Watching a lot of TV during adolescence can change a normal brain to a depressive one

Health scare of the week: Does TV damage teen brains? - Subscriber Only - THE WEEK:

"Watching a lot of TV during adolescence, an alarming new study has found, can change a normal brain to a depressive one. The study, which tracked more than 4,000 adolescents as they grew up, found that for every extra hour a teen spends watching TV or playing videogames on an average day, he or she is 8 percent more likely to develop depression as an adult. Study author Dr. Brian Primack says that teens’ experiences help shape their developing brains, and that being parked in front of a screen often replaces positive social, academic, and athletic activities that give kids a sense of mastery and self-respect. Instead, he tells the Los Angeles Times, TV teaches kids to be passive, and to judge themselves against fictional characters whose looks and accomplishments seem out of reach."

Vitamin Pills - A False Hope?

Well - Vitamin Pills - A False Hope? - NYTimes.com:

"Ever since the Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Linus Pauling first promoted “megadoses” of essential nutrients 40 years ago, Americans have been devoted to their vitamins. Today about half of all adults use some form of dietary supplement, at a cost of $23 billion a year.

But are vitamins worth it? In the past few years, several high-quality studies have failed to show that extra vitamins, at least in pill form, help prevent chronic disease or prolong life.

The latest news came last week after researchers in the Women’s Health Initiative study tracked eight years of multivitamin use among more than 161,000 older women. Despite earlier findings suggesting that multivitamins might lower the risk for heart disease and certain cancers, the study, published in The Archives of Internal Medicine, found no such benefit...

“I’m puzzled why the public in general ignores the results of well-done trials,” said Dr. Eric Klein, national study coordinator for the prostate cancer trial and chairman of the Cleveland Clinic’s Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute. “The public’s belief in the benefits of vitamins and nutrients is not supported by the available scientific data.”"

List of Top 100 foods to improve productivity

Top 100 Foods to Improve Productivity

Here is a list of healthy foods that should be an essential part of a good diet:

Babies Know - A Little Dirt Is Good for You

Personal Health - Babies Know - A Little Dirt Is Good for You - NYTimes.com:

"In studies of what is called the hygiene hypothesis, researchers are concluding that organisms like the millions of bacteria, viruses and especially worms that enter the body along with “dirt” spur the development of a healthy immune system. Several continuing studies suggest that worms may help to redirect an immune system that has gone awry and resulted in autoimmune disorders, allergies and asthma.

These studies, along with epidemiological observations, seem to explain why immune system disorders like multiple sclerosis, Type 1 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, asthma and allergies have risen significantly in the United States and other developed countries.

Training the Immune System

“What a child is doing when he puts things in his mouth is allowing his immune response to explore his environment,” Mary Ruebush, a microbiology and immunology instructor, wrote in her new book, “Why Dirt Is Good” (Kaplan). “Not only does this allow for ‘practice’ of immune responses, which will be necessary for protection, but it also plays a critical role in teaching the immature immune response what is best ignored.”

One leading researcher, Dr. Joel V. Weinstock, the director of gastroenterology and hepatology at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, said in an interview that the immune system at birth “is like an unprogrammed computer. It needs instruction.”

He said that public health measures like cleaning up contaminated water and food have saved the lives of countless children, but they “also eliminated exposure to many organisms that are probably good for us.”

“Children raised in an ultraclean environment,” he added, “are not being exposed to organisms that help them develop appropriate immune regulatory circuits.”"

The simple choices that we make in our lifestyle can be as powerful as drugs and surgery

Deepak Chopra et. al.: 'Alternative' Medicine Is Mainstream - WSJ.com:

By Deepak Chopra, Dean Ornish, Rustum Roy and Andrew Weil

"...if we want to make affordable health care available to the 45 million Americans who do not have health insurance, then we need to address the fundamental causes of health and illness, and provide incentives for healthy ways of living rather than reimbursing only drugs and surgery.

Heart disease, diabetes, prostate cancer, breast cancer and obesity account for 75% of health-care costs, and yet these are largely preventable and even reversible by changing diet and lifestyle....

The latest scientific studies show that our bodies have a remarkable capacity to begin healing, and much more quickly than we had once realized, if we address the lifestyle factors that often cause these chronic diseases. These studies show that integrative medicine can make a powerful difference in our health and well-being, how quickly these changes may occur, and how dynamic these mechanisms can be.

Many people tend to think of breakthroughs in medicine as a new drug, laser or high-tech surgical procedure. They often have a hard time believing that the simple choices that we make in our lifestyle -- what we eat, how we respond to stress, whether or not we smoke cigarettes, how much exercise we get, and the quality of our relationships and social support -- can be as powerful as drugs and surgery. But they often are. And in many instances, they're even more powerful....

Our "health-care system" is primarily a disease-care system. Last year, $2.1 trillion was spent in the U.S. on medical care, or 16.5% of the gross national product. Of these trillions, 95 cents of every dollar was spent to treat disease after it had already occurred. At least 75% of these costs were spent on treating chronic diseases, such as heart disease and diabetes, that are preventable or even reversible....

The disease that accounts for more premature deaths and costs Americans more than any other illness is almost completely preventable simply by changing diet and lifestyle. And the same lifestyle changes that can prevent or even reverse heart disease also help prevent or reverse many other chronic diseases as well....

It's time to move past the debate of alternative medicine versus traditional medicine, and to focus on what works, what doesn't, for whom, and under which circumstances...."

Dr. Chopra, the author of more than 50 books on the mind, body and spirit, is guest faculty at Beth Israel Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Dr. Ornish is clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Mr. Roy is professor emeritus of materials science at Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Weil is director of the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine.

The Evidence Gap - The Pain May Be Real, but the Scan Is Deceiving

The Evidence Gap - The Pain May Be Real, but the Scan Is Deceiving - NYTimes.com

"... Scans — more sensitive and easily available than ever — are increasingly finding abnormalities that may not be the cause of the problem for which they are blamed. It’s an issue particularly for the millions of people who go to doctors’ offices in pain.

The scans are expensive — Medicare and its beneficiaries pay about $750 to $950 for an M.R.I. scan of a knee or back, for example. Many doctors own their own scanners, which can provide an incentive to offer scans to their patients.

And so, in what is often an irresistible feedback loop, patients who are in pain often demand scans hoping to find out what is wrong, doctors are tempted to offer scans to those patients, and then, once a scan is done, it is common for doctors and patients to assume that any abnormalities found are the reason for the pain.

But in many cases it is just not known whether what is seen on a scan is the cause of the pain. The problem is that all too often, no one knows what is normal.

... Why do a scan in the first place? There are some who may benefit from surgery, but does it make sense to routinely do scans for nearly everyone with back pain? After all, one-third of herniated disks disappear on their own in six weeks, and two-thirds in six months.

And surgeons use symptoms and a physical examination to identify patients who would be helped by operations. What extra medical help does a scan provide? So Dr. Modic did another study, this time with 250 patients. All had M.R.I. scans when they first arrived complaining of back pain or shooting pains down their leg, which can be caused by a herniated disc pressing on a nerve in the spine. And all had scans again six weeks later. Sixty percent had herniated disks, the scans showed.

Dr. Modic gave the results to only half of the patients and their doctors — the others had no idea what the M.R.I.’s revealed. Dr. Modic knew, though.

In 13 percent of the patients, the second scan showed that the herniated disk had become bigger or a new herniated disk had appeared. In 15 percent, the herniated disk had disappeared. But there was no relationship between the scan findings at six weeks and patients’ symptoms. Some continued to complain of pain even though their herniated disk had disappeared; others said they felt better even though their herniation had grown bigger.

The question, though, was whether it helped the patients and their doctors to know what the M.R.I.’s had found. And the answer, Dr. Modic reported, is that it did not. The patients who knew recovered no faster than those who did not know. However, Dr. Modic said, there was one effect of being told — patients felt worse about themselves when they knew they had a bulging disk.

“If I tell you that you have a degenerated disk, basically I’m telling you you’re ugly,” Dr. Modic said.

Scans, he said, are presurgical tools, not screening tools. A scan can help a surgeon before he or she operates, but it does not help with a diagnosis.

“If a patient has back or leg pain, they should be treated conservatively for at least eight weeks,” Dr. Modic said, meaning that they take pain relievers and go about their normal lives. “Then you should do imaging only if you are going to do surgery."