Media Library Articles & Stories

More and more people are seeking minimally invasive cosmetic treatments that can be done in under an hour and have short recovery periods so they won’t jeopardize their jobs, a British plastic surgeon has noted.
   
“The average breast enhancement or facelift can see a person off work for a week or more,” said Ravi Jain, medical director at the Riverbanks Clinic in Bedfordshire, “yet there are a host of other treatments available which can provide similar results with radically shorter recovery times.

Scientists recently found the gene that governs the growth of the body’s enamel-secreting cells, a major development that may pave the way for the mending of damaged enamel, new approaches to cavity prevention, and the production of replacement teeth.
   
The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, discovered that the “transcription factor” gene, called Ctip2, plays the enamel-secretion role in addition to other roles that were already known. (Ctip2 is also involved in immune response, and the development of skin and the nervous system.)

As you get older in years, you don’t have to decline in body and mind. So ditch the drugs, lose the hormone replacement therapy, forget about surgery, and instead follow these tips from the Chinese medical tradition that help to provide energy, slow down aging and promote the body’s natural healing power.
   
-- Drink green tea. Studies have provided evidence suggesting regular green tea intake shields against Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, perhaps because of its many antioxidants known as polyphenols. Green tea’s best-known polyphenol, catechin, which is known to improve brain power, is found at a four times greater level in green tea than in black tea. An extra benefit of green tea is its potential to aid in the loss of belly fat, which studies have suggested.

The regular use of carefully chosen frozen embryos left over from fertility treatments dramatically increases the pregnancy success rate among infertile couples, a British clinic has found.
    
The new regimen holds the promise of sharply reducing the time a couple has to wait for a baby, and of alleviating the risk to women of repeated cycles of side-effect-ridden fertility drugs, which can lead to polycystic ovary syndrome.

For people with sensitive nerves and stomachs, coffee can be an irritant. But for the 87 percent of Americans who drink coffee daily at an average of 8 ounces a day, there are many benefits. Here are nine of them:

Weight loss. Coffee stimulates the metabolism, so it’s hardly surprising that a study at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston found that serious coffee drinkers gained less weight over 12 years than less-serious ones, all other things being equal.

Stress, and the tension in the spine, nervous system, back and neck that it breeds, is rising like a tide in America today along with the economic woes afflicting the nation – and chiropractors are well positioned to tackle the problems.
    
A survey done not too long ago by the American Psychological Association (APA) revealed that economy-related stress is making Americans angry, sleepless and anxious. Seventy-two percent of respondents pointed to money as a major source of stress, and 69 percent cited the economy, according to the APA.

Obese men undergo significant hormonal changes and experience markedly worse sex lives – but stomach-stapling surgery can correct those troubles, a recent small study showed.
   
“Previous studies have found that obesity is correlated to lower sperm count and can be associated with infertility, but we wanted to know if obesity was biologically associated with an unsatisfying sex life, and if so, could it be reversible,” the study’s lead author, Ahmad Hammoud, of the University of Utah, said in an Endocrine Society news release. “Our results show that the answer to both questions may be yes.”

The amount we eat every day is a factor not only of our genetics, the strength of our willpower or our metabolic rate. A lot more is at work, such as:

Time of day. Each of us gets into routines that psychologically "tell" our bodies we need food at the same time each day. "Part of the reason you're hungry at noon is because that's the time you've eaten for the last 100 days," said Randy Seeley, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati.

An approach to treating cancer known as monoclonal antibody therapy, that has already effectively proven itself, is on the threshold of becoming yet more powerful, according to an overview of recent research.
   
“We believe that antibody therapy has the capacity to immunize people against cancer,” said Louis Weiner, director of the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University Medical Center. “Treatment modifications might be able to prolong, amplify and shape a continuous immune response to cancer cells.”

Laser eye surgery, hugely successful for the great majority of patients, can fail if a subject’s pupils are too large.
   
Thus, a good eye doctor who wants to provide patients with LASIK surgery (short for laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis) to correct faulty vision – including nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism – will carefully screen applicants for the procedure.