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MID-VALLEY HEALTH Albany Democrat-Herald ■ Corvallis Gazette-Times
Sunday, April 6, 2014
HEALTH STAT Quick reads about health topics in the news
Health expo Saturday The inaugural Corvallis Healthy Living & Sports Expo is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, April 12, at the Boys & Girls Club of Corvallis, 1112 N.W. Circle Blvd. Admission is free. The expo, presented by the Corvallis Chamber of Commerce, will feature about 50 exhibitors in health care-and-sports-related businesses, from acupuncturists, chiropractors, physical therapists, massage therapists, nutritionists, to healthy food offerings, sports equipment and outdoor activities. The expo will also include presentations on a variety of health-related topics, health screenings, activities for kids, and physical demonstrations, such as family Zumba, new trends in fitness movement, and pickleball. For more details and a schedule, go to the chamber’s website, corvallischamber.com. — Mid-Valley Health
Targeting gonorrhea Researchers at Oregon State University have discovered novel proteins in, or on the surface of, the bacteria that causes gonorrhea, which offer a promising new avenue of attack against a venereal disease that is showing increased resistance to the antibiotics used to treat it. Only a single, third-generation cephalosporin antibiotic still shows good efficacy against gonorrhea, creating a race against time to find some alternative way to treat the disease, the second most commonly reported infectious disease in the United States, after chlamydia. Investigations based on these proteins might lead to new ways to combat the disease, including a vaccine, new types of drugs to block the growth of the bacteria, or even restoring the efficacy of some older antibiotics that have lost their usefulness, said Aleksandra Sikora, an assistant professor in the OSU College of Pharmacy. “This could be a milestone in finding new ways to treat a global problem,” Sikora said. “It appears that one or more of these proteins, either within the bacterial cell envelope or on its surface, are essential to its growth and survival. Now we have a new target to aim at.” — Oregon State University
Cardiac blood test A researcher at the Cardiovascular Institute at Rhode Island has found that a simple blood test can predict a person’s risk for sudden cardiac death, enabling physicians to more quickly and accurately assess a patient’s need for an implantable cardiac defibrillator (ICD). The paper by Samuel C. Dudley, chief of cardiology at the institute, was published online in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. “This is the first test of its kind; never before have clinicians been able to accurately assess a patient’s risk of sudden cardiac death by performing a blood test,” Dudley said. “The primary prevention model for at-risk patients in the U.S. is to implant an ICD before a cardiac event happens. “ Dudley said this has led to overuse of the defibrillators. “With this blood test, we can refine the need for such a device, and instead implant the cardiac defibrillators only in the most severe cases of sudden cardiac death risk,” Dudley said. The new blood test is in a pilot phase. Next up: A large, multisite trial anticipated to begin this fall. — Lifespan
Tracking adenomas A study of more than 224,000 patients and more than 314,000 colonoscopies found that adenoma detection rates closely tracked the future risk of colorectal cancer. The study was published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Colonoscopies screen for colorectal cancer by detecting early, curable cancers. Precancerous adenomas — a type of colon polyp — can also be detected and removed, preventing cancers from developing. “We found that higher levels of detection were associated with a decreased subsequent risk of cancer,” said Dr. Douglas A. Corley, a gastroenterologist and research scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research. “Taking out adenomas prevents cancers, and early detection likely prevents many cancers.“ The study is the largest ever conducted and the first in the United States to examine the relationship between detecting adenomas and the future risk of colorectal cancers. — Kaiser Permanente
Andy Cripe/Mid-Valley Health
Carolyn Aldwin, a professor of gerentology at OSU, says religion and spirituality have complementary and beneficial influences on health.
Religion, sprituality and health Research at OSU looks at how they are linked BY MIKE MCINALLY MID-VALLEY HEALTH
Religion and spirituality each can offer health benefits, but in different ways, according to new research from Oregon State University. The key difference, said Carolyn Aldwin, a professor of gerontology at the College of Public Health and Human Sciences at OSU, may be this: Affiliation with organized religions (what Aldwin called “religiousness”) is linked to improved health behaviors such as lower smoking rates and decreased alcohol consumption. On the other hand, she said, spirituality — including practices such as meditation and private prayer — can serve to help regulate emotions, which in turn can help to influence physiological effects such as blood pressure. Aldwin’s findings were recently published in the journal
“Psychology of Religion and Spirituality.” Co-authors included Crystal L. Park of the University of Connecticut and Yu-Jin Jeong and Ritwak Nath of OSU. The findings struck a nerve, said Aldwin, the director of OSU’s Center for Healthy Aging Research: News of the study was picked up nationally and Aldwin herself made an appearance on “Think Out Loud,” Oregon Public Broadcasting’s radio talk show. “Religiousness and spirituality is a very hot topic,” she said, adding — in a bit of an understatement: “It sometimes tends to be divisive.” Aldwin’s work is meant to add a touch of clarity to an area in which the research tends to be “dishelved,” as she put it. “No one has ever reviewed all of the different models of how religion affects health,” she said. It’s not a particular mystery how membership in organized
religion can help shape health habits: “We’ve known for a long time that people who are church members tend to smoke less, drink less and eat better,” she said, noting that some religions impose dietary restrictions. The spirituality side of the equation is less-charted territory. So, part of the work to be done in this study will involve tracking actual medical measurements or “biometrics” — blood pressure rates, for example, or measures of how efficiently the heart pumps blood — in patients suffering from congestive heart disease. That information then will be crossreferenced with measures of church affiliation and spiritual practices gathered in a standard questionnaire. One preliminary result: Church membership had little effect on the biometric measures. But it was a different story on
Two nominated for award Two longtime mid-valley citizens with deep roots in health care are the nominees for this year’s Sheldon Wagner Public Health Service Award, given each year for outstanding contributions to the health of Benton County residents. The winner will be named Tuesday evening during the county’s annual celebration of public health. The event, which will include Betty an opportunity for members of the public to offer input on the Johnson Benton County Health Department’s community health improvement plan, begins at 5:45 p.m. Tuesday at the Benton County Sunset Building Meeting Room, 4077 S.W. Research Way in Corvallis. The event is free and open to the public. The nominees are Betty Johnson of Corvallis, a health care ad- Julie vocate for more than 30 years, Manning who began as director for the Area on Aging for Linn and Benton Social Services in 1972 and now works on health care transformation; and Corvallis Mayor Julie Manning, a 25-year employee at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center, where she now oversees public relations, marketing and fundraising activites for Samaritan Health Services. We asked both Manning and Johnson two questions about their longtime work in health care issues and what keeps them going. Here are their answers.
Q: You’ve been hard at work on mid-valley health issues for years now. What keeps you in the fight? Betty Johnson: All the wonderful people and, first of all, the mission. You meet some superior people in this line of work: People with all kinds of interests and talents and a willingness to roll up their sleeves. Julie Manning: It is great to see that each of our three counties improved in the most recent health rankings (from the national Robert Wood Johnson Foundation). I also believe consumers are increasingly understanding the important role they play in making decisions that will improve their health. I am pleased by the progress we are making collectively. (Editor’s note: For more on the county health rankings, check out next week’s Mid-Valley Health page.) Q: Of the work in this area that needs to be done, what would you rate as the highest priorities? Johnson: Affordable health care for everybody, and I do mean everybody — not just people who qualify for Medicare or Medicaid or the Indian Health Service or whatever — but everybody. It’s a basic human need. It doesn’t have a certain color skin or citizenship. It’s a basic human need. Manning: A current priority is improving how we communicate health information so it can be more easily understood by all consumers. Reducing medical errors by improving health “literacy” and communication is a real area of focus right now because we know it makes a positive difference.
Mid-Valley Health
Adults with large necks more prone to apnea Clinical investigators at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario have developed a new screening tool to help diagnose obstructive sleep apnea in children. Their findings are published in Pediatric Pulmonology. Evidence suggests that adults
with a large neck circumference are more likely to develop obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), especially males. “The gold standard test (for sleep apnea) is still a sleep study and we would not replace that, but because the wait is so
long, we needed something quick and reliable to help bump kids up the priority list,” said Dr. Sherri Katz, principal investigator at the CHEO Research Institute . — Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute
the spirituality side: Aldwin said spiritual practices seemed to help to regulate emotion, which may have physiological benefits such as lowered blood pressure. That’s a finding in line with other recent work on the spirituality side, she said, including a report last year from a team at the University of California suggesting that a strict regimen of meditation can regulate aging at the cellular level. “There’s a reason why nuns live so long,” Aldwin said, “especially contemplative nuns. … It’s not just a lack of stress.“ Aldwin emphasized that plenty of work remains to be done in this field, where the research tends to be “very messy.” In the works from the OSU group is a related study that looks at the impacts of religiousness and spirituality on mortality rates for congestive heart disease patients.
Women face heightened chance of Alzheimer’s GRAND FORKS HERALD (MCT)
Women face a 1 in 6 chance of developing Alzheimer’s disease at 65, a much greater risk than men, according to an annual report by the Alzheimer’s Association. The chance of a man getting the disease, which causes dementia and eventually leads to death, is 1 in 11, said the report, “2014 Alzheimer’s Diseases Facts and Figures.” The chance of getting Alzheimer’s at 85 goes up to 1 in 5 women and 1 in 8 men. Women also make up the majority of caregivers for those with Alzheimer’s with 2.5 times as many women providing 24-hour care than men, the report said. Among caregivers who report feeling isolation because of their task, 17 percent of women said it caused them to feel depressed compared to 2 percent of men. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, the human toll of the disease is expected to grow as the Baby Boomers age. Between 2010 and 2050, the report said the number of people 65 and older with Alzheimer’s disease is expected to grow 176 percent to 13.8 million.
MORE ON THE WEB: The association’s report is available at bit.ly/1ka7HNa.