It’s an interesting time in the world of sleep apnea research, a disorder in which a person has periods of slow or paused breathing during sleep. It seems that every month there is a new study showing yet another link between sleep apnea and sleep-disordered breathing (snoring, paused breathing, etc.), and its negative effects on health.

Recent studies have linked obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) to depression, silent strokes and small brain lesions, abnormalities in the blood vessels, high blood pressure, heart disease and strokes, even sudden hearing loss. And women take note: Sleep apnea has been linked to dementia in older women, and another observational study found that women with untreated severe OSA are 3.5 times more likely to die from cardiovascular disease than women without OSA! [Read more...]

Despite longstanding recommendations for children with asthma to avoid tobacco smoke, many youths are still exposed to secondhand smoke and their health suffers because of it, according to a study to be presented Tuesday, May 1, at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Boston.

“National asthma guidelines have advised avoidance of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) for patients with asthma for decades, but it is unclear to what degree these recommendations are being followed and what the impact of exposure has been in an era of increased awareness of the effects of ETS exposure,” said lead author Lara J. Akinbami, MD, FAAP, medical officer, National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [Read more...]

This is the first of two articles on pain. In this article, we look at neck pain and how we can manage it.

THERE’S only one pain that can literally, be said to be a pain in the neck – and that’s neck pain!

You might think it’s not a terribly common problem, but in fact, most of us will experience neck pain at some point in our lives, and between 10 and 15% of people may be putting up with it right now.

Although it’s an annoying problem, for most people, it won’t have a major impact on day-to-day life, and there are quite a few things you can do to help manage your neck pain now, and prevent it in the future.

What causes neck pain? [Read more...]

Little girls from troubled homes are more likely to be obese at age 5 than girls from happier ones, new research shows.

However, researchers did not find that same association between boys’ weight and difficult family situations.

In the study, researchers looked at data on more than 1,600 preschoolers from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, which tracks the health and well-being of children born to mostly low-income, single-mother families. About half were black, 27 percent were Hispanic and 22 percent were white. [Read more...]