A Danish study of 695 pregnant women is raising the possibility that fish oil supplements begun in the final three months of pregnancy may reduce the risk of asthma or persistent wheezing in offspring.

The supplements brought the risk from 23.7 percent among mothers in the placebo group who took 2.4 grams of olive oil daily down to 16.9 percent in the women who got the fish oil capsules. That's a 30.7 percent reduction during the first three years of life.

The real benefit seemed to be exclusively among the children whose mothers started out with low levels of the two key ingredients in fish oil - eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). That may make them more vulnerable to the inflammation and heightened immune system response that is a factor in asthma and related conditions.

"If it weren't for the effects in that subgroup, then the results would have not been statistically significant," said Kathleen Melanson, a professor of nutrition sciences at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, who was not involved in the research.

Among the Danish women with low EPA and DHA levels, the rate of asthma and wheezing in their children was 17.5 percent when the women took fish oil during pregnancy versus 34.1 percent when they took the placebo oil.

One in five young children are affected by asthma and wheezing disorders. In recent decades, the rate has more than doubled in Western countries. Previous research has shown that those conditions are more prevalent among babies whose mothers have low levels of fish oil in their bodies. The new large-scale test, reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, is the first to see if supplements can actually lower the risk.

Women can eat fish to get the same benefit but "you really need to be very fond of fish to get sufficient amounts through your diet" to have the effect seen in the study, chief author Dr. Hans Bisgaard of the University of Copenhagen told Reuters Health in an email.

The findings must be tested in other parts of the world, where fish oil consumption is lower.

That concern is echoed in an editorial in the journal by Dr. Christopher Ramsden of the National Institute on Aging, who said the 2.4 gram dose "was approximately 15 to 20 times as high as the average U.S. intake from foods."

"Before these findings can be applied to clinical practice, it is therefore imperative to ensure that this dose had no adverse effects on behavior, cognition, or other long-term outcomes," he said. "Future work is also needed to determine whether lower doses are effective and whether these results can be replicated in other populations."

Melanson told Reuters Health by phone that the dose used in the study was very high. The World Health Organization recommends no more than 3 grams per day, in part because excessive amounts can increase the risk of bleeding, lower blood pressure, and interact with medicines or vitamins A, D and E.

"Too much of a good thing is never a good thing," she said.

"It is possible that a lower dose would have sufficed," the Bisgaard team said.

Fish oil supplementation also lowered babies’ risk of lower respiratory tract infections, with the rate going from 39.1 percent with olive oil placebo to 31.7 percent with fish oil.

But the supplements didn't seem to affect the odds of a baby or toddler developing the skin condition eczema, or an allergy such as a reaction to milk or egg products, or a severe asthma attack.

The women began taking the fish oil and olive oil capsules at the 24th week of pregnancy and continued until one week after delivery.

The researchers calculated that 14.6 women would need to be treated to prevent one case of asthma or persistent wheeze. Among women with the lowest levels of EPA and DHA to start with, only 5.6 would need to be treated.

If the findings are confirmed in other populations, doctors could test to see who would mostly likely benefit from fish oil supplements. "The health care system is currently not geared for such," Bisgaard said. "But clearly this would be the future."

In the meantime, Melanson said, it would be premature to widely recommend fish oil during pregnancy.

source: Reuters Health
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-asthma-fish-oil-idUSKBN14H1T3

Daddy, I want a dog.” How often have we heard our kids tell us to get them a pet dog? And if you think that owning a dog is more of an inconvenience rather than a plus in your life, then think again.

According to noted pet expert Dr. Diane Pomerance, the benefits of owning a dog outweigh the inconvenience, “Pets can provide us with so many gifts. They can increase longevity and improve the quality of life.”

Dr. David J. Demko, a professor of Gerontology and Research Methodology from the University of Michigan, agrees with Dr. Pomerance. He estimates that a pet dog can add two years to the life of its owner. How is this possible, you ask?

Well, according to several scientific studies, pets, specifically dogs, can provide several health benefits for their owners. Let’s look at some of the evidence.

For one, dogs can contribute to a person’s happiness by causing the release of happy hormones called endorphins, the brain’s natural anti-depressant. Having a pet also releases other beneficial hormones like prolactin, dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin.

Having a pet also decreases our body’s stress hormones, called cortisol. In 2002, The British Market Research Bureau conducted an enlightening survey on pet owners which showed that pets made them laugh and feel happier.

Good For Kids And Elderly

A study conducted at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Children’s Hospital showed that dog visits made hospitalized kids happier. This was attributed to the children’s eagerness in expecting dog visits and the happiness felt by petting the dogs. Tests show that when a person strokes a dog, within minutes, his body would release “feel-good” hormones like dopamine, prolactin, and oxytocin.

Dogs also provide many health benefits for the elderly. A study in The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine found that one month after acquiring a dog or cat, seniors had 50-percent fewer medical problems, such as painful joints, insomnia, constipation, anxiety, indigestion, flu, general tiredness, and headaches. The explanation is that pets give their owners an incentive to keep active.

Your Heart’s Best Friend

In a study published in The American Journal of Cardiology in 2003, Dr. Erika Friedmann reported that pet owners have healthier hearts. Friedmann, a professor at the Department of Health and Nutrition Sciences at Brooklyn College, found that pet owners had better heart rate variability findings (a measure of heart attack risk) compared to non-owners.

Can dogs lower your blood pressure? Probably, yes. One study conducted by Dr. Karen Allen of the State University of New York at Buffalo found that when people with high blood pressure took care of a pet dog, their stress levels were reduced and so did their blood pressure. In fact, a number of patients were actually weaned off from their medications.

Apparently, just the simple act of stroking a dog can actually reduce your blood pressure. Dog owners are happier, less stressed, and this contributed to better blood pressure control.

Walk With Your Dog

A dog can help you exercise and lose weight. You have to buy his food, prepare his water, and clean out his poop. A study obviously found that people who acquired dogs increased their amount of physical activity by walking or playing with the dog.

For people with arthritis and body pains, one of the mainstays of therapy is to keep the limb moving. The medical adage, “Use it, or lose it,” applies here.

According to Dr. Jeff Burgess of the University of Washington Pain Center, “Pets may help people in two major ways. By initiating and maintaining the relaxation response, pets can take people’s focus off their pain and elevate their mood.”

Secondly, through touch or physical contact, they can block transmission of their pain from the periphery to the central nervous system, shutting the pain processing centers down.” In other words, pets help numb and reduce your pain.

Of course, owning a pet comes with additional work, expense, and responsibility, which can also be hard work. But on the positive side, the health benefits of getting a dog are real and documented by the above studies I mentioned.

Think about it, next time your kid asks you to get a dog.

source: Philippine Star
http://www.philstar.com/health-and-family/2016/12/27/1656951/dogs-can-make-you-feel-better

Improving mothers' nutrition before and during pregnancy is pivotal to reducing child stunting in developing countries, researchers said on Tuesday, as a new study showed poor child growth often starts in the womb.

Defined as low height-for-age, stunting affects one in three children in the developing world and carries severe, irreversible consequences for both physical health and cognitive function.

An analysis of data from 137 developing nations by a team of Harvard scientists found the leading cause of stunting is fetal growth restriction (FGR) - poor fetal growth in the womb resulting in a baby being abnormally small at birth.

Almost a quarter of a total of 44.1 million estimated cases among two-year-olds in 2010 were attributable to FGR, according to the study published on Tuesday.

Researchers said the findings called for "paradigm shift" from interventions focused solely on children to those also targeting mothers and mothers-to-be.

"It highlights the importance of developing a comprehensive intervention programme to target moms and their families even they get pregnant in order to help their children's growth in the future," study co-author Kathryn Andrews told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a phone interview.

Greater emphasis should be placed on ensuring that mothers have enough to eat and improving their diet with nutrient supplements, Andrews said.

FGR was already known to be one of numerous causes of stunting but the study was the first to rank each cause's relative contribution to the total number of cases, the authors said.

source: Philippine Star
Health & Medicine

As a complement to traditional pain relief tools like medication, listening to music may lessen acute or chronic pain related to cancer and other conditions, according to a new review.

“We have seen and observed this effect in multiple clinical settings such as medical hospitals and hospice-care facilities,” said author Jin Hyung Lee of Ewha Womans University in Seoul, South Korea.

“In addition to all the clinical trials investigating the effects of music interventions on pain, we are seeing an increase in the number of music therapists who work in the medical and hospice care settings,” Lee told Reuters Health by email. “Of course, these professionals work on a variety of clinical goals in addition to pain management, but it definitely is one of the major goals.”

Lee reviewed 97 randomized controlled trials conducted between 1995 and 2014 that included a total of 9,147 participants. Most trials involved music therapy, which typically involves interactions with a music therapist, while a handful of trials looked at music medicine, which mainly involves exposure to “prerecorded music experiences” selected for their effects, Lee writes in the Journal of Music Therapy.

The trials examined those effects on participants’ self-reported pain intensity, emotional distress from pain, vital signs and amount of pain relief medication taken.

Many studies let participants choose the type of music they wanted to listen to, often including classical, easy listening, new age, slow jazz and soft rock. A quarter of the trials used music selected by researchers. On average, participants listened to about 38 minutes of music during the experiments.

Overall, people getting the music intervention in their trial rated their pain intensity about one point lower on a zero to 10 scale after music sessions compared to groups that got no music. But the results were not consistent among all studies, Lee notes.

Seven of the studies found a significant decrease in anesthetic use in music groups compared to non-music groups. There were similar small but significant differences in studies examining use of opioid and non-opioid painkillers, but there was no difference in sedative use.

Heart rate, blood pressure and respiration rate were all found to be lower among participants in music groups in some studies.

Music stimulates additional senses other than pain receptors, which attracts patients’ attention, and relieves stress and anxiety with its soothing quality, Lee said.

“In addition, music therapists provide various music experiences with specific clinical intent to promote a sense of hope and control, to actively re-direct patients’ attention, and to support patients to actively cope with their illness,” he said.

“Music medicine and music therapy are not meant to be alternative forms of therapy, rather they are provided as a complementary treatment to existing care,” he said.

Music may distract and relax patients, said Dr. John Marshall of the University of Missouri School of Medicine in Columbia, Missouri, who was not part of Lee’s review.

“When we did our music study in colonoscopy patients many years ago, we were giving patients light sedation,” Marshall said. “The patients were awake during their procedures. The music seemed to be a helpful adjunct to improving the patient experience.”

Today, most colonoscopy patients are moderately to heavily sedated, so music during the procedure may not matter as much, though pleasant background music prior to the procedure makes sense.

“There are many things to consider when devising a music program for patients, so I would recommend consulting a music therapist when establishing a music medicine program,” Lee said.

source: Reuters Health
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-pain-music-therapy-idUSKBN12Z2MH