Relax! This Needle Is Patient Friendly; A New Worry for Cancer Patients; Better to Watch Your Waistline
Relax! This Needle Is Patient Friendly
It's not just kids who are terrified of needles. Even adults might be helped by a smiley face or two, concludes a team at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center in the latest Journal of Family Practice. Syringes and needles decorated with colorful stickers inspired less than half as much anxiety as unadorned ones did, as reported by the 60 children and adults studied. "People aren't stupid-they know it's a needle," says rheumatologist Wilmer Sibbitt Jr., the lead investigator. But the positive images, he says, may interfere with the brain's focus on the approaching needle. "Distraction can work well in instances of pain or fear,"agrees Srini Pillay, director of the Anxiety Disorders Clinic at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass. Sibbitt bought the stickers "at a Walgreens or someplace"and applied them himself. He hopes a needle manufacturer will now follow up. - Avery Comarow
A New Worry for Cancer Patients
Two studies just out in the Journal of Clinical Oncologyfound that two breast cancer treatments-radiation of the left breast and the drug Herceptin, which reduces the risk of recurrence in certain women-pose a danger to the heart. Of 173 women who took Herceptin for at least a year, 28 percent showed signs of heart failure. Still, says study director Francisco Esteva, an oncologist at M.??D. Anderson Cancer Center, the benefits outweigh the hazards for most women, in whom heart symptoms could be treated with drugs. In the second study, radiation to the left breast was linked to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and heart attack-though not of death. - Katherine Hobson
Better to Watch Your Waistline
Body mass index, which correlates weight with height, is considered an indicator of heart attack risk. But a new paper in Lancet analyzing studies going back 40 years finds little tie between a high BMI and heart problems. Perhaps reflecting the crudeness of the measure, most of the studies showed that low-BMI patients had higher rates of heart events, while overweight people had lower rates. BMI has merit in judging other risks, such as diabetes, says Robert Eckel, a noted obesity researcher at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. For heart problems, he says, excess abdominal fat-a waist size of 40 inches or more for men, 35 inches for women-may be a better warning sign, "and it's certainly easier to understand." - A.C.
This story appears in the August 28, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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