Fall bustles with the start of school and the continual grind at work. It's easy to skimp on your rest. We’ve got five reasons for you to make sleep a priority, and five health issues that could be ruining your rest.

1. Plenty of R&R (rest and relaxation) can boost your mood, focus and energy. Conversely, people with poor sleep habits experience higher levels of stress, depression and anxiety.

2. Want your kids to get A’s and B’s? Make sure they catch their Z’s. Well-rested equals alert in the classroom, and a regular sleep routine may boost math and literacy scores. Some schools are even starting later in an effort to help kids improve learning.

3. Reap the benefits of beauty sleep. When the body is sleep-deprived it produces more of the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol can cause weight gain and oily skin.

4. Getting your eight hours in could cut your risk for chest pain, heart attack and stroke. A recent study by West Virginia University indicates that people who sleep five hours daily are more than twice as likely to experience these problems.

5. Rest is a responsibility, and apparently so is justice. In a study that appears in SLEEP, Swedish naval officers were more likely to act morally and make moral judgments when fully rested.

Maybe you want to get your shut-eye but can’t quite get your eyes to shut? Sleeplessness plagues 60 million Americans. These are just a few health problems that could be keeping you up at night:

1. Your thyroid helps regulate your sleep patterns. An overactive thyroid (hyperthyroidism) can cause difficulty sleeping, fatigue and irritability.

2. Believe it or not, menstruation can affect your sleep patterns. Two in three women experience menstrual insomnia—disturbed sleep due to tossing and turning and general menstrual discomfort.

3. Maybe you do sleep, but continue to experience tiredness regardless of how much sleep you get? If you snore, have a dry throat on waking or regularly become irritable, you may want to talk to your doctor. This could be a symptom of sleep apnea.

4. Your sweetie slumbers soundly while you lay awake at night, so you decide to wake him up. Sound familiar? Ladies, you may have a case of sleep envy. You’re not alone, either. Up to 40 percent of women envy the ease with which their darlings doze. Jealous much?

5. Some people toss and turn through the night before finding sleep. If this is caused by painful or irritating tingling or tugging in your lower limbs, you may have a condition known as restless leg syndrome (RLS).

Want to keep up with the latest sleep science? Visit the National Sleep Foundation site or check out the journal SLEEP.

You could be getting more than you bargained for in your daily vitamin. According to a story in Consumer Reports, many of America's dietary supplements are also packing carcinogens and kidney- and heart-damaging contaminants.

This information comes from an article in the September issue of Consumer Reports. The article lists 12 different supplemental ingredients associated with negative health consequences. These include bitter orange (an ephedra-like supplement associated with heart attack and stroke), germanium, coltsfoot and colloidal silver, which has been marketed as an immune system booster but is known to cause argyria and kidney damage.

Wonder how these vitamins managed to slip past the FDA? Guidelines for vitamins and supplements differ greatly from those for food and traditional drugs. Supplement manufacturers are responsible for clearing the safety of their products and providing information, but many companies aren’t even required to register products or gain approval. The FDA can’t take action until the product goes to market.

“Supplements are marketed with very seductive and sometimes overblown sales pitches,” Nancy Metcalf, senior program editor for Consumer Reports, said in a news release. “Consumers are easily lulled into believing that supplements can do no harm because they’re ‘natural’.”

Metcalf also noted that not all natural ingredients are safe. “The FDA has repeatedly found hazardous ingredients, including synthetic prescription drugs,” she added.

The guidelines for supplements are flawed, but legislators have been moving slowly to boost the FDA’s oversight. Until then, Consumer Reports urges consumers to take responsibility in educating themselves on the health effects of their vitamins.

Get the full scoop at ConsumerReports.org or get vitamin information from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

The FDA has just approved the first generic version of Lovenox, a popular blood thinner. The drug’s entry into the market could mean hundreds of dollars in savings for someone who depends on the drug for stroke/heart disease treatment.

Lovenox is used to treat and prevent deep vein thrombosis, a condition that, if left unchecked, can cause stroke or pulmonary embolism (blood clots in the lung).

Momenta, the company whose technology was used to produce the new generic (M-Enoxaparin), has been awaiting approval for five years. They’ve spent the last half-decade battling Sanofi-Aventis, makers of Lovenox, over the drug’s efficacy.

According to Sanofi-Aventis, the biologically derived drug is complex and difficult to reproduce, and that it could fail with even the slightest error. They argue that the new generic may not be safe for consumers. The U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. is considering the company’s case, but for now Sandoz/Momenta’s M-Enoxaparin is legal and available for use.

“The approval of M-Enoxaparin marks a key milestone for Momenta, and we are extremely pleased,” said Momenta president and CEO Craig Wheeler in a press release. “This is the first product based on Momenta’s technology platform to be approved, and demonstrates our ability to characterize and develop a complex mixture drug like Lovenox.”

Read the original article in the New York Times, or read Momenta’s press release for more details.

Today is Save a Spider Day! These eight-legged little creatures will be making their way out as the weather gets warmer, so keep an eye out for them. Spring and summer are prime time for spiders, and this is when people experience bites the most.


Spider bites resemble mosquito bites—swelling, redness and irritation—unless they are from the black widow or brown recluse spiders. Venom from these types tends to cause more severe reactions.

Black widow venom causes fever, severe pain and stiffness, but these symptoms may not appear for a few hours. A brown recluse bite has similar symptoms, but is most distinguished by a large, fluid-filled blister. When the blister drains, it leaves the victim with a gaping ulcer. These bites have been known to cause death in very rare cases, but are otherwise easily treated. Contrary to popular belief, most spider bites are harmless.

Use these tips from Mayo Clinic to minimize spider bite discomfort:

Identify the Spider
Knowing what type of spider bit you will help you properly treat the bite. Some spider bites, such as those of a recluse, are more serious than others and may require immediate medical attention.

Clean the Wound
Infection is one of the most common complications of a spider bite, and can be worse than the bite itself. Use soap and water or a cleansing solution to disinfect the area. Applying antibiotic ointment will provide further protection against infections.

Keep It Cool
Applying a cold compress can help ease some of the discomfort of a bite. It will reduce swelling, as well as soothe itchiness or burning. A cold, wet cloth or bag of ice will also do.

Isolate the Area
In the event of a black widow or brown recluse bite, cut off circulation from the affected area by cinching with a belt or tie. This will help stop the spread of venom until medical assistance arrives.

Stay Alert
On rare occasions, a person may experience a severe allergic reaction to spider bites known as anaphylactic shock. Shock can cause the throat and nasal passageways to close, making it difficult to breathe. Nausea, rapid heartbeat, dizziness and low blood pressure are other symptoms. Call 911 as soon as possible. In most cases, doctors will administer an injection of epinephrine to stop the reaction.

While bites and cobwebs are at the top of our list of gripes against spiders, they do play an important role in human wellbeing. In addition to keeping disease-carrying insects at bay, the common house spider has been known to eat more dangerous varieties.

Spider venom is also used to produce medicine for treating stroke. Keep that in mind the next time a spider gives you a case of the creepy crawlies and save a spider!

If you’ve jumped on the detox bandwagon, it may be time to turn that sauna dial down a notch. According to an article by Health Day, spending too much time in the sweatbox may cause more harm than good.

The sauna’s claim to fame has been its ability to rid the body of impurities through sweat. A body’s organs supposedly become blocked, causing them fill with toxins. When a person sweats excessively in a sauna or steam room, he or she supposedly is able to get rid of these toxins.

Dr. Rachel Vreeman of Indiana University’s school of Medicine debunks this detoxification myth in her book, Don't Swallow Your Gum! Myths, Half-Truths and Outright Lies About Your Body and Health.

"The term 'detoxify' is used so often that it makes people think that special steps need to be taken so 'detoxifying' happens. Your body, however, does not need special cleansing efforts,” Vreeman told Health Day.

Too much heat exposure can lead to a slew of health problems including fatigue, nausea and stroke, not to mention extreme dehydration and an inability for the body to cool itself—the real purpose for sweating. Some might misread these symptoms for detoxification.

"Vomiting, thirst, dizziness, being uncoordinated or clumsy are all signs of heat exhaustion or heat stroke,” Vreeman told Health Day. “Heat illness can kill you and should be treated as an emergency."

While there may be other benefits to spending time in the sauna, Vreeman says detoxification just isn’t one of them. “What it does need,” she says, “is for you to get enough fluids and to eat a healthy, balanced diet."

When it comes to cleansing the body of toxins, it’s best to leave it to itself.

Find more health myths in Don't Swallow Your Gum!, co-written by Drs. Rachel Vreeman and Aaron Carroll.

A new device may be the key to unlocking speech for individuals with damage from stroke or conditions such as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The device, an electrode implant, translates brain waves into speech.

Communicating can be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for someone left mute by paralysis. Although there are existing devices that help paralyzed individuals speak, they are often inefficient for communication and tiresome for the user. This is the first to translate brain waves at the rate of natural speech.

"The most significant thing is that this shows it would be possible for someone who is paralyzed to speak in real-time rather than going through a painful typing process," lead researcher Frank Guenther said in an interview with MSNBC. "This communication is very important because these people are completely locked out from the rest of the world."

Guenther and his team tested the electrode on a 26 year-old male volunteer with locked-in syndrome, the result of a brain stem stroke. Individuals with this disorder are aware of their surroundings and can understand and react mentally, but are physically unable to respond.

The device, designed for permanent implantation without the risk of infection, is a neurotrophic electrode. The electrode is implanted in the speech-related motor cortex, an area of the brain responsible for speech planning and synthesis. After 3—4 months neurites attach to a portion of the device, allowing signals to be transmitted from the brain into the electrode. These signals are then transmitted to a computer that translate brain waves into recognizable, audible speech.

Because it is extremely difficult to differentiate the neural fluff from intentional cognition, determining which frequencies represent which sounds is a very timely process. As of now, only vowel sounds have been quickly and accurately produced. The device used for the trial had just three wires, however, and researchers believe additional wires may result in greater speech recognition capabilities.

“Our results support the feasibility of neural prostheses that may have the potential to provide near-conversational synthetic speech output for individuals with severely impaired speech motor control. They also provide an initial glimpse into the functional properties of neurons in speech motor cortical areas.”

Visit Healia's Stroke Community, or read the full study online at PLoS ONE.

Hopelessness may increase your risk of stroke, according to new information from the University of Minnesota. Researchers found that higher levels of hopelessness are linked with accelerated development of early atherosclerosis in middle-aged women.

Atherosclerosis causes plaque to build up on the insides of arteries, reducing the flow of oxygen-rich blood to organs and other parts of the body. Arteries in the neck can thicken, a condition called carotid artery intimal-medial thickening (IMT). Atherosclerosis increases risk of heart attack and can block blood flow to the brain and lead to stroke.

Science has explored the connection between hopelessness and IMT in men and women with cardiovascular disease, but little was known about the link in healthy women. “This is the first study to suggest that hopelessness may be related to subclinical cardiovascular disease in women without clinical symptoms of heart disease,” said Susan A. Everson-Rose, Ph.D., M.P.H., associate professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota and co-author of the study.

Data for the study was collected from two sites in Chicago and Pittsburgh, using the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN). Five hundred and fifty-nine women (average age 50) living in the city participated in the study. Participants appeared to be in good health, showing no signs of cardiovascular disease.

SWAN used questionnaires to measure the association between IMT and hopelessness frequency using an eight-point scale, asking participants about personal goals and future life expectations. Scores of five and above were considered “high.” Ultrasounds were then used to measure the thickness of arteries in the neck.

Participants with the highest hopelessness scores showed an average of .06 mm greater thickening than their hopeful counterparts (.02 mm is equal to roughly one year’s thickening). Researchers discovered that hopelessness triggered a hormonal release in response to mood change that can amplify the effects of atherosclerosis and the thickening of neck arteries.

Researchers plan to continue exploring the unique relationship between hopelessness and cardiovascular disease in future studies. “These findings suggest that women who experience feelings of hopelessness may have greater risk for future heart disease and stroke,” Everson-Rose said. "We look forward to examining the longitudinal relations between hopelessness and heart disease risk in women."

Researchers have identified a genetic risk factor associated with ischemic stroke, a type of neurological disorder caused by the death of brain tissue due to inadequate blood and oxygen supply. Ischemic strokes often occur after a blood clot prevents blood from reaching the brain.

A study published in the April 16 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine reports that two genetic variants on chromosome 12 are strongly linked to incidence of stroke. These variants are in close proximity to two genes that are compromised during stroke. One, NINJ2, is linked to brain injury repair and the other, WNK1, is tied to blood pressure and hypertension.

The study showed that people with the genetic variation are 30 percent more likely to suffer from stroke than populations who do not exhibit the variation. These genetic symbols were found in roughly 20 percent of the studied Caucasian population and in about 10 percent of the studied African-American population.

The research team compared the incidence of these genetic factors in 1,544 people who had experienced stroke and 18,058 who had not. Populations studied were from the Netherlands and North America.

The report notes that these genetic codes are not likely the cause of stroke, but rather are somehow linked with the actual cause.

Visit the Healia Stroke Community and Support Group for more information and to share experiences with stroke.

_{Photo: andypowe11, Flickr, Creative Commons}

A new study provides evidence that your risk of suffering a stroke is linked to the number of fast food restaurants in the neighborhood where you live. Even after controlling for socioeconomic and demographic factors, researchers at the University of Michigan showed that stroke risk increases with each additional fast food restaurant located in a neighborhood.

Presented this week at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference, the study found that, in one Texas county, residents who lived in neighborhoods with the highest concentration of fast food restaurants had a 13 percent higher risk of suffering an ischemic stroke than residents living in neighborhoods with the lowest number of such restaurants. Ischemic strokes are caused by a blockage in an artery that supplies the brain and are responsible for more than 85 percent of all strokes.

The data also show that a person’s relative risk of stroke increased by about 1 percent for each fast food restaurant located in their neighborhood.

The researchers examined data from the ongoing Brain Attack Surveillance in Corpus Christi (BASIC) project, which tracks strokes occurring in Nueces County, Texas. They used the 64 U.S. Census Bureau tracts in Nueces County as proxies for neighborhoods. Nueces County has 262 fast-food restaurants, defined by the researchers as having at least two of four characteristics: rapid food service, takeout business, limited or no wait staff and payment required before receiving food.

Despite the clear association, the researchers stress that their findings do no prove that fast-food restaurants raise the risk of stroke. While people may assume that being surrounded by fast food restaurants may makes you more likely to eat the food at these restaurants whose menus offer items loaded with cholesterol and saturated fat, it is possible that fast food restaurants are just a sign of an unhealthy neighborhood.

It is also possible that neighborhoods with lots of fast food restaurants tend to lack more healthy options, or that something completely different in these neighborhoods is associated with poor health. In any case, the study suggests that additional spending on stroke prevention programs should target neighborhoods with a lot of fast food restaurants.

For more information about how to eat healthy, consult the Healia Health Guide to Weight Management. To learn more about strokes and stroke risk, join the Healia Health Community for stroke or visit the American Stroke Association Web site.

_{Photo: ebruli, Flickr, Creative Commons}

Each year the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lists the most common causes of death in the United States. The CDC collects data from death records around the country and publishes the results in the National Vital Statistics Report. The latest data available are from 2006. One of the key results to come from this data was that the national life expectancy in 2006 increased to the highest it’s ever been: 78.1 years. In addition, 11 of the top 15 causes of death for the previous year decreased in frequency. Death rates per 100,000 persons are listed in parentheses.

The top 15 causes of death in the U.S. for 2006 are:

1. Heart disease (210.2)
2. Cancer (malignant neoplasms; 187.1)
3. Stroke (cerebrovascular disease; 45.8)
4. Lung diseases (chronic lower respiratory disease; 41.6)
5. Accidents (39.3)
6. Alzheimer’s disease (24.4)
7. Diabetes (24.2)
8. Influenza and pneumonia (18.8)
9. Kidney disease (nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis; 15.0)
10. Blood poisoning (septicemia, 11.4)
11. Suicide (10.7)
12. Liver disease (9.1)
13. High blood pressure (hypertension and hypertensive renal disease; 8.0)
14. Parkinson’s disease (6.6)
15. Assault (6.0)

Use the Healia Health Search Engine to find out more information about the above diseases. Also see our Healia Health Guide on Heart Disease and the Healia Health Guide on Alzheimer's Disease.

 

_{Source: CDC, National VitalStatistics Reports Vol. 56, No. 16. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr56/nvsr56_16.pdf
Photo: aussiegall, Flickr, Creative Commons}