HEALTH
February 23, 2009 | Chris Woolston
Humans are light-sensitive beings. Whether it comes from the sun, a laser or a fluorescent bulb, light can affect our bodies and minds in ways that scientists are just beginning to understand. If you believe actor Robert Wagner, a little light can banish pain. Wagner is the television pitchman for Light Relief, a hand-held device equipped with 59 light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that flicker with pulses of blue, red and infrared light. The device also has four heat settings.
SCIENCE
January 27, 2010 | By Shari Roan
People with atrial fibrillation, a common type of irregular heartbeat, should be referred for a surgical treatment called catheter ablation if an oral medication is not effective, said the authors of a study released Tuesday. In a head-to-head comparison of the two forms of treatment, catheter ablation was so superior in resolving the disorder and helping patients to feel better that the study was halted early. The results will be published today in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.
HEALTH
March 16, 2009 | Elena Conis
Teas from across the globe are becoming more and more popular in the U.S. One relative newcomer, yerba mate, is attracting fans for its allegedly jitter-free caffeine boost and high antioxidant content. Lab research suggests some potential health benefits from drinking yerba mate, but studies of lifelong yerba mate drinkers in the tea's native South America suggest the brew increases the risk of some cancers -- a fact most marketing campaigns omit.
HEALTH
February 1, 2010
A low-carb diet may be better for lowering blood pressure than taking an over-the-counter weight loss medication and sticking to a low-fat diet. Researchers placed participants in two groups. One set consisted of 57 people who ate a low-carbohydrate diet and were allowed to consume unlimited amounts of meat and eggs. The other set consisted of 65 people who limited their daily fat intake to 30% or less of their total calories and restricted their consumption of saturated fat and cholesterol.
HEALTH
February 1, 2010 | Joe Graedon, Teresa Graedon, The People's Pharmacy
What is a safe home remedy for severe night sweats and hot flashes? I am burning up. There are enough alternatives that you should be able to tailor something that will work for you. Keep your bedroom cool. Exercise regularly: Research shows that active women have less trouble with hot flashes. Herbal products such as Pycnogenol (pine bark extract), Remifemin (black cohosh extract) or St. John's wort (hypericum extract) may help (Menopause, February). :: I take atenolol for high blood pressure.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
September 28, 2007 | Janet Wilson, Times Staff Writer
The California Air Resources Board on Thursday banned popular in-home ozone air purifiers, saying studies have found that they can worsen conditions such as asthma that marketers claim they help to prevent. The regulation, which the board said is the first of its kind in the nation, will require testing and certification of all types of air purifiers. Any that emit more than a tiny amount of ozone will have to be pulled from the California market.
HEALTH
June 13, 2005 | Judy Foreman, Special to The Times
Even as millions of American women go undiagnosed -- and untreated -- for osteoporosis, a serious condition that can lead to devastating fractures, millions of others are trying to prevent broken bones they might never get. Diagnosed with a milder form of bone loss called osteopenia, which is not truly a disease, they take medication that might not be necessary.
HEALTH
March 30, 2009 | Judy Foreman
Manny Hamelburg, 68, a retired businessman, had fought prostate cancer for years. First, he tried radiation, then a drug with side effects that nearly killed him, and finally Lupron, a drug that blocks production of testosterone, the hormone that can fuel prostate cancer. The cancer disappeared. But life was miserable. Without normal levels of testosterone, Hamelburg says, he had no energy, and "zero libido for seven years. I was like a eunuch. I was chemically castrated. Sex was just hugs."
HEALTH
January 18, 2010 | Roy Wallack, Gear
"Oh, you mean the guy with the 70-year-old head and the 20-year-old body-builder body? That picture has got to be Photoshopped." Dr. Jeffry Life smiles when I tell him about the general reaction I get about the famous picture of him with his shirt off, the shot that turned a mild-mannered doctor in his mid-60s into a poster boy for super-fit aging and controversial hormone replacement Appearing in medical-clinic ads in airline magazines and...
HEALTH
January 11, 2010
Fitness stores sell a variety of spinal decompression/traction devices -- inversion tables and ankle boots that hang you upside down and stretch out your back -- on the promise that they help relieve back pain, enhance general back fitness, provide deep relaxation and maybe even slow age-related height shrinkage. The last, after all, is partially caused by the flattening and dehydration of the soft disks that separate your vertebrae. Salespeople say that running, lifting weights, carrying excess pounds, even the simple act of sitting in a chair all day can exaggerate the compressive force of gravity on the disks, which tend to shrink as much as a half-inch during the day and, like sponges, rehydrate during sleep.