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Cardiomyopathy in Children: Symptoms, Treatment, & Mortality

Kidnapped 5-year old American heart patient, Porter Stone, found safe — and how his case highlights cardiomyopathy in children

Five year-old Porter Stone, a heart patient who was next on a transplant waiting list when he was kidnapped by his estranged father from a St. Louis, Missouri hospital, has been found safe just outside Chicago, police announced early on April 25.

He was found in the wee hours of the morning in Alsip, a southwest suburb in Missouri, and then brought to the emergency room of Advocate Christ Medical Center in nearby Oak Lawn for an evaluation. The hospital staff said he is doing fine.

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Blood Tests Diagnose Depression?

Blood Tests Diagnose Depression? New blood tests to diagnose depression may lead to better treatment and less stigma. Diagnosing teenage depression the way it’s done now — by letting teens take the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and asking them to describe their own symptoms, and then relying on psychiatrists to interprete these — can be tricky since mood swings are normal during the adolescent years.

But diagnosing depression in teenagers is urgent because these youngsters are highly vulnerable to the mental disorder: Teenage years are the prime time for depression to start and rates of major depressive disorders jump from two to four percent in pre-adolescent kids to 10 to 20 percent by late adolescence. On top of that, untreated depression in teens puts these children at greater risk for suicide — and for a lifetime of social difficulties, substance abuse and physical illness.

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Neuroticism, Depression, & Memory Reappraisal

Depression can be prevented by ‘reappraising’ negative memories, study suggests. The thoughts we have — and how we deal with it — can make us fall into a downward spiral of depression — or can help us stave if off. That’s the basic finding of a new study in the journal Emotion.

Women, in particular, may be particularly prone to depression because of the way they deal with negative memories, researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign say.

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Weight Loss Surgery Cuts Type 2 Diabetes

It’s been less than one month since two studies — conducted independently by researchers in the United States and Italy — concluded that bariatric surgery may be the best treatment for obese people who suffer from type 2 diabetes.

Now a new study, conducted by yet another institution, also in Italy, comes to the same conclusion. All three studies found that patients who underwent weight loss surgery enjoyed improved diabetes outcomes compared to patients who received standard therapy and medications to control diabetes.

Obesity and diabetes are two major health challenges across the world, and for both diseases, the increasing prevalence has reached epidemic proportions. Even as the prevalence of diabetes in the U.S. and across the world is surging in parallel with obesity’s rise, the link between the two conditions is also well established: Some 80 percent of the 23 million adult Americans who have type 2 diabetes are either overweight or obese.

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Chin Surgery Benefits & Side Effects

Chin Surgery Benefits & Side Effects. Chin surgery skyrockets by 71% in the U.S. With more American career women wanting to look good for video conferencing, and more American male executives wanting to project a strong and decisive CEO-like image, the numbers of ‘chinplants’ — or chin augmentations — carried out in the United States in 2011 have exploding to 20,680.

In fact, chin surgeries have grown more than boob jobs, Botox and liposuction combined, according to new statistics from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. The numbers of “chinplants” — the surgical procedure done to enhance and define the chin line — grew by 71 percent in 2011 from 2010.

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Does Your Tea Have Pesticides?

Does Your Tea Have Pesticides? Greenpeace finds banned pesticides in major Chinese tea brands. Is drinking tea good for you? Yes and no, depending on many factors.

Drinking three or more cups of tea a day is just as good as drinking plenty of water — and the flavonoids tea contains helps protect drinkers against heart disease and some cancers. The polyphenol antioxidants found in tea leaves have been shown to prevent cell damage. Other health benefits include protection against tooth plaque and the strengthening of bones.

That’s what British nutritionists from the Kings College London said in a 2006 study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The work, which was funded by the United Kingdom’s Tea Council, also dispelled the common belief that tea dehydrates. The British researchers said the amount of caffeine contained in even four cups of tea isn’t enough to cause dehydration — and tea actually rehydrates as well as water does.

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