Caring Currents

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Recently I went to a workshop on stress and health, and it was scary. Doctors have begun to take stress seriously as the trigger for many serious health concerns. In fact, the medical profession now considers stress a primary contributor to:

• Back Pain

• Headaches

• Heart Disease

• Stroke

• Diabetes

Research also documents a strong connection between stress and cancer. Even more convincing, stress can make the difference between surviving cancer -- and not. Studies have found, for example, that women who suffer from stress are more likely to develop a recurrence of breast cancer.

But there's a problem. When doctors tell us we need to reduce the stress in our lives, we roll our eyes. We're doing too much, thanks for telling us, but what's to be done? We have family members who need us, money to be earned, a house to keep, so much work to be done.

Turns out, though, that there's a fairly simple step we can take to relieve stress...  Read more

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After last week's post on how to break up with your doctor, I received numerous comments and e-mails sharing heartbreaking stories and asking an important follow-up question:

How do I find a good doctor who listens to me, respects my participation as a patient or as a caregiver, and takes a proactive role in caring for my health or the health of my loved one?

Most articles on this subject cover the basics of cost and convenience, so we'll breeze over those. Of course you need to find a doctor whose office is convenient, who's covered in your insurance network or accepts Medicare or Medicaid if you're on it, and who's affiliated with the local hospital you prefer to use.

But there's much much more to it than that. What we want most of all is a doctor who listens, respects what we have to say, and works with us to provide the care that we want. In other words we want someone who realizes that the doctor-patient relationship is a two-way communication channel...  Read more

If you or someone you're caring for has diabetes that you control with medication, you may be a bit worried and confused right now. And rightly so.

With The New York Times leading the way, the news media went crazy this week over the government's report that the diabetes drug Avandia can cause heart attacks and other heart problems. Apparently this very serious risk has been known for three years -- since a nationally respected cardiologist blew the whistle on the drug -- but the news didn't get much attention until the Senate released a report showing Avandia increases the risk of heart attacks by 43 percent.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is in the hot seat for being slow to respond to initial warnings, announced it's holding a hearing but didn't recommend that diabetics need to switch drugs right away, though they might want to "talk to their doctors."

I've got to say, this is a bit wimpy on the part of the FDA...  Read more

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Does someone in your life have trouble breathing as a result of chronic sinusitis?

You'd be surprised how common this is. Experts say between 16 and 18 percent of adults have chronic sinusitis -- now officially known as rhinosinusitis -- that makes them unable to breathe through their noses. The condition, which leads to repeated sinus infections, causes frequent coughing, sneezing, and headaches, and can lead to weakness and fatigue. Some head and neck experts say that chronic sinusitis can actually cause people to suffer more long-term problems than COPD.

Researchers at Oregon Health Sciences University have been shining a light on this little-discussed problem lately with a series of studies showing that simple surgery greatly increases the quality of life for those who undergo it.

The most recent study, published in this month's issue of Otolaryngology, found that 75 percent of those who had endoscopic sinus surgery reported that their quality of life afterward greatly improved...  Read more

People who drink several cups of coffee or tea a day -- even decaf versions -- can dramatically lower their risk of diabetes, researchers reported on Monday. Drinking three to four cups of coffee per day was associated with a 25 percent lower risk of diabetes than drinking no coffee or just one cup, researchers said.

And the more coffee or tea you drink, the greater the benefit -- so keep that pot filled. "Every additional cup of coffee consumed in a day was associated with a 7 percent reduction in the excess risk of diabetes," wrote Rachel Huxley, who headed a team of Australian researchers at the George Institute for International Health in Sydney, Australia. The study was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

One reason this study is making headlines around the world is that the conclusions didn't come from just one study, but were the result of what's called a "meta-analysis" of 18 different studies, which together included more than 450,000 people...  Read more

It can be really scary when a doctor tells you that you have pre-diabetes, or that the results of a glucose test show you're at risk for diabetes. Pre-diabetes is diagnosed when blood glucose is between 100 and 125 mg/dL or when a glucose tolerance test shows the glucose in your blood to be between 140 and 199 mg/dL. But too many times this news is presented in a passive way -- as if it's just something you have to live with.

Actually, studies show, pre-diabetes is just that -- a sign that your body is on the way to getting diabetes. And just as you can lower blood pressure or cholesterol that's in the high normal range, you can prevent diabetes by taking steps to keep it at bay.

To start with, analyze the top risk factors that could be putting you at risk for diabetes. If you have two or more of these risk factors, diabetes could be on the horizon for you, and you might want to pay attention to all strategies that work to protect against it...  Read more

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The supplement resveratrol, a key ingredient in red wine and grapes, has been endlessly touted as an alternative treatment for preventing and treating many conditions. I wrote about its anti-cancer benefits in a previous post, and it's also thought to help with general anti-aging. Now experts are saying it may be particularly beneficial for people with diabetes and pre-diabetes.

I know from tough experience that when you or a family member has diabetes or pre-diabetes, it feels like a constant struggle -- and source of tremendous worry -- to keep blood sugar under control.

Recently, studies have suggested that taking the supplement resveratrol could be a safe and simple way to do this. Research shows resveratrol appears to boost insulin sensitivity, helping the body process sugar into energy.

The latest study, released this week, was important for people with diabetes and their families because it proved definitively that resveratrol activates sirtuins, which are proteins in the brain that have immediate control over glucose metabolism...  Read more

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Music can't make the demands of caregiving go away, but it can make you more healthfully equipped to plow through those demands. Music therapy is a fascinating and growing field, and you don't have to be the person who's sick to benefit.

In June, the inaugural conference of the International Association for Music and Medicine explored the countless ways tunes can help heal, whether you're recovering from surgery or cancer, coping with grief, having a baby -- or caring for an aging relative.

I saw this in action just last week. My 87-year-old dad is currently in a rehab facility recovering from a small stroke. Because he also has dementia, he's living in a specialized dementia/Alzheimer's wing of the facility. I'd brought my teenage son for a visit -- and he in turn brought his acoustic guitar to entertain his Grandpa. Before we reached my dad's room, the nurses spied the instrument.

"A guitar...  Read more

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Why do some people who have the "Alzheimer's gene," as the high-risk variant apolipoprotein ApoE4 is known, never develop the disease, while others who have a "safe" variant of the gene (ApoE3) still get Alzheimer's? Scientists don't yet know -- but the discovery of the DNA makeup of a new gene linked to apolipoprotein, called [TOMM40] (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124744102025329841.html), brings them a step closer to figuring it out.

Apparently there are two types of mutations to TOMM40, a "long repeat" form and a "short repeat" form. The long and short refer to how many extra copies of a particular substance of DNA appear in the gene. People who carry the ApoE3 gene plus the long repeat form of TOMM40 develop Alzheimer's some seven years earlier -- at about age 70 -- than do people with ApoE3 and "short repeat" TOMM40.

The finding needs to be verified with more research, and then scientists will have to figure out what to do with this information...  Read more

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Hitting. Kicking. Grabbing. Pushing. Cursing. Biting. Throwing. Scratching. News this week about these explosive and combative behaviors that can appear in someone with mid- to late-stage Alzheimer's underscores just how challenging they are to deal with. (Although I admit, describing these incidents as a "challenge" is like calling a war "a slight disagreement.")

Proof you're not alone:

Aggression can be frightening. More than one third of Alzheimer's caregivers have observed aggressive behavior, finds a new survey from the Alzheimer's Foundation for Caregiving in Canada (AFCC). Almost one in four caregivers is scared or feels threatened by such incidents.

Caregivers don't feel free to discuss it. Two-thirds of caregivers felt free to discuss symptoms like disorientation and mood swings with people outside their immediate family, the AFCC survey also found. But just over half were willing to talk about aggressive acts...  Read more