Fitness & Health

Baltimore City moves senior programs

By:
Baltimore City moves senior programs

Earlier this summer, Baltimore City Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake proposed moving responsibility for the city’s older adult services from a cabinet-level agency operated by the Commission on Aging & Retirement Education (CARE) to a program of the Baltimore City Health Department’s Division of School Health and Older Adult Programs.

Benefits attributed to pomegranate juice

By: Joyce Hendley
Benefits attributed to pomegranate juice

There are many good reasons to pick up a pomegranate: the bright red fruits are festive, seasonal, pack tons of antioxidants and, a new study suggests, may help relieve symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease. May reduce arthritis pain

Benefits of custom-made blood vessels

By: Marilynn Marchione
Benefits of custom-made blood vessels

Three dialysis patients have received the world’s first blood vessels grown in a lab from donated skin cells. It’s a key step toward creating a supply of ready-to-use arteries and veins that could be used to treat diabetics, soldiers with damaged limbs, people having heart bypass surgery and others. The goal is to one day have a refrigerated inventory of blood vessels in various sizes and shapes that surgeons could order up as needed, like bandages and other medical supplies.

Better nutrition may reduce arthritis pain

By: Victoria Shanta Retelny
Better nutrition may reduce arthritis pain

When your joints are inflamed with arthritis, the condition can be painful and debilitating. Although the first line of defense for arthritis is medication, research is unfolding about the effects of diet on joint health. “Some people may find that over time — three to six months — a plant-based, Mediterranean-type diet may help them feel better,” said Dr. Lona Sandon, a rheumatoid arthritis sufferer and national spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association.

Beware free trials of anti-aging products

By: Arlene Weintraub
Beware free trials of anti-aging products

Kathleen Cole was browsing an Internet drugstore when an ad popped up too tantalizing to resist. A company called Syndero was featuring a 14-day free trial of Dermitage, a cream that promised to fade wrinkles and restore youthful-looking skin. Cole, 70, was happy with how she looked, but what, she wondered, did she have to lose? So she handed over her credit card number with the understanding that it wouldn’t be charged unless she was sold on Dermitage at the end of the trial.

Blood test for cancer is becoming reality

By: Marilynn Marchione
Blood test for cancer is becoming reality

A blood test so sensitive that it can spot a single cancer cell lurking among a billion healthy ones is moving one step closer to being available at your doctor’s office. Boston scientists who invented the test, and healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson, announced in January that they are joining forces to bring it to market. Four big cancer centers also will start studies using the experimental test this year.

Blood test for mental illness, Alzheimer’s?

By: Tarah Knaresboro
Blood test for mental illness, Alzheimer’s?

Cancer has the biopsy, kidney disease has the urine test, and HIV has the cheek swab. Yet diagnosis for mental illness is often nothing more than a survey or a conversation with a psychiatrist.

Brain 'pacemakers' to treat mental illness

By: Lauran Neergaard
Brain 'pacemakers' to treat mental illness

Call them brain pacemakers — tiny implants that hold promise for fighting tough psychiatric diseases, if scientists can just figure out where to put them in all that gray matter. Deep brain stimulation, or DBS, has proved a powerful way to block the tremors of Parkinson’s disease, working immediately to deliver relief. Blocking mental illness isn’t nearly as easy a task. “It’s not [like flipping] a light switch,” cautioned Dr. Michael Okun of the University of Florida.

Breast cancer survivor back in the saddle

By: Carol Sorgen
Breast cancer survivor back in the saddle

In 1999, Patricia Artimovich was diagnosed with breast cancer. The treatment and recovery were, in her words, “grueling,” but once she had begun to recover, Artimovich, now 59, began reflecting on what she wanted to accomplish in her life.

Brewing up a healthier image for coffee

By: Laura Janecka
Brewing up a healthier image for coffee

There’s something inexplicable about our relationship with coffee. It percolates through our day from the moment we wake, enlivening our senses and galvanizing us into action. It’s an affair that’s been going on for over 500 years, since the first cafes set up tables in the Middle East.