Wellnews: All the news that's fit
By Scott LaFee
August 29, 2006

Tears of boy (and girl)
Adults tend to remember childhood as an idyllic, happy time.
They're kidding themselves.
Various studies suggest as much as one-quarter of all children spend
more time feeling unhappy than happy. The National Institutes of
Mental Health estimates that up to 8.3 percent of American
adolescents suffer from depression.
Often, experts say, parents either are unaware of their child's
unhappiness or they have no idea how to improve the situation. In a
new book, "The Unhappy Child," child psychologist Kenneth Condrell
outlines the 10 most common causes of childhood unhappiness,
identifies revealing signs and suggests solutions.
The 10 primary causes:
  1. Mismanaged divorces
  2. Depressed parents
  3. Children who feel like failures
  4. Peer rejection and cruelty
  5. Quarreling parents
  6. Parental favoritism
  7. Permissive parenting
  8. Dysfunctional stepfamilies
  9. Sibling abuse
 10. Parents who are chronically angry

Body of knowledge
The longest coma from which a person has emerged is 37 years.

Get me that. Stat!
In the United States, more than 50 billion aspirin tablets are
consumed annually, according to A.S. Harding in "Milestones in
Health and Medicine."

Stories for the waiting room
Sometimes ancient folk remedies worked, sometimes they just make
amusing reading:
Eating lettuce or placing a goat's horn under a pillow eased
insomnia.
Rubbing a person with a live pig cured epilepsy.
Wearing a ring of lead mixed with mercury prevented headaches.
Anxiety caused by bad dreams was reduced by recounting those dreams
to the sun.
Rubbing baby teeth with rabbit brains prevented tooth decay.
Sources: "Folk-medicine" by W.G. Black (1970); "Potions, Remedies
and Old Wives' Tales" by W.W. Bauer (1969)

Phobia of the week
Pteronophobia - fear of feathers

Best medicine
Just asking: When a doctor himself needs doctoring so that another
doctor doctors the doctor, does the doctor doing the doctoring
doctor the doctor the way the doctor being doctored wants to be
doctored, or does the doctor doing the doctoring of the doctor being
doctored doctor as he wants to doctor?

Last words
Shortly before his death in 1981, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer
William Saroyan telephoned his last words to The Associated Press:
"Everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an exception
would be made in my case. Now what?"

Observation
In a sense, they've helped create the disease.
- Marvin Lipman, chief medical adviser for Consumers Union, blaming
insomnia drug advertising for a 50 percent increase in the use of
prescription sleeping pills in the United States since 2001.

CALENDAR

Fibromyalgia: The Arthritis Foundation and Sharp Cabrillo's Senior
Resource Center will sponsor a lecture on fibromyalgia from 11 a.m.
to noon Sept. 14 at St. Peter's by the Sea Lutheran Church, 1371
Sunset Cliffs Blvd., San Diego.  Free. Registration: (800) 827-4277.

WALK OFF THE BLUES
A simple 30-minute walk can give a temporary lift from major
depression, a University of Texas study says. Forty men and women
who were diagnosed with major depression either walked on a
treadmill or rested in a comfy chair. After a half-hour, only the
exercisers said they felt good. The walkers reported an 85 percent
boost in vigor and a 40 percent improvement in well-being that
lasted about an hour.

A SWEET SOLUTION
Why are kids and sugar such good friends? When children eat
something sweet, their bodies release endorphins that help fight
aches, according to researchers at Philadelphia's Monell Chemical
Senses Center.  Kids who love sweets the most seem to have the
strongest response.  Don't count on candy to reduce Mom and Dad's
pain. It starts losing its pain-fighting power in late adolescence.

NEWS & NOTES
Waist-to-hip ratio key

August 29, 2006
Having a high body-mass index increases the risk of disease. But in
people over 75, the proportion of height-to-weight appears to be
less important than the waist-to-hip ratio as a predictor of
mortality, British researchers report.
They recorded the height, weight, waist and hip measurements of
15,000 people over 75 and then followed for six years.
After adjusting for other factors, they found that a high body-mass
index, or BMI, was not associated with death. In fact, men with a
BMI below 23 and women below 22.3 were the most likely to die.
In the older group, a high waist-to-hip ratio – waist measurement
divided by hip measurement – was a more accurate predictor of
disease risk. Those with the highest waist-to-hip ratio (closer to
1) were 40 percent more likely to die from cardiovascular disease
than those with the lowest (about 0.8). The study was in the August
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

High pitch less effective
The high-pitched signal typically used in smoke alarms may not wake
older adults, according to a Fire Protection Research Foundation
study.
Household smoke alarms reduce the chances of dying in a fire by up
to 50 percent whenworking properly. However, studies have shown that
the elderly do not fully benefit from smoke alarms, particularly
when they are asleep.
The study investigated arousal from sleep in 42 adults ages 65 to 85
years in response to various signals, including the high-frequency
signal used in most U.S. smoke alarms, a mixed-frequency signal, and
a male voice saying "Danger, Fire, Wake Up."
The high-pitched smoke alarm signal was least likely to wake the
subjects, the study team reports. The male voice also performed
poorly. The mixed signal was most effective in waking sleeping
elderly.

Runners: Thirst is guide
How much fluid should a marathon runner drink while racing? The best
approach is to replace fluids in response to thirst, experts from
the International Marathon Medical Directors Association say.
"Athletes should learn to trust the sensation of thirst, rather than
adhere to rigid guidelines that do not allow for the flexibility
that is needed in a dynamic race situation," researchers from the
University of Cape Town in South Africa said in the Clinical Journal
of Sports Medicine

PRODUCT WATCH
Be cautious with noni as a dietary supplement

By Jodi Mailander Farrell
MCT NEWS SERVICE
August 29, 2006

PRODUCT: Tahiti Trader Power Noni dietary supplement, 32 fluid
ounces, $33.50.
KEY INGREDIENTS: Organic extract from a tropical fruit known as
noni, as well as other fruit extracts, including wild blueberry and
raspberry seed.
THE PITCH: The antioxidant-rich liquid helps boost your immune
system, protect your heart and cardiovascular system, and slow the
aging process, among other claims.
HOW IT WORKS: Ralph M. Heinicke, a retired biochemist, claims that
noni contains a compound called proxeronine that converts to
xeronine, which can regenerate and repair cells to slow aging and
treat depression, senility, drug addiction and pain. Others claim
that scopoletin, another component of noni juice, binds with
serotonin, helping modify sleep, hunger and mood.
PROS: Most evidence for noni's healing powers comes from lab and
animal studies, in which compounds from the fruit kill bacteria and
viruses, mitigate pain and lengthen the lives of mice with cancer.
In a small study published in the Journal of Alternative and
Complementary Medicine in 2004, University of Illinois researchers
concluded that noni shows a hint of promise for improving hearing
loss in postmenopausal women.
CONS: The compounds that Heinicke attributes to noni are not found
in medical literature. Lacking human studies, much of mainstream
medicine remains skeptical of this product. The stinky brown liquid
is hard to stomach. It's generally considered safe, but it's high in
sugar and potassium, a potential problem for people with diabetes or
kidney problems. Some people reportedly suffered liver damage after
drinking the juice.
BOTTOM LINE: More research is needed. Be careful and conservative in
using this product.

... Just when I think Tom_Tom has said the
... stupidest thing, he writes more.