Lung Cancer, the Number One Cancer Killer. Be aware of it…

Each year, nearly 200,000 people in the United States are told they have lung cancer and more than 90,000 people die from this disease. Deaths from lung cancer represent about one out of every six deaths from cancer in the U.S.

Risk Factors:

Research has found several causes and risk factors for lung cancer. A risk factor is anything that changes the chance of getting a disease. Lung cancer risk factors include,

• Smoking.
• Secondhand smoke from other people's cigarettes.
• Radon gas in the home.
• Things around home or work, including asbestos, ionizing radiation, and other cancer-causing substances.
• Medical exposure to radiation to the chest.
• Chronic lung disease such as emphysema or chronic bronchitis.
• Increased age.

Prevention:

You can reduce your risk of developing lung cancer in several ways.

• Don’t smoke. If you do smoke, quit now.
• Avoid secondhand smoke. There is no risk-free level of secondhand smoke exposure.
• Have your home tested for radon and take corrective actions if high levels are found.
• Avoid unnecessary medical tests that involve X-ray images of the chest.
• Follow health and safety guidelines in the workplace.

Symptoms:

Different people have different symptoms for lung cancer. Some people don't have any symptoms at all when first diagnosed with lung cancer. Lung cancer symptoms can be due to the direct effect of growth of cancer cells in the lung, or due to the effect of cancer cells that have spread to other parts of the body. Lung cancer symptoms due to growth of cancer cells in the lung may include—

• Shortness of breath.
• Coughing that doesn't go away.
• Wheezing.
• Coughing up blood.
• Chest pain.
• Repeated respiratory infections such as bronchitis or pneumonia.

These symptoms can happen with other illnesses, too. Talk to your doctor if you have symptoms that concern you.

Treatment:

Lung cancer is treated in several ways, depending on the type of lung cancer and how far it has spread. Treatments include surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. People with lung cancer often get more than one kind of treatment.

People with lung cancer may want to take part in a clinical trial. Clinical trials study new potential treatment options. Learn more about clinical trials at the National Cancer Institute.

Pooling Resources to Reduce Preventable Harm from Medications

Today, tens of millions of people in the United States depend on prescription and OTC medications to sustain their health—as many as 3 billion prescriptions are written annually. Too many people, however, suffer unnecessary injuries, and some die as a result of preventable medication errors. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) believes that many of these medication-related risks are manageable if parties committed to the safe use of medications work together.

The mission of the Safe Use Initiative is to create and facilitate public and private collaborations within the healthcare community. The goal of the Safe Use Initiative is to reduce preventable harm by identifying specific, preventable medication risks and developing, implementing and evaluating cross-sector interventions with partners who are committed to safe medication use.

Potential partners in Safe Use include:

• Federal agencies
• Healthcare professionals and professional societies
• Pharmacies, hospitals, and other health care entities
• Patients, caregivers, consumers, and their representative organizations

Through coordinated efforts, we can make significant improvements in the safe use of medications and reduce preventable harm from medication misuse, abuse, and errors.

Yoga associated To Healthy Heart

Researchers in India who compared the heart rate inconsistency of men who practised yoga regularly and men who did not, accomplished that practising yoga was associated with a healthier heart because the heart rate variability of the yoga practitioners proved evidence of stronger control by the parasympathetic (vagal) nervous system.

The study was the work at the Indian Institute of Technology in Roorkee, in Uttrakhand, and is to be published in a forthcoming 2010 issue of the International Journal of Medical Engineering and Informatics.

Heart rate changeability is a measure of the beat-to-beat changes in heart rate. In healthy people it is high, while people with cardiac abnormalities generally have low HRV.

The autonomic nervous system controls heart rate by two routes: the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

The sympathetic nervous system causes HRV to go up, while the parasympathetic discourages it. While working well together, the two make sure that the heart rate is stable but ready to respond to alters caused by eating, the fight or flight response, or encouragement, the researchers told the press.

Previous research suggests that HRV is also a sign of dynamic and increasing load. As a quantify of dynamic load, it responds to stress, such as while we are under pressure to make a composite decision quickly, our HRV drops.

As a marker of cumulative load, it declines with age, in contrast to heart rate which rarely changes considerably with age. Research proposes that regular physical activity (which also slows down the aging process), raises HRV, apparently by improving parasympathetic control which raises "vagal tone".

Many yoga practitioners believes that yoga improves health through regular practice that centers on inhalation, stretching, postures, relaxation and meditation.

For the study, the researchers examined the HRV spectra of the electrocardiograms (ECGs) of 42 healthy male yoga practitioners and 42 healthy male non-practitioners aged from 18 to 48 years. All participants were volunteers.

The researchers thought that HRV spectral analysis is an important way of surveying heart health and how the heart is regulated. By glancing at different frequency bands of HRV in short term events.

For example, very low frequency (VLF) variations are related to temperature control changes. While low frequency crests are linked to sympathetic control and high frequency crests with parasympathetic control, explained by the researchers.

"There is spiraling of parasympathetic (vagal) control in subjects who habitually practice yoga, which is analytic of better autonomic control over heart rate and so a healthier heart."