Health & Wellness
 

Cotton Swabs Can Pose Serious Health Risk: Coroner CTV.ca News Staff http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080205/ A Quebec coroner is raising a red flag about the cotton swab, following the death of a man who used the common bathroom product to clean his ears. Daniel St-Pierre, 43, died March 25, 2007 in Montreal after developing meningitis-induced intracranial complications caused by an ear infection. In a report, coroner Jacques Ramsay said St-Pierre's death is further proof that people still use swabs inside their ears -- despite warnings on the package that while it's acceptable to "swab gently around the outer ear," the swab should "not enter the ear canal." The coroner says the best way to clean an ear is with a pinky. And he is recommending Health Canada order manufacturers to put a much clearer warning on their packaging -- an actual drawing of an ear with a red X to show what you're not supposed to do. Ramsay said St-Pierre likely developed the infection after perforating his eardrum with a swab, and that he didn't realize what had been bothering him was an infection. "We think that prompted him to use a cotton swab and that's when he ruptured his ear drum," Ramsay told CTV News on Tuesday. "This allowed the infection to move to the inner ear and once the infection is in the inner ear, you're basically millimeters away from the meninges (the three membranes covering the brain and spinal cord)." Ramsay said he knew of only a handful of cases resulting in death after using a cotton swab. What's more frequent, he said, are incidents of people becoming deaf after breaking their eardrums. Doctors are once again warning people not to insert anything in their inner ear to extract ear wax. "Putting in a cotton swab is very difficult because you can't judge the depth of the ear canal," Vancouver family physician Dr. Jeff Stein told CTV News. "And the ear drum, the tympanic membrane, is easily damaged or perforated, and that can possibly lead to some serious consequences." With a report from CTV's Jed Kahane in Montreal

Daytime Nap Can Boost Memory Performance: Study CBC News A short afternoon nap can boost a person's ability to perform memory-based tasks, but only if they've learned the task well beforehand, says a U.S. study. Harvard Medical School researchers showed that subjects who took a 45-minute nap between memory tests were more likely to improve their scores the second time than those who remained awake. The catch is that only those who scored well on the tests before their nap — that is, those who learned the tasks well — showed real improvement in their repeat performances. Those who did well on the initial test but were not allowed to sleep did not see the same improvement in the second round. Those who did not do well in the first memory tests were not helped by taking a nap. Their re-test results were similar to those who likewise did poorly on the first tests and then stayed awake. The study, published Friday in the peer-reviewed journal SLEEP, followed 11 men and 22 women with an average age of 23. The participants were trained in various memory tasks, including learning their way through a maze and pairing words. Shortly afterward, 16 subjects took a 45-minute afternoon nap while 17 remained awake in the lab. After the nap, all subjects remained in the lab until the retest about two hours later. While it's long been understood that good sleep boosts performance for all kinds of tasks, the Harvard study shows you must have already achieved a certain mastery of the task for a nap to lead to better performance. "These results suggest that there is a threshold acquisition level that has to be obtained for sleep to optimally process the memory," said Dr. Matthew Tucker, the study's author. "The importance of this finding is that sleep may not indiscriminately process all information we acquire during wakefulness, only the information we learn well." Meanwhile in France, the health minister launched a study last year into whether workers should be allowed to sleep on the job. "Why not a nap at work? It can't be a taboo subject," Health Minister Xavier Bertrand said at the time. About one in three French people suffers from sleep problems and 56 per cent complain that a poor night's sleep has affected their job performance, according to the ministry.

Beetroot 'May Cut Blood Pressure' Drinking beetroot juice, or consuming other nitrate-rich vegetables, might be a simple way to maintain a healthy cardiovascular system Professor Amrita Ahluwalia Barts and The London School of Medicine Drinking 500ml of beetroot juice a day can significantly reduce blood pressure, UK research suggests. The key beneficial ingredient appears to be nitrate, which is also found in green, leafy vegetables. The researchers found that in healthy volunteers blood pressure was reduced within an hour of drinking the juice. The study, by Barts and the London School of Medicine and the Peninsula Medical School, could suggest a low-cost way to treat hypertension. Previously the protective effects of vegetable-rich diets have been attributed to their antioxidant vitamin content. While it took less than an hour to note a reduction in blood pressure in the beetroot juice tests, it was more pronounced after three to four hours and a degree of reduction continued to be observed for up to 24 hours, the report published on the online journal Hypertension said. Saliva breakdown The researchers showed that nitrate in the juice is converted in saliva, by bacteria on the tongue, into nitrite. This nitrite-containing saliva is swallowed, and in the acidic environment of the stomach is either converted into nitric oxide or re-enters the circulation as nitrite. The peak time of reduction in blood pressure correlated with the appearance and peak levels of nitrite in the circulation. No such drop in blood pressure was recorded in a second group of volunteers, who did not swallow their saliva while drinking beetroot juice, or for three hours afterwards. More than 25% of the world's adult population are hypertensive, and it has been estimated that this figure will increase to 29% by 2025. Hypertension causes around 50% of coronary heart disease, and approximately 75% of strokes. In total, cardiovascular disease kills over 110,000 people in England every year. Researcher Professor Amrita Ahluwalia said: "Our research suggests that drinking beetroot juice, or consuming other nitrate-rich vegetables, might be a simple way to maintain a healthy cardiovascular system, and might also be an additional approach that one could take in the modern day battle against rising blood pressure." Professor Graham McGregor, of the British Hypertension Society, described the research as "interesting". He said: "This shows that beetroot juice lowers blood pressure in the short term in volunteers with normal blood pressure. "What we need now is research to see whether it has an effect on people with high blood pressure over a much longer period of time." Professor McGregor said there was a growing body of work showing that a diet rich in fruit and vegetables had a beneficial impact on hypertension. But he said previous research had suggested that potassium may be the key mineral. Victoria Taylor, of the British Heart Foundation, said: "Whilst beetroot juice was used in this study, it is unlikely that people will be able to - or wish to - consume it in the quantities used in the research. "Although we know that eating a diet rich in fruit and vegetables as part of a well balanced diet is beneficial to heart health, we do not know yet whether there are certain fruits or vegetables that are more helpful than others and so for now, people should continue to choose a wide variety in achieving their five a day." Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/7228420.stm Published: 2008/02/06 01:00:38 GMT © BBC MMVIII

Green Personal Care Tips http://www.armhammer.com/myhome/room.asp?room=Bathroom# Refreshing Bath Soak Taking a bath is so last year…until now! Add 1/2 cup of ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda to your bath to neutralize acids on the skin and help wash away oil and perspiration. Your skin will feel silky smooth, and it’s a great way to get away from it all. Hair Care For locks that rock, remember to shake it. Sprinkle a small amount (quarter-size) of ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda into your palm along with your favorite shampoo. Shampoo as usual and rinse thoroughly. The ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda helps remove the residue that styling products leave behind so your hair is cleaner and more manageable. Facial Scrub and Body Exfoliant Are you a fan of the self-tan? Before applying products that give you a ‘glow’, give yourself an invigorating, yet gentle, facial and body scrub with ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda. Removing dead skin cells will leave your skin soft and smooth, perfect before application. Make a paste of 3 parts ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda to 1 part water. Rub in a gentle circular motion to exfoliate the skin. Rinse clean. Gentle enough for daily use! Oral Appliance Soak Don’t let odors keep you tight-lipped. Soak oral appliances, like retainers, mouthpieces, and dentures in a solution of 2 teaspoons ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda dissolved in a glass or small bowl of warm water. The ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda loosens food particles and neutralizes odors to keep appliances fresh! You can also brush appliances clean using ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda. Antacid Spicy food is yummy until it bothers the tummy. ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda is a safe and effective antacid to relieve heartburn, sour stomach and/or acid indigestion, when used as directed. Always refer to the ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda package for instructions. Learn more about how ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda works as an antacid. Deodorant A quick pit stop. Dust ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda under arms as needed to feel fresh all day. The magic of ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda actually absorbs odors instead of just covering them up. Clean Brushes and Combs For lustrous hair with more shine, keep brushes and combs clean. Remove natural oil build-up and hair product residue by soaking combs and brushes in a solution of 1 teaspoon of ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda in a small basin of warm water. Rinse and allow to dry. Hand Cleanser Give yourself a hand with ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda. Forget the harsh soaps and gently scrub away ground-in dirt and neutralize odors on hands with a paste of 3 parts ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda to 1 part water, or 3 parts ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda to your liquid hand soap. Then rinse clean. Your skin will feel softer too! Mouth Freshening Bad breath keeping you tight-lipped? Open up for ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda. Put one teaspoon in half a glass of water, swish, spit and rinse. Odors are neutralized – not just covered up- so get ready to pucker up! Mouth Cleaning Clean up your mouth! * Use ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda to help keep teeth clean and white! Sprinkle some ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda into your palm, dip in your damp brush, and clean those pearly whites. For a smile that’s Cleaner, Whiter, Fresher™ try ARM & HAMMER® Oral Care products with the proven cleaning power of ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda. Soothing Foot Soak Here’s a great way to start your home pedicure. Dissolve 3 tablespoons of ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda in a basin of warm water and soak feet. Gently scrub with a paste of ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda. The hardest part is deciding which color nail polish you’ll use this week!