Health & Wellness - June 2013 Archives

It happens about 600 times a day and, hopefully, you never give it a thought. Swallowing.  As simple as it seems, Mayo Clinic thoracic surgeon Stephen Cassivi, M.D., says swallowing is a very complex process with three distinct phases. Because it requires the coordination of several of the body’s systems, Dr. Cassivi (Kass' eh vee) says not everyone can take swallowing for granted.   Journalists: Sound bites with Dr. Cassivi are available in the downloads http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDrr-HmF1Nk

The painful rheumatic condition gout is often associated with the big toe, but Mayo Clinic has found that patients at highest risk of further flare-ups are those ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR8I8k3u2xc A new minimally invasive laser-based tool for epilepsy surgery offers a quicker recuperation time for patients. For more than 50 years, the standard effective treatment for medication-resistant epileptic seizures has been open brain surgery.  The goal is to remove the small areas of scar tissue where the errant nerve signals begin that can trigger epileptic episodes. The operation, known as a temporal lobectomy, is effective in up to 80 percent of patients when the seizures are localized. However, the recovery period can be lengthy, involving several days in the hospital and one to three months of recuperation. Mayo Clinic neurosurgeon, W. Richard Marsh, M.D., is co-author of a study presented recently to the American Academy of Neurology. Dr. Marsh says the pinhole laser approach, as it's often called, has made a dramatic difference for patients. Click here for news release: Journalists: Animation and edited sound bites with Dr. Marsh are available in the downloads. Additional sound bites with neurologist Jerry Shih, M.D., from Mayo Clinic in Florida, are also available.

JACKSONVILLE, Flórida — A introdução de um dispositivo na artéria cerebral de um paciente que sofre um acidente vascular cerebral (AVC), que recolhe e remove ...

http://youtu.be/OSJ-ii2zGng Mayo Clinic in Arizona is offering new technology to patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, who experience difficulty ...

Coffee. It’s good for you one day … until a new study comes out and shows that it’s bad. Diabetes drugs are safe, and then they are not. Same story for use of Vitamin D supplements, hormone replacement therapy and fish oil. “We frequently hear contradictory reports about medical topics,” says M. Hassan Murad, M.D., Mayo Clinic Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery and co-author of a commentary on synthesizing medical evidence in this week’s The Journal of the American Medical Association.  “The problem is that science, medicine and the media too often focus on the latest study and largely ignore the overall body of evidence.”  The body of evidence, explains Dr. Murad, is the collective knowledge on a particular medical topic. Co-author Victor Montori, M.D., also with the Mayo Clinic Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery, says, “Science advances through the accumulation of evidence - not by one study providing the definitive answer. However, we tend to focus on the newest evidence without putting it into context. The blockbusters and breakthroughs create public expectations and disappointments, and this makes people distrust medical research.” In their commentary, Drs. Murad and Montori recommend that scientists, medical journals and the media refrain from drawing conclusions or recommendations from the results of single studies. Instead, they say, studies should be prohibited from offering conclusions unless they place their findings in the context of all the literature on the topic. It is these summaries, perhaps less newsworthy or flashy but certainly more stable and likely to be true, that people should use to make informed medical decisions. Here, Drs. Murad and Montori discuss the importance of knowledge synthesis to advancing medicine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k23IwJkpohw

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quCTMD0hsW8 More than 800,000 Americans suffer from stroke every year, but most people don’t expect to have a stroke at a young age. So, when 33-year-old Jessica Cook became dizzy, nauseous and had trouble standing at her son’s soccer game, nobody recognized the signs as a possible stroke. Friends thought she was overheated or dehydrated. Thankfully, someone called 911 — a decision that saved her life. Once at Mayo Clinic in Florida, doctors identified a torn vertebral artery in her neck and determined it had caused the stroke. Interventional neurosurgeon Dr. Ricardo Hanel and his team rushed Jessica to surgery. Without it, she had a 90 percent chance of dying. Because of a prompt diagnosis and quick medical attention, this mother of three is back  juggling work, home life and her children’s schedules. Journalists: Sound bites with Dr.Hanel, the edited patient pkg., additional b-roll are available in the downloads

DEAR MAYO CLINIC: Can type 2 diabetes be cured just by losing weight? ANSWER: Losing weight can have a big impact on diabetes. Although it might not cure type 2 diabetes in every case, getting to a healthy body weight does have that potential for many people. Even if it doesn’t completely cure the disease, losing weight may make it possible for people with diabetes to take less medication. It often helps manage or prevent some of the health problems that can come with diabetes, too. People who have diabetes have too much sugar in their blood. This happens because of a problem with the hormone called insulin. Insulin is made in the pancreas — a gland located just behind the stomach. When you eat, the pancreas releases insulin into your bloodstream. The insulin allows sugar to enter your cells, lowering the amount of sugar in your blood.

A Mayo Clinic study shows that low-dose intravenous infusions of ketamine, a general anesthetic used in minor surgeries, are an effective treatment for depression. Mayo psychiatrist and co-author Timothy Lineberry, ...

Smartphones and tablets can make for sleep-disrupting bedfellows. One cause is believed to be the bright light-emitting diodes that allow use of mobile devices in dimly lit rooms. The light exposure can interfere with melatonin, a hormone that helps control the natural sleep-wake cycle. But a Mayo Clinic study suggests dimming the smartphone or tablet brightness settings and holding the device at least 14 inches from your face while using it can help. Psychiatrist and sleep expert at Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz., Lois Krahn, M.D., says,“In the old days people would go to bed and read a book. Well, much more commonly people go to bed and they have their tablet on which they read a book or they read a newspaper or they’re looking at material. The problem is it’s a lit device, and how problematic is the light source from the mobile device?” The research is among several Mayo Clinic studies being presented at SLEEP 2013, the Associated Professional Sleep Societies annual meeting in Baltimore. Read entire news release: SLEEP Release http://youtu.be/vbJi61WfauE Journalists: Edited sound bites with Dr. Krahn are available in the downloads

Mayo Clinic is announcing that its thousands of patient education resources will be offered to small medical practices throughout the United States. Medical director for patient ...

Physicians call for new tax on sugary drinks, fatty foods; tax hike on tobacco, alcoholic beverages Go ye and sin no more - or ...