A new study is showing that environmental toxins are leading to premature aging.
The study says a class of environmental toxins called gerontogens put humans at risk for accelerated again. The toxins can be found in a wide range of items from second-hand cigarette smoke to UV rays and chemotherapy.
“Genetic studies have taught us only 30 percent of aging is genetic, meaning the other 70 percent comes from the environment,” Dr. Norman Sharpless told Fox News. “Having a few [of these cells] is not a big deal. But over the course of a lifetime, as they accumulate, they [contribute to] aging and many of the diseases we associate with aging.”
The study, published in Trends in Molecular Medicine, has allowed the doctors to create a test for substances to see their impact on aging. The aging process begins when the body undergoes a process called senescence where healthy cells are damaged and are no longer able to divide. The test will expose cells to substances until they cause the senescence process.
“Our work reasonably says cigarette smoking is the thing we could really do something about that would benefit the aging biology of a large number of people,” Dr. Sharpless said. “But we’re also reasonably certain there are other gerontogens we don’t know about yet.”
The Centers for Disease Control has confirmed the deadly MERS virus has reached the United States.
The patient was found in Indiana. He had traveled from Saudi Arabia to London and then to Chicago where he entered the country through O’Hare International Airport. The male patient reportedly went to the hospital for treatment after experiencing shortness of breath on April 28th.
“The CDC, IDPH and CDPH do not consider passengers on the flight or bus to be close contacts of the patient and therefore are not at high risk,” CDC Director Dr. LaMar Hasbrouk said in a news release.
The U.S. now the 14th nation in the world to have reported cases of the killer virus.
The CDC is trying to assuage any fears among the public of an outbreak of the virus.
“It is understandable that some may be concerned about this situation, but this first U.S. case of MERS-CoV infection represents a very low risk to the general public,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat, assistant surgeon general and director of CDC’s National Center for Immunizations and Respiratory Diseases.
The CDC has not yet issued a travel health warning for Saudi Arabia as Egypt has recently done because of the MERS outbreak.
Many people have been complaining this extended winter about colds that will not go away or colds that seem to go away but come back stronger within a week or two.
However, doctors say that it’s not that colds are leaving and coming back. It’s that colds can take longer to overcome and that because of so many different viruses that cause colds, it’s possible to get two different cold viruses back-to-back.
The common cold can last up to two weeks for the initial symptoms and the coughing that goes with it could last for weeks after the virus had been cleared from the body.
In the case of someone getting consecutive colds, some doctors believe that because the body’s immune system is weakened from dealing with one cold it leaves the body open to a different strain of cold virus. There are more than 200 known viruses that can cause the common cold.
The average adult gets 2 to 5 colds per year, children can have between 7 and 10. In the U.S. every year, about one billion Americans will get a cold.
A new study from the University of Pennsylvania is showing that ignoring sleep for work or other activities can do more than just make you feel tired: it can actually kill brain cells.
This is the first sleep study showing permanent brain damage from lack of sleep. Previous studies had only shown a drop in cognitive abilities, strength and focus without focusing on long term damage.
Dr. Sigrid Veasey, the study’s author, said that neuroscientists knew certain neurons in the brain that did not sleep as long as the person was awake. They focused on those cells because they believed fatigue in those cells impacted long-term brain health.
“This gave us an indication that maybe [the cells] needed their rest,” she says. “We hypothesized that the cells that were going to be the most likely to get injured would be some of the cells that are active during wakefulness.”
The study showed a loss of as much as 30 percent of neurons in the studied group that was kept sleepless for the longest period of time.
“You can push the system a little bit, but you can’t push it too hard and for too long or you’ll have irreversible consequences,” she says.
I have shared on the show how I am dealing with the fallout of some wild and crazy years when I was younger. This situation I now face with my health is requiring treatment that makes me physically ill – but will, in the long run, rid my body of this condition that is trespassing on God’s temple!
If you have watched our show, you know that Jim and I are not “religious” about the things of God, and we don’t put God in a box based on a certain way of thinking. That’s why we’re okay with however God chooses to deal with this affliction. God could heal me in a split second, but if He chooses the medicinal route, who am I to question His wisdom? He knows best in all things, and I trust Him with every aspect of my life, both now and forever.
I have always loved and trusted God, even in the crazy years. I know that sounds weird, but it’s true. God never left me, though I left Him for a season. He never stopped wooing me back, and He never stopped showing me that the path I was on was not what He intended for me. The prayers of my Mother and others came before the Lord constantly. Continue reading →
Naval troops who rushed to Japan to help following the meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plant are now reporting multiple health issues including losing the ability to walk.
Lt. Steve Simmons, a first responder who served on the USS Ronald Reagan, was among the first troops to arrive as part of Operation Tomodachi. The ship rushed into the disaster zone but was not told they were in the middle of a massive radiation plume released from the meltdown of the plant.
Simmons returned from his deployment and began to experience deterioration of his health. Seven months after returning home, he was no longer able to walk.
Simmons and over 100 other soldiers are now suing Tokyo Electric Power Company, who operate the plant, saying they never told their government nor the U.S. government of the massive radiation release into the ocean and that rescue ships were sitting in the middle of it.
Congressional officials are now getting involved, asking the Department of Defense about the medical conditions of troops aboard the Ronald Reagan and what the DoD is doing to help them.
I’ve talked quite a bit about being a Baby Boomer and the phenomenon surrounding that mega-group of people born between 1946 and 1964. Baby Boomers have a unique set of challenges, some brought on by choice, and others a result of chance.
One of the challenges of a country with so many Baby Boomers is how to provide health care for this aging demographic because the generation before and the generations after were simply not as large. We thought we had the problem figured out with Social Security and Medicare but now we are finding that these social programs will have trouble keeping up with the demand for caring for an aging mega-group such as the Baby Boomers, particularly as this group lives longer.
But the problem of health care for the Boomers is only one issue they (we) are facing. Since many of the Boomers were encouraged by society to wait longer for marriage and family, or it just happened that way, some are still raising children and sometimes grandchildren while they also care for aging parents, a.k.a The Sandwich Generation. They are the ones in the middle with all the pressure! Continue reading →
Doctors are telling people who sit at work all day to stand up and walk around the office because sitting for extended periods is as bad for your health as smoking.
Dr. Max Gomez of CBS New York reports the “couch-potato” lifestyle of Americans is resulting in deaths at the same rate as the known health threat.
Dr. Gomez is not alone.
“Smoking certainly is a major cardiovascular risk factor, and sitting can be equivalent in many cases,” Dr. David Coven, a cardiologist at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, told CBS. “The fact of being sedentary causes factors to happen in the body that are very detrimental.”
Doctors say that you don’t necessarily need to do a 30-minute workout in a gym each day to fight the issues that come with a job requiring you to sit for long periods. Even walking for 10 minutes at a time three times a day will help improve your health quality.
The key, doctors say, is to undertake activities that get your blood flowing to keep plaque from being able to deposit in arteries.
There is a lot of pressure in the responsibility for a Christian television show seen daily by millions. Occasionally, that pressure can be overwhelming, especially when you’re sick! Most people that saw the show in December and now in January had no idea that I was very sick when we filmed most of them. But, as they say in Hollywood, “the show must go on.” So, it did.
The only way I was able to continue to meet the demands of our taping schedule, was by giving my body everything it needed to help me through the sickness – and, of course, by the prayers of the saints. I added action to faith and the Lord saw me through it.
If it were not for all the nutritional products that God has brought into our lives and that we offer all of you, I would not have made it in December when I was so very sick – or any other time, for that matter. We ‘practice what we preach’ when it comes to the things we offer and you can be sure that I used every single thing I could to give me the strength I needed to get through the days. Continue reading →
A former Israeli Prime Minister who is one of the nation’s most revered generals is reported to be near death.
A spokesman for Sheba Hospital in Tel Hashomer said Ariel Sharon has shown a significant decline in health during recent days. The family has been called to his bedside with doctors estimating less than a week to live for the Israeli hero.
Sharon has been in a coma since a major stroke in 2006.
Sharon, called “the Bulldozer” by his political opponents, was known as a man who found a way to get things done during his time in Israeli leadership. He was Defense Minister during the nation’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon. He was elected Prime Minister in 2001 and was on the way to massive landslide re-election when he was felled by a stroke in January 2006.
His deputy, Ehud Olmert, was elected Prime Minister a few months after Sharon’s illness.
Israeli leaders have called for prayers for Sharon and his family.
