- Author: Health Informer
- Filed under: Health News
- Date: Oct 30,2010
Blood Donors, Blood Drives Aid Cancer Patients
November is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month and Lung Cancer Awareness Month, and New York Blood Center (NYBC) serving more than 20 million people in New York City, Long Island, the Hudson Valley, New Jersey, and parts of Connecticut and Pennsylvania, calls upon our communities to please join the fight against cancer by donating blood. Healthy people of all blood types and ethnicities are encouraged to donate and help save lives. Blood donations are particularly needed from O-negative, B-negative and A-negative types.
About one in seven people entering a hospital needs blood.
Hospital use of blood products has increased due to surgeries, injuries and care of cancer patients. Cancer patients may require frequent blood transfusions because treatment often destroys healthy blood cells along with the cancer cells. Thus, in cancer patients, red blood cell transfusions to fight anemia and platelet transfusions to control bleeding are often needed.
Lung cancer is the second most common cancer in both men and women, and by far the leading cause of cancer death in the United States. It is estimated that 116,750 men and 105,770 women will be diagnosed with lung cancer this year.
Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the United States. Because it is usually diagnosed at an advanced stage, the survival rate is poor compared with that of other types of cancer. It is estimated that 21,370 men and 21,770 women will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer this year. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tips to make sure your children are safe while Trick or Treating!
With Halloween right around the corner it is important for every parent to know what dangers are present and how to keep their kids safe. Several organizations have established different safety tips this Halloween season and Doctor’s ValuVision is focusing on the importance of vision safety when selecting the perfect costume.
Vision safety includes being able to see and be seen by others as well as ensuring that no part of your child’s Halloween costume could potentially harm their vision in the future. Parents should avoid allowing children to wear masks as they not only impair eyesight but also potentially cause cuts or abrasions. Instead opt for non-toxic face paint and hats.
Also, be wary of non-prescribed Halloween themed contact lenses as they are not created for a specific curvature of the eye and can cause serious harm. If you or your child wishes to use these this Halloween you can get prescribed lenses, even with 20/20 vision.
“Halloween is a time to dress up and have fun, but it is important to take the proper precautions before going Trick-or-Treating,” said Dr. Mark Lynn, an optometrist who owns and oversees all Nashville-area Doctor’s ValuVision locations. “No parent wants their child’s Halloween costume choice to cause a vision impairment.”
Along with vision safety, there are several general safety tips to remember like these recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): Read the rest of this entry »
- Author: Health Informer
- Filed under: Health News
- Date: Oct 28,2010
This year’s emphasis on nationwide health care reform has cemented the health and fitness industry’s emphasis on the need for proper accreditation and certification, according to an American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) survey of fitness trends published in the November/December issue of ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal. The growing demand for educated and experienced fitness professionals claimed the top spot in the survey for the fourth consecutive year.
“As the market in this sluggish economy becomes even more crowded and competitive, the need for regulation, either from within the industry or from external sources, is growing,” said the lead author of the survey, Walter R. Thompson, Ph.D., FACSM. “For example, a number of states and the District of Columbia are considering legislation to regulate personal trainers just as it does physicians, lawyers and pharmacists.” Thompson, an exercise physiologist at Georgia State University and a Fellow of ACSM, is also spokesperson for the ACSM American Fitness IndexTM.
The survey, now in its fifth year, was distributed to ACSM-certified health and fitness professionals worldwide and was designed to reveal trends in various fitness environments. Respondents around the world returned more than 2,200 completed surveys. Thirty-one potential trends were given as choices, and the top 20 were ranked and published by ACSM.
The most surprising findings, experts say, are the trends that have fallen off the list for 2011 – balance training, stability balls and Pilates. Pilates suffered the worst fall, disappearing after a ninth place ranking in 2010.
“It appears from this survey that Pilates may not have been a trend at all but may be considered a fad in the health and fitness industry,” said Thompson. “Next year’s survey will either embrace Pilates as a trend or will answer this question.” Read the rest of this entry »
- Author: Health Informer
- Filed under: Health News
- Date: Oct 27,2010
This week, Africa seizes an unprecedented chance to drive out polio when 15 countries across the continent launch a synchronized mass immunization campaign to reach
72 million children, capitalizing on gains made this year. A total of some 290,000 vaccinators have been mobilized to go door-to-door to deliver two drops of oral polio vaccine (OPV) to every child under five in areas considered at “highest risk” of polio transmission.
Africa’s leaders demonstrated unprecedented cooperation and commitment to carry out a series of synchronized immunization activities in 2009 and in March and April, 2010, following the spread of the disease from Nigeria which came to infect 24 countries across west and central Africa and in the Horn of Africa. As a direct result of these immunization campaigns, the polio outbreaks have slowed to a trickle. Across west Africa, only Liberia and Mali have recorded any cases in the past five months, while Nigeria – the only country in Africa never to have stopped polio transmission – has slashed polio by 98% in the past year.
However, recent weeks have shown the very real risks of not completing eradication, with a September case in Liberia confirming residual transmission, a new importation of type 3 wild poliovirus into Mali (the first since 2001), and a case in Uganda, which had been polio-free for more than a year. In all countries, rapid assessments are being conducted to formulate an emergency response plan in which two additional mop-up rounds will be held. All countries in the West Africa sub-region will again conduct two full campaigns in February and March, 2011, but high-quality immunization campaigns must be complemented by enhanced routine immunization and strong disease surveillance. Read the rest of this entry »