cdistaffing.com Blog

Well, it’s time to toss out the old and bring in the new, or nearly time. There are a few more days to figure out what’s going, what’s staying and what’s up for the New Year.

I’m not a resolution or list maker but if I were, the first resolution I’d put on my list for the New Year would be a resolution to make a list. That way, I could cross it off the list as accomplished and feel very virtuous.

The 10 most popular New Year’s resolutions, according to some poll or other, are:

1) Spend more time with family and friends (I kinda like this one. The only drawback to it, however, is that family and friends have to make it too, otherwise it’d be pretty darn tough to keep.)

2) Get fit (Yeah, OK but first I have to find time to fit in fitness.)

3) Lose weight (Really? I don’t know about the rest of you who are packing around a few extra pounds, but I’m sure not interested in “losing” weight. Losing it just means you run the risk of finding it again.)

4) Quit smoking (Just knock it off, will ya?)

5) Quit drinking (Again, just knock it off, for pity sake.)

6) Enjoy life more (OK, but how am I gonna do that if I’m keeping resolutions 2, 3, 4 and 5?)

7) Get out of debt (In this economy that wouldn’t take a resolution, it’d take a miracle or a serious re-direction of that stimulus money I keep hearing about but haven’t seen.)

Learn something new (Like how to enjoy life without chocolate, chips, tequila and cigs. Hey, I could do that!)

9) Help others

Doug

CDIstaffing.com

A new study has revealed that Acetaminophen, more commonly known as Tylenol, which is usually taken to help with physical pains and cramps, might just be effective enough to help in relieving psychological pain that is caused by heartbreaks and rejection.

For the sake of research, as many as 62 healthy subjects, all college undergraduate students, were divided into two groups, with one group placed on 1,000 milligrams of Acetaminophen daily, and the other on a placebo. After analyzing data collected every evening for a total of 3 weeks, these subjects were asked to report the social pain they experienced, using the “Hurt Feelings Scale”.

Students on Tylenol reported “fewer hurt feelings and social pain over the course of the experiment”.

doug

CDIstaffing.com

Airport restaurants packed with holiday travelers have been cited in the past year for hundreds of food safety violations, local health department reports show.A USA TODAY review of inspection records for nearly 800 restaurants at 10 airports found items such as tuna salad and turkey sandwiches stored at dangerously warm temperatures, raw meat contaminating ready-to-eat foods, rat droppings and kitchens lacking soap for workers to wash hands.

Serious violations, which can increase the risk of illness, are common. On the most recent inspections available online, 42% of 57 restaurants reviewed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport had at least one “critical” violation. So did 77% of 35 restaurants reviewed at Reagan National Airport.

 Doug

CDIstaffing.com

People who die of swine flu contract a “rapidly fatal” form of the disease and tend to die of lung injury, although it strikes different people in different ways, an autopsy study showed Thursday.

In the first study of its kind, researchers in Brazil examined 21 patients aged one to 68 who died in Sao Paulo with confirmed (A)H1N1 infections in July and August.

All 21 patients “presented a progressive and rapidly fatal form of the disease,” the study, which will be published in the January 1 issue of the American Thoracic Society’s “American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine”, found.

All were found to have died of severe acute lung injury, but with three distinct patterns of damage to the lungs, the study said, indicating to the researchers that swine flu “killed in distinct ways”.

“All patients have a picture of acute lung injury,” said the study’s lead author, Thais Mauad, an associate professor of the Department of Pathology at Sao Paulo University.

But some of the patients had only acute lung injury while in others it was associated with necrotizing bronchiolitis — severe inflammation of the small airway passages in the lungs — and in others there was “a hemorrhagic pattern,” Mauad said.

Patients with necrotizing bronchiolitis were more likely to also have a bacterial co-infection, while patients with heart disease and cancer were more likely to have a hemorrhagic condition in their lungs.

“It is important to bear in mind that patients with underlying medical conditions must be adequately monitored, since they are at greater risk of developing a severe H1N1 infection,” said Mauad.

Sixteen of the patients had chronic underlying health conditions, such as heart disease or cancer, the study found.

Doug

CDIstaffing.com

One of the most underutilized treatments for heart patients may also be one of the most effective, new research suggests.

The longer patients in the study participated in cardiac rehabilitation programs following heart-related hospitalizations, the better their outcomes were.

The goal of cardiac rehabilitation is to slow or even reverse the progression of cardiovascular disease by educating patients about their disease and having them follow a medically supervised exercise program.

Sessions are typically held two or three times a week for several months after a heart-related hospital discharge, but only about 10% to 20% of patients who could benefit from the programs actually attend them, rehab specialist David Prince, MD, of Montefiore Medical Center tells WebMD.

Doug

CDIstaffing.com

If you’ve just had your first heart attack, doctors may one day be able to reverse the damage done with stem cell therapy.

An intravenous method of injecting stem cells into patients who had experienced heart attacks within the previous 10 days suggested that this method works to repair — not just manage – heart damage, a recent study found.

The study is a step forward in a field in which a lot of approaches have been tried in animals and preliminary human trials, but none has been approved for widespread clinical use for heart patients.

Doug

CDIstaffing.com

People in sunny, outdoorsy states — Louisiana, Hawaii, Florida — say they’re the happiest Americans, and researchers think they know why. A new study comparing self-described pleasant feelings with objective measures of good living found these folks generally have reason to feel fine.

The places where people are most likely to report happiness also tend to rate high on studies comparing things like climate, crime rates, air quality and schools.

The happiness ratings were based on a survey of 1.3 million people across the country by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It used data collected over four years that included a question asking people how satisfied they are with their lives.

Economists Andrew J. Oswald of the University of Warwick in England and Stephen Wu of Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., compared the happiness ranking with studies that rated states on a variety of criteria ranging from availability of public land to commuting time to localtaxes.

Doug

CDIstaffing.com

Scientists in Britain have identified the specific mutations in DNA that lead to melanoma and lung cancer, BBC News reports. After mapping the entire genomes of both cancers, the team uncovered more than 30,000 DNA errors in melanoma. Lung cancer DNA showed more than 23,000 mutations. (Not all of the mutations cause disease.) The work could enable clinicians to spot cancer earlier with blood tests, the scientists say, and may aid the development of drugs to target mutations. The Institute of Cancer Research says the breakthrough will lead to a better understanding of how other cancers develop, according to BBC News.

Doug

CDIstaffing.com

Federal health advisers said Tuesday that expanded use of AstraZeneca’s cholesterol pill Crestor can benefit patients with healthy cholesterol levels by preventing heart attack, stroke and death.

A Food and Drug Administration panel of experts voted 12-4 with one abstention that Crestor’s benefits outweigh its risks in patients with normal cholesterol and no history of heart disease, setting the stage for a dramatic expansion of a drug that is already a blockbuster.

The FDA is not required to follow the group’s advice, though it usually does. A decision is expected in the first quarter of next year.

A positive ruling would allow AstraZeneca to market the drug to more than 6.5 million new patients who traditionally have not been candidates for cholesterol-lowering drugs.

Doug

CDIstaffing.com

An herb used since ancient times to treat liver ailments may help reduce the liver damage caused by some cancer drugs, a study published Monday suggests.

In a study of 50 children undergoing chemotherapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), researchers found that an herb called milk thistle appeared to reduce treatment-related liver inflammation.

The study, published online in the journal Cancer, is the first clinical trial to test the herb in children undergoing chemotherapy, and the investigators caution that more research is still needed.

However, the findings are “promising” — particularly since there is currently no way to help protect the liver from chemotherapy-induced damage, said senior researcher Dr. Kara M. Kelly, a pediatric oncologist at Columbia University Medical Center in New York.

Liver inflammation is common among children undergoing chemotherapy for ALL, Kelly told Reuters Health — with about two-thirds developing liver toxicity at some point during treatment

Doug

CDIstaffing.com