The most dangerous health crisis we’re facing today, is maintaining healthy blood sugar.
It’s a simple but dangerous truth: Excess blood sugar is at the root of most health problems.
And chances are, you’re making at least one of seven deadly blood sugar mistakes that could be destroying your health... and may even be slowly killing you.
It’s funny about fevers -- some people panic when their temperature is only slightly above 98.6° Fahrenheit (F), while others believe that you should let your body "sweat it out" and therefore refuse to take anything at all for a fever. As it turns out, both points of view are right... and yet neither one is correct! The research establishing 98.6°F as the correct and healthy body temperature for human beings is not only more than a century old, it was always a deeply flawed idea. I learned this when I spoke recently with Philip A. Mackowiak, MD, infectious disease specialist and professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and author of
Fever: Basic Mechanisms and Management. He agreed to set the record straight for
Daily Health News readers and to tell us what we really need to know to correctly care for ourselves or others who are sick and feeling feverish.
Fever Fact #1: There is no such thing as a "normal" body temperature -- it varies for a bunch of different reasons.
Dr. Mackowiak recently did a study that showed that the average body temperature in healthy adults aged 18 to 40 is 98.2°F. ... but, he said, that’s only an average and it is common for body temperatures to be quite different from that. A person’s body temperature tends to decline with age, often closer to 96°F by age 85, depending on gender (women are likely to have slightly higher temperatures than men). Furthermore, a given person’s normal body temperature varies throughout the day -- it can change with the environment, the time of day or activities. There are some people who have a wide temperature variance over the course of the day -- varying, say, from 96.2°F to 98°F -- while others stay within a more limited range.
Advice: Dr. Mackowiak suggests identifying your own "normal" temperature range. Using a digital oral thermometer, take your temperature four times a day, four hours apart at each measure -- in the early morning, around noon, in the late afternoon and just before bed. Do this for several consecutive days, charting your results, and you will know your personal temperature pattern, which will then help you know when you have a fever.
Fever Fact #2: Without other concerning symptoms (such as malaise, sweating, vertigo, etc.), a slight rise in temperature is nothing to fret about.
While an elevation in temperature can be taken as a sign that your body is fighting an infection, the change should be considered just one factor in the overall assessment of your condition.
Any number of serious issues may be preceded by unexplained spikes in temperature, so you should contact your physician to see if a high fever needs to be checked out. Children can tolerate a temperature as high as 104°F briefly, but with a high risk for convulsions. For adults, a high fever can cause delirium.
Fever Fact #3: Don’t worry about a slight or moderate fever -- just figure out why you have it.
Dr. Mackowiak told me that what’s important about fever is knowing why you have one. He said that high temperatures can actually be useful in disabling bacterial cells (which is one good reason why we have fevers in our body’s defense arsenal). "However, there’s no question that a temperature is an indication that something abnormal is going on," he notes.
Fever Fact #4: It’s OK to treat a moderate fever.
It’s true that fever has a job to do, but if you really feel miserable, take something to bring it down. There are many good over-the-counter medications you can take (acetaminophen, aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen and others) and doing so can be helpful in bringing down your internal temperature and thus lowering your metabolic rate. This helps your body have more energy, which also helps you fight the infection that is making you ill.
An old saying holds that you should "starve a fever," but Dr. Mackowiak said that as far as he knows, that’s an idea that has never been studied scientifically. He advises that you eat according to how well you feel -- and adds that, yes, just as you’ve always heard, you should drink plenty of fluids.
Source(s):
Philip A. Mackowiak, MD, infectious disease specialist and chief of the medical care clinical center at the VA Maryland Health Care System, and professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, both in Baltimore, and author of
Fever: Basic Mechanisms and Management (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins).
Forever Young
Getting old can be awful. Aches... pains... illness... constant bouncing from doctor to doctor. We all dread it.
You can't stop the clock, but you can banish the miseries that sometimes come with it.
- Bulging belly
- Cholesterol-choked arteries
- Brain failure and fatigue
- Weakness and impotence
- Frozen joints or back pain
- Spotted, decrepit skin
- Tumors taking over your body
- Parkinson's tremors
- Menopausal miseries
- Fading, cloudy vision
- And all other indignities of aging!
Read on...
New Study Shows That Hearing Loss is Linked to Dementia
How many times have you heard someone say, "I’d love to live to 100 or more -- if I had my wits about me!" Fear of dementia is something that worries most everyone at some time or another -- me included -- because there seems so little to do to treat or avoid it. But now researchers have discovered a fascinating link between dementia and hearing loss -- and that link may offer helpful strategies for all of us concerned about our wits...
Greater Hearing Loss = Greater Risk of Dementia
First let’s look at the study, which took place in Baltimore at the National Institute on Aging. Johns Hopkins assistant professor of otology Frank R. Lin, MD, PhD, and his colleagues followed more than 600 adults between the ages of 36 and 90 for approximately 12 years. None of these people had had dementia, but about 25% had some level of hearing loss at the beginning of the study. Over time, 9% developed dementia -- with two-thirds of these having Alzheimer’s.
In analyzing their data, Dr. Lin and his colleagues discovered that participants who had hearing loss at the beginning of the study were significantly more likely than the others to develop dementia. Specifically, they found that the risk for dementia increased even in those with only mild hearing loss (25 decibels) and rose further as hearing worsened. In fact, for each 10 decibels of hearing loss, there was a 20% jump in dementia risk!
So does hearing loss cause dementia? I phoned Dr. Lin to explore his findings -- and there is a link, he told me. "There are three different pathways through which hearing loss may contribute to dementia," he said. These are...
- A common brain pathology. To some extent, basic neuronal aging in the brain may lie at the root of both hearing loss and dementia -- in which case, there is little we can do to improve the symptoms that a patient is struggling with. But as you’ll see in the instances below, there are indeed chances for significant improvement.
- Hearing loss itself. Dr. Lin and his research team speculate that for people with hearing loss, the strain of decoding ill-heard messages over the years puts a load on the brain that may lead to cognitive decline. Your brain might be compelled to reallocate vital resources to help with hearing at the expense of cognition, exhausting your cognitive reserve, Dr. Lin said. "That may explain in part why straining to hear conversations over background noise in a loud restaurant can be mentally exhausting for anyone, hard of hearing or not," he added.
- Social isolation. Hearing loss often triggers social inactivity, which is itself strongly associated with dementia. In an unrelated 2011 study at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, investigators found that older adults (average age 80) who enjoyed the highest level of social interaction had only one-quarter the level of cognitive decline experienced by the least social individuals.
When we address the problems of hearing loss and social isolation, we could possibly affect the second two pathways and potentially delay the onset of dementia, Dr. Lin observed. These findings were published in the February 2011 issue of Archives of Neurology.
Reduce Your Risk for Dementia
Interventions that slow dementia even by just one year could lead to a 10% drop in its prevalence over the coming decades, say researchers. While further study is necessary to identify which interventions are most effective, many are dictated by common sense...
Get a hearing aid. If you have difficulty hearing, the Johns Hopkins study gives you a powerful new reason not to ignore it out of stubbornness or vanity, as many people do. Today’s digital hearing aids not only offer much better sound quality than previous technology, they also can be quite small and discreet.
Learn to use your hearing aid properly. At the audiologist’s office, practice putting in and taking out your hearing aid... cleaning it... replacing batteries... and adjusting volume. Continue to work with your audiologist until you feel comfortable and satisfied. Your audiologist will also help you tune your hearing aid for your specific needs.
Take advantage of other hearing assistance. Use the hearing-assistance systems now available in many concert halls, theaters, museums and places of worship... and choose telephones (home, cell and office) with built-in amplifiers. There are many models available now.
Socialize your way to a sharper brain. Visit friends and family, attend parties, join a book or bridge club, volunteer and/or attend religious services. The latest research suggests that socializing is just as important -- and maybe even more important -- in keeping your mind sharp than solitary brainteasers like crossword puzzles.
"A lot of people ignore hearing loss because it’s a slow and insidious process as we age," Lin told me. But even if it creeps up on you, chances are that deep down you know that your hearing isn’t what it should be. If that describes you, let your doctor know, and take care of your hearing to take care of your brain!
Source(s):
Frank R. Lin, MD, PhD, assistant professor, division of otology, neurotology and skull base surgery, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, core faculty, Center on Aging and Health, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore.
Be well,
Carole Jackson
Bottom Line's Daily Health News
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