Study: Cholesterol Drugs May Worsen Asthma

Experts Say the Findings Contradict Some Earlier Studies on the Effects of Statin Drugs

Nov. 5, 2011 -- People with asthma may find that their breathing gets worse after they start a statin drug to lower cholesterol, a small new study shows.

Asthma experts say the finding is a surprise because some previous studies have shown that statin drugs have anti-inflammatory properties beyond their cholesterol-lowering effects that may help conditions like asthma.

So, researchers are not building a case right now for you to change your medications, but to talk to your doctor if you have asthma and high cholesterol. They also say this is a call to do more research on the topic.

The new study -- being presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology in Boston -- followed 40 asthma patients who were treated at the same California clinic for one year.

Twenty patients had just begun statin medications to lower cholesterol at the start of the study. Twenty others who were not taking statins were followed for comparison. All were nonsmokers who had been diagnosed with asthma for at least five years.

Patients were excluded from the study if an asthma attack had landed them in the hospital or emergency room in the eight months leading up to the study. Other than asthma or high cholesterol, patients in the study were free of health problems, researchers say.

Doctors checked in with patients in the study every three months. They asked about symptoms and medication use, and they tested lung function.

After one year, patients taking statins performed 35% worse in a test of lung function than they did at the start of the study. Patients who were not taking statins also saw their lung function decline, but it was about 14% worse compared to how they performed at the start of the study.

Patients on statins also reported that they had used their rescue medications [inhalers] 72% more often than they had at the start of the study. Those who weren't taking statins used rescue medications 9% more than they had before.

Patients on statins also reported getting up more frequently at night because of their asthma and said they had worse symptoms during the day.

Those findings are associations. The study wasn't able to prove that statins caused the increase in breathing problems.

An alternative explanation could be that people who were prescribed statins simply had more health problems, overall, than those who weren't taking the drugs, although researchers say they tried to balance the groups in the study to make sure that was not the case.

The findings echo a previous study that looked at the medical records of 759 asthma patients treated at the same clinic in Rochester, N.Y. In that study, 24 patients who were starting statins saw significant drops in lung function, needed more medication, had more nighttime asthma problems, and were seen in the office more frequently compared to 26 patients who were not taking those medications.

View the original article here

Psoriasis and Exercise: The Game Changer

Psoriasis and Exercise: The Game Changer Skip to content Home & News WebMD Home WebMD News Home Free Health Newsletters WebMD Community & Experts See All Expert Blogs Health A-Z ADD/ADHD Allergies Allergy TV Alzheimer's Anxiety Disorders Arthritis Asthma Back Pain Bipolar Disorder Bipolar TV Breast Cancer Cancer Cancer Communities Cholesterol Cold & Flu Colorectal Cancer COPD Depression Depression TV Diabetes Erectile Dysfunction Eye Health Fibromyalgia Heart Disease Heartburn/GERD Herpes Hypertension IBS Incontinence/OAB Inflammatory Bowel Menopause Mental Health Migraines Multiple Sclerosis Osteoporosis Pain Management Parkinson's Disease Rheumatoid Arthritis Sexual Conditions Shingles Skin Problems Sleep Disorders Stroke See All Topics Videos A-Z Community & Experts Experts A-Z First Aid A-Z Games A-Z Tests & Tools A-Z Slideshows A-Z Drugs & Medications Center Find or Review a Drug Pill Identifier Drug News Mobile Drug Information Find a Vitamin or Supplement First Aid & Emergencies WebMD Community & Experts WebMD Ask the Pharmacist Healthy Living Women's Health Men's Health Pet Health Oral Health Emotional Health Mental Health Communities Find a Therapist Green Living 50+: Live Better, Longer Sex & Relationships Healthy Beauty Healthy Skin TV Sexual Health Communities See All Topics Women's Health Communities Skin & Beauty Community Men's Health Communities Healthy Eating & Diet Healthy Eating & Diet Food & Cooking Food-o-Meter Fit-o-Meter Fitness & Exercise Food & Fitness Planner Portion Size Helper Personal Diet Evaluator BMI Plus Calculator Eating & Diet Communities Digestive Disorders Communities Parenting & Pregnancy Parenting Pregnancy Children's Health Children's Vaccines Newborn & Baby New! Raising Fit Kids New! WebMD for Kids Parenting Communities Pregnancy Communities Trying to Conceive Communities Teen Health Teen Girls Teen Boys coming soon! New! WebMD FIT Teen Food Move Recharge Mood Pet Health Healthy Dogs Healthy Cats Healthy Pets Community ?Enter Search Keywords:Other search tools:Symptoms|Doctors|Medical Dictionary /* Basic styles to avoid the jumping when things load. */.bottom_header #reglinks { float:right; position:relative; margin:0px; padding:0px; height:22px; width: 330px; z-index:96; }.bottom_header #reglinks .login_rdr { display:none; width: 330px; }#reglinks .login_rdr ul#registration_hdr { float: right; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0; padding: 5px 0 3px 0; }#reglinks .login_rdr ul#registration_hdr li { background:none; display: inline-block; float: left; padding: 0; }Find us on: WebMD Home Skin Problems & Treatments Health Center Psoriasis Health Center Assessment Email a FriendPrint Article Is Your Psoriasis Treatment on Target for You? This content is selected and controlled by WebMD's editorial staff and is brought to you by Janssen Biotech, Inc. Next Article: Skip to Article Content The 7 Types of Psoriasis Here are the main types of psoriasis that affect your skin, nails, and joints. Is Your Treatment Working? What to expect from your psoriasis treatment, and how to tell if it's effective. Treating Mild Psoriasis Find out the top treatments used to clear up mild to moderate psoriasis. Treating Severe Psoriasis Learn which treatments help clear up moderate to severe psoriasis. When to Try Biologics Understand the pros and cons of these newer psoriasis drugs. Psoriasis and Your Emotional Health Psoriasis can affect your self-esteem, your job, and your finances. Exercise and Psoriasis Exercise can help clear psoriasis. Here's how to avoid flare-ups when exercising. Psoriasis in Cold Weather 6 tips to prevent and treat psoriasis flares in winter. Psoriasis in Hot Weather 7 answers to questions about managing psoriasis in spring and summer. Psoriasis ExpressCheck Assess the management of your psoriasis – and what might improve it. False Psoriasis and Exercise: The Game Changer WebMD Feature

By Annie Stuart

Reviewed By Louise Chang, MD

Want to pick up the pace of your psoriasis management? You may have heard that exercise can help. But maybe you're concerned you'll trigger a flare-up. Or perhaps you’re uncomfortable exercising in public. Here, two psoriasis experts explain why exercise is your friend in your quest to improve your psoriasis.

How Exercise Benefits People With Psoriasis

"We think exercise can play a major role in the treatment of psoriasis," says Alan Menter, MD, chairman of the division of dermatology at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas.

How? Exercise helps you control your weight, which is important to people with psoriasis. "People with psoriasis are on average 7% heavier than those without the disease," Menter tells WebMD.

How the two are related is not clear. But one likely link is inflammation. Obesity can lead to chronic inflammation, which may worsen your psoriasis. Also, the body tends to make more fat cells in response to increased inflammation, making it even harder to control weight, says Paul S. Yamauchi, MD, PhD, spokesman for the National Psoriasis Foundation and medical director of the Dermatology Institute and Skin Care Center of Santa Monica, Calif.

Exercise offers other health benefits as well, says Yamauchi. By helping you manage your weight, regular exercise may also decrease cardiac risks. Those heart risks are higher in people with psoriasis. It may also make psoriasis medication work better. Treatment tends to not work as well in overweight people. ?

Exercise Challenges for People With Psoriasis

Even though you know the benefits of exercise, you might be loath to bare your arms and legs at the gym or public pool. Chances are, bathing suits, tank tops, and gym shorts are really not your thing.

To avoid the stares of strangers, many people with psoriasis tend to withdraw and move less, says Menter. Combine isolation and sedentary behavior with overeating and overdrinking, and you have another recipe for weight gain.

Exercise can pose other challenges for those with psoriasis.

For example, a sports injury that damages skin might trigger psoriasis, says Menter. This is called the Koebner response. Sweat and friction in areas such as groin, breast, or abdominal folds can also worsen psoriasis, he says. "It thrives in areas of friction," he says. "Anything that abrades sensitive skin will trigger psoriasis within a few weeks." Exercising too much can also cause joint pain in those with psoriatic arthritis, a type of inflammatory arthritis that develops in about one in four with psoriasis. Simple Tips for Trigger-Free Exercise

What can you do to make exercise work for you? First, do all you can to avoid trauma to your skin.

To lessen friction, wear looser exercise clothing. Gently shower right after you finish. "Don't rub and scrub," says Menter. "That can aggravate the psoriasis." "Right before exercising, put lubricants in the areas that are likely to be irritated," says Menter. He suggests using a little bit of petroleum jelly in the groin and under the breasts. You can also sprinkle on sweat-absorbent powder. At the first sign of a friction- or exercise-related flare-up, use topical medication to bring it quickly under control, says Menter. Talk with your doctor about this. 1 2 #url_reference {display: none};#url_reference { display: block; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 10px; }#logo_rdr img { visibility: visible; }.titleBar_rdr .titleBarMiddle_fmt { padding-top: 1.5em;} Psoriasis
Reading List Psoriasis: 7 Types Assessing Treatment Mild Psoriasis Severe Psoriasis Biologic Treatments Emotional Health Exercise Tips Psoriasis in Winter Psoriasis in Summer Psoriasis Slideshow Psoriasis Videos Patients Talk Cosmetic Cover-Ups Light Therapy Starting Biologics Brought to you by: Is Psoriasis Holding You Back? Assess the management of your psoriasis – and what might improve it. Find us on: URAC: Accredited Health Web SiteReviewed by Trust-E site privacy statementHonCode: Health on the Net Foundation About WebMD|Terms of Use|Privacy Policy|Sponsor Policy|Site Map|Careers| Contact Us Advertise With Us|WebMD Corporate|eMedicine|eMedicineHealth|RxList|Medscape|MedicineNet First Aid|WebMD the Magazine|WebMD Health Record|WebMD Mobile|Newsletters

c2005-2011 WebMD, LLC. All rights reserved.

WebMD does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See additional information.

View the original article here

Study: Vaccine for Breast, Ovarian Cancer Has Potential

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

Modern Moms Ask for Help

You can't do it all, all the time. Here's how, and why, to ask for help.

Women have been trained to do everything ourselves. We think we're not supposed to ask for help -- and let’s face it, we often don’t like to.

When my husband suggested that my mother-in-law come by for the day to watch my son so I could get work done, I immediately said, “Oh, no, I don’t want her to have to drive all that way.”

“Women believe that we’re supposed to handle everything ourselves, which is often at the root of why we’re unhappy,” says Randy Kamen Gredinger, EdD, a Wayland, Mass., psychologist, life coach, and blogger specializing in women’s issues. “We do everything, and feel unappreciated, but then we don’t want to ask for help. We need to be more collaborative.”

Today, make up your mind that it’s time to stop doing it all and start asking for the help you need. ?

Here's how to do that without screaming, nagging, or whining.

If you need help, approach your partner with your problem, and a plan. “Honey, I’m burned out, tired, and stressed. I need some extra time for me. Can we find one night a week (or a couple of hours on the weekend) when you can cook dinner and get the kids ready for bed, so I can go to the gym/take a yoga class/have a facial with a friend?”

What you shouldn’t do, says Amy Tiemann, author of Mojo Mom: Nurturing Your Self While Raising a Family and founder of the Mojo Mom web site, is apologize. “Don’t ask, ‘Can I do this?’ Say, ‘I need this time, and it will make me a better wife and a better mom. Let’s figure out how we can make it happen.'”

In Kamen Gredinger’s house, kids start doing chores when they're toddlers. “It’s not negotiable,” she says. “If you wait to give them responsibilities until they’re in school, it’s a big mistake. In other countries, they aren’t screaming at their children to do things; they just know they’re expected to do their share.”

Pick age-appropriate chores for your kids and let them do it on their own. They probably won’t do it perfectly the first time, or even the tenth time, but if you intervene and make them feel like they’re not doing it right, their pride in doing it all by themselves goes out the window.

Here are examples:

Age 1-2:

Pick up their own clothes and put them in the hamper.Put toys in the toy box.

Age 3-4:

Set the table.Help empty the dishwasher and put dishes away.Clean up toys in their room or playroom.Put laundry in the washer or dryer.

Age 5-8:

Help load the dishwasher.Cut up vegetables for dinner with adult supervision.Clear the table.Bring in groceries from the car and put them away.Fold laundry.Make their bed. Take out the trash.

Age 8 and up:

Take responsibility for keeping their bedroom clean.Help take care of a pet.Help prepare simple meals.Rake leaves.Do a load of laundry.

View the original article here

Vaccine May Help Slow Spread of Lung Cancer

Experimental Vaccine Targets a Protein Linked to Many Cases of Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer

Oct. 21, 2011 -- A cancer vaccine shows potential to slow the spread of cancer among lung cancer patients, a study shows.

The experimental vaccine targets a protein linked to more than half of all cases of non-small-cell lung cancer, the most common form of lung cancer.

The study is published in The Lancet Oncology.

The study was conducted in Europe and included 148 patients with advanced lung cancer. It was led by ?Elisabeth Quiox, MD, a professor of pneumonology at the Universite de Strasbourg, France.

The patients were divided into two groups. Both groups received standard chemotherapy while one group received the experimental vaccine known as TG4010. The vaccine stimulates the immune system to destroy cancer cells.

The researchers hoped to stop the progression of the disease in at least 40% of the patients enrolled in the six-month study. If they reached that goal, they would consider the trial a success. To determine that, each participant underwent a CT scan every six weeks to see if the disease had spread.

At the end of the study, 32 of the 74 patients (43.2%) who had received the vaccine showed no signs of disease progression. Meanwhile, 35% of the study participants who received standard chemotherapy showed similar results.

The researchers write that the trial was a success and that the results suggest that the combination of vaccine and chemotherapy "translates to a better long-term outcome compared with a response obtained with chemotherapy alone."

The vaccine appeared to have other benefits as well. More patients in the vaccine group responded to treatment than patients who received only chemotherapy -- 41.9% compared to 28.4%. Also, for those patients who did respond to treatment, those given injections of the TG4010 vaccine had an average overall survival of 23.3 months, nearly twice that of patients in the comparison group.

The researchers also discovered a potential biomarker that may allow doctors to better determine which patients are most likely to benefit from the vaccine, if it reaches the market.

According to the study, patients with a normal number of a specific type of natural killer cells did much better with the vaccine than patients with an increased number of the cells. Natural killer cells are a form of white blood cell that helps the body fight off cancer cells and cells infected with viruses.

These observations "point to the importance of patients' biological status as a predictor for success of therapeutic vaccination, and suggest that analysis of biological parameters should be part of the clinical developments in cancer immunotherapy," the researchers write.

This is a very important point, says Harry Raftopoulos, MD, an oncologist at the Monter Cancer Center in Lake Success, N.Y., who reviewed the study for WebMD.

View the original article here