Marijuana Eases Chronic Pain, Researchers Say

GOOD AFTERNOON! hope you had a great weekend. This article caught my attention not because i smoke.. but because my boyfriends brother recently had back surgery and his medication was making him super nauseated and sick.. he smoked.. and asked his doctor if he could maybe smoke so he didn't feel so sick all the time.. and what do you know it helps the pain, he can eat again and hes not throwing up, so medical marijuana did help him.


Smoking marijuana modestly reduced pain and other symptoms of chronic neuropathic pain, results of a small trial showed.

The most potent dose used reduced average daily pain scores by 0.7 points on an 11-point scale, according to Mark A. Ware of McGill University in Montreal, Canada and colleagues.

Those who smoked weed with 9.4 percent of the active ingredient tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) also reported sleeping better, the researchers reported online in CMAJ.

Read this story on www.medpagetoday.com.

These results are important in light of the fact that patients who hear about pain relief from ongoing publicity about medical marijuana have had only a "trickle" of evidence to prove it, explained Henry J. McQuay of Oxford University in an accompanying editorial.

"If medical cannabis is not available where a patient lives, then obtaining it will take the patient outside of the law, often for the first time in his or her life," he wrote. "Good evidence would at least buttress that decision."

These quality results along with three other trials of smoked cannabis for neuropathic pain do support an analgesic effect that, "though not great, may be of use to some patients," McQuay concluded.

This study does offer hope since few drugs have proven effective in these patients, commented Dr. Steven P. Cohen, who as director of pain research at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., sees chronic pain in most of his patients with major war injuries

However, the magnitude of the pain relief from smoking marijuana was less than expected compared with those few effective drugs, Cohen noted in an e-mail to MedPage Today and ABC News.

"When considered in the context of the higher incidence of minor and serious side effects with medical marijuana, cannabinoids should remain a third- or fourth-line drug for neuropathic pain," he wrote.

A bigger concern remains the "delivery system," which is substantially worse than tobacco cigarettes due to prolonged exposure to marijuana smoke from holding it in the lungs, commented Dr. Timothy A. Collins of Duke University's Pain and Palliative Care Clinic in Durham, N.C.

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Could Drinking Water Before Meals Help You Lose Weight?

Back to school, back to school, its that time of year again and most of us started school today. well i don't know about you guys, but i know when i get back to school my eating habits are all out of wack and i cant help but always be snacking on something .. mainly unhealthy. so here's a nice little tip.

MONDAY, Aug. 23 (HealthDay News) -- Close the diet books and skip the pills. The latest weight-loss trick may be as simple as gulping a couple of glasses of water before you eat.

A new study found that middle-aged and older adults who drank two cups of water before each meal consumed fewer calories and lost more weight than those who skipped drinking water.

Researchers divided two groups of overweight and obese men and women aged 55 to 75 into two groups: one group was told to follow a low-fat, low-calorie diet; the other group was told to follow the same diet and to drink two cups of water before breakfast, lunch and dinner.

After 12 weeks, those who drank water before meals had lost 15.5 pounds, compared to 11 pounds for the non-water drinkers, a nearly 30 percent difference.

The researchers got the idea for the weight-loss program from their prior research, which found that when middle-aged and older adults drank water before meals, they ate between 75 and 90 fewer calories at the meal.

What they weren't sure about, however, was if water drinkers would compensate by eating more throughout the rest of the day, said senior study author Brenda Davy, an associate professor in the department of human nutrition, foods and exercise at Virginia Tech. But after 12 weeks of dieting, that didn't happen.

"Drinking more water is a pretty simple strategy that may be helpful to people trying to lose weight," Davy said. "We're not saying, 'Drink more water and the body fat will melt away'. But for people who are trying to lose weight and trying to follow a low-cal diet, it's something they can do as part of that."

The research was to be presented Monday at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston.

One of the most vexing issues with dieting is how difficult it is to keep the weight off long-term, Davy said. After the 12 weeks were up, Davy and her colleagues have continued to follow the participants.

After one year, preliminary data shows that those who continued to drink water before meals not only kept those pounds off, but have even continued to lose a bit more -- about 1.5 pounds on average.

Yet pre-meal water chugging comes with one caveat: it may only work if you're middle-aged or older, Davy said.

Prior research has shown that in those aged 18 to 35, drinking water before the meal did not cause them to eat fewer calories at the meal, Davy said.

In older people, it takes longer for the stomach to empty, which may be why the water helps them feel fuller and less hungry, while in younger people, water begins leaving the stomach almost immediately, Davy said.

Barry Popkin, director of the University of North Carolina Nutrition Obesity Research Center, called the findings "promising." His research has shown people who drinks lots of water drink fewer sugary beverages, eat more fruits and vegetables and overall consume fewer calories throughout the day.

One culprit in the obesity epidemic is that Americans consume some 300 calories more a day in sugary beverages than they did 30 years ago, Popkin added. That includes soda, punch and fruit juices with added sugar, sports drinks and sweetened tea.

"If you drink some more water right before a meal and fill up a little bit right before, there is the potential you may reduce your food intake," Popkin said. "But what we're concerned with is encouraging people to drink water to replace all the caloric beverages we're drinking."

Another challenge to the water-before-meals weight-loss strategy is getting people to do it, said Carla Wolper, an assistant professor in the Eating Disorders Center at Columbia University and a research faculty member at the New York Obesity Research Center at St. Luke's Hospital in New York City.

"The question is, do people continue to drink the water in a non-study situation?" Wolper said. "We know there are a lot of simple things people could do to lose weight. Clinical trials have shown if people write down what they eat, they lost twice as much weight. Yet it's very hard to get people to write down what they eat. Or, if people would reduce portions just a little bit, they would lose weight. But people don't do it."

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China says baby formula did not cause early puberty in girls

HMM well i mean i can kinda see this coming and yeah i believe its a potential lawsuit cover up, but that's ridiculous breast at 4 months! and vaginal discharge at 1 year old! sounds a little too fishy for me. facts are facts and the fact that the level was tested so high kinda points to the formula.

Girls as young as 4 months in Hubei province had grown breasts. Despite government and doctors' assurances that Synutra milk formula wasn't to blame, some parents believe otherwise.

Reporting from Beijing — In an attempt to head off a mounting public relations crisis, the government said Chinese-made milk formula is not what caused early puberty in baby girls as young as 4 months old.

China's Ministry of Health said Sunday that there was no link between the infant formula made by the Qingdao-based company Synutra International and cases reported by families using the product that their infant daughters had grown breasts.

After testing 73 samples of milk formula from Synutra and other international and domestic brands of baby formula, the ministry concluded that the milk powder displayed normal levels of hormones that might have caused the early development.

Three families in the central province of Hubei said earlier this month that their daughters grew breasts after drinking formula made by Synutra. The infants had levels of estradiol and prolactin, hormones that stimulate the production of breast milk, that were as high as those in adult women, according to the Beijing-based Health Times newspaper.

One father in Beijing recently said his 1-year old daughter had grown breasts and was releasing vaginal discharge.

Following the 2008 scandal over melamine in baby formula that sickened thousands of babies and killed at least six, Chinese authorities are eager to soothe the nerves of worried parents. Despite assurances from health authorities, food safety experts and families are still concerned that milk formula from Synutra, as well as other brands, is not safe.

The investigation, which was conducted with nine experts on food safety, endocrinology and pediatrics, concluded that the Hubei cases were a result of "minimal puberty" or the early onset of puberty that can happen in girls before the age of 2 and boys of up to 6 months old.

"Breast development in female infants is not rare clinically," Liang Li, an endocrinologist at the Zhejiang University School of Medicine told the Global Times, an English-language newspaper sponsored by the Chinese government, on Sunday after the statement.

Citing the fact that the infants in Hubei did not show abnormal bone growth or other signs, and that their hormone levels were now normal, Ministry of Health spokesman Deng Haihua said: "Breast development in the three baby girls in Hubei has no link to Synutra milk powder."

Ben Embarek, a food safety expert with the World Health Organization, said health experts need to investigate whether even low levels of hormones in the formula could affect infants who generally rely on it as their main source of food. Embarek said the results of the analysis of the babies in Hubei also may have been affected by the fact that the parents stopped using the formula days or weeks before the tests.

Chinese parents who have flooded doctor's offices to check on their children are also doubtful of authorities' remarks.

"I've heard the statement from the ministry, and it makes me feel helpless," said 28-year-old Wang Gang, who took his 1-year-old daughter to the Beijing Children's Hospital after noticing strange liquid on her underwear. Wang said the doctor evaluating his daughter was so surprised at the level of hormones present that he asked if the parents had accidentally let the child swallow birth control pills.

Wang said that other parents also are dissatisfied with the answers coming from doctors and the health ministry. He's started an online group on QQ, a popular Chinese instant messaging forum, where he and more than 100 other families debate how they can independently test the samples of infant formula and whether they should start raising sheep to ensure their own safe supply of milk for their children.

"There's no way I'm using milk formula, whether it's from China or abroad," Wang said

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Is Puberty in Girls Coming Too Soon?

I liked this article.. mainly because i have a ten yr old sister who is seriously moody right now and my mom and i were just talking about, different her life is from our with not only puberty but from school, and what not, short and to the point article i how you enjoy it.

Like many 10-year-old girls, Lindsay Kendrick likes to play sports and attend camp during the summer.

And like a growing number of girls her age, Lindsay also hit early puberty very early. Lindsay's mother, Beth, said her daughter first started menstruating when she was only 9.

"I thought it was going to happen early," said Beth. "She's been one of the tallest in her class, even taller than a lot of boys, and she started having early breast development."

Kendrick took Lindsay to her pediatrician, who told Beth that early puberty is much more common now, and said that Lindsay's period would probably start sometime in the next year.

"She started about two months after that," Beth said.

It's been a challenge for both Lindsay and Beth.

"She doesn't like talking to any of her friends about it," Beth said. "I try to keep up with her to make sure I send products with her to school."

A new study published in the journal Pediatrics found that girls who hit puberty younger than 10 are much more common than they were in the past two decades. In the study, researchers assessed more than 1,200 6- to 8-year-old girls in three metropolitan areas for breast development and the appearance of pubic hair, both signs of early puberty.

They found that a much higher proportion of white, black and Hispanic girls showed signs of early puberty than were found in previous studies.

"Ten percent of white girls at age 7 have breast development to some extreme, which is way younger than our original standard of evaluating normal versus abnormal," said Dr. Ann Budzak, a pediatrician with Gundersen Lutheran Health System in LaCrosse, Wisconsin

The National Institutes of Health previously said puberty generally happens between the ages of 10-to-14 for girls and between 12-to-16 for boys.

There are some limitations to the study, however. As the authors point out, the study does not use a nationally representative sample of subjects, and does not look at development over time to account for environmental exposure, dietary differences or other factors related to race and ethnicity. Additionally, recruitment levels were low, so there could have been recruitment biases.

Another important element missing from this study is information about the onset of menstruation, which could indicate whether puberty has actually started.

"It's going to take a lot of follow-up to say whether this is really puberty," said Dr. Abby Hollander, associate professor of pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "Within five years, we should be able to say whether the average girls get their periods is earlier."

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Congratulations America—You're Drinking More Than Ever!

Good Morning! haha this article made me laugh because i always tell my mom that shes an alcoholic.. which she's not but shes has been drinking more then ever recently.. and now i completely understand that almost everyone is! haha i guess we are more stressed out then ever, and i will Even admit sometimes after work i like to pour myself a glass of wine and relax.

Well, at least more than the past 15 years according to a new poll.

Slate reported that a new Gallup poll found that 67% of Americans say they drink alcohol—the highest percentage recorded since 1985. The drink of choice? Beer for the majority of Americans. You might think that that's because beer is relatively cheap in the U.S. but the poll also shows that the more money you make, the more likely you are to be a drinker. The same goes for those who are college-educated and those who don't attend church.

So what does this poll show us, exactly? Americans drink and they like to drink beer, now even more. Groundbreaking! But in keeping with the spirit of the times, check out TIME's top 10 forgotten liquors to see some options beyond Bud Lite

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