Monthly Archives: December 2019

Health

Massage as a self-care stress reliever

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Self-care will be the new buzz word, and stress looks like a primary cause for the boost in self-care attention. Thankfully, professional services that improve the mind, body, and spirit are offered through Health Commons along at the Living Room.

Every Tuesday, this drop-in well-being and wellness center and healing space nestled in North Minneapolis provides an atmosphere for stress relief and self-empowerment through nurse health consultations, hand massage and body massage, blood pressure checks, and essentials oils (every second Tuesday only), all without charge.

Within the collaborative effort, Fair-view Health Services, Redeemer Reason for Life, Cora McCorvey Fitness and Wellness Center, and Lutheran Social Services have brought together a team of pros to provide weekly self-care.
Self-care is “the practice of taking an active role in protecting one’s well-being and happiness, particularly during the of stress.” With the everyday stresses out there, big and small, self-care and self-love have grown to be essential behaviors. Health Commons with the Living area is a place that welcomes all including; men, women, and infants, whether first-time visitors or veteran attendees, great-grandparents to grandchildren alike.
Health Nurse Consultant Suzanne Burke-Lehman considering the St. Catherine University Nursing staff, is among the first individuals to greet event-goers. Burke-Lehman came on staff when a friend who was previously providing nurse consults along at the center told Burke-Lehman, “A Woman of Color could be great there. A Woman of Color needs to be there.”

After visiting a few times, Burke-Lehman said she “was attached being here and being when using the community,” She gives therapeutic hand massages and also provides health consultations.

Getting regular hand massages or completing them on oneself has quite a few benefits. The essentially of touch is steadfast as we start to get older. It happens to be the social glue that binds parents with children and sexual partners into lasting couples. Nonsexual human touch connects people in the community, also in the place that you work, fostering gratitude, sympathy, and trust.

As stated by many studies, therapeutic touch lowers rates of the hassle hormone cortisol. It adds to the level of oxytocin, the so-called “love hormone,” which happens to be associated with mother-and-child bonding, romantic relationships, and some patient and practitioner interactions. After we put us on the job another, we’re tapping into deep associations between touch and emotion that may be kindled at the dawn of life.
AARP reported one study that showed basketball teams that engage in more celebratory touch, such as high fives and chest bumps, play more cooperatively and win more games

Author Resource Box:
Massage as a self-care stress reliever. https://spokesman-recorder.com/2019/12/19/massage-as-a-self-care-stress-reliever/

Simple Ways to Practice Self-Care — Ritu Bhasin | Award …. https://ritubhasin.com/blog/simple-ways-to-practice-self-care

Diet, disease, Health

Vitamin D alone does not prevent fractures, a new study finds!

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Taking calcium and vitamin D could help older adults curb the chance of a bone fracture, but vitamin D alone doesn’t finish the job, a brand new research review concludes.

The analysis of 28 past studies found that senior citizens with higher blood methods of vitamin D were reluctant to suffer a broken hip or other fracture over five to 15 years.

The picture was different in various research that tested the effects of using vitamin D supplements: They found no evidence that vitamin D alone reduced older adults’ chance of fractures.

In comparison, trials that tested mixed calcium and vitamin D showed modest protective effects.

“Combined treatment with both of your calcium and vitamin D reduced the potential risk of hip fracture by one-sixth, which resulted in being harmed more beneficial than taking standard doses of vitamin D alone,” said senior researcher Dr. Robert Clarke, a professor of epidemiology and public health medicine along at the University of Oxford in England.

The findings, published online Dec. 20 in JAMA Network Open, aren’t the last word on vitamin D and fractures. Some ongoing trials are testing high-dose vitamin D in people who are at increased danger of bone breaks.

But for now, there may be no proof that it works by Clarke.
In the United States alone, about 54 million people have deep bone tissue or outright osteoporosis—the brittle-bone disease that could bring about fractures, as per the National Osteoporosis Foundation (NOF). It’s estimated that after age 50, much fewer women and one-quarter of males will break a bone as a consequence of osteoporosis.

Calcium is essential to building and maintaining healthy bones, while vitamin D assists the body in absorbing calcium and supports the muscle function needed to avoid falls.

Though when looking at preventing fractures in people with osteoporosis, there’s only so much that supplements can do, said the NOF’s, Beth Kitchin. She wasn’t involved with the study.

“The expectation that vitamin D and calcium, alone, will prevent fractures is likely unrealistic,” said Kitchin, who’s also another person professor of nutrition sciences for the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

To assist preserve bone health go away with muscles strong; people need regular exercise by Kitchin. The activity that will make our bodies move against gravity while staying upright—like jogging, jumping rope, or dancing—can help support bone density. And use that builds muscle strength or improves balance can help lower the chance of falls.

Avoiding smoking and alcoholism is also critical to preventing bone loss, as stated by the NOF.

Once osteoporosis is diagnosed, medications—which either slow bone breakdown or boost bone formation—may be necessary, Kitchin said. “Fall-proofing” your room is another essential step. Meaning getting rid of tripping hazards in and out of the house; installing grab bars in bathrooms; maintaining stairways well lit, among other measures.

Of the studies, Clarke’s team analyzed, 11 were observational. They followed older adults among the “practical,” tracking fracture rates anywhere from five to fifteen years. Overall, the upper a person’s blood stages of vitamin D were at the outset, the lower the potential risk of fracture.

“But that doesn’t prove cause and effect,” Kitchin stressed. “High vitamin D levels are most certainly a marker of something else entirely.”

Few foods contain vitamin D, she noted. Instead, the human body synthesizes it whenever the skin is exposed to sunlight. So people with high vitamin D levels may spend a lot of time outdoors, for example.

The review included too 11 trials testing vitamin D alone, and six testing vitamin D and calcium. Study participants’ average age ranged from 62 to 85, and they were followed for as much as five years.

Overall, people gave calcium, and vitamin D had a 16% lower likelihood of hip fracture than those given placebos or no treatment. Their danger of any bone break was 6% lower.

So how should you know if it is recommended to take supplements? You can ask your doctor to measure your blood level of vitamin D, to detect any deficiency, Kitchin said. As regards to calcium, she added, “evaluate your diet plan.”

If you are genuinely avoiding food much dairy, green veggies, and foods fortified with calcium, you would possibly need to have a supplement.

According to the NOF, adults younger than 51 should strive for 1,000 mg of calcium a day; afterward, the advice surges to 1,200 mg. As for vitamin D, people newer 50 should force 400 to 800 international units (IU) daily, while mature workers need 800 to 1,000 IU.

The advice on vitamin D does vary, however, with some more groups recommending more. As per the Institute of Medicine, the safe upper limit of vitamin D is 4,000 IU daily for the majority of grown-ups.

Author Resource Box:
Vitamin D Alone Doesn’t Prevent Fractures, New Study Finds …. https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2019-12-20/vitamin-d-alone-doesnt-prevent-fractures-new-study-finds

6 Surprising Spirulina Benefits Your Doctor Doesn’t Know …. https://yurielkaim.com/6-surprising-spirulina-benefits/

Vitamin D alone doesn’t prevent fractures, new study finds. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-12-vitamin-d-doesnt-fractures.html

Health, meditation, mental health

Meditation help You in Leadership

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One thing that stands in terms of many leaders’ success — and then the success of their companies — might be their ego. Leadership expert Jim Collins obtainable from his seminal study of what makes companies sustainably great within this case most of a given comparison case, the newcomer was “the presence of a gargantuan ego that contributed to the demise or continued mediocrity of a given company.” Fortunately, mindfulness can help. The truth is, in my work teaching Meditation to numerous executives, I’ve seen that a person of the most extremely valuable — and largely unrecognized — benefits for leaders would be the power to transcend their egos.


The defensive tendencies in our ego come at considerable costs. When it’s threatened, we keep past decisions for too long, we react defensively to or “explain away” negative feedback from teams or customers, and we get emotional when we should be rational. Ray Dalio, founding the father of the world’s biggest hedge fund, refers in his book, Principles: Life and Work, towards the “ego barrier,” which he defines just like the “subliminal defense mechanisms which create it hard for one to accept your mistakes and weaknesses.” He also credits Meditation like the single most crucial supply of his success.


That’s because mindfulness meditation is undoubtedly an antidote to ego. It makes what Harvard neuroscience researchers describe as “self-transcendent” experiences, where meditators began to know that there isn’t any stable self that’s separate from others. Still, instead, they are components of a full. This may sound “woo-woo,” but these experiences have significant benefits for leaders: They allow them to be able to view more objectively and then to form deeper relationships.


Seeing things more objectively
Our ego wants us to be right; it also perceives failure just like a threat. With meditation practice, as our fixation on ego drops away, our tendency to take things personally drops away along with you.


Get the example of Scott Shute, former VP of Customer Operations at LinkedIn, who now leads the company’s mindfulness programs. He explained to your client that through the day, he “will apply mindfulness practices once I find myself yearning to decide or feel defensive about criticism. I shall breathe and contemplate for a couple minutes and something that has been formerly frustrating becomes almost playful. I will pay attention to details and may see things I had not seen before”.
Jeff, the president of a big retailer, experienced something similar in meditation session I ran for a leadership workshop. He received a message from his new CEO immediately before the meeting. He told me, “My mind was racing; I felt frustrated and wrongly accused. After meditating, I re-read the email. My mind was calm, and then i was required to smile. I actually had made the email everything about myself and had taken his criticism personally. Afterward, I was able to witness it as what it was — just several specific things that were required to have completed.” Only a short meditation lessened the grip of his ego, allowing him to read the email without feeling threatened and then to act appropriately.


Forming deeper relationships
These experiences also fundamentally change leaders’ ties, allowing them to guide with more profound empathy and connection. Mike Romoff, head of world agency sales at LinkedIn, showed me that after practicing Meditation for several months, he “had a gradual realization that all beings are connected, plus the whole construct with having adversarial feelings towards others as independent entities stopped making any sense.”
When he found his department mired inside an intense rivalry with yet another one, he chose to help his counterpart instead of further the tension: “Projects moved forward, conflicts between departments got diffused, we made great progress. And it hugely benefited a specific career. I developed a reputation just like a collaborator and problem solver.”
Meditation can also assist us in dealing with colleagues we perceive as “difficult,” allowing us to challenge the fear-based narratives our mind creates that make in the manner of people taking action within a productive way. Consider the example of Marisa, a senior executive for a large media company, who holds been practicing Meditation for a few years. For a number of years she dealt with a painful colleague without openly addressing his behavior. After practicing Meditation for a long time, she realized that her “fearful self disappeared,” and he or she was seldom afraid to confront him.” She let it be known that when she the research, she felt “like the universe was speaking through me.” She could check out and communicate the proof clearly, without fear or emotional attachment as before. To her great surprise, the colleague was interested in hearing her and agreed to stop his behavior.


Practice Meditation to Experience Self-Transcendence
Mindful Meditation isn’t usually to try self-transcendence — our ego fixation can drop away while jogging, cooking, playing a musical instrument, or doing a little other activity that fully engages us — however it is the more consistently direct way. Here’s how one can create that for yourself.


Form a practice dedicated to stilling your mental state. One of the simplest kinds of mindfulness meditation is to select a quiet place, sit comfortably linked to chair or cushion, and set a timer for which range from five and 25 minutes. Then start observing the back and forth of a person’s breath. You can count the breath, starting with one on in-breath, then two on that out-breath, mounting to 10 and after that returning to one. Whichever method you take advantage of, you’re prone to spot the nearly constant stream of thoughts that run through our minds (around 70.000 views per day). Enable the account to detach by reviewing them ideas and end up with a sense of openness.


Practice regularly — daily. Although self-transcendent experiences can occur after short sessions, maintaining a steady-state takes regular practice. Just like hitting the gym sporadically may feel good but won’t let you build muscle, irregular meditation practice won’t be sufficient to experience self-transcendence consistently. Most executives I operate with practice meditation a minimum of 20 to 30 minutes every day. For most, getting up earlier in the morning and starting the time with Meditation will be the easiest method to make sure they “get it in.”

Find extended periods for silence. Most executives find that the longer time spent that they meditate, the more significant amount of their mind starts to relax, and thoughts eventually dissipate. Because it is our thoughts that create the understanding ego when they disappear, our ego has a chance to drop away. In a world where we are always in contact with new stimuli (through emails, news, facebook, etc.), you have to be deliberate about finding how about silence. You can continue on an extensive “retreat” led by an experienced meditation teacher or carve out times of your day when you’re not finding new information.


Apply the insights of self-transcendence to problems in the day. Use what you may gain from these practices to loosen the grip of your respective ego during the workday. You can quiet your mind by using a few conscious breaths before you go into a meeting or open your email. You are also able to practice at the time. Just for example, while you’re sitting in a meeting or responding to a message, transform your focus to your breath and notice in case your mind has started to bring things personally. Going on a few breaths in and out may help lessen your ego’s grip.

Author Resource Box:
What Meditation Can Do for Your Leadership. https://hbr.org/2019/12/what-meditation-can-do-for-your-leadership

Where is your ego hiding? – Ray Moukaddem – Medium. https://medium.com/@ray.moukaddem/where-is-your-ego-hiding-bae3e397a2b6

Blog:Recent posts | The Loud House Encyclopedia | Fandom. https://theloudhouse.fandom.com/wiki/Blog:Recent_posts

Health, meditation, mental health

Why Meditation Will enable you to become a Better Leader

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Leaders of big teams or within busy companies often juggle competing priorities, frequently without clear-cut solutions. For instance, how should a pacesetter react should a key employee quits in the center of something launch? While meditating won’t offer the immediate answer, it’ll help a leader manage challenges with more authenticity.
“[Mindful leadership means] our stress doesn’t spill featured on those around us, on your team. We can reduce it and manage it more effectively. We can easily be more intentional in every way of micro-interaction that we’ve with these teams in the day,” Jones says.
“If you’re within a company in which you have faith in the mission, or you’re working towards a big goal together, with the ability to hold that in your present moment awareness helps navigate challenges.”
When a business owner, a piano key client quitting at short notice might cause her or him to react negatively and also hit out at other team members. Instead, practicing meditation for around a couple of weeks may assist this entrepreneur master how to step back rather than retaliate business setbacks emotionally.
“It’s possible to with ease toggle between dealing with the love of a given moment and the greater picture,” says Jones. “That dual focus is significant for a leader, and then to guide the team, allow people to through the day-to-day challenges while anchoring to its bigger goal.”
The teams at Headspace regularly meditate together in the morning and before meetings. That culture is understandable, considering Headspace’s product.
When a writer, musician, or artist arises in front of the blank page, canvas, along with a studio, they’re under time limits to perform. It’s no wonder many complain about feeling blocked or uninspired. That pressure is hardly conducive to open-minded expansive thinking.
“If you find yourself better in a position to distance yourself or reserve those pressures, those expectations, the trouble that may come along with being forced to produce something and get a deadline, you’re better ready to generating the documents right conditions for creativity to travel,” says Jones. “When we’re better able to notice our thoughts to way of quiet our thought, we can build the right conditions for creativity to come about.”

Author Resource Box:

Why Meditation Will Help You Become A Better Leader, https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryancollinseurope/2019/12/19/why-meditation-will-help-you-become-a-better-leader/#74a4778bf3e6

disease, Health

Is the world ready for an HIV vaccine?

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Nearly four decades after HIV was discovered, scientists are cautiously optimistic; they are almost a vaccine effective enough to roll out on a fantastic scale. The end product from advanced vaccine trials is required inside the coming years.

But even when an efficient vaccine is present — would be the world in a position to roll it?

That is a question some researchers and advocates are asking, warning the fact that the global health community needs to lay the groundwork in expectation of good results, as a way to avoid delays of a vaccine rollout and consequently increased infections which could happen to prevent with a vaccine.

“Here is the epidemic of our time, and we will probably be meant how we handle this.”

— Dr. Larry Corey, principal investigator, HVTN

A beneficial, timely rollout considering the vaccine would require discussions and collaboration amongst the global health community and potential manufacturers of one’s vaccine, and also increased resources — starting now, researchers said this month with the International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa in Rwanda.

“People are here, tangled with the science and daily grind, hoping for a safe and effective vaccine. Though it’s important to start thinking about: Supposing it works? Are we prepared to take it forward essentially?” said Dr. Simba Takuva, regional medical liaison for Sub-Saharan Africa for the HIV Vaccine Trials Network.

Should a successful vaccine can be found, it is going to be the foremost complicated vaccine life has ever seen, based on HIV vaccine researchers, clearly as the virus has high levels of mutations and different strains can be found globally.

While prospects of finding a cure for HIV are more elusive, some researchers also argue that the time has come even to start planning for getting a rollout.

“This is actually the epidemic of our own time, and then we will be defined by how we handle this,” said Dr. Larry Corey, principal investigator at HVTN.

Awaiting vaccine trial results

The HIV crisis, which began in the early 1980s, has claimed the lives of about 32 million people globally.

While there is a tool kit of prevention and treatment for your options HIV, life will likely not eradicate the virus without a vaccine, Corey said.

More on HIV/AIDS

► HIV treatment access isn’t rising fast adequate to reach 2020 targets, UNAIDS report shows

► Opinion: We cannot meet the 2020 AIDS targets. Now what?

► The impact of Mozambique’s cyclones on its HIV population

But the complexity of a given HIV has stumped scientists finishing up a vaccine over the years. There’s no natural immune response to model a vaccine, animal studies of one’s vaccine have failed, the HIV lacks an average responds to the vaccines, it features a high mutation rate, and different subtypes of HIV occur globally.

In 2009, the first time, researchers in Thailand published success with a trial whereby a vaccine showed protection against HIV. Yet the security wasn’t sufficient, and of course, the duration of the shield wasn’t for long, to bring it into the market. To respond, researchers embarked on new vaccine trials, working to build off these gains.

Now, there are three advanced vaccine trials. Results from two of the vaccine trials are required in 2022.

Any time a vaccine is located at least 50% efficient — the percent lowering of the contraction of the disease in vaccinated individuals compared to people not vaccinated — it could trigger efforts to license a vaccine and, after that, roll it outside.

If any of such vaccines show above 50% efficacy within the years to come, it would be on the market is slightly less than years, Corey said.

“It is inspiring times, so we need to be prepared for the outcome — be it failure or success,” said Roger Tatoud, deputy director of vaccines in HIV programs and advocacy with the International AIDS Society.

Amid a rollout, scientists go on to seek to improve levels and duration of protection against HIV for future system a vaccine, along with conduct “bridging” studies, for instance testing out the safety considering the vaccine when assigned to adolescents.

But rolling out vaccinations has historically been marred by delays in areas just like the regulatory process, community sensitization, and obtaining funds.

Rolling around the area of a malaria vaccine, for instance, experienced delays. After partial efficacy considering the vaccine was present in 2014, GlaxoSmithKline, along with its partners have “been navigating complex regulatory and implementation planning processes,” based on a recent article in The Lancet, which says the widespread rollout of the vaccine is years away and demands more funding.

“It is exhilarating times, and then we need to be aware of the outcome — such as failure or success.”

Laying the groundwork when it comes to the large-scale manufacturing of the vaccine is crucial; HIV vaccine researchers told Devex.

“Making a product consistently with countless doses along with excellent quality is not an excellent job,” Corey said.

Before the efficacy regarding a vaccine is considered, the worldwide health community can start conversations about how exactly many individuals to vaccinate and more to engage with potential manufacturers of what pricing could look like at different levels of efficacy, researchers said.

With the assistance of health economists and disease modelers, the worldwide health community can result in a business case to convince potential manufacturers that buying in the vaccine is smart financially, said Linda-Gail Bekker, deputy director considering the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre along at the University of Cape Town.

This may also include conversations around funding with organizations just like the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.

Conference call: So what happened for the Global Fund replenishment? (Pro)

After the flurry of last-minute commitments, the worldwide Fund narrowly surpassed its $14 billion targets. Devex journalists see how the replenishment conference in Lyon unfolded — as well as what it indicates for the future of world health financing.

“If you consider the malaria vaccine… this was not so that the European Medicines Agency approved it which the company came to us as funders, throughout at the Global Fund, and said we want $20 million to start out implementing research — We don’t just have $20 million available. You need to think for this, it’s important to have these items deemed and planned,” said Mark Dybul, former executive director considering the Global Fund, in a press conference this month in Kigali.

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The Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, currently housed at the International AIDS Society, is an efficient platform to help facilitate these conversations and produce stakeholders together, according to HIV vaccine researchers.

Challenges with distribution and stigma

Beyond arranging for manufacturing, you will find questions about the condition of the healthcare sector that would distribute a vaccine.

One of the many vaccines under trial includes six doses, repeated every several years. No other brand of vaccines on the earth requires that many treatments, based on HIV vaccine researchers. This concerns some in the global health community about whether communities would adhere to law enforcement, which works full-time path of doses.

“Even when we have met a 50% efficacy, could we go ahead with a vaccine that would involve six doses?” Bekker asked.

Researchers may need to improve the potency, to decrease the number of doses, Corey said.

The worldwide health community can get started discussing now which high-risk groups to focus on initially because blanket targeting could well be too costly, HIV vaccine researchers said.

“The shortage of existing healthcare programs that target lots of the populations that will very likely be prioritized to receive an HIV vaccine poses a considerable challenge,” based on a short article inside the Lancet.

Starting conversations on dealing with stigma may also be crucial per researcher.

“If you do, in fact, target higher-risk populations, it will stigmatize a vaccine that requires widespread distribution,” Bekker said.

Targeting adolescents may be challenging mainly because it involves conversations about sex, she confirmed.

The worldwide health community should make into mind lessons that are caused by the roll out from the HPV vaccine, which targets adolescents, based on researchers. In certain countries, the HPV vaccine was framed for being vaccine targeting a sexually transmitted infection as well as in other nations; the newcomer was framed for being vaccine prevents cervical cancer.

“Countries that deployed it as a cancer vaccine didn’t meet many of the resistance rather than other nations where they deployed is an STI vaccine,” Bekker said.

Getting ready for relief from

Prospects of a cure are less tangible than those to obtain the vaccine. However, that does not make it smart, so a growing number of researchers and advocates are likewise asking for conversations to start toward the rollout of the cure.

This can include engagement, particularly for the community-level, Dybul said, to visualize salespersons would reply to a cure and initiate implementing that feedback into its design.

An initial conversation was held in February in California, where about 30 members of the HIV scientific, pharmaceutical, funding, and NGO communities met to discuss the rollout associated with a potential cure sooner or later. Out from the meeting, a public-private partnership called the HIV Cure Acceleration for Africa was founded including representatives inside the fields of study and development, regulatory agencies, health care implementers, civil society, and potential funders that aim to hasten the creation of a cure similarly and confirm the broadest possible access.

A working group was also developed to create a “target product profile” to reflect what characteristics associated with a product would make it widely acceptable for communities to form. The functional group will examine areas such as which populations to focus on, the costs regarding a future cure, plus how it may be targeted at communities. The functional group includes representatives from the pharmaceutical industry, research institutions, advocacy groups, and potential funders.

“The aim is two-fold, so we can move as fast as is possible as products become available because everyone’s been engaged right from the start. But also, to make sure that there could be feedback, the population can modify their approach dictated by conversations,” Dybul said.

One reason behind these conversations would be to avoid community resistance during the roll from relief from, Dybul said. The web in the early days of antiretroviral therapy for HIV, there is protection from the pills for reasons including concerns that these pills were killing people instead of treating them, he explained. The reason being communities weren’t engaged with the early conversations.

Author Resource Box:

Is the world ready for an HIV vaccine? | Devex. https://www.devex.com/news/is-the-world-ready-for-an-hiv-vaccine-96186

Making History: Potter County’s First Female Judge. https://countyprogress.com/making-history-potter-countys-first-female-judge/

disease, Health

Learn how to wash your hands properly, per doctors

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Hopefully, washing your hands serves as a mechanical and frequent a part of your daily routine. Yet, it never ceases to amaze Dr. Robert Segal, MD, founder of Medical Offices of Manhattan, the actual number full-grown adults accomplish a less-than dream at hand-washing.

“As a medical doctor, I have to be careful about keeping my hands clean and avoid spreading viruses from patient to patient. Though when I’m out on a restaurant sometimes, I discover people either wash their hands prematurely, don’t use enough soap or worse, don’t wash at all,” says Segal. We’ve seen it too and, frankly, as hand-washing will be the most straightforward way to avoid the spread of illness and disease, we’d prefer to encourage the practice. With flu season in full swing, we thought it might be useful to ask Dr. Segal and Timothy Laird, MD, board-certified physician from Health First, for the healthy hand-washing tips.

Contrary to popular belief, there’s a right method to wash your hands. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) breaks it down into these five steps:

  • Wet your hands (to the wrist) with clean, running water (the temperature doesn’t matter). Shut down the tap, direct a great deal of soap.
  • Lather up the soap by rubbing your hands together. Don’t forget to spread that lather in the backs of a person’s hands up to your wrists, with the fingers, and below your nails.
  • Which is better, using soap and water or Scrub your hands for a minimum of 20 seconds. Both doctors recommend humming the “Happy Birthday” song from beginning-to-end twice to have the timing right. “Before surgery, surgeons need to stand with the scrub sink for five full minutes, and use an under-the-nail brush, along with a solid soap along with a scrub brush for each finger, the two sides of the hands, and scrub to their elbows. Not a single person expects other people to clean up equally as much, but this supplies you with a good idea of what’s necessary to kill most germs,” Laird says.
  • Rinse your hands thoroughly under clean, running water.
  • Dry your hands making use of a clean tissue (best bet), hand dryer (OK), or allow time for them to air dry (within a pinch).

As stated by both doctors and the CDC, it is best to wash your hands:

Before, during, and after preparing food. “Keeping clean hands and clean food prep surfaces, like counters and cutting boards, and washing raw produce will be methods of preventing diarrhea along with other illnesses,” says Laird.

Right before nourishing. Have in mind your hands as food utensils. “The main germ portals of entry to physique our mouths and nose, and our hands,” Laird explains. “Our hands inoculate germs into our body systems when they touch our face or food. Then we ingest the germs and get sick.”

Before and after caring for someone in your home who is sick with vomiting or diarrhea. Viruses that cause vomiting and diarrhea, like norovirus, are super contagious and hand-washing have you noticed your best type of defense prevent going down yourself.

Before and as soon as you finish treating a cut or wound to stop the infection.

After using the potty, changing diapers, or filtering a baby that utilized the toilet — “even a microscopic quantity of droppings can contain millions of germs,” says the CDC.

After blowing onto your nose, coughing or sneezing. Deadly germs made from a sneeze can have a home in the air for long periods, many viruses might lead to colds, as well as having the influenza virus can survive a surface for minutes to hours after an infected one is subject to it, says Segal.

After touching a dangerous predator, animal feed treats, or animal waste. According to the FDA, toys might be contaminated with bacteria that cause foodborne illnesses, namely salmonellosis, and listeriosis.

Whenever you go out to take meals, you use your hands to place your garage door, get out the chair, and handle the menu. That’s the reason washing your hands sincerely before you eat daily can help keep germs from emerging — and keep you healthier, says Segal.

Be even more diligent government departments restrooms

“Your house to some public restroom — or most things in the different restroom — really are a hotbed of germs,” says Segal. “That’s why automatic sinks and tissue dispensers work well from the spread of the virus. You don’t have to touch them.” If those aren’t available, use everything that is there and be guaranteed to dry your hands thoroughly — germs cling to moisture, Segal explains. Hang onto your hand towel, or grab another and use it into paved the way to maintain your hands clean. Not everyone washes their hands after using the restroom.

Carry sanitizer

Hand-washing holds a slight edge over sanitizer concerning keeping your hands clean. However, a sanitizer that has at least 60 percent alcohol can assist stave off germs if there’s no sink or soap around. “Rub it around your hands for about 20 seconds, and till the hands are dry. It doesn’t work if hands are extremely stained or talked about oil, but it’s an excellent alternative if soap and water aren’t readily free,” says Laird. “There are also a few germs that might be better killed by the gel than soap and water. So, in healthcare settings, we try and do a bit of both. We utilize gel frequently and make use of soap and water hand scrubs to gel uses.”

Segal recommends bringing sanitizer wipes onto planes (very germy) and cleaning every surface that touches you, such as the airplane seats, multi-functional, belt, and tray — traveling across land? Use sanitizer using your hands after coping with car service belt buckles, train seats, and subway poles.

All told, hand-washing serves as a high-quality, well worth perfecting. “Hand-washing is amongst the proven ways of keeping both you and your loved ones healthy,” says Laird, who shared an anecdote in regards to the ‘father’ of hand-washing (yes, there is certainly this sort of person!), Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, who studied the incidence of infections on the maternity wards in Vienna. “He discovered that the extent of that which was called ‘childbed fever’ could be dramatically reduced by way of hand-washing in obstetric clinics. However, his findings conflicted considering the established scientific and medical opinions of the moment and resulted in death were mocked and rejected via the medical community. Doctors were offended by the thought that they may turn out to be an explanation for the infections. He couldn’t provide scientific reasoning behind his findings, clearly as the discovery of germs as a cause was still years away. He suffered a nervous breakdown and commenced dedicated to an asylum where he surpassed. The wisdom of hand-washing was only embraced after some years when Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister discovered Semmelweis was right all along.”

Poor guy. But thanks to him, we probably can get to live a bit longer.

Author Resource Box:

How to wash your hands properly, according to doctors. https://www.nbcnews.com/better/lifestyle/how-wash-your-hands-properly-according-doctors-ncna1102746

Which is better, using soap and water or … – Vital Record. https://vitalrecord.tamhsc.edu/which-is-better-using-soap-and-water-or-sanitizer/

disease, Health, mental health

Even with early treatment, HIV still attacks young brains, study says

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Many children living with HIV today are in sub-Saharan Africa. While early antiretroviral therapy, or ART, has ensured less deadly outcomes for little ones managing and subject to HIV, studies show the HIV most likely will prohibit the brain. HIV may disrupt neurodevelopment, affecting how children learn, reason operates.

 To get some inspiration Michael Boivin, professor, and director of a Psychiatry Research Program within the Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine, began to understand how HIV impacts children’s neuropsychological development inside a two-year longitudinal study, published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

 the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases supported partially The investigation, part of the National Institutes of Health.

 Boivin, with his fantastic colleagues, tested the neuropsychological creation of three teams of children aged 5 to 11: those that acquired HIV and were treated with ART, those exposed but HIV-negative, and those who were never revealed. The analysis occurred at six study sites across four countries in sub-Saharan Africa to get a robust view of how HIV is affecting children within the region.

 To this point, it is the first well-validated, multi-site neuropsychological exploration of African school-aged children affected by HIV.

 What your researchers discovered through various assessments was that even dealing with early treatment and excellent clinical care, you can still find significant neuropsychological problems for children living with HIV.

“These children came straight into the study by using a deficit when compared with their counterparts,” Boivin said. “It stayed about the same across the three years, except in the most critical area: reasoning and planning. Regarding that specific test domain, the babies coping with HIV failed to progress.”

 The gap between infected and HIV-negative children grew inside the planning and reasoning area in the study period., these abilities are likely to blossom in the school-aged years in healthy children.

 “This is the most important cognitive function for the future of children managing HIV concerning their likelihood of taking their medications, making good decisions, abstaining from risky behaviors like early sexual activity, psychosocial issues, and school-related achievement,” Boivin said.

 Conclusions? Early medical treatment, started as far back half a year legal, will not be a sufficient amount to address the neurocognitive deficits linked to HIV, even though it help keep children alive cleanse that they would be without treatment. In these children, treatment ought to be started even earlier to strengthen long-term neurocognitive outcomes.

 “Our company will complement the long-term care and assist with actual behavioral interventions,” Boivin said.

 That’s something Boivin with his fantastic colleagues is performing work on. Only, Boivin received a 5-year, $3.2 million NIH grant to keep going he collaborated with children touched by HIV in Uganda and Malawi.

 Using this grant, researchers will investigate how MSU-developed computer cognitive games will serve as tools for neurocognitive evaluation, enrichment, and rehabilitation.

 Boivin hopes the fact that the results of each of the studies can help do this model of neuropsychological evaluation, a considered area of the cost-benefit.

Author Resource Box:

[Health] – Even with early treatment, HIV still attacks …. https://www.reddit.com/r/SDauto/comments/ecvozl/health_even_with_early_treatment_hiv_still/

Even with early treatment, HIV still attacks young brains …. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/12/191218090208.htm

Admissions – College of Osteopathic Medicine – Michigan …. https://com.msu.edu/Admissions/index.htm

disease, Health

Researchers support new strategies for HIV control

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The quest for an AIDS cure has partly centered on techniques to eradicate infected cells. Now, new research from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, as well as having the University of Pennsylvania among the U.S., indicates this process may not be crucial for an effective cure. Inside a study concentrating on a subset of HIV-positive folks who can accept the herpes virus without treatment, the researchers showed that these people’s lymphocytes suppress the virus but do not ruin infected cells.

AIDS is a persistent global health issue with no existing vaccine or cure. HIV infection typically results in a loss of CD4 T cells, a sort of white blood cell that, alongside the CD8 T cells, attacks and destroys viruses. The fewer CD4 T cells a person has, the more serious will be the symptoms. But fewer than 1 percent of HIV-positive individuals have stable CD4 T cell counts and undetectable HIV viremia, and therefore are thus in a position to live with herpes without therapy. This particular group, often known as elite controllers, has more beneficial CD8 T cells—the cells that ruin viruses—than most HIV-positive people.

Within this study, published in Science Translational Medicine, the researchers desired to find out nonetheless the CD8 T cells of elite controllers maintain HIV from replicating and getting ready for AIDS. They collected blood samples and lymph node tissue biopsies associated with a total of 51 HIV-positive individuals, including 12 elite controllers, from three sites inside the U.S. and Mexico.

Using single-cell RNA sequencing analyses, a way designed to study individual cells, the scientists revealed that elite controllers had more HIV-specific CD8 T cells in their lymphoid tissue when compared to the others, all that such technology was so-called non-cytolytic cells, meaning they didn’t kill off infected cells. Instead, these CD8 T cells of elite controllers managed to have a distinct transcriptional profile. They were able to suppress HIV replication through an enhanced ribosomal function, meaning they had been better at translating proteins from amino acids. This generated the production of more plus a more significant number of cytokines, small protein compounds that are important in cell communication, and boosted the cells’ polyfunctionality.

“The findings go against the paradigm of HIV control that focuses on destroying infected cells to identify a cure,” says Marcus Buggert, assistant professor along at the Department of drugs, Huddinge, at Karolinska Institutet. “While these strategies might still work, our research supports a model wherein viral suppression as an alternative to viral eradication can function as an effective cure.”

Author’s resource box:

Researchers support new strategies for HIV control, https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-12-strategies-hiv.html

disease, Health

CDC Report: Drug Costs Linking to Nonadherence in People With HIV

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As stated by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Americans pay 14% of their prescription drug costs away from pocket each year, as well as having the United States spends more per capita on pharmaceuticals compared to any high-income country in the world. High expenses help contribute to some magnitude of nonadherence among patients generally. Little information exists about the impact of financial barriers on adherence for those living with HIV specifically.

A study presented in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report indicates from 2016 to 17, 14% of individuals coping with HIV have used a drug-cost saving strategy, and 7% have found cost saving-related nonadherence.

The CDC’s Medical Monitoring Project analyzed national representative surveillance data on medical care, behaviors, and clinical outcomes among adults with HIV infection. Data were collected through medical record abstraction and also in-person and telephone interviews between June 2016-May 2017. Investigators weighted data for unequal selection probabilities and nonresponse.

Assembling data from 3948 people taking pharmaceuticals, the prevalence of prescription drug cost-saving strategies among those existing with HIV was estimated overall and with sociodemographic characteristics. Investigators also assessed differences in clinical outcomes between those that did and did not need cost-saving related nonadherence.

Questions pertained to 6 different kinds of cost-saving strategies. Patients reported whether they had asked a clinician for getting a lower-cost medication, used alternative therapies, bought over-the-counter drugs from another country, skipped doses, taken less medication, or delayed filling a prescription owing to cost. Those interviewed were asked concerning over-the-counter drugs, not solely antiretrovirals.

Cost-saving nonadherence was qualified by having used the cost-saving strategies of skipping doses, taking less medication, or delaying a prescription as a consequence of cost.

Care engagement and viral suppression were abstracted from medical records. Individuals interviewed were also asked if they needed but had not received medication beginning with the Ryan White AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) to enquire unmet needs.

Considering the approximately 14% of USA citizens with HIV who had used a medication cost-saving strategy, 4% had skipped doses, 4% took less medicine, and 6% had delayed a prescription. Within the categories found with him not considered directly nonadherent, 9% had asked clinicians for lower-cost medicine, 1% had bought medication from another country, and 2% used alternative medicine.

Household income above the poverty line was associated with nonadherence simply because of prescription drug costs, with 8.3% reporting nonadherence above the poverty line ($12,490 since 2019), concerning 5.3% below the poverty line.

“Persons with incomes above the poverty level might not apply for the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program as well as assistance programs which can reduce medication costs,” the authors of one’s report wrote.

Those that reported unmet requirement for medication through ADAP were around five times in a better position to be nonadherent as a consequence of cost than individuals who received ADAP.

People existing with HIV who reported cost-saving related nonadherence were more unlikely to get virally suppressed over at their newest viral load test (64%) than individuals that didn’t report cost-saving related nonadherence (76%). Nonadherence related to drug cost was also associated with lower HIV care engagement rates and even more emergency department visits.

The more occurrence of costly hospitalizations and lower viral suppression rates (increasing likelihood of HIV transmission) among those who were nonadherent due to prescription drug costs demonstrate that cost-related nonadherence presents a broad social need with most stakeholders.

Inside a recent interview concerning upcoming long-acting antiretroviral therapies, Carlos del Rio, MD, FIDSA, Co-director for the Emory Center for AIDS research, claimed that clinicians must take cost seriously when treating HIV.

Author Resource Box:

CDC Report: Drug Costs Leading to Nonadherence in People …. https://www.contagionlive.com/news/cdc-report-drug-costs-leading-to-nonadherence-in-people-with-hiv

Politics

Did Trump Propose SSI Changes That Could End Disability Benefits for Thousands?

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Of the year 2019, readers asked us about reports that claimed the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump had proposed changes to how Social Security disability payments are created, which may cause thousands, even hundreds upon hundred, to burn their benefits.

On Dec. 12, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Chicago Tribune posted a post with the headline “Trump Administration Proposes Social Security Rule Changes That Could Cut Off Thousands of Disabled Recipients.” Your article reported that: “The Trump administration proposed changes to Social Security. The change could terminate disability payments to hundreds of thousands of Americans, particularly older people and little ones. The new rule would change how the government review disability applicants cases. The methods  the Social Security Administration determines whether a person continues to be eligible for benefits. Few recipients are aware of one’s proposal, which happens to be open for public comment through January.”

The left-leaning website Common Dreams published an editorial considering the headline “‘ A National Disgrace’: Trump Proposes Social Security Change That Could End Disability Benefits for Hundreds upon hundreds.'” That story reported: “Activists are performing to improve public awareness concerning  Trump administration to save disability benefits from hundreds of thousands of individuals by further complicating the way the Social Security Administration determines who qualifies for payments.”

Author Resource Box:

Did Trump Propose SSI Changes That Could End Disability Benefits for Thousands?

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-social-security-benefits