Archive for November 2014

Sexsomnia

The inclusion of a new sleep disorder in the DSM-5 might raise awareness of the underreported diagnosis and help physicians better identify the condition.

Sexsomnia can present in different forms but is generally described as engaging in sexual activity while asleep.

Sexsomnia can involve varying degrees of sexual activity while unconscious, including masturbation, fondling, groping, and intercourse. Patients often are unaware they have the condition, and signs of the disorder frequently are reported by a partner, roommate, or spouse.

More

Study Finds Teens Prescribed Sleep Medicines Much More Likely To Abuse Them.

According to the study, published in the journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, teens prescribed sleep and anti-anxiety drugs may be up to 12 times more likely to abuse them compared to teens who have never received these prescriptions.

http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/adb-adb0000026.pdf

The number of anti-anxiety and sleep medications prescribed to teens has risen over the past decade, research shows. According to a 2011 survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 3 percent of adolescents in the U.S. abuse these drugs.

“This is a wake-up call to the medical community as far as the risks involved in prescribing these medications to young people,” lead researcher Carol J. Boyd, professor at the University of Michigan School of Nursing, said in a news release. “When taken as prescribed, these drugs are effective and not dangerous. The problem is when adolescents use too many of them or mix them with other substances, especially alcohol.”

These medications can not only impair driving, the researchers noted, but they also can prove fatal when mixed with other substances. Abusing anti-anxiety and sleep drugs may also increase the chance of overdose, substance abuse disorders and criminal activity, according to the news release.

In their research, the study authors surveyed more than 2,700 middle and high school students online from the Detroit area twice annually from 2009 to 2012.

The Great American Smokeout

Let us be aware of this deadly COPD!!!

COPD, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, is an umbrella term for a lung disease that includes emphysema, chronic bronchitis, or a combination of both. These conditions make it difficult to empty air out of the lungs, and they cannot be fully reversed.  Overtime, the symptoms patients experience—shortness of breath, cough, fatigue, and sometimes excessive mucous production —usually worsen.

But there is hope.  Pulmonary rehabilitation and medicines can help individuals with COPD manage their symptoms, and may improve quality of life.

Most people develop COPD by smoking or being exposed to second-hand smoke.  A small group of people are genetically predisposed to COPD through the deficiency of a protein called alpha-1 antitrypsin.

The most effective strategy to prevent COPD is to quit smoking.  Quitting smoking is also important for those who must manage COPD.

COPD sometimes is misdiagnosed as asthma or another health problem.  A breathing test called spirometry is necessary to determine if a person has COPD.

Did You Know?

According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

• COPD is the third-leading cause of death in the U.S. (And the World Health Organization, predicts by 2030, it will also be the third-leading cause of death worldwide.)
• COPD kills more than 120,000 Americans each year.
• That’s one death every 4 minutes
• More than 12 million people are diagnosed with COPD
• An additional 12 million likely have COPD and don’t know it

Learn More Through the New COPD Guide and the ATS Patient Information Series

http://patients.thoracic.org/?p=2399

Tobacco Use Among Middle and High School Students — United States, 2013

René A. Arrazola, MPH1, Linda J. Neff, PhD1, Sara M. Kennedy, MPH2, Enver Holder-Hayes, MPH3, Christopher D. Jones, PhD1 (Author affiliations at end of text)

Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of disease and death in the United States, and nearly all tobacco use begins during youth and young adulthood (1,2). Among U.S. youths, cigarette smoking has declined in recent years; however, the use of some other tobacco products has increased (3), and nearly half of tobacco users use two or more tobacco products (4). CDC analyzed data from the 2013 National Youth Tobacco Survey* to determine the prevalence of ever (at least once) and current (at least 1 day in the past 30 days) use of one or more of 10 tobacco products (cigarettes, cigars, hookahs, smokeless tobacco, electronic cigarettes [e-cigarettes], pipes, snus, bidis, kreteks, and dissolvable tobacco) among U.S. middle school (grades 6–8) and high school (grades 9–12) students. In 2013, 22.9% of high school students reported current use of any tobacco product, and 12.6% reported current use of two or more tobacco products; current use of combustible products (i.e., cigarettes, cigars, pipes, bidis, kreteks, and/or hookahs) was substantially greater (20.7%) than use of other types of tobacco. Also, 46.0% of high school students reported having ever tried a tobacco product, and 31.4% reported ever trying two or more tobacco products. Among middle school students, 3.1% reported current use of cigars, and 2.9% reported current use of cigarettes, with non-Hispanic black students more than twice as likely to report current use of cigars than cigarettes. Monitoring the prevalence of the use of all available tobacco products, including new and emerging products, is critical to support effective population-based interventions to prevent and reduce tobacco use among youths as part of comprehensive tobacco prevention and control programs.

The National Youth Tobacco Survey is a cross-sectional, school-based, self-administered, pencil-and-paper questionnaire administered to U.S. middle school (grades 6–8) and high school (grades 9–12) students. Information is collected on tobacco control outcome indicators to monitor the impact of comprehensive tobacco control policies and programs (5) and regulatory authorities of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) (6). A three-stage cluster sampling procedure was used to generate a nationally representative sample of students in grades 6–12. Of 250 schools selected for the 2013 National Youth Tobacco Survey, 187 (74.8%) participated, with a sample of 18,406 (90.7%) among 20,301 eligible students†; the overall response rate was 67.8%. Participants were asked about ever and current use of cigarettes, cigars (defined as cigars, cigarillos, or little cigars), smokeless tobacco (defined as chewing tobacco, snuff, or dip), pipes, bidis, kreteks, hookah, snus, dissolvable tobacco, and e-cigarettes. Ever use was defined as ever trying a product, and current use was defined as using a product on 1 or more days during the past 30 days. For both ever use and current use, any tobacco use was defined as reporting the use of one or more tobacco products; use of two or more tobacco products was defined as reporting the use of two or more tobacco products in the specified time, current (in the past 30 days) or ever. Combustible tobacco was defined as cigarettes, cigars, pipes, bidis, kreteks, and/or hookahs. Noncombustible tobacco was defined as smokeless tobacco, snus, and/or dissolvable tobacco. A separate category was created for e-cigarette use. Data were adjusted for nonresponse and weighted to provide national prevalence estimates with 95% confidence intervals; statistically significant (p<0.05) differences between population subgroups were assessed using a t-test. Estimates for ever and current use are presented for each type of product, for any tobacco use, and for the use of two or more tobacco products by selected demographics for each school level (middle and high).

Bronchial Thermoplasty reduces asthma attacks

At one-year (compared to sham), patients with severe asthma who were treated with BT experienced:

Medicare Proposes Paying

for Lung Cancer Screenings

for Older Longtime Smokers

(NY Times) WASHINGTON — Medicare will cover annual screenings for lung cancer for older Americans with long histories of heavy smoking, the federal government said Monday in a proposal that would cover an estimated four million people, many of whom are at greatest risk for the disease.

Monday’s draft decision by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services would extend coverage for CT scans to Medicare beneficiaries who smoked at least a pack a day for 30 years or the equivalent, even if they quit as long as 15 years ago. Scans would cost recipients nothing; the coverage would apply to beneficiaries through age 74.

The proposal follows a more sweeping recommendation last year by an influential government health panel that such smokers ages 55 to 80 get annual screenings, a policy shift that experts said had the potential to save 20,000 lives a year. That recommendation focused on current and former smokers at highest risk, a population of about 10 million Americans.

Benefit seen in long-term smokers when testing is done by skilled experts

Lung cancer screening with CT scans can be cost-effective while saving lives, a new study suggests.

But, there are two caveats to that finding — the procedure has to be performed by skilled professionals and the screening must be done on a very specific set of long-time smokers, the researchers noted.

Results from the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) showed four years ago that annual CT scans can reduce lung cancer deaths by 20 percent in older, long-time smokers.

The new study, which uses data gathered during that national trial, concludes that screening for lung cancer would cost $81,000 for each year of quality life gained — lower than the generally accepted $100,000-per-year threshold for cost effectiveness.

“While it sounds like an awful lot, $100,000 to $150,000 per quality-adjusted life-year is considered a reasonable value within the United States,” said study author Dr. William Black, a professor of radiology at the Dartmouth University Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. “It’s plausible to design a screening program for lung cancer that ultimately would be cost-effective.”

More

(FoxNews) Working abnormal hours in the long-term may lead to memory loss and slower, irreversible brain processing speed, suggests a new study published in British Medical Journal.

Researchers in Sweden and France tracked the cognitive abilities of more than 3,000 people who were either working in a range of sectors or who had retired at three points: 1996, 2001 and 2006, according to a news release.

About half of the sample was drawn from a pool of patients of three occupational health doctors in southern France, who had worked at least 50 days of the year.

Participants were 32, 42, 52 and 62 years of age during the first set of tests, which assessed long- and short-term memory, processing speed and overall cognitive abilities.

More