10-13 in Quebec City, Canada.

The team of researchers successfully identified a heretofore unknown variant of
the bacterium that causes gonorrhea, Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Analyzing this new strain,
dubbed H041, allowed researchers to identify the genetic mutations responsible
for the bacterium’s extreme resistance to all cephalosporin-class antibiotics
— the last remaining drugs still effective in treating gonorrhea.

“This is both an alarming and a predictable discovery,” noted Dr. Unemo of the Swedish Reference Laboratory for Pathogenic Neisseria. “Since antibiotics became the standard treatment for
gonorrhea in the 1940s, this bacterium has shown a remarkable capacity to develop
resistance mechanisms to all drugs introduced to control it.”

“While it is still too early to assess if this new strain has become widespread, the
history of newly emergent resistance in the bacterium suggests that it may spread rapidly
unless new drugs and effective treatment programs are developed,” Dr. Unemo continued.

Gonorrhea is one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases in the world.
In the U.S. alone, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the
number of cases is estimated at 700,000 annually.

Gonorrhea is asymptomatic in about 50% of infected women and
approximately 2-5% of men. When symptomatic, it is characterized by a burning sensation
when urinating and pus discharge from the genitals. If left untreated, gonorrhea can lead to
serious and irreversible health complications in both women and men.

In women, the infection can cause chronic pelvic pain and ectopic pregnancy. It can lead
to infertility, mostly in women but also in men, and it increases the risk of HIV transmission.
In 3-4% of cases, untreated infections spread to the skin, blood, joints, or even the heart and
can cause potentially mortal lesions. Babies born of infected mothers are at high risk of developing
serious blood and joint infections, and passage through the birth canal of an infected mother
can cause blindness in the infant.

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Enter the “Polypill” to reduce heart problems, hbp and stroke

by: continuum wellness - March 30th, 2009   Filed under: adverse events, alternative medicine, baby boomers, behavior, cholesterol, complementary medicine, healing, healing philosophy, Health, health beliefs, health benefits of food, health care, healthy body, healthy eating, healthy mind, heart, heart attack, holistic, holistic medicine, integrative medicine, kindness, medications, medicine, men, prescription drugs, self-care, self-healing, thoughts, tips, wellness, Western diet, women, women's health Add Comment

The “miracle” of modern medicine has led to bizarre side effects such as a treatment for restless legs, that has caused compulsive gambling. A medicine for Parkinson’s has a similar problem for some. Sleep drugs that cause people to stumble out of their home and drive. Fertility drugs that lead to multiple births. Hallucinations are a “rare” side effect of some ADHD medications. These are the considered a-typical, but the typical side effects are no fun either.

Help for High Blood Pressure

Enter the Polypill.  Researchers want to create a pill a 3 in one that can reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke and high blood pressure in one.  article here
Truth is it has been created or should I say they have been. When we eat whole foods, contained therein is a synergistic blend of vitamins, proteins, amino acids, flavonoids, solar and lunar energy and maybe even (hopefully) love from the gardener. We cannot get this from a pill.

Run This Way

Instead of running from nature, run to nature. Nurture yourself with learning how to live in balance. It’s free. It’s the healthiest choice for yourself and the planet. Give it a try. Polypill? Try basking in the sun, or hugging a dear friend, cook yourself a meal with a big dose of love in it…you’ll be glad you did, for benefits no Polypill could ever provide.

At Continuum Wellness we offer homeopathic care and wellness coaching to promote wholeness, health and well-being.

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Reversing Diabetes – Raw for 30 Days

by: continuum wellness - March 11th, 2009   Filed under: African American, alternative medicine, diabetes, diet, food, healing philosophy, Health, health beliefs, health benefits of food, health care, healthy body, healthy eating, integrative medicine, men, self-healing, Western diet, women, women's health Add Comment

Diabetes is considered irreversible by conventional medical authorities, yet if you review the literature of various holistic therapies such as homeopathic and various diet therapies it has been done. The first key is the desire to want to heal the diabetic condition and its causes. If you only want to “manage” it, over time its disastrous consequences will most likely manifest.

Reversing diabetes requires professional guidance and a compassionate doctor who will work you. Here is a clip of some folks who found help by using a raw food approach.

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Children seriously affected when a parent suffers from depression

by: continuum wellness - March 9th, 2009   Filed under: adolescents, children, depression, family, healing, Health, healthy mind, men, mind and body, women, women's health Add Comment

The article below outlines some of the challenges that are thrust on a child when a parent is sad or depressed. Homeopathic care (with a qualified homeopath) can offer solutions to those seeking an alternative to allopathic care. Homeopathy is of help for the entire family and as the article below suggests, health services must help the whole family. Visit our site, continuumwellness.org and contact us for more information.

Children seriously affected when a parent suffers from depression

Life is hard for the children of a parent suffering from depression. Children take on an enormous amount of responsibility for the ill parent and for other family members. It is therefore important for the health services to be aware of this and have support functions in place for the whole family, and not just for the person who is ill. This is the conclusion of a thesis from the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Registered Nurse Britt Hedman Ahlström has examined the way in which family life is affected when a parent is suffering from depression. Nine families, including ten children and young adults between the ages of 5 and 26, and eleven parents were included in the study.

The results show how the family’s daily life changes and becomes more complicated when a parent is suffering from depression. Uncertainty about what is happening has an effect on the daily life of the entire family. Depression also means that the parent becomes tired and exhausted, which then affects and weighs heavily on the children’s daily life. Depression changes the relationship between a parent and his/her children, since they no longer communicate with each other as they used to. Family interplay and reciprocity decrease. The depressed parent withdraws from the family, and the children feel that they have been left to themselves.

Daily family life becomes unfamiliar to the children

The family members try their utmost, both as individuals and together, to cope with the situation, so that daily life can be restored to a more manageable level. The children take responsibility for both the depressed parent, siblings and themselves, when they notice that the parent cannot cope.

“The toughest burden of responsibility that children take on is ensuring that the depressed parent doesn’t commit suicide. So children take on an extremely heavy responsibility by monitoring and keeping an eye on the depressed parent,” says Britt Hedman Ahlström.

For children, the parent’s depression means both a sense of responsibility and a feeling of loneliness The feelings of responsibility and loneliness include a striving and yearning for reciprocity with the parent, and for things to return to a state of normality.

“Even if the depression goes away for a time, the family is never entirely free from anxiety over it coming back. This means that there is a prolonged period of suffering associated with depression,” says Britt Hedman Ahlström.

Health services must help the whole family

Involving the entire family when a parent becomes ill is important, both for the children and the parents. It is essential to have a well-defined level of guaranteed care on how, when and from whom the families will get support. Psychiatric healthcare personnel meet people suffering from depression at an early stage, and therefore have the opportunity to focus the care on the family, in order to together identify ways of helping the family get through the depression.

“We need a new approach within the health services, in which the focus is on the family’s own perspective when a parent is suffering from depression. It’s vital to be aware of the whole family’s needs in terms of help and support, and not just those of the person who is ill. It’s particularly important to be aware of the children’s situation. Research can therefore focus on how to develop various ways of providing families with care and support, and introduce them into the existing organisation, as well as evaluating the consequences for the whole family, the parents and the children,” says Britt Hedman Ahlström.

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More Americans Turning to Herbs

by: continuum wellness - January 19th, 2009   Filed under: alternative medicine, baby boomers, children, complementary medicine, culture, economy, family, folk remedies, Health, health care, herbal therapy, herbs, home remedies, life, medications, medicine, men, people, prescription drugs, self-healing, women, women's health 2 Comments

Sour Economy Sweetens Americans on Herbal Meds
The choice between $75 prescription sleeping pills or a $5 herbal alternative is a no-brainer for Cathy and Bernard Birleffi, whose insurance costs have skyrocketed along with the nation’s financial woes.

The Calistoga, Calif., couple seem to reflect a trend. With many Americans putting off routine doctor visits and self-medicating to save money, use of alternative treatments is on the rise — even though evidence is often lacking on their safety and effectiveness.

Climbing sales of herbal medicines have paralleled the tanking economy, according to an Associated Press review of recent data from market-watchers and retailers.

One prominent example: Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods Market Inc. says its stores nationwide have seen an increase in sales of nutritional supplements and herbal products in the past several weeks. That’s “noteworthy” given the retail industry’s financial slump, said Whole Foods spokesman Jeremiah C. McElwee.

While winter is usually a busy time for herbal medicine sales because it’s the season for colds and flu, “more people are value shopping” now because of the economy, McElwee said.

Cathy Birleffi says she’s among them.

“The doctors are so much higher (in cost), the insurance isn’t paying as much,” said the 61-year-old self-employed bookkeeper and notary. Her husband, a retired dispatcher, has high blood pressure and seizures. Recent changes in their health insurance coverage resulted in $1,300 in monthly premiums, double what they used to be.

Until they tried herbal alternatives, including valerian for insomnia, “every time I turned around, it was $50 here, $75 there” for prescriptions, Cathy Birleffi said.

Among data reflecting the trend:

For the three months that ended Dec. 28, nationwide retail sales of vitamins and supplements totaled nearly $639 million, up almost 10 percent from the same period in 2007. That includes a nearly 6 percent increase in sales of herbal supplements alone, according to Information Resources Inc., a Chicago-based market research firm. Its numbers do not include Wal-Mart or club stores.
Nationwide herbal and botanical supplement sales totaled $4.8 billion in 2007, when the recession began, up 4.3 percent over 2006. That was a marginally higher increase compared with the previous year, according to Jason Phillips of the Nutrition Business Journal, an industry-tracking publication. Sales of animal oil supplements — mostly fish oils — were up 29 percent from 2006. While that was a decline from the previous year, both categories continued to show strong growth in a faltering economy.
A government survey released in December said concerns about the cost of conventional medicine influenced Americans’ decisions to try alternative remedies. “Nonvitamin, nonmineral natural products,” including fish oil and herbal medicines, were the most commonly used alternatives, taken by almost 18 percent of Americans in 2007, the report said. Among those users, roughly a quarter said they delayed or didn’t get conventional medical care because of the cost.
Report co-author Richard Nahin of the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine offered cautionary advice on the topic.

People taking herbal and other supplements should let their doctor know what they’re using, said Nahin, acting director of the center’s branch that oversees outside research the agency funds.

Copyright AP

Recognize a Stroke in 4 simple steps

by: continuum wellness - January 19th, 2009   Filed under: Health, men, seniors, stroke, symptoms, women, women's health Add Comment

Blood Clots/Stroke – They Now Have a Fourth Indicator, the Tongue

STROKE:Remember the 1st Three Letters….S.T.R..

STROKE IDENTIFICATION:

During a BBQ, a friend stumbled and took a little fall – she assured everyone that she was fine (they offered to call paramedics); she said she had just tripped over a brick because of her new shoes.

They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food. While she appeared a bit shaken up, Ingrid went about enjoying herself the rest of the evening

Ingrid’s husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital – (at 6:00pm Ingrid passed away.) She had suffered a stroke at the BBQ. Had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke, perhaps Ingrid would be with us today. Some don’t die; they end up in a helpless, hopeless condition instead.

It only takes a minute to read this…

A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke…totally. He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough.

RECOGNIZING A STROKE

Remember the ’3′ steps, STR

Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke.

Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:

S *Ask the individual to SMILE.

T *Ask the person to TALK and SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently)

(i.e. It is sunny out today)

R *Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS.

If he or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, call emergency number immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.

New Sign of a Stroke ——– Stick out Your Tongue

NOTE: Another ‘sign’ of a stroke is this: Ask the person to ‘stick’ out his tongue… If the tongue is ‘crooked’, if it goes to one side or the other, that is also an indication of a stroke.

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Prostate Research: Irradiation may raise Cancer Risk

by: continuum wellness - September 4th, 2008   Filed under: men Add Comment

Prostate irradiation raises risk of colon cancer

Data from the Geneva Cancer Registry show an increased long-term risk of colon cancer in men who have undergone external radiation therapy for prostate cancer.

“The risk of second cancer after irradiation, although probably small, needs nevertheless to be carefully monitored,” the study team advises.

Dr. Christine Bouchardy from the University of Geneva, Switzerland and colleagues analyzed data on 1,134 men diagnosed with prostate cancer between 1980 and 1998 who survived for at least 5 years after diagnosis. Of these, 264 were treated with external radiation.

During follow-up through the end of 2003, 19 men out of the total group developed colorectal cancer.

The risk of colorectal cancer among the men who did not have radiation therapy was not increased compared to the general population, but it was 3.4-times higher than normal among the men who did have radiation, the team reports in the International Journal of Cancer.

On further analysis, the risk was significantly increased for colon cancer specifically but not for rectal cancer.

The risk of colon cancer was mainly elevated in the 5- to 9-year period after diagnosis, according to Bouchardy and colleagues.

They say “this serious long-term side effect should be discussed” with patients in weighing the pros and cons of radiation therapy for treating prostate cancer.

SOURCE: International Journal of Cancer, September 1, 2008.

Reuters Health

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Cancer Patients and Survivors Turn to Complementary Medicine

by: continuum wellness - August 6th, 2008   Filed under: alternative medicine, breast cancer, cancer, cervical cancer, complementary medicine, healing, Health, holistic medicine, medicine, men, women, women's health 1 Comment

A paper by American Cancer Society researchers published this week in Cancer, one of the Society’s peer-reviewed journals, offers one of the largest and most detailed portraits of complementary and alternative therapy use among cancer survivors in the United States.

Complementary therapy refers to treatments, techniques, or methods that are used along with standard or mainstream medicine. Some complementary therapies may help relieve certain symptoms of cancer or its treatment. An alternative therapy refers to an unproven therapy that is used instead of conventional medicine. Some alternative therapies are bogus, and some have dangerous or even life-threatening side effects. Still others scientists don’t know enough about.

To date, information on just how many patients actually use complementary and alternative methods and on which patient characteristics influence that use has been limited.
Popular Therapies

ACS researchers surveyed more than more than 4,000 survivors who were participants in the American Cancer Society’s Study of Cancer Survivors-I (SCS-I) and found that more than half used some type of alternative or complementary therapy.

“Many complementary methods are extremely popular among cancer survivors, who are spending a lot of their time, money, and attention on them,” said Ted Gansler, MD, Director of Medical Content at the American Cancer Society and co-author of the study. “For this reason, it’s important to determine which are helpful, not only for shrinking tumors and extending survival, but also for relieving symptoms and improving quality-of-life.”

The researchers looked at 19 different complementary methods — from acupuncture to Tai Chi. Survivors listed the following practices most frequently: prayer/spiritual practice (61.4%), relaxation (44.3%), faith/spiritual healing (42.4%), nutritional supplements/vitamins (40.1%), meditation (15%), religious counseling (11.3%), massage (11.2%), and support groups (9.7%). Hypnosis (0.4%), biofeedback (1.0%), and acupuncture/acupressure (1.2%) were among the least cited.

A Detailed Picture

Of the group, younger, more affluent, and more educated cancer survivors were more likely to use the therapies. Women were more likely than men to use energy techniques such as Tai Chi and yoga (10.1 vs. 1.9%) and manipulative body practices such as massage (16.9 vs. 3.9%), though both men and women were only somewhat less likely to use non-spiritual mind-body methods such as aromatherapy, hypnosis, and meditation (58.6% vs. 42.8%).

Breast and ovarian cancer survivors were more likely to use alternative and complementary therapies than survivors of other cancer types, even when the researchers controlled for factors such as gender, stage of disease, and other characteristics. More research is needed into why these groups are more likely to embrace the methods.

This is the first of several reports that will tap American Cancer Society’s Study of Cancer Survivors-I (SCS-I) data to further investigate the topic of complementary and alternative medicine use among cancer survivors.

“We need to learn more about why some people use certain complementary methods, why other don’t, what benefits users expect, and how effective various complementary methods are in improving survivors’ length and quality of life,” said Gansler.

For more information on this topic and to learn more about some of the therapies mentioned in this story, see the American Cancer Society’s guide to Complementary and Alternative Therapies. *CW note: Homeopathy is not listed in the ACS review of therapies, yet it has helped many people who turn to its use. In every therapy one should work with a qualified therapist.

Our Deceptive Taste Buds, Was That a Veggie Burger?

by: continuum wellness - July 19th, 2008   Filed under: behavior, diet, food, health beliefs, healthy eating, men, nutrition, Uncategorized, wellness, Western diet 3 Comments

by Catherine Carter

A few years ago a commercial for a meat product, I think it was for beef. Well, there were two families sitting together for dinner and it was at the end of the meal. A cake was bought out. A young smiling girl glowed as she eyed her cake. The fathers gathered around. The father who was depicted as eating vegetables could barely blow out the candles. The burly looking meat eating father came over to blow out the candle. And wouldn’t you know it, his mighty breath not only blew out the candles but blew a hole in the wall which also sucked out the “weakly veggie dad.”

The motto for men, eat meat be strong, gr-r-r-r. The commercials aim was to appeal to men to eat meat so they can stay strong. According to some recent finding out of the University of Chicago,“heavy meat eaters claim that they eat meat because it tastes better than other foods, such as meat substitutes.” But in a recent study male participants ate a vegetable substitute and deemed it acceptable in terms of taste because they thought it was meat.

The researchers concluded that one’s personal beliefs influence what one tastes.

Symbolically many men view meat as a source of power, strength and virility. Vegetables are not viewed as powerful. Whoever heard of ‘mighty carrot’! However all it took was to have the study participants think they were eating meat and then the veggie burger was well received.

The mind is powerful and thoughts do much to create one’s reality. Probably not every veggie burger would pass this taste. However since it is mainly the spices and seasonings that contribute to the taste and flavor of a burger, be it a meat or veggie burger, making healthy food taste good will make it easier for any recalcitrant eater.

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