healthbriefs
Fastest Growing Cause of Death for Women
by Dr. Ginger Marable A
ccording to the Mayo Clinic, the fourth leading cause of death for Americans and the fastest grow- ing for women, outdistancing men since 2000, is
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), consisting primarily of chronic bronchitis and emphysema. The number-one risk factor for COPD is smoking; the number-one treatment is quitting. Smokers who stop can cut both their lung function loss and the death rate expectation by half. On the negative side for women, according to the National Institutes of Health, they are less likely to be diagnosed properly, the disease progresses more swiftly, and they experience more breathing difficulties, anxiety and depression, and a lower quality of life than do men with COPD. On the plus side, the lung function of women who quit smoking improves twice as fast as that of men and remains better longer.
More good news is that a smoker who is highly motivated to quit can do so in about an hour with advanced, personalized hypnosis by disconnecting the habit and breaking up all the triggers (first thing in the morning, after meals, etc.).
Ginger Marable, owner of Absolutely Smoke Free—1 Hour!, holds a PhD in Human Behavior and is a Certified Hypnotherapist/Smoking Cessation Specialist. With a 95 percent success rate, this one-hour system offers a lifetime guarantee: If the client ever returns to smoking, s/he can have a free back-up session. More information is available at
AbsolutelySmokeFree.com, or call 760-420-2279 for a
free consultation. See ad on page 42.
T
THE EXERCISE ADVANTAGE
aking a brisk walk or bike ride may
stave off cognitive decline better than reaching for the daily crossword puzzle, says a new study pub- lished in the journal Neurology. Research- ers at Scotland’s Uni- versity of Edinburgh
reviewed the medical records of more than 600 Scots born in 1936 that were given MRI scans at age 73. “People in their 70s that participat-
ed in more physical exercise, including walking several times a week, had less brain shrinkage and other signs of aging in the brain than those that were less physically active,” says study author Alan J. Gow, Ph.D. Surprisingly, the study showed that participating in mentally and socially stimulating activities, such as visiting family and friends, reading or even learning a new language, did little to ward off the symptoms of an aging brain. Study participants will undergo a second MRI scan at age 76, and researchers plan to compare the two scans to see if the links between exer- cise and better brain health hold up.
More Sleep Helps Shed Pounds E
njoying more zzz’s is not usually associ- ated with weight loss, but a growing number of epidemiological studies suggest that insufficient sleep may be linked to a greater risk of weight gain. The latest results from a study presented at the 2012 annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior points out that sleep be- havior influences body weight by affecting not only how many calories we consume, but also how much energy we expend. When researchers at Tübingen and Lübeck universities, in Germany, and Up-
psala University, in Sweden, investigated the effect of short-term sleep deprivation on hunger, physical activity and energy levels, they discovered that insufficient sleep increased the participants’ sensations of hunger by raising the level of the “hunger hormone”, ghrelin. The less sleep a person had, the hungrier they felt. After only one night of disrupted sleep, the volunteers moved around less and burned off fewer calories in their resting state than their counterparts that enjoyed a good night’s sleep.
10 San Diego Edition
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