Johns Hopkins Medicine Health News, January 2007

JHM HEALTH NEWS   
An e-news service from Johns Hopkins Medicine
January 2007

NOTE TO EDITORS/REPORTERS:   Happy New Year and welcome to the first edition of JHM Health News for 2007.  We look forward to providing continued and timely service during the new year.  As always, Hopkins welcomes comments and suggestions for improving this means of sending you monthly health and medicine story ideas for your direct use or follow up.  Contact John Lazarou at mednews@jhmi.edu to set up interviews, to localize a story with patients in your area, and to arrange for photographs or other services.

For details of stories in this month’s news, click on the accompanying hyperlink.  Some Internet links may not appear on a single line.  If a hyperlink fails, check for continuation of the address on the next line.

Requests to be added to or deleted from the distribution list can also be sent to mednews@jhmi.edu.  To view other news from Johns Hopkins Medicine, go to http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/index.html

IN THIS ISSUE:

·        WINNERS ON SUPER BOWL SUNDAY CAN INCLUDE DIETERS
·         DOES FOOD MAKE YOU SEXY – FACT OR FICTION?
·         SKIN NEEDS “WINTERIZING” TO HEAD OFF DAMAGE
·         HEART FAILURE RX:  PACEMAKERS, NOT BETA BLOCKERS, MAY BE BEST FOR SOME PATIENTS
·         MAKING PEACE BETWEEN HEART DEVICES AND MRI
·         DRUG TREATMENT SLOWS MACULAR VISION LOSS IN DIABETICS
·         NEWER APPROACH URGED IN SCREENING FOR AGGRESSIVE PROSTATE CANCER

WINNERS ON SUPER BOWL SUNDAY CAN INCLUDE DIETERS
Think the heavy eating season is over?  Some sources say Super Bowl Sunday is ranked as the number two “food consumption event” of the year, second only to Thanksgiving, and experts at Johns Hopkins have developed a game plan for dieters wary of packing on more pounds this Feb. 4.

DOES FOOD MAKE YOU SEXY – FACT OR FICTION?
With Valentine’s Day around the corner, many may look to food as a way to rekindle the libido.  But is this merely wishful thinking?  Like red wine, so-called love foods — chocolate, oysters, cucumbers, strawberries and cream, licorice, alcohol — may taste great, but will these foods tickle your libido as much as your taste buds?

SKIN NEEDS “WINTERIZING” TO HEAD OFF DAMAGE
Results of the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) suggest that at least 81 million Americans experience dry, itchy or scaly skin during the winter months due to blasts of colder, dryer air, winter sun exposure and over-heated homes and offices. 

HEART FAILURE RX:  PACEMAKERS, NOT BETA BLOCKERS, MAY BE BEST FOR SOME PATIENTS
Researchers at Johns Hopkins have reported evidence to support a dramatic change in the way hundreds of thousands of Americans with a form of heart failure should be treated.  In a follow up to previous work, Hopkins cardiologists say patients with non-systolic heart failure may benefit more from pacemakers to speed up the heartbeat rather than from continual, long-term use of beta blockers, drugs that slow down the heartbeat.

MAKING PEACE BETWEEN HEART DEVICES AND MRI
After electrophysiologist Henry Halperin decided to challenge the dogma that magnetic resonance imaging can’t be done in patients with pacemakers or implanted cardioverter defibrillators, he wasn’t exactly surprised when the positive results his team reported two years ago ignited fierce debate. 

DRUG TREATMENT SLOWS MACULAR VISION LOSS IN DIABETICS
A drug commonly used to slow the loss of central vision has shown promise in stemming a common precursor of blindness in diabetics, which involves the same central light-sensitive area of retina, Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute scientists report.  Over the course of several months of therapy, every patient in the preliminary Hopkins study could read at least two more lines on the standard eye chart and the thickness of the patients’ maculae, the central part of the retina responsible for seeing fine details, decreased an average of 85 percent.

NEWER APPROACH URGED IN SCREENING FOR AGGRESSIVE PROSTATE CANCER
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine say that how fast the amount of PSA (prostate-specific antigen) in a man’s blood increases, or PSA velocity (PSAV), is an accurate gauge of tumor aggression and danger, even when PSA levels are so low as to not warrant a biopsy.  Findings of this Hopkins study of PSAV may add a new level of predictive accuracy to prostate cancer testing, the value of which has remained controversial under currently accepted guidelines, the investigators say.

For previous issues of JHM Health News go to:
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/mediaII/MNU/index.html

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