While Travelers Sleep, Brain Patrols for Danger

THURSDAY, April 21, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- When you sleep in a new place, a part of your brain remains alert for potential threats, a new study finds.

The findings might help explain why many people sleep poorly on their first night in a hotel, a sleep laboratory or other new location.

"In Japan they say, 'if you change your pillow, you can't sleep,' " study corresponding author Yuka Sasaki, research associate professor of cognitive linguistic and psychological sciences at Brown University in Rhode Island, said in a university news release. "You don't sleep very well in a new place. We all know about it."

Read the whole article here:

http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/news/20160421/while-travelers-sleep-brain-patrols-for-danger

How Can I Lower Cholesterol Levels?

Lowering the levels of cholesterol goes a long way in reducing the risk of heart disease and aids in a longer, healthier life. But is it easy to lower the levels of ‘bad’ cholesterol (LDL cholesterol) in blood? Before we start with it, let us remember that cholesterol is needed by the body in small amounts for making new cells and hormones, and also for protecting the neurons. Normally we get cholesterol from the diet including meat, eggs and milk. But levels of this compound increases with the intake of foods containing trans fats, saturated fats, and even simple sugars.

Read the rest at: http://findatopdoc.com/blog/how-can-i-lower-cholesterol-levels

Foundations of a Resilient Medical Practice

As with anything else in this world, the only constant thing in the medical field is change. The profession is constantly evolving. Healthcare practitioners are leaning more and more towards evidence-based medicine, using top-grade researches and performance-based indexes to drive treatment and outcomes. At the same time, patients are also becoming more proactive in terms of managing their health, especially in the advent of health websites such as WebMD and MedScape. This leaves doctors in private practices wondering about the worth of the years they’ve spent in medical school and the essence of surviving residency.

There is always a certain amount of pressure to change in order to keep up with the trends of the healthcare industry today. And yet, there is also a fine line between evolving and losing the mission and vision of the practice over these changes. In order to build a medical practice that can ride the waves of the ever-evolving healthcare industry, it must be rooted in these five important anchors:

Read the rest at: http://www.leadingphysiciansdaily.com/2016/01/foundations-of-a-resilient-medical-practice/

Leading Physicians Daily

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Vitamin C intake may help reduce the chance of cataracts

Eat foods rich in vitamin C, if you want to keep cataracts at bay. A study published in Ophthalmologysuggests that diet and lifestyle, rather than genetics, may have the most significant impact on cataract development, and vitamin C could cut the risk of the disorder by one third.

Read the article at: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/308215.php

Drug-Company Payments Mirror Doctors' Brand-Name Prescribing

Doctors have long disputed the accusation that the payments they receive from pharmaceutical companies have any relationship to how they prescribe drugs.

There's been little evidence to settle the matter, until now.

Ready the study over at NPR

Obese People May Live As Long as Slim People

Researchers from Canada have shown that obese people without any major health issues may live as long as others who are of normal weight. They also showed that some obese, but otherwise healthy people have lesser chances of dying due to heart problems when compared to normal weight people with some medical problems.

“This shows that one should not look at the weight alone”, says researcher Jennifer Kuk, PhD, assistant professor of kinesiology and health science at York University in Toronto. She adds that if a person is healthy, having a healthy lifestyle, being physically active and having a healthy diet are more important than the body weight or weight loss.

Read the whole article at: http://findatopdoc.com/blog/obese-people-may-live-as-long-as-slim-people

PSA Levels Reduced with Statins

A recent study has shown that the levels of prostate specific antigen (PSA), a marker of prostate cancer, lower in men who take statin drugs. This may lower the risk of advanced prostate cancer in men, reports the study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, but it is not clear how statins may be able to fight cancer. 

High levels of PSA are associated with prostate cancer and other benign conditions of the prostate. Generally men who have high levels of this antigen are recommended to have a biopsy of the prostate. In the present study, the researchers tried to trace the changes in the levels of PSA with statins in about 1,214 men who took the drug. Researcher Robert J. Hamilton, MD, MPH, reported that after starting the use of statin, the level of PSA reduced by 1.4% and this reduction in the level of antigen was proportional to the reduction in the levels of cholesterol with statins. 

Although the average reduction of PSA was less, men who started with high levels of PSA, about 2.5 ng/mL or more, along with a high decrease in the reduction of cholesterol had a greater decrease in the levels of PSA (17.4%). 

- Read more at: http://findatopdoc.com/article.php?slug=psa-levels-reduced-with-statins#sthash.NZ3vI1vS.dpuf

Five Business Tips From a Buddhist Billionaire

Kazuo Inamori, the Japanese entrepreneur who founded two multi-billion dollar companies and rescued another, is known for his management philosophy. Here are five of his ideas.

1. Question your motive

Inamori is a Buddhist, and zen — the Japanese word for "good" — is at the heart of his thinking. Zen means being universally virtuous in anybody’s eyes, he writes in his book “A Passion for Success.” Serving one’s own interests in business is never enough: the motive has to be good for others as well.

Read the rest at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-04/buddhist-billionaire-kazuo-inamori-s-tips-for-business-success