Testing It Up

A new study found that diabetes affects more than just one’s physical health. It also impacts one’s emotional health, and the emotional roller coaster ride can affect diabetes management. It’s like a vicious cycle really.

Joe Solowiejczyk, a certified diabetes educator and a manager of diabetes counseling and training at the Johnson & Johnson Diabetes Institute in Milpitas, California, shared: “Diabetes gives you so much to worry about that it’s exhausting. It can make you feel powerless. I think it’s important to acknowledge that, from time to time, you’re going to have a meltdown. You’re going to have days when you feel exasperated, frustrated, sad, in denial and physically exhausted.”

It has previously been discovered that long periods of high blood-sugar levels in people with type 1 diabetes can trigger production of a hormone linked to depression. Uncontrolled diabetes may also worsen depression.

Hypoglycemia or low blood-sugar levels, which happen when someone has taken too much insulin or hasn’t eaten enough food, may cause irritability and agression. Hyperglycemia or high blood-sugar levels, on the other hand,
can make one feel weird, grouchy and uncomfortable.

Solowiejczyk explained “that the brain operates totally on glucose. When you don’t have enough glucose, things start breaking down and your cognitive function doesn’t work that well. This is a physiological, not an emotional, response.”

He added that managing emotions is important and people should be talking to their doctors or therapists about such mood changes. Diabetes is hard, and all of those feelings come along with the disease. But if you’re [irritable] and angry or if you’re sad all the time, you’re not going to take care of yourself.”

For people with drinking problems who want to cut down on their drinking, an extract from the Chinese herb kudzu may be of help.

David Penetar, PhD, lead author of the study from the Behavioral Psychopharmacology Research Laboratory at McLean Hospital, said they have found evidence that certain components in kudzu can actually reduce alcohol consumption without side effects.

Dr. Penetar said: “It didn’t stop the drinking. They still drank, but they drank less.”

The study published in the current issue of Drug and Alcohol Dependence by McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School researchers studied isoflavone puerarin in kudzu. Puerarin has a previously established safety and efficacy in humans.

Those who took the herbal treatment took more sips to finish a beer, took longer to down it, and reduced their sip size. This resulted to actually drinking less.

While the researchers do not exactly how kudzu reduces alcohol consumption, prompting the need for further research, Dr. Penetar said: “We suspect it may work because it increases blood flow. It may deliver alcohol to the brain’s reward center faster. So you get an effect sooner. Therefore, you don’t drink as much.”

The study was funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

An FDA advisory panel has unanimously approved a home testing kit for HIV. The approval represents a step towards having these tests in American homes, and providing people with the opportunity to take an HIV test in the convenience and privacy of their own home.

The AIDS community is hopeful about the test. The ability to test oneself for HIV at home, which will be provided by OraQuick HIV-test, is key to the fight against AIDS, as a lot of people prefer not to be tested in public.

Dr. Donna Sweet of the University of Kansas (KU) Medical Center, shared: “You can take the saliva and put it in the tube and within 20 minutes it will tell you whether there is a positive… It is the stigma, it is the concern that if you say hey, give me a test that the provider, the doctor may think you did something bad.”

Dr. Sweet shared further that of the estimated 1.2 million people in the U.S. who have AIDS, about 22 percent do not know that they have the disease. And Dr. Sweet said that “it is that group of people that are responsible for about two thirds of the new infections.”

While awareness is important and having an at-home HIV test kit will allow more people to get tested, its accuracy is not guaranteed, and Dr. Sweet is concerned that some people may receive false messages, as testing too soon may produce false positives or negatives. It is important, therefore, for a follow-up test to be conducted six weeks later.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that all baby boomers undergo testing for hepatitis C, in an announcement given on Friday.

The recommendation was made by the CDC in an effort to find hundreds of thousands of people who have the infection but do not know it. Having hepatitis C increases one’s risk of developing cirrhosis and liver cancer.

Infection by the hepatitis C virus may occur through intravenous drug use or blood transfusions. Even small amounts of the virus may cause an infection. Some experts believe that rolled-up dollar bills used to snort cocaine and passed around from one person to another can carry enough infected blood to spread the virus.

John Ward, head of the division of viral hepatitis at the CDC, shared: “Many baby boomers may not even remember the behaviors that put them at risk.”

An estimated 3.2 million Americans may be infected with the hepatitis C virus, according to epidemiologists, and 75 percent of them are baby boomers.

The baby boomers have been identified for the simple reason that they are the population group with the largest number of undetected cases of infection.

The CDC is calling for a one-time voluntary blood test for everyone born from 1945 to 1965. The test will be part of routine medical care, and conducted by doctors, clinics and hospitals. This strategy may lead to the identification of 800,000 new cases of hepatitis C infection in baby boomers, and the prevention of 120,000 deaths related to hepatitis C among baby boomers.

The woman behind the iconic voice that ushered in that era of music known as disco has died.

Donna Summer died on Thursday at her home in Naples, Florida, after a long battle with lung cancer that is not related to smoking. She was born LaDonna Andrea Gaines on New Year’s Eve, 1948, in Boston, and sang in a psychedelic rock band called Crow in the late 1960s.

She went to New York at the age of 18, and landed a role in a touring production of the Broadway show “Hair.” She spent the next three years touring in Europe, and it was during this period that she met and married singer Helmuth Sommer. The disco icon then took a variation of Sommer’s last name for her stage name.

While in Europe, she also met Italian producer Giorgio Moroder, and together with lyricist Pete Bollette, they came up with a number that now has a permanent place in music history: “Love to Love You Baby.” The original number was 17 minutes long, and a shortened version of it was released in 1975; it peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard singles chart.

In an interview with The Times in 1976, Summer shared: “Those groans and moans were the hardest things I ever had to record… At first I couldn’t play the song at home because I couldn’t cope with hearing myself groan. It made me very uneasy that I was making something public out of feelings and sounds that should be private.”

Donna Summer was 63.

A Supreme Court Justice is joining advocates in pushing for the passage of a medical marijuana law in New York – and talked about how he has been turning to marijuana for relief from suffering brought about by pancreatic cancer.

Supreme Court Justice Gustin Reichbach admitted to smoking pot illegally, in order to alleviate the side effects of treatment for pancreatic cancer. In an op-ed in The New York Times, Judge Reichbach wrote: “Inhaled marijuana is the only medicine that gives me some relief from nausea, stimulates my appetite, and makes it easier to fall asleep… It is barbaric to deny [cancer patients] access to one substance that has proved to ameliorate our suffering.”

The 65-year old judge was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer three and a half years ago, and was given only a few months to live by doctors. His life expectancy has been prolonged by a regimen of treatments, although these came at a steep price: “My survival has demanded an enormous price, including months of chemotherapy, radiation hell and brutal surgery.”

Reichbach, who routinely hears criminal cases involving illegal possession of drugs, shared that he smokes pot before dinner, and before going to bed; friends provide him with the marijuana, he said.

Judge Reichbach’s confession, however, may jeopardize his standing as a judge, and his confession has been described by a court official as “extremely unusual.” An inquiry may be conducted by the state’s Commission on Judicial Conduct, and Reichbach may be cautioned, admonished, censured, or removed.

Hurray for all those who love their cup of joe: a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine determined that coffee lovers may live longer.

Based on the results of the study, coffee drinkers are less likely to die from such health conditions as heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, as well as accidents and infections, when compared against those who do not drink coffee.

The research consisted of an observational study from data provided by 400,000 adults, aged 50 to 71. Researchers from the National Cancer Institute found that those who drank three or more cups of coffee per day had 10 percent lower risk of death, when compared to non-coffee drinkers.

Neal Freedman, an investigator in the division of cancer epidemiology and genetics at the National Cancer Institute, and lead author of the study, shared: “Coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages in America, but the association between coffee consumption and risk of death has been unclear… We found coffee consumption to be associated with lower risk of death overall, and of death from a number of different causes… although we cannot infer a causal relationship between coffee drinking and lower risk of death, we believe these results do provide some reassurance that coffee drinking does not adversely affect health.”

The ingredient that coffee is most known for – caffeine – may not be the main factor that brought about the results of the study, as similar health results were observed in people who drank caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has lowered the minimum threshold for lead poisoning for children younger than 6.

The CDC has defined lead poisoning as five micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood, which is half of what the minimum threshold used to be. The move is a reflection of growing research that suggests that even small traces of lead in the bloodstream may lead to lower IQ and stunted brain development.

For young children, the effects of lead in the blood stream, even at lower levels, may lead to stomach aches, irritability, or hyperactivity, and despite the fact that the effects are more subtle, they are just as harmful.

The changes were announced by the CDC through their website, following recommendations made by an advisory panel last January.

In its report, the CDC said: “The proposed methods to address recommendations are contingent on the availability of resources. In FY 2012, funding for CDC’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention activities was reduced significantly from FY 2011. As a result, funding is not available for state and local Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Programs (CLPPPs). In many instances, these reductions limit CDC’s ability to fully implement many of these recommendations in the short term.”

Officials believe that an estimated 77,000 to 255,000 children have high levels of lead, although it may be difficult to determine the exact figure as there are quite a number of cases that remain undiagnosed. With the new standards, this statistic may shoot up to as much as 450,000.

The first over-the-counter HIV test has been recommended for approval by a panel of experts, and may soon find its way into American homes.

Seventeen members of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel voted unanimously that the benefits of the OraQuick HIV-test outweigh the potential risks. The final decision as to whether the product will be approved by the FDA will be made later this year.

Users of the test will collect specimen using a mouth swab, and will return a result within 20 minutes. It does not, however, appear to be as accurate as professionally-administered diagnostics.

The Bethlehem, Pennsylvania-based Orasure has marketed a version of OraQuick to doctors, nurses, and other health care practitioners since 2004. The test is said to have the ability to identify both carriers and non-carriers 99 percent of the time.

Trials conducted by the company showed that OraQuick could correctly detect HIV among those who are carrying the virus 93 percent of the time. Based on FDA estimates, if approved, the test may miss around 3,800 HIV-positive people per year, while identifying 45,000.

That may translate to the prevention of 4,000 new HIV transmissions annually, although the statistics will depend on the number of people who will purchase and use the test.

Tom Donohue, founder of HIV awareness group Who’s Positive, shared: “Over-the-counter testing has the potential to reach a far greater number of people who want to know their HIV status on their own terms.”

A recent study provides evidence that smoking pot will help alleviate symptoms associated with multiple sclerosis.

A new critical trial indicates that smoking marijuana helps relieve painful muscle cramping experienced by people with multiple sclerosis. The study, which was published on Monday, determined that 30 MS patients with muscle “spasticity” experienced relief after a few days of marijuana smoking.

Researchers warned, however, that the study did not evaluate whether the benefits derived from smoking pot outweigh the disadvantages.

Dr. Jody Corey-Bloom of  the University of California – San Diego, lead researcher of the new study, shared: “We’ve heard from patients that marijuana helps their spasticity, but I think a lot us thought, ‘Well, it’s probably just making you feel good… I think this study shows that yes, (marijuana) may help with spasticity, but at a cost.”

The cost that Dr. Corey-Bloom is referring to, as determined by her and her team, is that smoking may cause fatigue and dizziness in some users, and generally slowed down people’s skills soon after using marijuana.

Corey-Bloom shared further that it is not clear whether marijuana use would have long-term consequences.

Nicholas LaRocca, vice president of healthcare delivery and policy research at the National MS Society, shared: “The issue of treating spasticity is certainly an important one… Spasticity is a big problem for many people with MS, and the current medications don’t necessarily work for everyone. But smoking marijuana does not appear to be a long-term solution, because of the cognitive effects.” LaRocca was not involved in the study.