Our weekly roundup of the latest developments in the world of health. A fishy way to ward off depression for pregnant women, lung surgery that could help some people with emphysema and how combining hormones and other medications may help women with severe osteoporosis were in the news this week. The week also brought news of how head injuries may contribute to Parkinson's risk and studies that give a boost to the popular Atkins diet.
Stay well.
This Issue:
Fish, Pregnancy And Depression Lung Surgery For Emphysema Hormones And Bone Density Head Injuries And Parkinson's Atkins Diet, Weight Loss And Cholesterol In The News:
Fish, Pregnancy And Depression Eating certain kinds of fish may help women avoid depression before and after giving birth. That's the finding of a study released this week at the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting. The study found that women who ate lots of fish rich in omega-3 fatty acids -- including salmon, sardines, herring and tuna -- in the third trimester of pregnancy were less likely to experience major depression before or for eight months after childbirth. This was true even after the researchers took into consideration other factors affecting the risk of depression. In the study, researchers did an analysis of 11,721 British women and found that the more omega-3 fatty acids a woman got, the lower her risk for developing depression. The women who ate the most fish -- two or three servings per week -- had about half the risk of depression of the women who ate the least fish, the researchers found. The researchers say this could be because low levels of omega-3 fatty acids are linked to low levels of the brain chemical serotonin, which in turn is associated with depression. The researchers say more study is needed, however, before omega-3 fatty acids can be recommended to pregnant women for depression. Pregnant women are advised to eat no more than 12 ounces per week of fish because of high levels of mercury in some species, The Associated Press reports.
Lung Surgery For Emphysema
Surgery to remove part of the lung may improve life for some people with emphysema. A study released at an American Thoracic Society meeting and published in the
New England Journal of Medicine found modest improvements in quality of life, including increased exercise capacity, for some severe emphysema patients who had surgery to remove the diseased parts of their lungs. The Medicare-sponsored study, which began in 1996, looked at 1,218 men and women with emphysema at 17 hospitals around the United States. The participants were randomly assigned to either have lung-reducing surgery or receive standard medical treatment. A year later, 16 percent of the people who had the surgery showed a significant increase in their exercise capacity and reported a better overall quality or life. In comparison, only 3 percent of the people who got medical treatment had increased exercise capacity. The benefits of the surgery were not long lived; after two years, surgery patients' conditions dropped back down to pre-surgery levels and the surgery did not extend their lives, The Associated Press reports. Still, the researchers say their findings show that the surgery is beneficial to a small number of patients, and give a better idea of who might benefit from the procedure. People whose emphysema damage was in the upper lobes of their lungs and who had low exercise capacity benefited most from the surgery, they said.
Hormones And Bone Density
Hormone replacement therapy has fallen out of favor for many conditions, but a new study suggests hormone supplements could still play a role in treating severe osteoporosis. A study published in the
Journal of the American Medical Association finds that a combination of hormones and a non-hormonal bone-building drug does a better job of increasing bone density than either therapy by itself. The study looked at 373 women aged 65 to 90 who had either thinning bones or full-blown osteoporosis. For three years, the women took either hormones (estrogen or estrogen and progestin) combined with the drug alendronate (Fosamax), alendronate alone, hormones alone or a placebo. At the end of three years, women taking the combination treatment had a 6 percent increase in the bone density of their hip, compared to a 4 percent increase in hip bone density for women on alendronate alone and a 3 percent bone density increase for women on hormones alone. The researchers also found that the incidence of problems associated with hormone use -- heart attacks, strokes and breast cancer -- was very low. The researchers say their findings suggest that hormones and alendronate together could be an option for older women at risk of severe osteoporosis and fractures.
Head Injuries And Parkinson's
Head injuries could be a risk factor for Parkinson's disease. A study published in the journal
Neurology finds that people who experience serious head trauma may be at higher risk of developing Parkinson's later in life. The researchers looked at the medical records of 196 people who had Parkinson's and 196 people who did not have the progressive neurological disease, looking for instances of head injury. They found that people who'd had mild head injury with brief or no loss of consciousness had no special risk of Parkinson's disease. But those who'd experienced a head injury that knocked them out for a minute or more were 11 times more likely to develop Parkinson's -- even 20 years after the injury. The researchers could not say why head injury might raise the risk of Parkinson's disease, but they hypothesize that serious injury might disrupt the natural barrier that keeps toxins out of the brain, and that when these toxins get into the brain they trigger a process that eventually leads to Parkinson's, according to a report in
USA Today. The report quotes other experts who say that factors such as family history of the disease play a greater role in Parkinson's risk than head injury.
Atkins Diet, Weight Loss And Cholesterol
The high-protein, high-fat, low-carbohydrate Atkins diet has gotten a boost: Two studies published in the
New England Journal of Medicine find that the popular type of diet does help people lose weight and does not raise cholesterol. One study looked at 132 men and women who followed an Atkins-type diet or a low-fat diet for six months. The subjects started out weighing an average of 286 pounds. At the end of the study, those on the Atkins-type diet had lost an average of nearly 13 pounds, while those on the low-fat diet had lost an average of a little more than four pounds. The second study looked at 63 people, who started out weighing an average of 217 pounds, for one year. After six months, people following an Atkins-type diet had lost more than 15 pounds, while people who followed a low-fat diet lost about seven pounds. However, after one year the people on the Atkins-type diet had regained about one third of the weight they'd lost, while low-fat dieters regained an average of one fifth of what they'd lost. About 40 percent of the participants dropped out of both studies, with Atkins-type dieters and low-fat dieters equally likely to quit. Both studies found no problems with levels of "good" or "bad" cholesterol or triglycerides in people following the Atkins-type diet; in fact, their levels of good cholesterol and triglycerides were better than people on a low-fat diet. The Associated Press quotes experts who say these findings suggest that an Atkins-type low-carbohydrate diet maybe a healthy short-term way to lose weight, but that it's not clear yet if it is a healthy way to maintain weight loss in the long run.
Used with the permission of the copyright owner. All rights reserved. The above summaries are not intended to provide advice on personal medical matters, nor are they intended to be a substitute for consultation with a physician.
