The Benefits of Exercise for Parkinson's

 If you're living Parkinson's Disease, you may wonder whether exercising is a wise idea. The answer, say many experts, is yes. Physical activity may slow the progression of the disease and confers other health benefits as well.

"Exercise can give you greater strength and independence," says Steven H. Schechter, MD, co-author of Understanding Parkinson's Disease. "It may also improve balance, help you overcome gait problems, strengthen particular muscles, and improve your speech and swallowing."

Both stretching exercises and aerobic exercises can be helpful, and if you get enough of a workout to break into a light sweat, you may feel more positive and less depressed, Schechter says. That's because exercise releases endorphins, which are the body's own "feel-good" chemicals. Also, he points out, exercising regularly helps you feel more connected and in control.

According to the National Parkinson Foundation, stretching, aerobic exercise, and resistance (weight training) are key components to a successful exercise program. Besides biking and running, Tai Chi, yoga, Pilates, and dancing can all have a positive impact on individuals with Parkinson's. Here's how to exercise successfully.

• Start out slowly, recommends Schechter. If you try to do too much too soon,
  you'll only wind up with sore muscles and maybe even an injury.
• Be sure to exercise when you're rested, when your medicine is working, and when you're wearing loose, comfortable clothing. And if an exercise feels painful, stop doing it immediately.
• "Practice walking sideways, backwards, and in circles several times a day," says Schechter. "Take large steps, lifting your toes when you begin a step and letting your heels hit the floor first as you step forward." Raising your toes from the walking surface with every step helps prevent stumbling. You can use toe-lifting to "unglue" your feet and legs from an episode of freezing, Schechter says, and to relieve muscle spasms.  As you walk, straighten up and try to look straight ahead, and swing your arms as you walk. In addition to walking, recreational exercises such as golfing and bowling not only keep your muscles and joints flexible, but can provide you with social opportunities, Schechter explains.
• Try swimming. It's a wonderful form of exercise for individuals with Parkinson's, Kohles says. "Getting into the pool can help someone with Parkinson's feel fabulous," she says. "He doesn't have to worry about falling, and she's lifted up by the water. She'll feel like herself again."

If you aren't sure how much exercise to try to get, consider this: "The more exercise, the better," says Caroline Kohles, senior director of fitness and wellness at the JCC of Manhattan, which partners with the NYU Langone Movement Disorder Center in New York City to offer exercise classes for those with Parkinson's Disease. "Exercise can really help with mobility, and it brings more oxygen to the brain," she explains.

9 Telltale Signs of Alcoholism

You love having a glass of wine at dinner or kicking back with a beer while watching TV at night. Lately, though, that one glass is becoming two, and the beer tastes so good it's hard to stop at one. Is there any way to know whether the alcoholic beverage you enjoy every night is a problem? Could you be gradually drifting over the line between enjoyment and abuse where alcohol is concerned?

Alcohol use disorders are bona fide medical conditions. It's estimated that some 18 million individuals in the U.S. have an alcohol use disorder--either alcohol dependence (alcoholism) or alcohol abuse. Alcoholism is more serious. It can include symptoms like cravings, physical dependence, and tolerance, meaning the person needs more and more alcohol. Alcohol abusers may not be physically dependent on alcohol, but they still have a significant disorder.

"We have been moving away from using the terms 'alcohol abuse' and 'alcohol dependence,' and putting the emphasis on risky drinking, prevention, and early intervention," says Bruce Goldman, LCSW, CASAC, director of Substance Abuse Services at Zucker Hillside Hospital in Queens, part of the North Shore/LIJ Health System. "We want to help people be more aware of how they use alcohol."

Wondering if your drinking is a problem? Here are some signs to look for.

1. If you are a man and drinking more than four drinks per day or 14 drinks per week,you're at risk for alcohol abuse. A woman who has more than seven drinks per week is at risk, says Goldman.

2. If you're an underage drinker, you're at risk for alcohol abuse later on. "The younger you are when you start drinking, the more likely you will have a problem with drinking later in life," Goldman says.

3. If you are jeopardizing your mental or physical health, or your job or family, you've got a problem, says Tina B Tessina, Ph.D., author of "Money, Sex and Kids: Stop Fighting about the Three Things That Can Ruin Your Marriage."  It can be tough to admit this, however. And, Tessina adds, "There is no blood test to determine whether someone is addicted to alcohol."

4. If you are seeing yourself drink more and more, this can be a sign of alcohol abuse, says Merrill Herman, MD, associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein/Montefiore Medical Center in New York City.

5. "If you are feeling guilty about your drinking and annoyed when people bring it up to you, it's time to take a look at your alcohol consumption," Herman says.

6. If you wake up the morning feeling hung over, and feel like you need a drink to calm down, that is a problem.

7. If you are unable to cut down on your alcohol use or you find that your activities are curtailed due to drinking, you should seek help.

8. If your drinking starts to adversely affect your marriage, it's time to take stock and think about getting help.

9. Finally, if a person is not just drinking in a social situation but drinking by himself more and more, that's not good. 

Source:

"Alcohol use disorders." National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/alcohol-use-disorders

Stress Solutions From Head to Toe

Got stress? You're certainly not alone.

Everyone experiences stress in his own way. It may manifests as knotted muscles, painful digestion, troubled sleep, breakouts, chronic illness, weight gain, headaches, and fatigue. And that's just the physical symptoms. When you're stressed, you may also be irritable, depressed, or have trouble concentrating and remembering.

Fortunately, you can do many things to reduce the effects of stress.

Head and shoulders. Massage or apply heat or ice to tight muscles. Flex your face; it helps you relax. Scrunch your facial muscles, hold, and release.

Hands. Try acupressure. Using your thumb and index finger of one hand, apply a pinching pressure to the soft, fleshy web between the thumb and forefinger on the other hand.

Abdomen. Experts at Harvard Medical School recommend psychotherapy options, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, relaxation techniques, and hypnosis when stress slows or disrupts digestion and cases pain and other gastrointestinal symptoms.

Feet. A brisk foot rub elevates your body's oxytocin, a feel good hormone.

Full Body Stress Relief

Breathing. Effective stress relief varies among individuals. However, breathing works for everyone. According to the American Institute for Stress (AIS), breathing has true head-to-toe stress relieving benefits. It increases the supply of oxygen to your brain, which stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system and promotes a state of calm. It also slows your metabolism, heart rate, breathing rate, and blood pressure, and increases your levels of nitric oxide, an important biological regulator. The AIS recommends focused abdominal breathing for 20 to 30 minutes daily.

Prayers. Pray five times a day (salat). It makes you feel relax and comfortable.

Exercise. It releases endorphins, lowers stress, and increases your energy.

Yoga. Yoga is an all-around good stress buster and certain poses work well to relieve stress in certain areas. For example, the triangle pose, cat/cow, and extended cat stretch help relieve back pain.

Laugh. It's true: laughter is the best medicine. Laughter produces immediate stress relief and, over time, laughing improves your immune system and reduces pain.

When you need immediate and accessible stress relief, Helpguide.org recommends engaging one or more of your senses. Whether it's sight, sound, touch, taste, or hearing, you'll know which works best for soothing your nerves.

An Ounce of Prevention

Of course, the best way to reduce stress is to prevent it in the first place.

• Exercise regularly
• Sleep 7 to 8 hours daily
• Eat properly
• Simplify your life
• Manage your time wisely and take breaks
• Avoid excess caffeine and other stimulants
• Quit smoking

Would You Try Hypnosis for Anxiety?

Anxiety is a stressful, debilitating condition. Fortunately, there are many non-pharmaceutical ways to manage and reduce anxiety. For example, according to Gerard V. Sunnen, MD, hypnosis is a potent anti-anxiety tool. Dr. Sunnen is a physician and psychiatrist who regularly incorporates medical hypnotherapy into patient care.

Hypnosis and Anxiety                  

When you are anxious, your brain sends you unbidden and stressful messages, such as "everyone is looking at me." Hypnotherapy helps you change these anxiety-producing messages. It may also help you understand the root of your anxiety.

Hypnosis.org defines hypnosis as a heightened state of suggestibility, such that you accept suggestions from your hypnotist as true, and the suggestions effect your beliefs, habits, perceptions, and behaviors in varying degrees, according to how deeply you are hypnotized.

Hypnotic induced relaxation uses wording and imagery to reduce anxiety. During relaxation, your breathing slows, your blood pressure drops, and you have a sense of calm and well being. You focus and concentrate intensely so you minimize your awareness of peripheral activity around you. At the same time, you still feel your presence and are aware of your interactions with your hypnotist. While therapeutic hypnotists typically perform hypnosis, you can also hypnotize yourself with similar counting methods, progressive relaxation activities, or purposeful imagery.

Despite what you see in performance hypnotisms, which aim to entertain, you do not lose control while under hypnosis and you won't do anything you wouldn't be comfortable doing in your normal state.

A hypnotic session begins with a hypnotic induction, or ritual, that helps you formalize the transition to a more focused state of consciousness. The induction organizes and structures the hypnotic process so you can use the trance state most efficiently.

Brain imaging studies that compare the brains of people under hypnosis to their normal state show altered activity in the brain area associated with emotion and cognition in those individuals who respond to suggestions. Imaging also shows lowered activity in the brain associated with resting, daydream, or letting the mind wander.

Hypnosis can help reduced both generalized anxiety and situation-specific anxiety. For example, the results of a study of self-hypnotic relaxation in an outpatient clinical setting (subjects were women undergoing breast biopsy) were consistent with other studies. Eighty nine percent of the surgical patients benefited from adding hypnosis. Furthermore, they found that most patients can be hypnotized enough to benefit clinically. In anxiety-producing medical situations, hypnosis offers a safe, drug-free, and low- (or no) cost way to reduce pain and anxiety.

Understand the Different Types of Breast Cancer

We can categorize types of breast cancers in several ways: By where they originate, by whether the cancer cells are isolated to one area or have spread, and by the tumor's hormonal status.

Origins of Breast Cancer

Breast cancer typically begins in the lobes, lobules, or ducts of the breast. When patients have abnormal cells in the milk duct, which have not spread, they are diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). DCIS is the most common type of breast cancer, although there is controversy about whether DCIS is really cancer and whether physicians should continue to treat it aggressively.

Lobular carcinoma (cancer) begins in the breast lobes or lobules and affects both breasts about 30 percent of the time. Lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS) is not really cancer, but a condition that raises your risk of developing cancer.

Approximately 25 percent of women with LCIS will develop breast cancer at some point in their lives. LCIS is not visible on a mammogram; physicians typically find it during a biopsy for some other reason.

Cancer can also form in the muscles, fat, or blood vessels of the breast. The tissue type where cancer originates determines how a cancer will behave and influences treatment decisions.

Breast Cancer's Spread

Non-invasive cancer means cancer cells remain in their place of origin and not spread. DCIS and LCIS are both non-invasive cancers. In patients with invasive cancer, the cells have spread (metastasized) beyond the membrane that lines the ducts or lobules where the tumor originated. Invasive breast cancer is generally very serious.

Hormone Status of Breast Cancer

Some breast cancers need hormones to grow. These tumors have receptors for estrogen, progesterone, or both. If they have more receptors than normal, the cancer may grow quickly.

• Estrogen receptor (ER) positive cancer is sensitive to estrogen.
• progesterone receptor (PG) positive cancer is sensitive to progesterone.
• hormone receptor (HR) negative doesn't have hormone receptors so treatments that block hormones have no effect.

If you have ER or PG positive breast cancers, your oncologist may recommend hormone therapy, which removes hormones or blocks their action and stops cancer cells from growing.

Breast Cancer Treatment

Because there are so many types of breast cancers, there is no one-size-fits-all treatment. Each woman's oncologist recommends an individual course of treatment, which may include surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, or hormone therapy-alone or in combination.

Sources:

National Cancer Institute. "Breast Cancer Treatment (PDQ®)." Web. 22 March 2012.http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/treatment/breast/Patient

National Cancer Institute. "What You Need To Know About Breast Cancer." Web. 15 October 2009. http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/wyntk/breast

Mayo Clinic. "Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS)." Web. 23 June 2011. 
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/dcis/DS00983

Mayo Clinic. "Breast cancer types: What your type means." Web. 9 February 2012.http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/breast-cancer/HQ00348

Nelson, Roxanne. "Problems With DCIS Misdiagnosis: When Cancer Is Not Cancer."Medscape Medical News. Web. 29 July 2010. 
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/726040

Stanford Medicine. "Lobular Carcinoma in situ (LCIS)." Web.
http://cancer.stanford.edu/breastcancer/lcis.html

Yeast Infections: Not Just a Woman's Problem

Though more typically thought of as a female issue, men can also acquire yeast infections. Both oral yeast infections (called thrush) that contaminate the mouth and genital yeast infections are caused by an overgrowth of Candida albicans—the most common form of yeast that grows normally in the body.

Men can—and do—occasionally contract yeast infections from having intercourse with a yeast-infected woman. Using a condom can diminish the chances of becoming infected. Other causes of male yeast infection include:

• The Overuse of Antibiotics. These drugs can diminish the bacteria that normally control the yeast creating a perfect environment for the opportunistic yeast to flourish.
• Diabetes. Elevated sugar in the urine attracts yeast.
• Compromised Immune Systems. People with HIV, for example, have difficulty fighting off infections.

In women, yeast infections are fairly easy to detect. Symptoms include: vaginal itching, vaginal irritation, the telltale thick, white, curd-like discharge, redness cracking in the vulvar skin, burning during urination, pain during intercourse, and itching of the rectal opening.

In men, symptoms are less obvious or may be all together lacking. However, the New York Times reports some men experience a reddish, temporary rash on the genitals and a burning feeling at the tip of the penis. Dry, itchy skin on the penis and a white discharge has also been reported.

Since yeast infections are so common in women (over 70 percent develop at least one yeast infection during their lives) and over 40 percent have been infected multiple times, it's a good idea to be aware of the problem especially if you engage in unprotected sex. Yeast can be passed back and forth between partners, so avoiding sexual contact until all signs and symptoms of the infection are gone is generally recommended.

In addition to the culprits that cause the problem in men, women can get yeast infections from oral contraceptives, repeated intercourse over a short period of time, high carbohydrate intake especially from refined sugars and alcohol, wearing non-ventilating clothing in hot weather (synthetic fabric increases warmth and moisture fostering fungal growth), and irritants such as soap, powder, or new detergent.

The itchy, red bumps associated with genital herpes have also been known to be caused by yeast. A study published in the British Journal of Medicine (and posted on the National Institute of Health's website) found an association between genital yeast infections and STDs and advises patients with genital yeast infections—who are sexually active—to also be screened for other STDs. Meet with your medical provider to rule out sexually-transmitted diseases that are more serious if you suspect a problem.

Applying an over-the-counter antifungal treatment directly to the affected skin twice daily for a week is an effective treatment for male yeast infections which are a nuisance to deal with but aren't associated with any serious health risks.