• Am I under 18 years old?
• Am I over 50 years old?
• Am I chronically ill?
• Do I have a weak immune system? (This also includes getting the flu all the time.)
• Do I take care of someone with a weakened immune system?
• If I know someone with a weakened immune system, would I be visiting them?

If you answer “Yes” to any of the above questions, you should be vaccinated. If you answer “No”, then you’re relatively healthy and may not need a vaccination.

If you have any children between 6 months and 18 years old, it is highly recommended they are vaccinated because in a 2005 Harvard study, death rates among the elderly increased a few weeks after flu-ridden children began to visit clinics. As a result, it is suggested that if children were vaccinated, lives could be saved.

“If [children] are immunized, they don’t become the source of illness,” Edmonson said.

Source: Post-Bulletin

To attack the growing number of obese children, the state of New York decided to mandate public schools outside New York City to report a summary of the students’ weight and body mass index (BMI) to the New York State Health Department. Otherwise known as a fat report card.

For many years the State Health Department has collected data on infectious diseases to guide the state’s communicable disease prevention efforts. “By collecting vital weight status information, we can begin to treat obesity like other public health threats and better target our prevention efforts,” said Commissioner Daines.

By now, everyone should know that obesity can lead to type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, heart disease, joint problems, cancer, respiratory problems and can lead to depression and the leading causes of obesity is poor nutrition and lack of physical activity.

However, I find it interesting that schools are slowly replacing recess with more academia to increase test scores. What does it mean if there’s no recess? [WHAT, no RECESS!!??] Studies have linked lack of energy and concentration and even depression to living an unhealthy lifestyle. Your body functions are partially controlled by food and certain hormones. You eat and move around to trigger these hormones. If you deprive your body of this, it will cease to function; therefore, replacing recess with academia could potentially make things worse.

News articles and studies should change their wording and label it “Unhealthy Lifestyle” instead of just focusing on the obese. There are ‘skinny’ kids/people who have heart disease or distended abdomen due to poor nutrition (found in 3rd world countries) and this group of people need to be addressed. And no, it’s not anorexia nervosa or bulimia. These people eat, but the wrong kinds of food. In my opinion, for every obese child, there is a child living an unhealthy lifestyle.

So, if you experience any of the following, it’s time to change your habits: you get exhausted just walking up a flight of stairs, can’t jog/run for more than 1 minute without gasping for air, feel it is required that you park really close to an entrance of the market because you can’t even think about walking the extra 50 steps.

State of New York, I salute you for taking the initiative to teach children better habits (because parents leave everything to schools, television and the Internet). And parents, I give you the H…I plead the fifth.

Anyone else noticing a new trend of increased poor nutrition, diseases, low self-esteem and ‘hook-up’ sex?? Children used to be nurtured and taught to survive on their own (taught goals). Now, our children have no idea what they should be doing (free-loaders).

Source: eMaxHealth.com

“According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 50,000 cases of the disease were reported in the United States in 2004 and 2005. That is the largest number since the 1950s.”

Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, is apparently on the rise. Pertussis is a highly contagious disease and is caused by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis. To distinguish between a regular cough and whooping cough, whooping cough is characterized by severe hacking coughs or recurrent spasmodic bouts of coughing that continues until the breath is exhausted and followed by a ‘whoop’ sound during inhalation.

Before 2005, your last booster shot for pertussis should have been between the ages of 4-6 and it wears off between 5-10 years. Luckily for you, vaccinations are now available for ages 11-64.

If you have a weak immune system or already have insurance, you may as well get the vaccination. In fact, let’s just get rid of whooping cough and no one would have to really take any more vaccinations! Vaccination party, anyone!?

Source: Houston Chronicle

Approximately 300,000 children in the U.S. have some form of arthritis (mainly juvenile rheumatoid arthritis) and not so surprisingly (to me), we the public are totally unaware of this. For those who don’t know, arthritis is the inflammation of joints and it is usually linked to persons over 50. So, why are our children being diagnosed with arthritis?

Specialists are not entirely certain, but they speculate that this disease is associated with the failure of their autoimmune system. In other words, the child’s immune system has a hard time differentiating between healthy normal cells and foreign invaders.

Here are some common symptoms of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis: lethargy, poor appetite, joint pain (including swelling and tenderness), red puffy hands, firm bumps on the arms, and morning stiffness that lasts at least thirty minutes.

Children with arthritis vary in degree. Fortunately, arthritis can be easily treated. Medication along with exercise can help with inflammation and swelling.

For more information about this disease, please refer to the American College of Rheumatology, the Arthritis Foundation, wikipedia.org or thearthritispainreliever.com.

Parents, leaving unused prescription drugs (from surgeries, injuries or dental work) unsecured and unmonitored, are unknowingly tempting their children or their children’s friends to try drugs they’ve heard from schools, commercials, movies and the Internet. To prevent teens from experimenting these leftover medications, experts urge parents to dispose these drugs as soon as they serve their purpose or lock them up, just like you would with alcohol.

“In total, nearly half the prescription drugs being abused by teens originate in the homes of passive pusher parents.”
- National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse, Columbia University

Warning, do not flush them down the toilet, these drugs will be sent directly to our public water supplies.

Source: LA Times

Even though scurvy, an immense deficiency in vitamin C, is not common anymore (think of the Mayflower days), but it still exists. According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, approximately 14% men and 10% woman have vitamin C deficiency. Fortunately, only a few progress to scurvy. In fact, between 1979 to 2005, only 57 people died of vitaminc C deficiency.

Symptoms include dark purplish spots on the skin (especially on the legs), spongy and bleeding gums, sunken eyes, opening of healed scars, nosebleeds, non-stop diarrhea, nail loss as well as other serious conditions such as psychosis, bleeding from mucous membranes and pallor.

Scurvy is easy and inexpensive to treat and prevent, but costly to diagnose. A wide range of tests can be administered, including a complete blood test, a comprehensive metabolic panel, tests for infectious diseases, such as HIV, an electrocardiogram, an echocardiogram, liver tests, several x-rays, and other tests seen fit by your Physician. It could be weeks or months before a proper diagnosis is made.

If you don’t like fruit, vegetables, or juice, (you will probably have other underlying illnesses) buy those Vicks vitamin C tablets; they taste just like candy. Or be a hippie and buy Vitamin water.

Source: American Medical News

A multinational research led by Dr. Heather C. Medford of the University of Washington, Dr. Andrew J. Sharp of the University of Geneva, Switzerland revealed a possibly answer to autism, mental and growth retardation, and other disabilities.

A submicroscopic chromosomal glitch found on region 1q21.1 can possibly be linked to a broad range of developmental disorders in children, such as autism, mild or moderate mental retardation, learning disabilities, deformities, seizures and growth retardation. Like a game of Russian roulette, not everyone will experience these disorders: some won’t be affected, some only slightly affected and others seriously affected.

Results of this finding were published on September 11, 2008, in the New England Journal of Medicine in an article titled, “Recurrent Rearrangements of Chromosome 1q21.1 and Variable Pediatric Phenotypes” and accompanied with an editorial by David H. Ledbetter of Emory University in Atlanta, GA.
Source: Medical News

“The study [supports] the hypothesis that all three forms of TSEs in humans are also found in cattle: infectious, sporadic, and genetic. It provides additional support that the BSE epidemic may have originated from a genetic case of BSE in an individual cow. Of course, similar mutations can pop up in cattle herds throughout the world and might provide the raw genetic material for new epidemics to develop in the future, especially in countries where it is a common practice to feed slaughterhouse scraps to healthy animals that will enter the human food chain in the future.”
- GrrlScientist, ScienceBlogs.com

Source: ScienceBlogs.com

Apparently, the US is not the only country that has a problem with our children’s physical activity levels. In the UK, many parents overestimated their child’s activity levels by almost 6 times the actual results obtained from a recording device attached to their child’s belt.

What is their solution??? (*cough* Wii *cough*) That’s right!! Any active gaming that requires physical activity could be the answer (this does not include only clicking your mouse or pushing buttons)!

CHILDREN who play physically challenging video games use enough energy to stop them from becoming overweight, and boost their heart health, according to a new study.

Children burn roughly four times as many calories per minute playing physically active video games, such as those seen on Nintendo’s interactive Wii console, than playing a seated game.

Dr Russell R Pate of the University of South Carolina, said of the findings: “If we want to promote physical activity in the context of contemporary society, we will have to fight fire with fire. Physically active video gaming may be part of the antidote.”

Original article.

As Fall television shows return (YAY!) and lame summer shows end (YAY!), I’m really looking forward to House M.D. For those who haven’t watched it and love sarcasm and critical thinking (sarcasm and critical thinking are usually hand-in-hand), you should; but not for the crazy mumbo jumbo medicine they throw at you or for the quirky remarks Dr. House entails on his group of minions, but to count the number of times the cast uses “Lupus.” In previous seasons, Lupus was always used in every episode–but it never is Lupus. Let’s count how many times Lupus is brought up; and at the end of the season, the winner gets a cookie unless they decide to use a new disease (dun dun DUN!!).

If you have no idea what Lupus is, here is a brief explanation. If you require in-depth explanation, please refer to thaimarathon.com, thearthritispainreliever.com or if you prefer, wikipedia.org.

Lupus is an autoimmune disease with no cure. And like many autoimmune diseases, Lupus can have a multitude of symptoms. Lupus is known to affect the joints, blood vessels, skin, lungs and even the central nervous system (the brain). Symptoms associated with Lupus is far and wide, but here are the most common symptoms: pain, swelling and stiffness of the joints, fever, kidney infections, mouth sores, skin rashes, pronounced fatigue and body weakness. Even though people living with Lupus can live a relatively healthy and active life, they can also experience periods of symptomatic remission and relapse even with treatment.

There are five main forms of Lupus, but I’ll only mention four: Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), Discoid Lupus Erythematosus (DLE), Neonatal Lupus Erythematosus (NLE), and Drug-induced Lupus (DIL). SLE is the most common form of Lupus and is considered highly problematic and difficult to diagnosis. DLE primarily affects the skin and can become systemic over time. NLE affects newborn babies of mothers with SLE or other similar autoimmune diseases. Infants infected usually experience congenital heart and circulatory problems and require immediate medical intervention. Drug-induced Lupus results from medication intolerance.

Now, you know why House’s team always brings up Lupus because anything could be Lupus.