Study Shows a Link Between Walking Speed and Life Span
By Kelli Miller Stacy
Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD
WebMD Health News
Jan. 4, 2011 -- A swift stride puts you on the path to a longer, healthier life, researchers say.
Scientists reporting in The Journal of the American Medical Association say that older adults who typically walk 1 meter per second or faster live longer than expected. A walking, or gait, speed of 1 meter per second is equal to 3.28 feet per second.
Walking speed can be an important sign of someone's overall health. A slow walking speed may be due to multiple causes including heart, lung, or nervous system problems, or even joint pain. Several studies have suggested that a person with a walking speed slower than 0.6 meters per second (less than 2 feet per second) may be at increased risk for poor health and function.
Stephanie Studenski, MD, MPH, of the University of Pittsburgh, analyzed the collective results of nine previous studies to determine if walking speed explained survival differences among older adults and whether it could be used to predict longevity.
Study participants walked at their usual pace from a standing start, while researchers calculated distance in meters and time in seconds. The average age of the participants was 73.5; a majority were white women.
Faster Pace Boosts Life Span
The average walking speed for the study participants was 0.92 meters per second, or about 3 feet per second. A person's predicted life expectancy for each sex and age group increased the faster they could walk.
The survival differences were especially notable among patients age 75 and older. The predicted 10-year survival rate varied greatly with walking speeds, from 19% to 87% in men and from 35% to 91% in women.
“Gait speeds of 1.0 meter [3.28 feet]/second or higher consistently demonstrated survival that was longer than expected by age and sex alone. In this older adult population the relationship of gait speed with remaining years of life was consistent across age groups, but the absolute number of expected remaining years of life was larger at younger ages,” the researchers write.
Calculating life expectancy based on walking speed, sex, and age was as accurate as predictions based on other factors, such as age, sex, overall health, mobility, hospitalization, and smoking history.
Walking Speed Predicts Survival
Considering a person's walking speed along with their age and sex is a simple, inexpensive, and useful way to estimate a patient's expected length of life, the researchers say. All that is needed is a stopwatch and a walkway. Life expectancy estimates can help doctors develop a better, individualized plan of care for patients.
"Gait speed might help identify older adults with a high probability of living for 5 or 10 more years, who may be appropriate targets for preventive interventions that require years for benefit," the team writes.
Regular walking speed measurements could also be used to monitor a person over time to check for signs of ailing health, the researchers say.
Not everyone agrees that walking speed measurements should sway preventive care at the current time. In an accompanying editorial to the journal article, Rome-based researcher Matteo Cesari, MD, PhD, says that walking speed improvements have not been definitively linked with better health outcomes. He encourages future research to determine if a person's walking speed may change the way in which he or she is labeled "geriatric."
WebMD Health News
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Walking Faster May Lead to a Longer Life
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Walking 6 to 9 Miles a Week May Help Save Memory
Brain's gray matter doesn't seem to shrink with this amount of exercise, study finds
By Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter
WEDNESDAY, Oct. 13 (HealthDay News) -- Walking about six miles a week appears to protect against brain shrinkage in old age, which in turn helps stem the onset of memory problems and cognitive decline, new research reveals.
"We have always been in search of the drug or the magic pill to help treat brain disorders," noted Kirk I. Erickson, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh and the study's lead author. "But really what we are after may be, at least partially, even simpler than that. Just by walking regularly, and so maintaining a little bit of moderate physical activity, you can reduce your likelihood of developing Alzheimer's disease and [can] spare brain tissue."
A report on the research, which was supported by the U.S. National Institute on Aging, is published online Oct. 13 in Neurology.
Erickson and his colleagues began tracking the physical activity and cognitive (or thinking) patterns of nearly 300 adults in 1989. At the start, all participants were in good cognitive health, they averaged 78 years old and about two-thirds were women. The researchers charted how many blocks each person walked in a week.
Nine years later, they were given a high-resolution MRI scan to measure brain size. All were deemed to be "cognitively normal."
But four years after that, testing showed that a little more than one-third of the participants had developed mild cognitive impairment or dementia.
By correlating cognitive health, brain scans and walking patterns, the research team found that being more physically active appeared to marginally lower the risk for developing cognitive impairment.
But more specifically, they concluded that the more someone walks, the more gray matter tissue the person will have a decade or more down the road in regions of the brain -- namely the hippocampus, the inferior frontal gyrus and the supplementary motor area -- that are central to cognition.
And among the more physically active participants who had retained more gray matter a decade out, the chances of developing cognitive impairment were cut in half, the study found.
However, the researchers stressed that the relationship between walking and gray matter volume appears to apply only to people who regularly walk relatively long distances that equal about six to nine miles a week.
Walking more than the six- to nine-mile range, however, did not have cognitive benefit, the study found.
"That's because the size of our brain regions can only be so large," Erickson said, adding that the opposite isn't true. "So with no exercise, there can be significant deterioration and decay with age."
However, he added, "what we often tend to think of as an inevitable component or characteristic of aging -- memory decline and brain decay -- is clearly not inevitable. There's plenty of evidence now, and this study is part of that, that shows that we can retain our brain tissue and retain our memories well into late adulthood by maintaining an active and engaged lifestyle."
Dr. Steven V. Pacia, chief of neurology at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, described the study's finding as both "intriguing" and an "undoubtedly positive message to send to the public."
"My first reaction to studies like this is that only in America do we have to prove to people that it's good to walk," he said with a chuckle.
"But it stands to reason that being active as we age is going to have a beneficial effect on the brain, just as being inactive is going to have a negative impact," Pacia noted. "Because the brain lives in the environment of the body."
But there may be a catch. "This is just an observational study," Pacia noted. "And while we may assume that the relationship between the brain and activity is a prevention-of-atrophy issue -- just like it is with muscle and bone -- this study doesn't actually prove that. We don't yet know enough about the use-it-or-lose-it notion with respect to brain and exercise. So we do need more research to look at that."
More information
The U.S. National Institute on Aging has more on healthy aging.
SOURCES: Kirk I. Erickson, Ph.D., assistant professor, department of psychology, University of Pittsburgh; Steven V. Pacia, M.D., chief, division of neurology, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York City; Oct. 13, 2010, Neurology, online
Monday, September 13, 2010
Walking helps keep body and brain young
By Dorene Internicola Dorene Internicola – Mon Sep 13, 6:00 am ET
NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – Everyone knows that walking limbers the aging body, but did you know it keeps the mind supple as well?
Research shows that walking can actually boost the connectivity within brain circuits, which tends to diminish as the grey hairs multiply.
"Patterns of connectivity decrease as we get older," said Dr. Arthur F. Kramer, who led the study team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
"Networks aren't as well connected to support the things we do, such as driving," he said. "But we found as a function of aerobic fitness, the networks became more coherent."
Kramer's walking study, which was published in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, tracked 70 adults from 60 to 80 years old over the course of a year. A toning, stretching, strengthening group served as a control against which to evaluate the previously sedentary walkers.
"Individuals in the walking group, the aerobics training group, got by far the largest benefits," he said, and not just physically.
"We also measured brain function," said Kramer, whose team used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine brain networks. A group of 20-to-30-year olds were tested for comparison.
"The aerobic group also improved in memory, attention and a variety of other cognitive processes," Kramer said. "As the older people in the walking group became more fit, the coherence among different regions in the networks increased and became similar to those of the 20-yr olds," Kramer explained.
But the results did not happen overnight. Effects in the walking group were observed only after they trained for 12 months. Six-month tests yielded no significant trends.
The findings come as no surprise to Dr. Lynn Millar, an expert with the American College of Sports Medicine. She said while walking might seem like a simple activity, the brain is actually working to integrate information from many different sources.
"When we walk we integrate visual input, auditory input, as well as input that's coming from joints and muscles regarding where the foot is, how much force, and things like that " said Millar, a professor of Physical Therapy at Andrews University, in Berrien Springs, Michigan.
"It's that old concept: if you don't use it you lose it," she said. "In order for something to be beneficial we need to do it repetitively, and walking is a repetitive activity."
Millar, author of "Action Plan for Arthritis," said while some changes are inevitable with age, they don't have to happen as quickly as they do in some people.
"We know reaction time gets slower as we age, but activity is a big modifier," she said, "so if we do trip we'll be able to get that leg out and catch ourselves."
Kramer, who also works with the military and people with disabilities, continues to work on mediating the negative effects of aging with lifestyle choices.
"We're interested in understanding brain plasticity but we're also interested in doing something about it," he said. "We can wait for that wonder drug or we can do something today."
Reuters
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Lack of sleep linked to early death
Wed May 5, 9:44 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – People who get less than six hours sleep per night have an increased risk of dying prematurely, researchers said on Wednesday.
Those who slumbered for less than that amount of time were 12 percent more likely to die early, though researchers also found a link between sleeping more than nine hours and premature death.
"If you sleep little, you can develop diabetes, obesity, hypertension and high cholesterol," Francesco Cappuccio, who led research on the subject at Britain's University of Warwick, told AFP.
The study, conducted with the Federico II University in Naples, Italy, aggregated decade-long studies from around the world involving more than 1.3 million people and found "unequivocal evidence of the direct link" between lack of sleep and premature death.
"We think that the relation between little sleep and illness is due to a series of hormonal and metabolical mechanisms," Cappuccio said.
The findings of the study were published in the Sleep journal.
Cappuccio believes the duration of sleep is a public health issue and should be considered as a behavioural risk factor by doctors.
"Society pushes us to sleep less and less," Cappuccio said, adding that about 20 percent of the population in the United States and Britain sleeps less than five hours.
Sleeping less than six hours is "more common amongst full-time workers, suggesting that it may be due to societal pressures for longer working hours and more shift work"
The study also found a link between sleeping more than nine hours per night and premature death, but Cappuccio said oversleeping is more likely to be an effect of illness, rather than a cause.
"Doctors never ask how much one sleeps, but that could be an indicator that something is wrong," said Cappuccio, who heads the Sleep, Health and Society Programme at the University of Warwick.
Research showed no adverse effects for those sleeping between six and eight hours per day.
AFP
Monday, February 1, 2010
Healthy adults need less sleep as they age
Mon Feb 1, 1:03 am ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Healthy older adults need less sleep than their younger counterparts and, even with less sleep under their nightcaps, are less likely to feel tired during the day, a study published Monday showed.
The time spent actually sleeping out of eight hours in bed declined progressively and significantly with age, the study published in SLEEP, the official journal of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society, said.
Older adults, aged 66-83, slept about 20 minutes less than middle-aged adults (40-55 years), who slept 23 minutes less than young adults aged 20-30, the study said.
The older adults woke up significantly more often and spent more time awake after initial sleep onset than younger adults.
Deep, or slow-wave sleep, thought to be the most restorative phase of sleep, decreased with age, the study said.
But although older adults slept less deeply and less overall, and their sleep was less continuous than their younger counterparts', they also showed less need for a quick kip during the day.
The study was conducted at the Clinical Research Centre of the University of Surrey in England and involved 110 healthy adults without sleep disorders or complaints.
Forty-four of the participants were young, 35 middle-aged and 31 older adults.
They slept normally one night, the baseline night, then had two nigths where their sleep was interrupted, followed by one recovery night.
During the baseline night, younger adults spent an average of 433.5 minutes asleep compared to around 410 minutes for middle aged adults and 390 for older adults.
On the same night, the younger adults had 118.4 minutes of deep sleep, compared to 85.3 minutes for middle-aged adults and 84.2 minutes for older adults.
But when asked to lie in a comfortable position on a bed during the day and try to fall asleep, young adults nodded off in an average of 8.7 minutes, compared with nearly 12 minutes for middle-aged adults and just over 14 minutes for older adults.
AFP
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Salt reduction could save 92,000 U.S. lives a year
By Gene Emery Gene Emery – Thu Jan 21, 1:49 am ET
BOSTON (Reuters Life!) – Shaving 3 grams off the daily salt intake of Americans could prevent up to 66,000 strokes, 99,000 heart attacks and 92,000 deaths in the United States, while saving $24 billion in health costs per year, researchers reported on Wednesday.
The benefit to the U.S. population would be comparable to cutting smoking by 50 percent, significantly lowering obesity rates and giving cholesterol drugs to virtually everyone to prevent heart attacks, said Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo of the University of California, San Francisco and colleagues.
Such a goal, they said, is readily attainable.
Salt, which contributes to high blood pressure and heart disease, is widely overused in the United States, with 75 to 80 percent coming from processed food. Men typically consume 10.4 grams per day. For women, the average is 7.3 grams. Its use is rising.
A reduction of 1 gram would prevent 11,000 to 23,000 strokes, 18,000 to 35,000 heart attacks and 15,000 to 32,000 deaths from any cause, the researchers reported in New England Journal of Medicine.
Women would benefit the most.
"Even if the federal government were to bear the entire cost of a regulatory program designed to reduce salt consumption, the government would still be expected to realize cost savings for Medicare, saving $6 to $12 in health expenditures for each dollar spent on the regulatory program," the researchers wrote.
In a commentary, Dr. Lawrence Appel and Cheryl Anderson of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore said the new study may be underestimating the benefits.
They said it did not take into account how it would help children or the fact that lower salt intake may reduce the risk of stomach cancer, kidney disease, congestive heart failure and osteoporosis.
(Editing by Mohammad Zargham)
Reuters
Monday, January 18, 2010
Chemicals coat apples decades after Alar scare
By SHANNON DININNY, Associated Press Writer, – Mon Jan 18, 5:06 am ET
YAKIMA, Wash. – More than two decades after parents dumped apples from children's lunch boxes because of concerns about a chemical applied to the fruit, most researchers agree the crop is safer although most of it still carries pesticide residue.
Growers saw prices plunge after a 1989 television report led to widespread fears apples were coated in a cancer-causing chemical called Alar, used to enhance crunch and color. The public outcry led the government to ban some chemicals and increase oversight, while growers adopted new approaches to spraying apples and reduced the use of harsh chemicals.
But in 2005, the last year results were available, the U.S. Department of Agriculture found pesticide residues on 98 percent of the apples it tested. All the residue was at levels within federal guidelines.
Such statistics leave consumer groups and health experts conflicted.
"The mix of pesticides today is less toxic than it was 20 years ago," said Richard Wiles, senior vice president for policy at the Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Working Group. "But we still have a lot of pesticides left over. I think we're due for another look at whether we're doing the best we can to protect the public from pesticides in food."
Few apple growers will forget the February 1989 "60 Minutes" episode that opened with a story about Alar, featuring an apple marked with a skull and crossbones. The report stemmed from a Natural Resources Defense Council study that concluded Alar posed a cancer danger, particularly to children.
Public outcry was immediate and some parents panicked — reports circulated about apple juice being poured down the drain and a mother sending police to stop her child's school bus to retrieve her lunch. Actress Meryl Streep took up the cause, demanding Alar be banned.
Some still question the science behind the report, arguing that consumers would have to eat many more apples than normal to get sick.
Dr. Lynn Goldman, a pediatrician who was one of the scientific reviewers for the 1989 study, declined to sign off on it, fearing in part that consumers could confuse long-term effects with immediate danger.
"I actually agreed with them that the Alar was probably breaking down into a carcinogen," said Goldman, who headed the Environmental Protection Agency's toxics program under the Clinton administration and is now a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
"I didn't agree with the way they were communicating the risk," she said, "and I was worried that what they were doing was more alarmist than it needed to be."
Another reviewer, Frederica Perera, professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University, signed off on the findings.
"I think the report was a reasonable report," she said.
The EPA had already labeled Alar a probable carcinogen and its maker, Uniroyal Chemical Co., voluntarily withdrew it for use on U.S. food crops. EPA studies later showed Alar, while still a carcinogen, was only one-twentieth as potent as estimates in the report.
Today, Alar is applied only to nonedible, ornamental plants such as flowers in the U.S., but it is still approved for food crops in some countries.
Wendy Gordon, who co-chaired NRDC's Mothers and Others group with Streep, said the report's breakthrough was in improving pesticide standards for young children.
"The original standard was based on a healthy young adult male. Many years later, the regulation was changed, and the standard was changed to account for these more vulnerable populations," she said.
At the time of the report, red delicious and McIntosh apples were the most common varieties in the U.S., and growers applied Alar to both. The going price for a 42-pound box of red delicious applies fell from $15.46 in February 1989 to $8.29 by June that year.
Apple growers were shocked by the 1989 report, and for many, the Alar dispute still burns, said George Allan of Allan Bros. apple growers in Naches, Wash. Some growers still won't watch a Meryl Streep movie, he said, although he acknowledged enjoying her recent hit "Julie and Julia."
But growers learned from the experience, he said: "In the past 20 years, we've basically reinvented ourselves."
They worked with scientists to better understand pests and develop alternatives for controlling them. Federal regulations now require farm workers to wait longer before re-entering orchards where chemicals have been applied. The federal government also banned many harsh chemicals and limited the application of others before harvest.
"I don't know whether there are more or fewer pesticides in use today than there were 20 years ago," said Bill Jordan, the EPA's senior policy adviser for the Office of Pesticide Programs. "But the pesticide residues that are on apples today are safer."
Many growers also have planted new apple varieties that require less harsh chemicals to control pests or improve the fruit's quality. Red delicious apples, which required heavy treatment, now make up 30 percent of the crop, down from 70 percent in 1989.
Elisa Odabashian, West Coast director of Consumers Union, eats an apple a day. She grew up in Cashmere, a small river town surrounded by apple orchards near Wenatchee, a central Washington city billed as the Apple Capital of the World. She hesitates to criticize an industry that has supported family and friends, remarking on the strides made to improve safety.
"Is an apple with pesticide residue an unsafe product? I wouldn't call it that," she said. "We have advised that on products like apples, where you tend to eat the skin, that's a good candidate for buying organic."
Associated Press
Friday, May 29, 2009
Too Much Cola Can Cause Muscle Problems
By HealthDay - Wed May 27, 8:49 PM PDT
WEDNESDAY, May 27 (HealthDay News) -- Drinking too much cola can increase the risk of a muscle problem called hypokalemia, experts warn.
In people with hypokalemia, a drop in blood potassium levels results in problems with vital muscle functions. Symptoms can range from mild weakness to serious paralysis, say Greek researchers who conducted a review of people who drank between two to nine liters of cola a day.
Two of the patients were pregnant women who were admitted to hospital with low potassium levels. One was a 21-year-old woman who drank up to three liters of cola a day and complained of fatigue, appetite loss and persistent vomiting. An electrocardiogram revealed she had a heart blockage, and blood tests showed she had low potassium levels, the researchers explained in a news release.
The second pregnant patient, who'd consumed up to seven liters of cola a day for 10 months, had low potassium levels and was suffering from increasing muscular weakness, the researchers noted.
Both patients made a rapid and full recovery after they stopped drinking cola and took oral or intravenous potassium. The case studies are described in the June issue of the International Journal of Clinical Practice.
"We are consuming more soft drinks than ever before, and a number of health issues have already been identified including tooth problems, bone demineralization and the development of metabolic syndrome and diabetes," and there's increasing evidence that excessive cola consumption leads to hypokalemia, Dr. Moses Elisaf, of the University of Ioannina, said in the news release.
Elisaf said the three most common ingredients in cola -- glucose, fructose and caffeine -- can contribute to hypokalemia.
"The individual role of each of these ingredients in the pathophysiology of cola-induced hypokalemia has not been determined and may vary in different patients," Elisaf said. "However, in most of the cases we looked at for our review, caffeine intoxication was thought to play the most important role. This has been borne out by case studies that focus on other products that contain high levels of caffeine but no glucose or fructose."
However, "caffeine-free cola products can also cause hypokalemia because the fructose they contain can cause diarrhea," Elisaf said.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Boom in tiny bedbugs is causing big trouble
By Barbara Barrett, Mcclatchy Newspapers – Fri May 15, 5:50 pm ET
WASHINGTON — The biggest bedbug outbreak since World War II has sent a collective shudder among apartment dwellers, college students and business travelers across the nation.
The bugs — reddish brown, flat and about the size of a grain of rice — suck human blood. They resist many pesticides and spread quickly in certain mattress-heavy buildings, such as hotels, dormitories and apartment complexes.
Two shelters have closed temporarily in Charlotte, N.C. , because of bedbugs, a Yahoo chat group dedicates itself to sufferers and countless bedbug blogs provide forums for news, tips and commiseration. State inspectors say that more emphasis may be needed to tackle the creatures.
Federal officials have taken notice of the resurgence. Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency held its first-ever bedbug summit, and now a North Carolina congressman wants to take on the insect.
Democratic Rep. G.K. Butterfield just introduced legislation that would authorize $50 million that's already in the Department of Commerce budget to train health inspectors how to recognize signs of the insects.
The Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite Act of 2009 also would require public housing agencies to submit bedbug inspection plans to the federal government. It would add bedbugs to a rodent and cockroach program in the Department of Health and Human Services . It also would require the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to research bedbugs' impact on public mental health.
Butterfield's letter to congressional colleagues about the legislation attracted lots of attention: It was topped with a full-color picture of the insect sitting on human skin.
"Unfortunately, in recent years, the United States has seen a resurgence in bedbugs," the letter reads. "That's right — they're back in the sack — and biting."
Bedbugs have hit hotels and homes in every state. The creatures are amazing hitchhikers, experts say, and easily travel in suitcases, boxes or packages. They can live for up to a year without food.
Apparently no state has a central reporting system for bedbugs, according to Butterfield's office, and since the bug carries no known diseases, many health departments don't consider it a public health threat.
That leaves the critters falling through the cracks among regulators, said Michael Potter , an entomologist at the University of Kentucky and one of the country's bedbug experts.
"Most health departments say, 'Hey, we don't deal with bedbugs,' " Potter said.
Those who've suffered outbreaks say that the anxiety it induces can be debilitating. Potter said many sufferers tossed out furniture and could spend thousands of dollars on repeated treatments from pesticide companies. They call him about anxiety, insomnia, shame and the incessant annoyance of itchy red welts on their skin.
"They're, like, ready to blow their brains out," Potter said. "It's emotionally distressing. Anyone that has never had a bedbug problem is not one to judge whether we're dealing with a medical, emotional public health issue."
In Congress , Butterfield first introduced his bill a year ago after hearing from a constituent who'd brought bedbugs into her home from a hotel trip. The bill died in committee last year, but Butterfield aides say they hope that higher attention will help the measure this year.
The co-sponsors include Reps. Don Young , R- Alaska , Ben Chandler , D- Ky. , Bobby L. Rush , D- Ill. , Betty McCollum , D- Minn. , Corrine Brown , D- Fla. , Steve Cohen , D- Tenn. , Brad Miller , D- N.C. , and Eddie Bernice Johnson , D- Texas .
Butterfield also has received support from the National Pest Management Association , which says that bedbug calls to pest control companies are up 70 percent in the past five years.
Greg Baumann , a Raleigh, N.C. , pest control expert and the vice president of technical services for the National Pest Management Association , said that a decade ago few pest control companies dealt routinely with bedbugs.
"Now it's everyone today," he said.
Baumann said companies could use pesticides on the bugs but that they also tried such alternatives as extreme heat, freezing and isolating the insects through mattress covers.
Since the EPA restricted the use of several effective pesticides in the 1980s, bedbugs have built resistance to the chemicals that now are on the market, said Potter, the University of Kentucky entomologist. Public education is important, he said, but the industry also needs a good insecticide.
"Whether that bill is going to solve the problem — certainly it's a start," he said.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Why Hair Goes Gray
Study Blames a Chain Reaction That Makes Hair Bleach Itself From the Inside Out
By Miranda Hitti
Feb. 25, 2009 -- Scientists may have figured out why hair turns gray, and their finding may open the door to new anti-graying strategies.
New research shows that hair turns gray as a result of a chemical chain reaction that causes hair to bleach itself from the inside out.
The process starts when there is a dip in levels of an enzyme called catalase. That catalase shortfall means that the hydrogen peroxide that naturally occurs in hair can't be broken down. So hydrogen peroxide builds up in the hair, and because other enzymes that would repair hydrogen peroxide's damage are also in short supply, the hair goes gray.
Putting the brakes on that chemical chain reaction "could have great implications in the hair graying scenario in humans," write the researchers, who included Karin Schallreuter, a professor clinical and experimental dermatology at England's University of Bradford.
The study appears online in The FASEB Journal; the FASEB is the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.
WebMD Health News
SOURCES:
Wood, J. The FASEB Journal, Feb. 23, 2009; online edition.
News release, Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Are You Wasting Money on Multivitamins?
By Simeon Margolis, M.D., Ph.D. - Posted on Wed, Feb 11, 2009, 3:28 pm PST
Advertisements with tantalizing promises of improved health, prevention of cancer and heart disease, and greater energy have lured millions of Americans to spend billions of dollars on the purchase of multivitamins.
An article in the February 9 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine reported that multivitamin use did not protect the 161,808 postmenopausal women enrolled in the Women's Health Initiative Study from common forms of cancer, heart attacks, or strokes. And the numbers of deaths during the 8 years of the study were the same in vitamin users as in non-users. Still, it is important to recognize that this was an observational study, not a more meaningful clinical trial. Although these findings apply only to women, other studies have failed to show benefits of multivitamins in older men.
These results are not at all surprising for several reasons. No large study has shown that multivitamins significantly benefit healthy men and women. In addition, for some years physicians prescribed folic acid and vitamins B12 and B6 in the hopes of preventing heart attacks and strokes by lowering blood levels of homocysteine. (High blood levels of homocysteine are associated with an increased risk of coronary and other vascular diseases.) A number of recent studies, however, have shown that, while these vitamins do lower homocysteine levels, they do not prevent heart attacks or strokes.
Many doctors have also prescribed the antioxidants vitamin E and beta-carotene to reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Alas, studies have now proven that these supplements are not protective--and may even be harmful.
No one denies that an adequate intake of vitamins is essential; however, vitamins can and should be obtained from eating enough healthy foods rather than from swallowing vitamin supplements.
Then what about vitamins being a great source of energy? Some multivitamin ads do indeed claim that their supplements boost energy; and some professional athletes gobble handfuls of vitamin pills to increase their energy and strength. But researchers proved long ago that energy comes from calories, not vitamins. The highly touted cholesterol-lowering effects of substances added to some multivitamin supplements? Still unproven.
All this is not to say that specific vitamins supplements are never desirable. Vitamins can be valuable in certain situations:
- Folic acid supplements in women who are pregnant or plan to become pregnant can help to prevent serious neural-tube defects that affect the baby's brain and spine.
- Supplements that contain more vitamin D and calcium than is present in regular multivitamin pills can help older men, and especially women, avoid osteoporosis and bone fractures.
- Supplements of vitamins C and E, beta-carotene, zinc, and copper may slow the progression of vision loss in people with early macular degeneration.
And multivitamins are beneficial for some entire groups of people:
- those on a very-low-calorie weight-loss diet
- strict vegetarians
- heavy alcohol drinkers
- individuals who are not getting an adequate diet because they are too sick or too poor--or live by themselves and are unable to prepare proper meals for themselves
I also agree with a comment made by one of the coauthors of the Archives of Internal Medicine article about postmenopausal women mentioned above. An 8-year follow-up period may not be long enough to show that multivitamins protect against cancers that take many years to develop.
All the same, the results of the studies on vitamins so far point to one conclusion: Healthy people who eat enough calories from a varied diet do not benefit from multivitamin supplements.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Many Teens Don't Keep Virginity Pledges
By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter
MONDAY, Dec. 29 (HealthDay News) -- Teens who take virginity pledges are just as likely to have sex as teens who don't make such promises -- and they're less likely to practice safe sex to prevent disease or pregnancy, a new study finds.
"Previous studies found that pledgers were more likely to delay having sex than non-pledgers," said study author Janet E. Rosenbaum, a post doctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "I used the same data as previous studies but a different statistical method."
This method allowed Rosenbaum to compare those who had taken a virginity pledge with similar teens who hadn't taken a pledge but were likely to delay having sex, she said. She added that she didn't include teens who were unlikely to take a pledge.
"Virginity pledgers and similar non-pledgers don't differ in the rates of vaginal, oral or anal sex or any other sexual behavior," Rosenbaum said. "Strikingly, pledgers are less likely than similar non-pledgers to use condoms and also less likely to use any form of birth control."
The findings were published in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics.
For the study, Rosenbaum collected data on 934 high school students who had never had sex or had taken a virginity pledge. The data came from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.
Rosenbaum matched students who had taken a virginity pledge with those who hadn't. After five years of follow-up, those who had taken a pledge did not differ from teens who hadn't taken a pledge in rates of premarital sex, oral or anal sex, or sexually transmitted diseases.
Teens who had taken a pledge had 0.1 fewer sex partners during the past year, but the same number of partners overall as those who had not pledged. And pledgers started having sex at the same age as non-pledgers, Rosenbaum found.
The study also found that teens who took a virginity pledge were 10 percent less likely to use a condom and less likely to use any other form of birth control than their non-pledging counterparts.
"Sex education programs for teens who take pledges tend to be very negative and inaccurate about condom and birth control information," Rosenbaum said.
The study also found that, five years after taking a virginity pledge, more than 80 percent of pledgers denied ever making such a promise. "This high rate of disaffiliation may imply that nearly all virginity pledgers view pledges as nonbinding," Rosenbaum said.
She said teens who are religious tend to delay having sex, but that has nothing to do with virginity pledges or abstinence-only sex education programs.
Bill Albert, chief program officer for The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, said teens need to be encouraged to delay having sex, but they also need to be given the facts about safe sex.
"When pledgers fell off the wagon, they fell off hard," he said. "What have we gained if we encourage young people only to delay sex until they are older, but when they do become sexually active, they don't protect themselves or their partners?"
"The notion that it has to be either a virginity pledge or encouraging teens to have sex is a false dichotomy," Albert added. "There is a public consensus in this country to encourage teens to delay sex, but also provide them with information about contraception."
More information
For more on teens and sexuality, visit The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Blood sugar loss may trigger Alzheimer's
Wed Dec 24, 1:04 pm ET. Reuters News
LONDON (Reuters) – A slow, chronic reduction of blood sugar to the brain could trigger some forms of Alzheimer's disease, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.
The study of human and mice brains suggests a reduction of blood flow deprives energy to the brain, setting off a process that ultimately produces the sticky clumps of protein researchers believe is a cause of the disease, they said.
The finding could lead to strategies such as exercise, reducing cholesterol and managing blood pressure to keep Alzheimer's at bay, Robert Vassar and colleagues at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago reported.
"This finding is significant because it suggests that improving blood flow to the brain might be an effective therapeutic approach to prevent or treat Alzheimer's," Vassar, who led the study, said in a statement.
"If people start early enough, maybe they can dodge the bullet."
Alzheimer's disease is incurable and is the most common form of dementia among older people. It affects the regions of the brain involving thought, memory and language.
While the most advanced drugs have focused on removing clumps of beta amyloid protein that forms plaques in the brain, researchers also are looking at therapies to address the toxic tangles caused by an abnormal build-up of the protein tau.
Vassar and colleagues analyzed human and mice brains to discover that a protein called elF2alpha is altered when the brain does not get enough energy. This boosts production of an enzyme that in turn flips a switch to produce the sticky protein clumps.
The finding published in the journal Neuron could lead to drugs designed to block the elF2alpha production that begins the formation of the protein clumps, also known as amyloid plaques, Vassar added.
"What we are talking about is a slow, insidious process over many years," he said. "It's so mild (people) don't even notice it, but it has an effect over time because it's producing a chronic reduction in the blood flow."
(Reporting by Michael Kahn; Editing by Michael Roddy)
Friday, December 19, 2008
Healthy breakfast may mean healthier diet overall
Thu Dec 18, 11:10 am ET
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Breakfast may indeed be the most important meal of the day -- as long as that meal is not a doughnut -- a study suggests.
Using data from a national health survey of U.S. adults, researchers found that people who ate lower-calorie foods for breakfast tended to have a higher-quality diet overall.
Furthermore, men who ate a healthy breakfast generally weighed less. Among women, breakfast eaters -- regardless of the food involved -- tended to weigh less than those who skipped the morning meal.
The findings, reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, give some support to past studies finding that breakfast eaters are less likely to be overweight -- and that eating a high-quality breakfast, rather than grabbing a pastry, is the key.
Research has shown, for example, that people who eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast have a lower average weight than either those who skip breakfast or those who sit down to a plate of steak and eggs.
What's "unique" about the current study is that it suggests that breakfast foods low in "energy density" -- low in calories for a given amount of food -- "appear to predict better food choices for the rest of the day and may help with better management of body weight," Dr. James Rippe, one of the researchers on the work, said in a written statement.
Fruits, vegetables and high-fiber whole grains, for example, are low in energy density, while confections like Danish pastries and doughnuts have a high energy density.
The current findings underscore the importance of choosing low-energy- density options for breakfast, according to Rippe, a cardiologist with the Rippe Lifestyle Institute in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts.
The Rippe organization manages the Breakfast Research Institute, an industry-sponsored group that funds health and nutrition research. The BRI financed the current study.
The findings are based on responses from more than 12,000 U.S. adults who took part in three federal health surveys between 1999 and 2004.
Overall, people who reported eating a low-energy-density breakfast in the past day were more likely than their counterparts to choose lower-calorie foods for the rest of the day as well. As a group, they also had a higher-quality diet -- eating a wider variety of foods and more vitamins and minerals.
Among men, those who ate a breakfast low in energy density tended to weigh less, even with factors like exercise and income considered. For women, any type of breakfast was related to a lower likelihood of obesity -- though the calorie density of other meals did seem to be important.
More research is needed to confirm those particular findings, Rippe's team notes. For now, they suggest that men should be encouraged to eat a breakfast low in energy density, whereas women should eat breakfast but also focus on choosing low-energy-density foods throughout the day.
SOURCE: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, November 2008.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Nut Bans in Schools May Be Spurring Hysteria
By Serena Gordon
HealthDay Reporter
FRIDAY, Dec. 12 (HealthDay News) -- Peanut and other food allergies are on the rise, with more and more children being diagnosed with potentially life-threatening allergies, and schools are responding by providing nut-free areas.
But, at least one expert wonders if schools are going too far, even creating hysteria over potential nut exposures. What's worse, schools may be perpetuating the problem by limiting exposure to nuts in non-allergic children.
"There's a disproportionate response that may be making things worse. First, by feeding the concern -- if a whole school is declared nut-free, how can you say to children that nuts aren't dangerous? And, second by contributing to sensitization," said Dr. Nicholas Christakis, the author of an editorial in the Dec. 12 issue of the British Medical Journal.
Christakis, an attending physician at Mt. Auburn Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School, Boston, pointed to a recent Israeli study. It found that children exposed to peanuts at a young age appeared to have fewer peanut allergies than those who had a later exposure.
Christakis stressed that he's not saying schools shouldn't make allowances for children with severe allergies. "No one is arguing against reasonable accommodations," he said.
But, some schools take those accommodations too far, Christakis believes. For example, he cited the school district where his children attend school. Recently, that district evacuated a bus full of 10-year-olds because a peanut was found on the floor of the bus.
Such a reaction, he said, makes it appear as if the threat from a peanut is much greater than it actually is. Among the 3.3 million Americans who are allergic to nuts, the overall likelihood of a serious reaction is low. Serious allergic reactions to food cause about 2,000 hospitalizations a year, and 150 deaths.
In comparison, noted Christakis, 50 people die from bee stings, 100 from lightning strikes and a whopping 45,000 from motor vehicle accidents. Another 10,000 people suffer traumatic brain injuries due to sports participation and 2,000 people drown every year, said Christakis. Yet, he said, no one has called for an end to athletics.
Other experts weighed in on the issue.
"This editorial really shows how emotional the issue really is, and it always goes back to education and getting people to understand perspective," said Anne Munoz-Furlong, founder and CEO of the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network. "Until there's a cure, we need to do everything we can to keep these kids safe."
Dr. Jennifer Appleyard, chief of allergy and immunology at St. John Hospital in Detroit, said she'd like to see schools focus more on emergency planning for kids with severe allergies, because it's impossible to make anyone's environment completely nut-free. "Having a nut-free table, or even a nut-free school, gives you a false sense of security. It's like living in a very safe neighborhood -- robberies happen even in the safest neighborhoods," Appleyard said.
"Schools need to have policies in place for treatment. Teachers, aides, etc. should be trained in using an Epi-Pen [against anaphylactic reactions], and school officials need to make sure everyone knows what to do in an emergency," she said, adding, "that any emergency plan in place should be practiced, like fire drills are."
More information
Learn more about nut and peanut allergies from the Nemours Foundation's KidsHealth.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Scientists find nutty risk reducer: Eat more nuts
By CARLA K. JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
Mon Dec 8, 8:59 pm ET
CHICAGO – Here's a health tip in a nutshell: Eating a handful of nuts a day for a year — along with a Mediterranean diet rich in fruit, vegetables and fish — may help undo a collection of risk factors for heart disease.
Spanish researchers found that adding nuts worked better than boosting the olive oil in a typical Mediterranean diet. Both regimens cut the heart risks known as metabolic syndrome in more people than a low-fat diet did.
"What's most surprising is they found substantial metabolic benefits in the absence of calorie reduction or weight loss," said Dr. JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Harvard's Brigham and Women's Hospital.
In the study, appearing Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, the people who improved most were told to eat about three whole walnuts, seven or eight whole hazelnuts and seven or eight whole almonds. They didn't lose weight, on average, but more of them succeeded in reducing belly fat and improving their cholesterol and blood pressure.
Manson, who wasn't involved in the study, cautioned that adding nuts to a Western diet — one packed with too many calories and junk food — could lead to weight gain and more health risks. "But using nuts to replace a snack of chips or crackers is a very favorable change to make in your diet," Manson said.
The American Heart Association says 50 million Americans have metabolic syndrome, a combination of health risks, such as high blood pressure and abdominal obesity. Finding a way to reverse it with a diet people find easy and satisfying would mean huge health improvements for many Americans, Manson said.
Nuts help people feel full while also increasing the body's ability to burn fat, said lead author Dr. Jordi Salas-Salvado of the University of Rovira i Virgili in Reus, Spain.
"Nuts could have an effect on metabolic syndrome by multiple mechanisms," Salas-Salvado said in an e-mail. Nuts are rich in anti-inflammatory substances, such as fiber, and antioxidants, such as vitamin E. They are high in unsaturated fat, a healthier fat known to lower blood triglycerides and increase good cholesterol.
More than 1,200 Spaniards, ranging in age from 55 to 80, were randomly assigned to follow one of three diets. They were followed for a year. The participants had no prior history of heart disease, but some had risk factors including Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and abdominal obesity.
At the start, 751 people had metabolic syndrome, about 61 percent, distributed evenly among the three groups.
Metabolic syndrome was defined as having three or more of the following conditions: abdominal obesity, high triglycerides, low levels of good cholesterol (HDL), high blood sugar and high blood pressure.
The low-fat group was given basic advice about reducing all fat in their diets. Another group ate a Mediterranean diet with extra nuts. The third group ate a Mediterranean diet and was told to make sure they ate more than four tablespoons of olive oil a day.
Dietitians advised the two groups on the Mediterranean diet to use olive oil for cooking; increase fruit, vegetable and fish consumption; eat white meat instead of beef or processed meat; and prepare homemade tomato sauce with garlic, onions and herbs. Drinkers were told to stick with red wine.
After one year, all three groups had fewer people with metabolic syndrome, but the group eating nuts led the improvement, now with 52 percent having those heart risk factors. In the olive oil group, 57 percent had the syndrome. In the low-fat group, there was very little difference after a year in the percentage of people with the syndrome.
The nut-rich diet didn't do much to improve high blood sugar, but the large number of people with Type 2 diabetes — about 46 percent of participants — could be the reason, Salas-Salvado said. It's difficult to get diabetics' blood sugar down with lifestyle changes alone, he said.
To verify that study volunteers ate their nuts, researchers gave some of them a blood test for alpha-linolenic acid found in walnuts.
The study was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Health and the government of Valencia, Spain.
Salas-Salvado and another co-author disclosed in the publication that they are unpaid advisers to nut industry groups. Salas-Salvado said all of their research "has been conducted under standard ethical and scientific rules" and that peer-review journal editors determined the study results were not influenced by food industry ties.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Acupuncture beats aspirin for chronic headache
Mon Dec 1, 10:27 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Acupuncture works better than drugs like aspirin to reduce the severity and frequency of chronic headaches, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.
A review of studies involving nearly 4,000 patients with migraine, tension headache and other forms of chronic headache showed that that 62 percent of the acupuncture patients reported headache relief compared to 45 percent of people taking medications, the team at Duke University found.
"Acupuncture is becoming a favorable option for a variety of purposes, ranging from enhancing fertility to decreasing post-operative pain, because people experience significantly fewer side effects and it can be less expensive than other options," Dr. Tong Joo Gan, who led the study, said in a statement.
"This analysis reinforces that acupuncture also is a successful source of relief from chronic headaches."
Writing in Anesthesia and Analgesia, they said 53 percent of patients given true acupuncture were helped, compared to 45 percent receiving sham therapy involving needles inserted in non-medical positions.
"One of the barriers to treatment with acupuncture is getting people to understand that while needles are used, it is not a painful experience," Gan said. "It is a method for releasing your body's own natural painkillers."
They found it took on average five to six visits for patients to report headache relief.
Other studies have shown that acupuncture helped alleviate pain in patients who had surgery for head and neck cancer, can relieve hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms and can reduce chemotherapy-induced nausea.
(Reporting by Maggie Fox; Editing by Julie Steenhuysen)
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
High-protein meals may help overweight burn fat
By Amy Norton Amy Norton – Mon Nov 24, 11:39 am ET
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Higher-protein meals may help overweight and obese people burn more fat, the results of a small study suggest.
Research has shown that overweight people are less efficient at burning fat after a meal than thinner people are. In the new study, Australian researchers looked at whether the protein composition of a meal affects that weight-related gap.
They found that overweight men and women burned more post-meal fat when they ate a high-protein breakfast and lunch than when they had lower-protein meals. That is, the added protein seemed to modify the fat-burning deficit seen in heavy individuals.
"Our research suggests that people with higher body fat burn fat better after a high-protein meal than people with lower levels of body fat," lead researcher Dr. Marijka Batterham, of the University of Wollongong in New South Wales told Reuters Health.
A number of studies have suggested that high-protein diets may help people shed weight more easily -- possibly, in part, because protein suppresses appetite better than fat or carbohydrates do.
The current study did not look at weight loss, so it's not possible to tell whether the increased fat-burning seen in overweight participants would translate into fewer pounds over time, Batterham said.
But answering that question, she said, will be the next step.
The findings, published in the journal Nutrition & Dietetics, are based on 18 adults whose post-meal metabolism was tested on 3 separate days. The average age was 40 years, eight subjects were overweight, six subjects had a normal weight, and four were obese.
On day one, they were given a "control" breakfast and lunch composed of 58 percent carbohydrates and 14 percent protein. On the other 2 days, their meals were more balanced, with about one third of calories coming from protein and another third from carbohydrates.
In the 8 hours after the control meal, the investigators found that overweight and obese participants burned less fat than their thinner counterparts did. But that gap was closed when participants ate the higher-protein meals.
The protein-rich meals contained low-fat dairy, lean meat and eggs, along with bread and vegetables as carbohydrate sources. Batterham said she and her colleagues are now testing whether vegetarian sources of protein have similar effects on overweight adults' fat metabolism.
In general, experts recommend that people looking to bulk up the protein in their diets choose their sources carefully -- eschewing bacon and butter in favor of foods like fish, poultry, low-fat dairy, beans and nuts.
SOURCE: Nutrition & Dietetics, December 2008.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
ကာယလေ့ကျင့်ခန်းက အသည်းအဆီဖုံးရောဂါကို ကာကွယ်
အားကစားရုံသို့ သွား၍ နေ့စဉ် မှန်မှန် လေ့ကျင့်ခန်း ပြုလုပ်ခြင်းအားဖြင့် အသည်းအဆီဖုံးရောဂါကို ကာကွယ်နိုင်မည်ဟု လေ့လာစမ်းသပ်ချက် အသစ်တစ်ခုတွင် ဖော်ပြလျက်ရှိသည်။ ငြိမ်သက်စွာ ထိုင်အလုပ်လုပ်သော ရုံးဝန်ထမ်းတို့၏ နေပုံထိုင်ပုံက အသည်းအဆီဖုံးရောဂါ ဖြစ်ပွားစေနိုင်မည်ဖြစ်ပြီး အဝလွန်သူ ၇၅ ရာခိုင်နှုန်းတွင် ထိုကဲ့သို့ သက်ရောက်မှုပြုလိမ့်မည်ဟု ဆိုသည်။ ကာယလေ့ကျင့်ခန်း မပြုလုပ်သောသူများအနေဖြင့် အသည်းအဆီဖုံးရောဂါ ဖြစ်ပွားစေနိုင်မည်ဖြစ်ပြီး အထူးသဖြင့် အဝလွန်သူများ အနေဖြင့် လေ့ကျင့်ခန်းကို မှန်မှန်လုပ်သွားရန် လိုအပ်ကာ ရပ်နားခြင်းပြုပါက အယ်လ်ကိုဟောမပါသော အသည်းအဆီလှှမ်းသော ရောဂါ ဖြစ်ပွားလွယ်စေမည်ဟု ဆေးဝါးနှင့်ဆေးပညာဆိုင်ရာ ဆေးဝါးဗေဒပါမောက္ခ ဂျမောအီဗဒါက ပြောကြားခဲ့သည်။
လေ့လာစမ်းသပ် သုတေသနပြုသူများက ကြွက်များနှင့် စမ်းသပ်ခဲ့ရာ ငြိမ်သက်စွာနေစေသည့် အနေအထားနှင့် လည်ပတ်နေသော ဘီးအတွင်း အဝလွန်နေသော ကြွက်များကိုထား၍ စမ်းသပ်ခဲ့သည်။ ရက်သတ်တ ၁၆ ပတ်ခန့် စမ်းသပ်ခဲ့ရာ ငြိမ်သက်စွာနေသော အနေအထားရှိ ကြွက်များသည် ခုနစ်ရက်အတွင်းမှာပင် အသည်းအဆီဖုံးရောဂါ လက်ခဏာများ ပြသလာခဲ့ပြီး လည်ပတ်နေသော ဘီးအတွင်းမှ ကြွက်များမှာမူ မည်သည့်လက်ခဏာမျှ ပြသခဲ့ခြင်းမရှိချေ။ ကိုယ်ကာယလှုပ်ရှားမှုကြောင့် အသည်းအဆီဖုံးရောဂါကို ၁၀၀ ရာခိုင်နှုန်း ကာကွယ်ပေးနိုင်သကဲ့သို့ ကိုယ်ကာယလှုပ်ရှားမှုမရှိသူ ၁၀၀ ရာခိုင်နှုန်းသည် အသည်းအဆီဖုံး ရောဂါဖြစ်ပွားစေမည် ဖြစ်သည်ဟု MU ကောလိပ်မှ ပါမောက္ခဖရန့်ဘုသ်က ပြောကြားခဲ့သည်။
Yangon Media Group
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Teen lives 4 months with no heart, leaves hospital
By RASHA MADKOUR, Associated Press Writer
MIAMI – D'Zhana Simmons says she felt like a "fake person" for 118 days when she had no heart beating in her chest. "But I know that I really was here," the 14-year-old said, "and I did live without a heart." As she was being released Wednesday from a Miami hospital, the shy teen seemed in awe of what she's endured. Since July, she's had two heart transplants and survived with artificial heart pumps — but no heart — for four months between the transplants.
Last spring D'Zhana and her parents learned she had an enlarged heart that was too weak to sufficiently pump blood. They traveled from their home in Clinton, S.C. to Holtz Children's Hospital in Miami for a heart transplant.
But her new heart didn't work properly and could have ruptured so surgeons removed it two days later.
And they did something unusual, especially for a young patient: They replaced the heart with a pair of artificial pumping devices that kept blood flowing through her body until she could have a second transplant.
Dr. Peter Wearden, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh who works with the kind of pumps used in this case, said what the Miami medical team managed to do "is a big deal."
"For (more than) 100 days, there was no heart in this girl's body? That is pretty amazing," Wearden said.
The pumps, ventricular assist devices, are typically used with a heart still in place to help the chambers circulate blood. With D'Zhana's heart removed, doctors at Holtz Children's Hospital crafted substitute heart chambers using a fabric and connected these to the two pumps.
Although artificial hearts have been approved for adults, none has been federally approved for use in children. In general, there are fewer options for pediatric patients. That's because it's rarer for them to have these life-threatening conditions, so companies don't invest as much into technology that could help them, said Dr. Marco Ricci, director of pediatric cardiac surgery at the University of Miami.
He said this case demonstrates that doctors now have one more option.
"In the past, this situation could have been lethal," Ricci said.
And it nearly was. During the almost four months between her two transplants, D'Zhana wasn't able to breathe on her own half the time. She also had kidney and liver failure and gastrointestinal bleeding.
Taking a short stroll — when she felt up for it — required the help of four people, at least one of whom would steer the photocopier-sized machine that was the external part of the pumping devices.
When D'Zhana was stable enough for another operation, doctors did the second transplant on Oct. 29.
"I truly believe it's a miracle," said her mother, Twolla Anderson.
D'Zhana said now she's grateful for small things: She'll see her five siblings soon, and she can spend time outdoors.
"I'm glad I can walk without the machine," she said, her turquoise princess top covering most of the scars on her chest. After thanking the surgeons for helping her, D'Zhana began weeping.
Doctors say she'll be able to do most things that teens do, like attending school and going out with friends. She will be on lifelong medication to keep her body from rejecting the donated heart, and there's a 50-50 chance she'll need another transplant before she turns 30.
For now, though, D'Zhana is looking forward to celebrating another milestone. On Saturday, she turns 15 and plans to spend the day riding in a boat off Miami's coast.
