Living with diabetes is more than taking insulin or medication. Those who have diabetes or know someone who does knows that living with diabetes is a lifestyle.
Insulin or medications, like metformin or glucophage are not a cures for diabetes, although that is a common belief. Insulin and medications merely manage the disease, allowing the person with diabetes to continue living as normally as possible. Unfortunately, the disease still can cause significant damage to the body, as the sugar levels fluctuate.
People with diabetes who manage to keep their blood glucose (sugar) under strict control have a better chance of avoiding complications. …read more

It may seem to go against your instincts, but in some cases, supervised exercise when you have knee pain could be just what you need.
A study in the Netherlands of 131 people with patellofemoral pain syndrome found that patients who had followed a specially designed exercise program had better outcomes after one year of treatment than those who followed the standard care.
Patellofemoral pain syndrome results in pain at the front of the knee, most often starting in adolescence, particularly among teens who are active in sports. It affects women more than men.
The patients who followed the exercise program had a …read more

P&G Voluntarily Recalls Specific Lots of Vicks Sinex Nasal Spray in the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom
Press Release

CINCINNATI, Nov. 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE: PG) announced today it is voluntarily recalling three lots of its Vicks Sinex nasal spray in three countries: the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom.
To view the Multimedia News Release, go to: http://multivu.prnewswire.com/mnr/pg/41327/
The company said it is taking this precautionary step after finding the bacteria B. cepacia in a small amount of product made at its plant in Gross Gerau, Germany. There have been no reports of illness. However, …read more

Children who have asthma are at higher risk of developing problems if they contract the H1N1 flu, more so than if they have the seasonal flu, say researchers.
Researchers in Toronto, Canada, investigated the differences between 58 children with H1N1 who were admitted to the Hospital for the Hospital for Sick Kids, in Toronto, and 200 who had been admitted to the same hospital with complications from the seasonal flu, between 2004 and 2008.
The researchers found that 22% of the children who were admitted because of H1N1 had asthma, while only 6% of those with seasonal influenza were asthmatic. In addition, …read more

It’s been known for a while that smoking increases the risk of developing bladder cancer. Actually, it’s the highest risk factor – smokers are twice as likely to develop bladder cancer than those who don’t smoke.
According to the American Cancer Society,
Smoking causes about half of the deaths from bladder cancer among men (48%) and almost a third of bladder cancer deaths in women (28%). Some of the carcinogens (cancer-causing chemicals) in tobacco smoke are absorbed from the lungs and get into the blood. From the blood, they are filtered by the kidneys and concentrated in urine. These chemicals in urine …read more

Mental illness is associated with many issues. People with mental illnesses are often marginalized in society, pushed aside and ignored, or ridiculed. Some people with mental illness manage well with the proper medical and psychosocial support, but sadly, it’s still a big problem for so many.
Often, the effects of mental illness contribute to physical illness and behaviors such as smoking, not eating well, or physical inactivity. Unfortunately, these are also prime risk factors for developing heart disease as well. Not long ago, we learned that people with mental illness die, on average, 25 years earlier than their peers who do …read more

Stuffy noses with a cold are annoying. Stuffy noses almost all the time is even more annoying. So what to do? Many people turn to nasal saline (salt water) rinses or irrigations or they use neti pots, because they aren’t considered medication and should be safe. Right? Well, not really.
It turns out that if you have recurrent rhinosinusitis (inflammation of the nasal and sinus linging) and you are using nasal saline irrigation every day, you could end up causing more acute infections in the long run, say researchers. In fact, you could be increasing your chance of infection by 60%.

Women who are diagnosed with clinical depression may have a higher risk of developing osteoporosis, say researchers in Israel.
There has been a suspicion that there is a connection between depression and osteoporosis, but studies have been small. To address this, researchers from Hebrew University researchers looked at data from all studies analyzed them to see what they could find. The results of their meta-analysis were gathered from 23 studies, which studied 2,327 people with depression and 21,141 without depression.
According to this news release, Connection between depression and osteoporosis detailed by Hebrew University researchers, the connection is clear.
[D]epressed individuals have a …read more

Your eye is a complicated body part; if all the parts don’t work properly, your vision is affected. Part of your eye is the lens, which is the clear part that allows the eye to focus light or an image on the retina. The lens is made up mostly of water and protein. The retina is the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye. If this lens gets cloudy, this is called a cataract.
The lens gets cloudy when the protein bunches up together in the lens. The light or image can’t pass through the lens, leaving a cloudy spot. …read more

Are you an aspiring tennis mom or dad? Is your athlete going to be the next Martina Navratilova or Roger Federer? If so, you may want to be sure that your tennis player does more than just play tennis if you want him or her to stay healthy.
A recent study from Loyola University looked at 519 junior tennis players. The researchers found that tennis players who focused only on the game were more likely to not be able to play because of injuries or other medical reasons. This was more prevalent among boys than girls. The players were also 5.4 …read more