Much News in November, But More to Come
November has been a good month for health news, but you can
expect every month for the forseeable future to produce these kind
of results. Baby Boomers aren’t exactly circling the drain yet, but
they are adamant about getting that extra ounce of prevention for
the aging process. The National Institute of Aging and the
universities are full steam ahead getting us the info we need to
keep it going on.
For this column, and for my blog (www.healthspanweb.com), I am constantly scouring the
professional journals and the credible Internet sites for the
latest in research that directs us to how we can keep it going on.
Here are my top 5 healthspan stories for November.
5) Mother was right
What our mothers all told us — eat your vegetables — finally
might get our attention. A study of 2000 seniors in the Chicago
area found that those who ate two servings a day of the greens had
40 percent less mental decline than those who didn’t. In fact,
those who consumed veggies at that rate ended the six year study
younger by five years on all measures than when they began the
study.
4) Coffee is good for you!
This research doesn’t come courtesy of Juan Valdez. You
can trust this one as it was funded by the National Institute of
Aging and the National Institute of Diabetes. The study found that
drinking coffee actually reduced the risk for type 2 diabetes by a
whopping 60 per cent compared to those who abstain from the
bean.
As reported in this month’s issue of Diabetes Care,
this study confirms and extends the “striking
protective effect of caffeinated coffee”, found in several other
studies.
3) Another case for anger management
We all know about “heartache”, but is it really a scientific
fact that stressful emotions — anger, worry, terror — can cause a
lethal cardiac event?
Some important new research reported last week at the Scientific Sessions of the American Heart
Association confirms and extends prior studies showing that
anger disrupts the heart’s electrical rhythms in very dangerous
ways. According to Dr. Noel Bairey Merz, the medical director of Los
Angeles’ Cedars-Sinai
Medical Center, this new study is “significant in that it
provides objective data confirming a cause-and-effect relationship
between emotions and behavior — here anger — and lethal heart
arrhythmias.”
Most doctors reviewing the study have emphasized the importance
of anger management therapy, especially for those vulnerable to
heart disease.
2. A shout-out for low carb diets
Nothing has been more combative in the Healthspan world than the
Diet Wars. My series on them a couple of years
ago actually generated some of the most heated emails I have ever
received. Here is some fresh gasoline for the fire.
A recently reported study in the prestigious New England Journal of
Medicine lends support to “low carb” diets. Such diets are
typically higher in fat and animal protein sources, the infamous
Atkins Diet
being a prime example. What this study of more than 80,000 women
from Harvard and UCLA found was that cardiac risk is not increased
by eating more fat.
One of the most important findings from this major study is that
the women who consumed their fat mostly from vegetable sources,
such as olive oil, had a 30 percent lower risk of heart disease
than their sisters who gobbled their fat from animal sources.
1) Lung cancer death highly preventable
This one is a wow! Eighty percent of deaths from lung cancer can
be prevented by having a CT scan, according to a Cornell University
study reported recently in the New England Journal of Medicine.
In case you weren’t aware of it, lung cancer is one of the most
lethal of cancers. More Americans die each year from lung cancer
than from breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers combined. It was
estimated that in 2005, 173,000 new cases of lung cancer were
diagnosed and 164,000 Americans died from the disease. This study
is very significant as the CT screening detects lung cancer at very
early stages, where it is curable. Lung cancer is usually detected
in its later stages when it is often too late.
Of these 30,000-plus high-risk subjects who were scanned, 85
percent were discovered to have stage 1 lung cancer. This group,
who caught the cancer early, had a 88 percent chance of surviving
10 years. You can contrast this to the reported survival rate for
patients with stage IV lung cancer at about 5 percent.
The priniciple investigator, Dr. Claudia Henschke, said, “We believe this
study provides compelling evidence that CT screening for lung
cancer offers new hope for millions of people at risk for this
disease, and could dramatically reverse lung cancer death
rates.”
Dr. Michael O.L. Seabaughhealthspan@mac.com is a licensed
clinical psychologist with a psychotherapy practice in Santa
Barbara. Comment at and visit his
web site/blog at www.HealthspanWeb.com for more
information on the topics covered in this column.