There are many ways to quit smoking but regardless of your reasons you will need to either quit by tapering off or quiting cold turkey.

There is of course a good strategy for both of these methods of quiting smoking. And I would like to flesh out these two methods to quit smoking and then I will let you decide which is best with my bit of ideas.

So If you want to try tapering off to quit smoking here is how to do it. First take a day and answer a few questions. When do you smoke? How many cigarrettes do you smoke in the morning? In the afternoon? In the evening? When do you have a real urge to smoke? Now that you have this list you need a plan. You want to start your first day with a victory so you will plan the first day cutting down by not feeling guilty about smoking but instead smoking when you really need it. Make a goal of how many smokes you will have that first day and then you can go to bed on that first night knowing that you did well. Read the rest of this entry »

A new study by The George Institute for International Health has found Tai Chi to have positive health benefits for musculoskeletal pain. The results of the first comprehensive analysis of Tai Chi suggest that it produces positive effects for improving pain and disability among arthritis sufferers.

The researchers are now embarking on a new trial to establish if similar benefits can be seen among people with chronic low back pain.

“This is the first robust evidence to support the beneficial effects of Tai Chi. Our study proves that Tai Chi relieves pain and disability among people with arthritis and shows a positive trend towards effects for overall physical health. We now want to see if these benefits are the same for people suffering from low back pain”, said author Dr Chris Maher at The George Institute. Read the rest of this entry »

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is taking steps to improve contact lens safety by reminding consumers of the importance of following proper cleaning and storing procedures. Consumers who do not follow instructions for contact lens care and use increase their risk of serious eye infections that can lead to blindness.

To support proper cleaning and storage, the FDA has developed a new video on contact lens safety, which can be found on the FDA’s Web site (www.fda.gov), along with an in-depth Consumer Update article. The video and the article stress the importance of emptying the solution out of the contact lens case after each use and using the rub-and-rinse method for added effectiveness. Other important lens care tips include:

• Do not top off or reuse lens cleaning solution;
• Use a contact lens solution to clean, rinse, and then air dry contact lens cases after each use;
• Do not expose contact lenses or lens storage cases to any type of water or other non-sterile solutions. Read the rest of this entry »

So a few weeks ago there was the whole swinde flu story where we were getting updates hour by hour of the srpead of the flu. Two things happened that bumped it off the newspapers and TV. First not many people died, and secondly there was no new news about the Swine Flu.

This changed this week but only in the background. There are two new stories. First the World Health Organization announced that the spread of Swine Flu has forced the call of this to be a world wide pandemic. This is big news because many countries will now begin to mobilize their central health organizations to start and combat and tighten restirctions to stop the spread of the flu.

Also, there is as you may imagine a race by all of the pharmaceutical companies to come up with a flu vaccine to be tested and of course make that company big bucks as the vaccine gets rolled out around the world. Novartis is apparently first and is ready to test swine flu vaccine. The Swiss pharmaceutical giant has a swine flu vaccine ready for trial as governments step up precautions following the World Health Organization’s declaration of a pandemic.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Caldolor, the first injectable dosage form of the common pain medication ibuprofen, to treat pain and fever.

“Injectable ibuprofen and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are promising pain management options,” said Bob Rappaport, M.D., director, Division of Anesthesia, Analgesia and Rheumatology Drug Products in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “But until now there were only oral forms of most NSAIDs. An injectable ibuprofen product can provide patients with relief from pain and fever when they cannot take oral products.”

Caldolor will be available for hospital use only. It is approved to be administered in 400 mg to 800 mg doses, over 30 minutes, every 6 hours for acute pain. To treat fever, the drug is approved in a 400 mg dose administered over 30 minutes, followed by 400 mg every 4 to 6 hours, or 100-200 mg every 4 hours, as necessary. Read the rest of this entry »

This report and study is not new news to me and I would bet that you would agree that it make sense that losing sleep and not sleeping is really unhealthy.

Men have an increased risk of premature death if they have chronic insomnia along with a short sleep duration, researchers here said.

In a longitudinal study of more than 1,700 men and women followed for more than 10 years, men with insomnia and short sleep duration were almost five times more likely to die than men who had normal sleep, said Alexandros N. Vgontzas, M.D., professor of psychiatry and director of the Sleep Research Center at Penn State University Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pa.

Dr. Vgontzas reported the findings at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.

“Until now, most studies had failed to show that insomnia, like sleep apnea, is associated with medical morbidity and mortality,” said Dr. Vgontzas. Read the rest of this entry »

The nation’s epidemic of new H1N1 flu may have peaked except in New York, New Jersey and New England, a leading federal health expert said Tuesday.

“In the country as a whole, influenza is starting to decrease,” says Ann Schuchat of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The agency has tallied 6,764 confirmed or probable cases and 10 deaths nationwide, Schuchat says, more than half of the global total of 12,954 cases reported Tuesday by the World Health Organization. Laboratory testing indicates that the new H1N1 virus — commonly referred to as swine flu— accounts for almost all of the flu virus now circulating nationwide.

Federal health officials haven’t dismissed the possibility that the worst is yet to come. Far from it, Schuchat says, noting that the horrific 1918 flu epidemic, which killed 20 million people in the United States alone, was preceded by a mild “herald” wave of cases in the spring, followed by devastating waves of illness in the fall. Read the rest of this entry »

Patients with plaque psoriasis had a greater reduction in disease activity when treated with topical aloe vera compared with a topical steroid, data from a randomized trial demonstrated.

Patients treated with aloe vera had a significantly greater reduction in the Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI) after eight weeks of treatment, Charoen Choonhakarn, M.D., of Khon Kaen University in Khon Kaen, Thailand, and colleagues reported here at the International Congress of Dermatology.

The difference did not achieve statistical significance, but the magnitude of change from baseline to eight weeks differed significantly in an adjusted analysis. Read the rest of this entry »

I am really stretching the vitamin D thing lately but I just saw some medical news out of a skin conference in Praugue that explained research that a certain kind of Vitamin D supplement was more effective that topical steroidal cream for getting rid of eczema, this is bound to be big news in my house.

Almost half of patients with steroid-resistant hand eczema had complete or near-complete clearance when treated with the oral vitamin D analog alitretinoin, according to data from two randomized clinical trials.

Almost 80% of patients who relapsed after alitretinoin withdrawal regained disease control when treated again with the 9-cis retinoic acid agent, Uwe Hillen, M.D., of University Clinic in Essen, Germany, reported here at the International Congress of Dermatology.

“Alitretinoin produced improvement in all of the individual signs and symptoms of chronic hand eczema,” said Dr. Hillen. “Patients who relapse after initial treatment can be effectively retreated with alitretinoin, suggesting it is a suitable, intermittent treatment option for the long-term management of this chronic, relapsing disease.”

So the question is how hard would is be to get alitretinoin prescribed for this. The other question is weather taking alitretinoin is a bit of overkill for most people that have eczema probably this is suspected to be the best treatment for people with very bad rashes.

I wrote a post last week about the seeming epidemic of Vitamin D deficiency. My wife, sister, and friend all have this and I was kind of wondering why thinking that maybe the lack of time in the sun in the Winter may be the culprit.

As we all have heard in the past the best way to get Vitamin D is to get time in the sun although there are many food sources for Vitamin D like  salmon, sardines, shrimp, milk, cod, and eggs.

I found the following snippet of info from a Canadian doctor in talking about our body synthesizing and getting Vitamin D from being in the sun: Read the rest of this entry »