10 Tips for a Smooth Back-to-school Transition

Do Pets Really Boost Kids' Health?

Kids and pets go together like peanut butter and jelly, right?

Maybe not, a new study contends.

The research finding, called the largest of its kind, challenges the common belief that having a dog or cat in the home can benefit children's mental and physical health.

RAND Corp. researchers looked at data from thousands of children in pet-owning and pet-free homes in California. They considered more than 100 variables in adjusting their model of pet ownership and health.

Read more: https://consumer.healthday.com/general-health-information-16/pets-and-health-news-531/do-pets-really-boost-kids-health-725361.html

‘Loneliness epidemic’ set to become a public health crisis

Multiple recent studies have found that loneliness is set to reach epidemic proportions through the Western world by 2030. Now, one of the most prominent researchers in the field suggests that it will soon outstrip obesity as a public health crisis.

Julianne Holt-Lunstad of Brigham Young University in Utah, US, prepared new research to present to the 125th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, held in Washington DC this month.

Read more at: https://cosmosmagazine.com/society/loneliness-epidemic-set-to-become-a-public-health-crisis

Feeling stressed during the workday? Research says playing video games may help

More than half of Americans regularly experience cognitive fatigue related to stress, frustration, and anxiety while at work. Those in safety-critical fields, such as air traffic control and health care, are at an even greater risk for cognitive fatigue, which could lead to errors. Given the amount of time that people spend playing games on their smartphones and tablets, a team of human factors/ergonomics researchers decided to evaluate whether casual video game play is an effective way to combat workplace stress during rest breaks.

Read more at: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-07-stressed-workday-video-games.html

Brains are more plastic than we thought

New research has shown just how adaptive the brain can be, knowledge that could one day be applied to recovery from conditions such as stroke.

Read more at Sciencedaily.com 

Vaccines protect fetuses from Zika infection, mouse study shows

Zika virus can cause severe brain damage in people infected before birth. A new study in mice shows that females vaccinated before pregnancy and infected with Zika virus while pregnant bear pups who show no trace of the virus. The findings offer the first evidence that an effective vaccine administered prior to pregnancy can protect vulnerable fetuses from Zika infection and resulting injury.

Read more at: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170713155034.htm

Eating lots of sugar when pregnant may raise risk of allergies

Pregnant women who eat large amounts of sugar may be more likely to have children with allergies.

A study of 9,000 women found that those who ate high levels of sugar during pregnancy were around twice as likely to have a child that went on to develop allergic asthma than woman who ate relatively little sugar. Allergic asthma is the most common form of asthma, and involves allergens provoking the immune system into causing breathing problems.

Read more at: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2139861-eating-lots-of-sugar-when-pregnant-may-raise-risk-of-allergies/

Withholding bad medical news doesn't help patients

"I did my best to take care of my younger sister and her battle with a particularly sinister form of dementia. None of the many specialists we visited over the five years of her demise had the courage to tell me her exact diagnosis. The first time I heard of her specific malady was when I read it on her death certificate: Lewy Body Dementia.
Had I known about this radical brain disease, I could have researched and been better prepared for her and my family."

Read more at: www.latimes.com/opinion/readersreact/la-ol-le-doctors-bad-news-20170630-story.html

Jogging Benefits Your Health: Know the Health Effects of Moving

The role of physical activity in promoting health and well-being is undebatable. In fact, jogging may be a better option for those who cannot run fast because of their health conditions. For example, those with chronic joint diseases or who have chronic respiratory problems.
If you are training very hard, you may use jogging as an “active rest”. Likewise, it can be also used as a warm up or cool down for those who run at higher speeds.

https://anthonycasimano.wordpress.com/2017/06/06/jogging-benefits-your-health-know-the-health-effects-of-moving/

Low physical activity increases risk of bladder, kidney cancer

A new study shows that a chronic lack of physical activity can drastically increase the chance of developing cancer in the bladder and kidneys, and it suggests that engaging in more physical activity may reduce this risk.

New research suggests that chronic sedentarism can increase the risk of bladder and kidney cancer by over 70 percent.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that, every year, almost 57,000 adults have kidney and renal pelvis cancers in the United States. Additionally, almost 14,000 people per year die from these cancers.


Bladder cancer is also widespread. According to the CDC, around 71,000 U.S. individuals developed bladder cancer in 2013, and almost 16,000 people died as a result.

Read more at: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/317648.php

What is Gluten?

Heart Disease Numbers: What They Mean and How to Reduce the Risk

Heart disease is a major public health problem across the globe. It is a major cause of disability, loss of productive life years, and death. The good news is, you may be able to prevent it by making some simple lifestyle changes.

Read more at: https://anthonycasimano.wordpress.com/2017/05/09/heart-disease-numbers-what-they-mean-and-how-to-reduce-the-risk/

The Ten Commandments of Weight Loss and Maintenance

Weight loss! It’s the easiest and hardest thing to do. It’s easy, because if you consistently eat fewer calories than you burn off, you will lose weight. It’s hard, because who wants to eat less or has time to exercise more?

With this in mind, I am going to share with you some helpful guidelines I refer to as the Ten Commandments of Weight Loss and Maintenance!

1. Thou Shall Not Drink Any Liquids Containing Calories

Liquids do not fill you up, yet they can be calorically quite “expensive.” Yes, this includes alcohol. You may have to choose which is more important to you as you only have so many calories in your “bank” to spend each day. The only exception might be unsweetened almond milk or soymilk. These have fewer calories than skim or non-fat milk and much less sugar. Equally important is that they contain healthy fats (mono and poly unsaturated), which are beneficial for good health.

Read the rest of the list at: findatopdoc.com/Diet-and-Nutrition/The-Ten-Commandments-of-Weight-Loss-and-Maintenance

Document Security in Healthcare: How Important Is It

Due to stringent laws protecting sensitive medical information, hospitals and other healthcare providers are scrambling to address their security shortfalls as well. HIPAA, HITECH, and other regulations have forced organizations everywhere to reexamine their healthcare document management and security measures. Failure to safeguard Protected Health Information (PHI) could result in being listed on the infamous data breach “wall of shame.”

But even the most secure fortress has internal security threats. Printers and queues should be configured to prevent unauthorized users from viewing queued print jobs. Enterprise output management software simplifies configuration tasks while providing administrators powerful audit tools to detect and deter unauthorized document access. The saying “trust but verify” definitely applies to healthcare information.

Read more at: https://anthonycasimano.wordpress.com/2017/05/01/document-security-in-healthcare-how-important-is-it/

Findatopdoc Review Kiosk

Aimed at serving the physicians’ needs irrespective of healthcare specialty, the new Findatopdoc Review Kiosk launched by Findatopdoc.com, is designed as a convenient, easy, in-office review system that acquires patient reviews in real-time immediately after an appointment. The app is accessed by patients from a kiosk placed on the checkout counter to get their reviews within seconds after their visit, which is the main reason why this particular application is thought to be revolutionizing, efficient, patient friendly, and leading-edge. With72% of consumers trusting online reviews just as much as personal recommendations and 90% of people reading reviews when they want to buy a product or book a doctor’s appointment, it is of most importance that physicians are prepared to have enough positive reviews when patients are looking for them.

Check it out at: http://www.findatopdocreviewapp.com

Healthcare Data Breaches: Are Hackers the Only Reason?

Healthcare data breaches in 2016 have surely raised the eyebrows of everyone in healthcare. In addition to being a nightmare for insurance providers, it is also nothing less than that for patients.

In fact, it could be an early sign of a looming danger. The consequences of failing health information security could do harm that is beyond the realm of imagination.

To put it simply, hackers hack for money, fame, or both. They are the first to cross our minds when we hear news of data security breach. But are they the sole cause of the sheer data loss in recent years?

In this article, we take a closer look at the stats of healthcare data breaches in 2016. Furthermore, we will take a deeper dive to explore the reasons for a security breach.

Read more at: https://anthonycasimano.wordpress.com/2017/04/24/healthcare-data-breaches-are-hackers-the-only-reason/

Hospital of Tomorrow

What will hospitals be like in 2035? Given the rate at which technology is revolutionizing the healthcare sector, says Mitch Morris, MD, an American oncologist with experience in healthcare administration, physicians today would barely recognize a hospital if they took a trip through time to 2035, just as healthcare professionals 20 or so years ago would if they walked into a hospital today.

As a result of many healthcare innovations over recent years, hospitals have been modernized to such an extent that pioneering new products and digital advances are helping to improve people’s lives far beyond what many had anticipated.With these next-generation advances in healthcare innovation, however, hospital efficiency becomes even more important. Applied technology that is caring, impactful and delivers meaningful benefits must both make a difference to people’s lives and work in tandem with budgetary concerns. That is the essence of a healthcare revolution.

The big challenge, therefore, is to meet the growing demands of and for care, and still keep health services solvent. One approach seeks to move away from silo models of service provision towards the development of well-integrated healthcare services. Sceptics, however, have observed that up to now efforts to do this have really involved little more than the transfer of resources from one silo to another.

Read more at: https://anthonycasimano.wordpress.com/2017/04/21/hospital-of-tomorrow/

Global Health Protection: Dream of A Healthy and Safe World

What Is Global Health Protection?

Global health protection refers to a range of activities that aim to ensure the people’s right to health is not violated at any cost. Essentially, it is a subset of public health function. Unlike a single nation’s health policies, it is a broad concept that encompasses all the preventive and remedial actions that are taken globally. This is in contrast to international health which restricts its activities to the developing nations only.

The primary goals of public health protection are:
● Enhancing public health capabilities
● Responding to global emergencies or disease outbreaks anywhere in the world in an effective manner. Think of the Ebola or Bird flu outbreak.
● Extend global life expectancy
● Increase the quality of life

Apart from these, it also works to address growing health security concerns. For example:Health during a crisis, and the effects of both infectious and non-communicable diseases. Additionally, it covers child and maternal health, health costs, and violence against women (VAW).

Read more at: https://anthonycasimano.wordpress.com/2017/04/20/global-health-protection-dream-of-a-healthy-and-safe-world/

Digital Healthcare Investment: What happened in 2016

Digital healthcare investment showed some strong signs of growth during the first few months of 2016. At the end of the year, it reached an estimated $4.2 billion. Hundreds of digital health companies relished their share of the pie. Interestingly, many of them were startups.

In fact, it was a “good” year for the companies that have revolutionized how we receive and deliver healthcare services. Nonetheless, the market could not keep up the momentum and ended the year with 8% lower total value than what was in the earlier year.

Experts believe this marginal decrease in the amount of digital healthcare investment has little to do with the overall market trend. It is poised to take further leaps in the coming years. This is considering the fact that the number of deals was slightly higher than that in 2015.

Changing Nature of Digital Healthcare Investment. More Deals but Less Total Value!

It’s not always the total value of the investment that drives the market. Several other factors also play a crucial role

As a matter of fact, 2016 was not a great time for digital healthcare investment. But on a positive note, it brought into light a different approach in how investors are pouring their dollars into the market. Here, we take a closer look at what it means

Read more at: https://wordpress.com/posts/anthonycasimano.wordpress.com

Exposure to DDT Increases the Risk of Testicular Cancer

Men exposed to the remnants of DDT, a once popular pesticide, have an increased risk of testicular cancer, according to a study published in Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The study shows that men who have high levels of DDT by-product, dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE), have a 1.7 times more chance of developing tumors in the germ cells of the testicles, when compared to those who have low levels.

Read more at: https://www.findatopdoc.com/Men-s-Health/Exposure-to-DDT-Increases-the-Risk-of-Testicular-Cancer

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