VitalityHouse Health Articles

Lose Weight : Teach Others To Respect You

Do your friends and family sabotage every diet you go on by offering you food you can't resist?

You know how it is.

It just takes a declaration that you need to lose 10lbs to fit into your party dress, for someone in your office to treat everyone to cakes or chocolates. Or for your partner to say, "Let's eat out tonight. How about trying that new "all-you-can-eat" place?"

Why do they do that?

It's probably just coincidence - because food and offers of food are all around us. Eating is a social activity after all and so you will often be invited to eat.

But if you want to reduce those offers and temptations you have to show your friends and family you mean business.

You do that by saying "No!"  without worrying about what they think of you.

Say "No I'd rather not because I am cutting back on food until I lose 10lbs" or whatever.

And the more you keep saying "no" the more respect you will earn and your friends will see that this time you really do mean it.

You can't really blame them for ignoring your half-hearted attempts to lose weight before can you?

How many times have you said to friends "I really shouldn't eat that" and then instantly followed it with "But go on then, just a small piece/just one"? It's no wonder that they don't believe you when you say you're on a diet.

Approach saying "No" like a sport that you are out to master. Try, try and try again until it comes naturally and your friends start to respect your efforts and stop pushing food on you.

Diffusion Tenser Imaging Identifies Abnormalities in Patients with Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

A new study published in the Journal of NeuroTrauma (November 2008) supports the use of Diffusion Tenser Imaging (DTI) in mild traumatic brain injury patients to assist in diagnosing this injury.  Researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center conducted the current study, the purpose of which was to identify otherwise occult white matter abnormalities in patients suffering persistent cognitive impairment due to mild traumatic brain injury. 

The researchers retrospectively analyzed DTI MRIs of seventeen patients who had cognitive impairments due to mild TBI that had occurred eight months to three years prior to imaging.  These studies were then compared to ten healthy controls.

This study is important not only because it supports the use of DTI with mild traumatic brain injury patients, but also is one of the first of its kind to demonstrate abnormalities in MTBI patients during the chronic phase of this disorder. 

Also of interest was the distribution of abnormalities found in the subject group which was concordant with pathological and imaging studies of diffuse axonal injury which typically follows severe trauma with impairment at the time of injury and poor prognosis.

The authors conclude:

We have shown that DTI can identify abnormalities in patients cognitively impaired following MTBI.  While the findings hold promise for identifying MTBI patients who have cognitive impairment, they do not necessarily imply that DTI can be used to identify such patients before the onset of neurobehavioral symptoms.  That question is most important as its answer could facilitate early identification of the fifteen percent or more of patients who are at risk for cognitive decline following MTBI.  Such early identification could certainly be used to define prognoses, but more importantly might serve as a proxy endpoint in the study of novel treatments with potential for preempting light cognitive disability altogether.

Lees-Haley Debunked Once Again

Gulf War Illness Confirmed

A new and extensive federal report released this week concludes that roughly one in four of our US Veterans of the 1990-1991 Gulf War suffer from Gulf War illness.  According to the 452 page report, “Scientific evidence leaves no question that Gulf War illness is a real condition with real causes and serious consequences for affected veterans.”  

Soldiers diagnosed with Gulf War syndrome have wide-ranging problems including headaches, dizziness and loss of balance, memory problems, chronic fatigue, loss of muscle control and shortness of breath.  It is believed that brain cancer deaths and Lou Gehrig’s disease are also potentially connected to service during the Gulf War.
 
Hopefully, this new study will lead to the necessary treatment that these wonderful veterans certainly deserve.
 

Advances in Diagnostic Testing

Research on sophisticated diagnostic tests were presented this weekend at the annual meeting of the society for neuroscience in Washington, D.C.  According to a report published in USA Today, researchers from the University of California-San Diego combined “two advanced brain scanning techniques-MEG (Magnetoencephalography) and DTI (Diffusion Tensor Imaging)- that permitted them to detect brain damage in patients with mild traumatic brain injury in which conventional MRI and CT scans had been normal.  Mingxiong Huang, the presenting researcher from this study, stated “More research is needed before the dual technology can be used clinically in patients with such injuries (MTBI).”

Also presenting at the annual meeting were researchers from the University of Miami (Andrew Maudsley) who “reported that they used a new all-brain method of magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging (MRSI) to detect for the first time widespread brain damage that sometimes fails to show up in conventional brain scans of patients with mild to moderate TBI.

The researchers studied 17 patients admitted to a trauma unit with closed head injuries.  According to USA Today, “They looked at changes in three major brain chemicals and compared them with healthy brain images.  They found the MRSI images picked up diffuse chemical changes in the TBI patients, even in people who had been classified as having very mild injury.”

Clearly, the day is coming when patients with mild traumatic brain injury will have their injuries confirmed by objective diagnostic testing which obviously will have a significant impact on neurolitigation.