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Am I Going Bald? It's a Bit Early to Say
Tweet Share on Facebook February 27, 2008 CommentAbout 15 minutes into my last haircut, the hairdresser stared at my reflection in the mirror and impassively mentioned my hair was thinning right above the temples. My heart skipped a beat. I was incredulous, mainly because my hair isn't thinning at all, though I do have a fairly pronounced widow's peak. Besides, this was the first time he had cut my hair, so how could he really tell? Still, like a magician, he seemed to conjure out of thin air a new product for sale that I could massage into my scalp to help regrow the phantom hair—or at least postpone the terminus of my youth. Thanks a lot.
But what if there was a way to find out if male pattern baldness—also known by its scarier medical appellation, androgenic alopecia—was in the cards in the years ahead? Would it really be worth knowing?
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Diabulimia—a Young Diabetics' Eating Disorder
Tweet Share on Facebook February 27, 2008 Comment (5)We're smack in the middle of the National Eating Disorders Association's Awareness Week, and I'm wondering why I'm not familiar with the term diabulimia, a behavior highlighted in a study published today in the journal Diabetes Care. Though the Associated Press reported the trend last year, I suspect I'm not the only one who would've been hard pressed to explain that it's practiced by people—almost exclusively young women—with type 1 diabetes who can achieve significant, rapid weight loss by intentionally skipping doses of insulin. That hormone helps their bodies take up fuel from the bloodstream and tame erratic blood sugar. The price of thinness is especially high for this group: The Diabetes Care study found that women with type 1 diabetes who intentionally forgo their insulin medication have a threefold increased risk of premature death and higher rates of complications—including kidney dysfunction and foot problems—than those who don't.
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Still Time (and Good Reason) to Get a Flu Shot
Tweet Share on Facebook February 18, 2008 Comment (3)Perhaps you've heard the news that this year's flu vaccine doesn't do a very good job of protecting against this year's flu—and have thought that a good excuse to skip getting a shot. Not a smart move, advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The vaccine does provide protection against one of the three flu strains making people sick this year, and it gives "cross protection" against the others—meaning the illness, should you get it, will be milder and the risk of complications lower.
How completely a vaccine works depends on how accurately scientists predict which strains will circulate in a given year and match that to the vaccine. Three virus strains are included in each of the two types of flu vaccine: a shot containing killed virus, and FluMist, a nasal spray containing weakened live virus. Of the 5 to 20 percent of the population who get the flu each year, more than 200,000 people end up hospitalized, and about 36,000 die, according to the CDC. The flu shot is recommended for such high-risk groups as children ages 6 months to 5 years, pregnant women, those ages 50 and older, those with chronic medical conditions (such as heart disease, asthma, and diabetes), those living in long-term-care facilities and nursing homes, healthcare workers, and those who provide care for or come in regular contact with high-risk groups. The nasal spray is an option for healthy people ages 2 to 49 who are not pregnant.
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Deciphering Unexpected Deaths in a Diabetes Study
Tweet Share on Facebook February 7, 2008 Comment (8)On Monday, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health shut down part of a $300 million study called ACCORD that had been following more than 10,000 very high-risk diabetic patients at 77 medical centers for as long as seven years. All had not only long-standing diabetes but also two or more other major cardiovascular risks such as obesity, smoking, or a previous heart-disease history. An unexpectedly large number of deaths had occurred among patients who were being aggressively treated to bring their blood sugar level below currently recommended standards. There were 257 deaths, about 25 percent higher than the 203 deaths in patients who got the usual care. (Because all patients were carefully monitored and managed, the annual death rate for both groups, about 1.4 percent and 1.1 percent respectively, was far below the 5 percent typical of other patients at similarly high risk.)
