Pumping iron also pumps up memory

In a very neat study done here at UBC, researchers took 86 older women with mild cognitive impairment and divided them into 3 groups for a 6-month trial.

One group did resistance training twice a week, one group worked on aerobic fitness, and a third group did stretching and flexibility exercises.

After 6 months, the resistance group was the only one to show cognitive improvements, although the aerobics group was more fit but it did not show improvement in cognitive scores.

A reminder that when it comes to exercise, the mantra should be BARF: Balance, Aerobics, Resistance, and Flexibility, with a growing emphasis on the non-aerobics threesomes as we push along in years.

Warning about how to protect yourself when taking Celebrex

Celebrex is an effective non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug in that group of anti-inflammatories known as COX-2 inhibitor2, which were introduced to the market about 2 decades ago with great fanfare because the older non-steroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDS such as Naprosyn and ibuprofen) were (still are) linked many potential complications, such as (very prominently), gastro-intestinal problems including pain, ulcers, and bleeding.

The COX-2s, however, were said to produce far fewer such problems so they quickly garnered a huge share of the market.

Their popularity plunged, though, when the most popular Cox-2, Vioxx, was removed from the market because it was linked to a significantly higher risk of cardiovascular complications.

Celebrex, though, has continued to stay on the market and is still used by many people in large part because it’s reputed to produce fewer GI problems than the older anti-inflammatories.

However, the bottom line is that even if Celebrex does produce fewer GI problems than say naprosyn, it still produces some GI problems, so for most people who end up taking Celebrex, it’s recommended that they take a GI-protective agent at the same time such as a PPI like Nexium or Pariet, but as always, many people stop taking the GI-protective drug very quickly after going on it.

So, if you are taking Celebrex, a new study from Europe has just determined that                  COX-2 users who stop taking their GI-protective agent are at significantly higher risk of suffering a GI complication – primarily bleeding and/or ulcers – than those who continue to take their PPI.

TLC works for babies too

A study from the US which was done on 240 infants getting their routine vaccinations at 2-4 months found that treating the kids to the 5 S's - swaddling, sucking, swinging, shushing, and side/stomach position – significantly reduced crying in those babies after they got the needle.

The great benefit of that is that 1) it’s perhaps the cheapest therapy you can find – a parent’s love, and 2) it might reduce the need to use acetaminophen, which is commonly prescribed to calm babies crying a lot after a shot, and that can only be a good thing since acetaminophen use has been linked to several potential problems, including perhaps interfering with the effectiveness of some vaccines and a higher risk of asthma.

Interestingly, by the way, this study relied on medical residents (presumably pediatric students) to provide the 5 S’s (that controls for how moms and dads might differ in techniques) but a commentary accompanying the study said that some residents were not very proficient in some of the S’s, such as swaddling.

Pretty worrisome, if you ask me, when pediatric residents don’t know the elements of handling a baby normally.

Your dentist can be your best friend - or not

If you’re at all interested in the health of your teeth and mouth (and if you’re not, boy! Are you making a huge, huge mistake that will very likely come back to bite you – if I can put it like that), a couple of recent studies about dental health should interest you.

The one that determined that people who get frequent dental Xrays are at significantly higher risk of being diagnosed with a meningioma, a growth on the meninges or lining of the brain (strictly speaking, these are not “brain cancers” but that’s how everyone refers to them anyway.

Before anyone who’s had a few dental Xrays (and which one of us hasn’t?) panics about being diagnosed with brain cancer, though, a few things to note in this study.

First, happily, the large majority of meningiomas are benign, although even a benign tumour in that area can pose large health risks, of course.

Second, the researchers noted this increased risk in relation to two specific types of Xrays, particularly the Panorex kind, which is an Xray of all the teeth, and it was more frequent use of these, not a single one-off that linked to this higher risk of meningioma.

Also, age had a role to play in this in that the younger the regular exposure to these films, the higher the risk.

Plus, several dentists remarked that today’s Xrays offer much radiation exposure than Xrays did just a few years ago, when this data was accumulated.

Bottom line, though (and I apply this pretty strongly myself when dealing with my own dentists) is that there is no such thing as a “routine” Xray, so when a dentist – or a doctor or a chiropractor – tells you that you “need” an Xray, always ask, “why?”

What’s the deal if we don’t do it? Why will it be harder to fix a cavity, for example, which we don’t even know is there, years from now when it finally becomes symptomatic instead of doing it today?

Etc, etc:

To balance that one, though, the second study was much kinder to dentists by pointing out that dentists are other dental professionals are a terrific resource to diagnose early malignancies in the mouth and head and neck area.

So by all means, get regular dental check-ups, but just be more hesitant about submitting to too many Xrays.

Finally, if you’re interested in oral health, especially in the earlier detection of oral malignancies, an area of medicine that needs much more emphasis, check out the links to this blog. http://bccancerfoundation.com/conqueroralcancer 

BC Cancer Foundation presents "An Evening to Conquer Oral Cancer" 

Date: Thursday April 26th

Time: 6:30pm Champagne Reception - 7:30 Dinner

Place: Fairmont Hotel Vancouver

Contact: blcurri@shaw.ca

This is the inaugural event and the first ever event  specifically for oral cancer research!

A great evening will be had with several "special guests" including a special performance by a Juno Award winning guest artist"! As well, there will be raffle of a painting from well known BC artist Robert Genn, door prizes and a live and silent auction!

Warning about baldness pills

The US FDA just announced that they’re making the manufacturer of finasteride, which is sold in two forms as Propecia (used to treat baldness) and Proscar (used to treat prostate enlargement) slap new labels on the product to indicate that using this drug may result – in rare cases – in several sexual problems, a few of which such as lowered libido that may not even wane when the drug is discontinued.

Given that Propecia – the baldness treatment – is used by lots of men in their 30s and 40s, even though this is not a common side effect of the drug, it’s still well worth noting.

Maybe just go back to believing that bald is beautiful (it’s not but if you believe it, well, who cares, right?)

Why to be wary of even seemingly innocuous screening tests

A very telling study in the New England Journal of Medicine has concluded that people who are diagnosed with cancer have a markedly increased risk of suicide and cardiovascular death immediately after being given the diagnosis, a risk that stays up for several weeks.

Now, this study was done in Scandinavia so perhaps there’s something unique to the people up there – or with their doctors in how they communicate the diagnosis – that accounts for this rather worrisome result, but I doubt it.

I think the diagnosis of cancer is so scary that it can affect certain people (perhaps most of us) in a very adverse way, often more adversely than we may have thought when we weren’t as concerned that we might actually have cancer.

For me, the lesson from this is simply that even when people insist to you that there doesn’t seem to be a good reason against getting a particular screening test - PSA for prostate cancer, mammogram for breast cancer, whole body scans, etc etc – it always pays to ask yourself how you’d handle a result that indicated that – against the odds and certainly beyond your expectations - you had cancer.