Say no to vodka, president tells Russians
President Dmitry Medvedev has told Russians they must kick the alcohol habit.
“We drink more now than in the 1990s, although those were difficult times,” the ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Medvedev as saying on Tuesday.
Health Minister Tatyana Golikova has been ordered to devise an anti-alcohol strategy. “We need to prepare a corresponding programme and take appropriate measures,” Medvedev said.
A report by The Lancet medical journal last week said alcohol-related diseases caused around half of all deaths of Russians between the ages of 15 and 54.
Weight-bearing exercise key for bone health
Higher-impact exercise, including running and jumping, is the most important type of activity for building stronger bones—especially around the time of puberty, according to a research review.
The review, which included dozens of studies published since the 1960s, confirms the importance of weight-bearing exercise in bone health across a person’s lifespan.
Weight-bearing activities, such as running, jumping rope and lifting weights, put the bones under stress. This forces the bones to respond by becoming stronger. In contrast, low-impact exercise, like biking or swimming, works the heart and trims the waistline, but puts little strain on the bones.
Biomarker of breathing control abnormality associated with hypertension and stroke
A study in the July 1 issue of the journal SLEEP identified a distinct ECG-derived spectrographic phenotype, designated as narrow-band elevated low frequency coupling (e-LFCNB), that is associated with prevalent hypertension, stroke, greater severity of sleep disordered breathing and sleep fragmentation in patients suffering from obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).
Results indicate that the odds ratio for prevalent stroke was 1.65 [CI: 1.19ԃ.29] in those with versus without the presence of e-LFCNB. The biomarker was detected in 1,233 participants (23.5 percent), with statistically significant differences between those with and without it. Patients with the biomarker tended to be older (average 64.7 years versus 61.4 years), male (63.3 percent versus 45.1 percent), slightly heavier (average body mass index 29.3 versus 28.6) and sleepier (according to the Epworth Sleepiness Score test results). Sleep apnea severity and use of diuretics, calcium blockers, and B-blockers were associated with increased e-LFCNB. After adjustment for age, sex, body mass index, hypertension, and diabetes, only prevalent stroke remained associated with both categorical and continuous measures of e-LFCNB, while treated and total hypertension were associated only with the ECG biomarker as continuous measure.
According to lead author Robert J. Thomas, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center & Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass., the electrocardiogram (ECG)-based technique allows the tracking of interactions ("coupling") of breathing amplitude and heart-beat rate changes, which are both influenced by sleep, thus providing a ‘map’ of sleep behaviors. Use of this technique allows physicians to assign patients with sleep apnea into groups who have or do not have breathing control abnormalities.
