Health Tip: What's an A1c Test?

(HealthDay News) - A hemoglobin A1c test is recommended for many diabetics several times per year. The test helps doctors see how well blood sugar has been controlled over the prior two or three months.

The University of Michigan Health System offers this additional information about the test:

• The amount of hemoglobin A1c in your blood indicates how high your blood sugar has been over the past three months. This can help determine if medication, diet and other remedies prescribed by your doctor are working.
• The test should be done every three months, unless you have your sugar well- controlled.
• In that case, your doctor may suggest getting the test every six months.
• Test results can help predict the likelihood of diabetic complications, including heart disease, or damage to the eyes, kidneys or nervous system.

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Health Tip: If You Fear Going to the Dentist

(HealthDay News) - Anxiety about going to the dentist is common, but fear shouldn't prevent you from keeping your teeth in good health.

The American Dental Association offers these suggestions to help ease anxiety at the dentist's office:

• Talk to your dentist or hygienist about your anxiety, so they can better understand and accommodate your needs.
• Schedule appointments when you have plenty of time and won't feel rushed -- such as very early in the morning, or on a Saturday.
• Bring soothing music to distract you during your appointment -- especially if the sounds of a dental office bother you.
• Visualize yourself somewhere pleasant -- on a beach, with family or at a park.

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Health Tip: Drug and Food Interactions

(HealthDay News) - Many medications, both prescription and over-the-counter, can negatively interact with foods, supplements or other drugs.

Here are guidelines to help prevent food-drug interactions, courtesy of the American Academy of Family Physicians:

• Check prescription and over-the-counter drug labels to see if they contain any warnings.
  Follow directions on all medications carefully.
• Unless you get your doctor's OK, never break up pills and mix them with food, and never empty capsules into food.
• Take medications with a whole glass of water, unless your doctor has given you other instructions. Never take medications with alcohol.
• Don't take your medications at the same time as you take vitamins or dietary supplements.
• Don't mix medications in a hot drink, as the heat may affect the medication.

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Busting Medical Myths Even Doctors Believe

(HealthDay News) -- Somewhere in the back of your mind is the idea that you should drink at least eight glasses of water a day to stay healthy.

You may have nodded in agreement when someone mentioned scientific studies showing that, on average, we use just 10 percent of our brain.

And you may have lectured your children about the danger of reading in dim light, which could cause permanent eye damage.

None of this is true. But the ideas continue to circulate (and be believed even by some physicians), say Drs. Rachel Vreeman and Aaron Carroll of the Indiana University School of Medicine. They've taken the time and trouble in a two-page report in the Dec. 22-29 British Medical Journal to puncture seven such medical myths.

"We picked these in particular, because we either heard physicians repeat them or heard them in the media a number of times," said Vreeman, who is a fellow in children's health services research at Indiana. "They do appear to be ingrained in the popular imagination, including that of physicians."

Dr. Graham F. Greene, associate professor of urology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Medicine, admits he was tempted to believe the 10 percent brain myth, especially because he'd heard it attributed to Albert Einstein (not so), even though Greene is involved with the UAMS Web page devoted to puncturing similar myths.

"But, in reality, the brain is still a huge mystery in terms of capacity," Greene said. "We're still learning about it."

Greene does recall hearing his mother caution his sisters about another myth punctured in the BMJ presentation -- that shaved hair will grow back coarser and darker. The myth persists even though controlled studies done as long ago as 1928 showed no difference in the growth and texture of shaved and non-shaved hair.

Then, there's the one about hair and fingernails continuing to grow after death -- the so-called Dracula effect. What actually happens, Vreeman and Carroll write, is that the skin retracts after death, giving the illusion of growth. That's part of something that happens during life, too -- we grow "long in the tooth," not because old teeth are growing, but because the gums that support them shrink.

There's an air of scientific verisimilitude about another myth cited by Vreeman and Carroll -- that eating turkey makes you sleepy. Supposedly, that happens because turkey is rich in the sleep-inducing amino acid tryptophan, but the tryptophan content is not great enough to bother anyone, Vreeland said. It's probably the wine that comes with the Thanksgiving turkey that lowers the eyelids.

As for drinking eight glasses of water a day, don't try it. Water comes into the body via a number of foods, such as fruits and vegetables, and a zealous endeavor to meet the eight-glass quota might even be dangerous, Vreeman said.

She and Carroll are expanding their myth-busting effort. "We're in the process of writing a book with over 100 of them," Vreeman said.

Have you heard the one about chewing gum staying in your stomach for seven years if you swallow it?

More information
For a clear-eyed take on other medical myths, visit the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

Dentists Take Dimmer View of Patients' Smiles

(HealthDay News) -- People tend to be much happier with the condition of their teeth and smiles than their dentists are, Norwegian researchers report.

Patients also view eyes and teeth as the most important aspects of facial attractiveness, and younger people under 50 are most at ease with the appearance of their teeth, the study found.

"Patients had much higher opinions of their smiles than dentists assessing their smiles," said study author Dr. Oystein Fardal, a periodontist in private practice in Egersund, Norway.

Yet despite the inclination towards more favorable assessments, patients did not usually rank their pearly whites as being the best that they could be.

"They only gave themselves scores of six out 10," he noted. "This could mean that they are content, but realize that they do not compare with the 'perfect smiles' of Julia Roberts, Angelina Jolie, etcetera."

Fardal and co-author Jannike Jornung, a graduate student in the department of orthodontics in Sweden's Sahlgrenska Academy at Goteborg University, published their findings in the December issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association.

To gauge patient and dentist perceptions, the researchers first interviewed 78 patients at a general dental practice in a small rural Norwegian community during September of 2004.
The patients were between the ages of 22 and 84 and, at the time, none were seeking any kind of aesthetic dental care. Nearly two-thirds were women.

Written questionnaires were completed, in which patients assessed on a scale of one to 100 the shape of their lips; the appearance of the soft tissue (gingiva) surrounding their teeth; the shade, shape and alignment of their teeth; and the overall state of their smile.

Patients were also asked to indicate if they thought they had crooked teeth and/or receding gums.

No photographs or mirrors were provided, as patients were asked to grade themselves from memory.

In addition, all the men and women also ranked various facial features according to how important they believed they were to overall attractiveness. Features included hair and hairline, eyes and eyebrows, nose, skin, ears, lips, teeth, chin and the shape of the head.

Digital photos were then taken of the smiles of the first 40 patients, and both the attending dentist and Fardal independently arrived at aesthetic scores based on assessments of tooth shade, spacing, crowding, inflamed tissue and overall appearance.

At no time had Fardal been involved in the dental care of any of the patients.

The authors found that on a scale of 100, average patient satisfaction with the state of their smile came to just over 59 -- a figure that rose significantly among patients under the age of 50.
By contrast, the two dentists' assessments taken together registered at about 40 on the scale.

Specifically, patients were most satisfied with the state of their soft tissue (gingiva) when they smiled. They were least satisfied with the color of their teeth, which they generally described as being too dark.

Skin condition followed teeth and eyes as the most important features contributing to a person's facial attractiveness. Female patients said that teeth and hair were more important to them than did the men, while the men said head shape was more critical.

Fardal and Jernung suggested that dentists should remember that their opinion of the aesthetics of a patient's smile may not match that of the patient.

"Whether the 'perfect smile' exists is a different question," said Fardal. "The smile is made up of the teeth, gums, lips and jaws, and we as dentists use criteria and guidelines attempting to produce the 'perfect smile.' However, how many people actually fulfill these criteria is not known."

"Furthermore, the beauty is in the eye of the beholder," he added. "So there are a lot more smiles that are found to be attractive than just the 'media-created smile'. In addition, social and cultural differences exist, where different features are deemed attractive."

Dr. Edmond Hewlett, a consumer advisor to the American Dental Association, and an associate professor in UCLA's School of Dentistry in Los Angeles, agreed that dentists are trained to look for certain agreed-upon tooth proportions, symmetries, sizes, shapes and coloring when assessing a person's smile.

"I think there is a notion of what the components of an optimally attractive smile," he said. "There are certain parameters that are commonly utilized when a dentist looks at a smile. Then you take these very general parameters and apply them to every individual person with their unique features."

"It's certainly not a cookie-cutter situation, like a Julia Roberts template that we want to stick in everybody's mouth," he stressed. "But when you look at a beautiful smile you do see a lot of the same features -- either because the person is blessed or through orthodontic work -- which we all find appealing.

"Models, for example, consistently have central incisors which tend to be a little bit wider and longer than the other teeth in the front," Hewlett noted. "And yet when you look at two famous actresses -- Kirsten Dunst and Patricia Arquette -- both have a type of crookedness. The incisors are actually tilted back a little, and the canine teeth look more prominent like fangs. Yet both have commented in interviews that they are tired of people telling them to change their teeth. They're quite confident and comfortable."

"And that's the subjectivity of attractive teeth personified," he noted. "They're comfortable in their own skin, and they don't feel the need to conform to some culturally driven ideal of beauty. And that's something I think that dentists need to be sensitive to as well."

More information
For additional information on cosmetic dentistry, visit the American Dental Association.

Human Noses Sort Out Strangers, Friends

(HealthDay News) -- Dogs aren't the only ones who can sniff out interlopers.

Humans have a far more sophisticated sense of smell than previously believed and can use their nose to differentiate between a friend and a stranger, say Canadian researchers at the McGill University's Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI).

While placed in a PET scanner, study volunteers were asked to identify four different odors: their own, a friend's; a stranger's; and a normal or common everyday odor. The PET scan results showed that body odors are processed by an entirely different nerve pathway in the brain than normal/common odors.

The researchers also found that a stranger's body odor activates the same brain regions (amygdala and insular cortex) that respond to fear and danger.

"Our study demonstrates that the olfactory system has preferential processing for behaviorally important stimuli," lead investigator Dr. Johan Lundstrom, former postdoctoral fellow at the MNI, said in a prepared statement.

"This means that stimuli that are perceived as very important for us -- either for our survival, finding food, or [they] are carrying other important signals, such as mate selection signals -- are processed faster and more accurately by specialized neuronal networks. It is known that the auditory and visual systems work in much the same way, and we have now demonstrated this for the olfactory system," said Lundstrom, currently Assistant Member at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia.

"This explains why participants perceived a stranger's body odor as more intense and less pleasant than the other odors. A stranger's body odor is a behaviorally important stimulus, because it is unfamiliar and might signal danger. Therefore, the brain has developed a mechanism to ensure that it grabs our attention," Lundstrom said.

The study is published in the current issue of Cerebral Cortex.

More information
The Social Issues Research Center in the U.K. has more about the human sense of smell.

Obesity Weakens Immune Response

(HealthDay News) -- Obese people find it harder to fight infections, and a weakened immune response may be to blame, suggests a new study from Boston University researchers.

In experiments with mice infected with the bacteria Porphyromonas gingivalis, obese mice had less ability to battle gum infection than their normal-weight counterparts, according to the report in this week's early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"For years, we have had difficulty understanding why obese people have difficulty clearing an infection," said lead researcher Dr. Salomon Amar, associate dean for research at the university's School of Dental Medicine.

"Now we understand that dysfunction in some of the mechanisms, as a result of the obesity, explain difficulty in clearing the infection and also the difficulty in wound healing," Amar said.

In the study, Amar's team tied silk threads infected with the bacteria around the molars of obese and normal-weight mice. They then compared the animals' responses to infection, by measuring both the amount of bone loss and the growth of the bacteria around their teeth.

The researchers found that the obese mice had a compromised immune response to the bacteria, which made the animals more susceptible to the infection.

Amar's group also looked at the animals' white blood cells, which are the main line of defense against infection. The white cells of obese mice had lower levels of an important signaling molecule, and some of the genes that fight inflammation were altered, the researchers found.

Why obesity has this effect isn't clear, but the researchers think it may involve a signaling pathway that controls a protein called NF-kB. Alterations in this protein may be caused by constant exposure to food, Amar explained. "At some point, the body doesn't respond properly to infection," he said.

The same mechanism is at work in humans, Amar added. In fact, studies in obese people have shown they are more likely to have gum disease than non-obese people. The disease is caused by bacteria, which causes inflammation and destruction of the bone underlying teeth.

Amar thinks that obese people need to be treated differently to help them fight infections. "We need to be more aggressive in the use of targeted antibiotics in infections among obese people," he said. "Also, we need to boost the immune response."

One expert agreed the finding sheds light on the connection between obesity and infection.
"Very interesting paper," said Dr. Sara G. Grossi, a senior research scientist at the Brody School of Medicine of East Carolina University. "This is a study that needed to be done, with very interesting results and implications for both obesity and periodontal disease -- two diseases that are easier to prevent than to treat."

More information
For more about gum disease, visit the American Academy of Periodontology.

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Environmental Toxin Collects in Breast Milk

(HealthDay News) -- Scientists have discovered the mechanism by which a chemical known as perchlorate can collect in breast milk and cause cognitive and motor deficits in newborns.

Used since the 1940s to manufacture explosives and rocket fuel, the contaminant is still widely present in the water and food supply, experts say.

And high concentrations of perchlorate in breast milk can be passed to an infant and affect it's ability to manufacture essential thyroid hormone, the new study suggests. Perchlorate can also lessen the amount of iodide available to a mother to pass on to her infant, and a baby needs iodide to produce thyroid hormones.

"The deficit of thyroid hormone is particularly delicate if it's at the beginning of life because the central nervous system has not completely matured," said study author Dr. Nancy Carrasco, a professor of molecular pharmacology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in New York City.

Thyroid hormones are "absolutely critical" for the development and maturation of the central nervous system, skeletal muscles and lungs, she explained.

In laboratory and rat research, Carrasco's team found that perchlorate limited the amount of iodide transported to a mother's mammary glands. The only source of iodide a baby typically has is mother's milk, she explained.

Her team discovered that perchlorate accumulates in mother's milk, but before this study, "we didn't know it would be passed on as actively to the baby," she said.

Carrasco and her colleagues at Einstein and at Johns Hopkins University reached this conclusion after experimental studies on how sodium iodide carries perchlorate to, and concentrates it in, mammary glands.

The next steps in this research will include animal studies looking at the effects of perchlorate exposure during pregnancy, she said.

The debate continues on how much perchlorate is a high and harmful concentration, Carrasco said. But scientists have long known that iodide deficiency contributes to lowered IQ.

The new finding is relevant to the Environmental Protection Agency's standards for acceptable perchlorate levels, added R. Thomas Zoeller, a professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst who has served on the EPA's peer review panels for the assessment of perchlorate.

At the time the current safety standards were established, the EPA was not thinking about how perchlorate is concentrated in breast milk, he said.

Zoeller said the study's discovery of how perchlorate is transported to breast milk is important to setting safety standards because perchlorate has a half-life of about eight hours and doesn't accumulate in the body. But because of the new findings, "we no longer have to debate whether perchlorate is being concentrated in milk," he added. "We have enough data to know that this is a very dangerous thing."

Large studies need to be done to confirm the findings, Zoeller added.

It's now "enormously important to find out if perchlorate in [breast] milk is affecting thyroid hormones in infants," he said. Such a study would be difficult to conduct because it would involve drawing blood from 1- and 2-week old infants, Zoeller said.

Tyrone Hayes, a professor of integrative biology at the University of California at Berkeley, said the discovery of a mechanism by which perchlorate can be transmitted to nursing infants is important.

"I think probably the most obvious significance is that we have a very common contaminant in the environment that has a profound negative impact, and that the most profound impact is on humans that don't have a choice at a critical development stage that can impact the rest of their lives," he said.

More information
The Environmental Protection Agency has more on perchlorate.

Depressed Moms' Kids at Higher Injury Risk

(HealthDay News) -- Young children of depressed mothers are at heightened risk for behavioral problems and injury, new research shows.

A team at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center looked at 1992-1994 data on more than 1,100 mother/child pairs taking part in the National Longitudinal Study of Youth.

During the study period, 94 of the children (all under age 6) suffered injuries serious enough to require medical attention. Two-thirds of the injuries occurred at home.

Children of mothers who had persistently high scores on measures of depression symptoms were more than twice as likely to be injured as children of mothers with low scores of depression symptoms.

The study also found that children (especially boys) of mothers with high depression scores were much more likely to have behavioral problems and to "act out."

The researchers concluded that every one point increase on a mother's depression score was associated with a 4 percent increased risk of injury and a 6 percent increased risk of behavioral problems in children.

That held true even after the researchers took into account a number of major factors, such as household income, health insurance coverage and level of education.

Depression in mothers may increase the risk of behavioral problems in children and, in turn, boost youngsters' risk of injury, said the study authors, who added that depression in mothers may also result in less supervision of children or increased number of injury hazards in the home.

The study was published in the journal Injury Prevention.

More information
Mental Health America has more about women and depression.

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Health Tip: The Road to a Healthy Heart

(HealthDay News) -- The American Heart Association says there are a few simple things you can do to keep active and promote a healthier heart:

• Do housework yourself, instead of hiring someone else to do it.
• Work in the garden or mow the grass. Using a riding mower doesn't count.
• Go out for a short walk before breakfast, after dinner or both. Start with a 10-minute walk and work up to 30 minutes.
• Walk or bike to the corner store.
• When watching television, pedal a stationary bicycle.
• Park on the outskirts of a shopping mall and walk to the stores.

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