E-cigarettes have their own set of dangers

If you are trying to quit smoking, should you try vaping?

Just over 36 million Americans smoke cigarettes, despite evidence that tobacco use is the largest preventable cause of disease and early death.

Many times, people continue to smoke because it’s difficult to quit, according to doctor Humberto Choi of Cleveland Clinic, some folks who want to quit turn to e-cigarettes.

One recent study says e-cigarettes do not come without risks.

"In the group that used the e-cigarettes with nicotine, there was an increase in heart rate, an increase in blood pressure, and it did find a transient increase in the stiffness of the blood vessels," Choi said.

Researchers looked at a group of young adults with an average age of 26 and found that those who used e-cigarettes with nicotine not only had cardiovascular symptoms, but also asthma symptoms.

The doctor says there are still some unanswered questions about the long-term effects of e-cigarettes, but that one thing is for sure:  e-cigarettes, like regular cigarettes, deliver nicotine, just in a different way.

He says when someone is ready to quit, it's best to stick to tried and true methods, rather than turning to e-cigarettes.

"The best way is a combination of counseling, and probably one-to-one, the best way to offer the counseling. We can offer nicotine replacement therapies that can be used with gums, lozenges, patches or even a nasal spray. and also medication."

There are a lot of resources and support groups as well as a Michigan Tobacco Quitline: 1-800-784-8669 or 1-800-QUIT-NOW.

From pills to psychotherapy, treating depression often lies in a gray zone

Depression afflicts an estimated 16 million Americans every year, many of whom go to their doctors in despair, embarking on an often stressful process about what to do next. 

These visits may entail filling out forms with screening questions about symptoms such as mood changes and difficulty sleeping. Doctors may ask patients to share intimate details about such issues as marital conflicts and suicidal urges. Some patients may be referred to mental-health specialists for further examination.

Once diagnosed with depression, patients frequently face the question: “Are you interested in therapy, medications or both?”

As a resident physician in psychiatry, I’ve seen many patients grapple with this question; the most frequent answer I’ve heard from patients is “I’m not sure.” Deciding between different types of medical treatment can be challenging, especially amid the fog of depression. Moreover, patients rely on doctors to help guide them, and we’re often not sure ourselves which is the best approach for a specific patient.

People commonly associate psychotherapy with Freud and couches, but newer, evidence-based treatments such as cognitive behavioral therapy have become prominent in the field. CBT helps patients develop strategies to address harmful thoughts, emotions and behaviors that may contribute to depression.

There are many proposed explanations for how specific psychotherapies treat depression. These possibilities include giving patients social support and teaching coping skills, and researchers are using neuroimaging to study how these treatments affect depressed patients’ brains.

Antidepressant medications are thought to work by changing chemical signaling in our brains. For example, one class of commonly used drugs — selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors — is designed to alter levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain. These antidepressants may be effective for treating depression in some patients, but the neurochemistry of depression remains poorly understood, and we’re still not entirely sure how these drugs alleviate depressive symptoms.

A number of recent studies highlight the uncertainty involved with these treatment decisions. Researchers have dedicated considerable effort to studying the relative effectiveness between psychotherapies and antidepressants, frequently without finding much difference. For instance, a study published in 2012 reviewed data from more than 100 prior trials and included more than 10,000 patients; although psychotherapies and antidepressants each worked better than placebo in blinded trials at reducing depressive symptoms, neither of these treatments was more effective than the other. Furthermore, psychotherapies and antidepressants did no better overall than alternative therapies such as exercise.

In 2014, research presented at the European Congress of Psychiatry suggested that CBT was just as good as, if not better than, antidepressants for the acute treatment of depression. A 2015 systematic review of randomized trials similarly found that antidepressants were no better than CBT across multiple measures for managing depression. And this year, a meta-analysis looking at dozens of studies found psychotherapies and medications were fairly alike at improving quality of life and functioning in people with depression.

If psychotherapy and medication are both used to treat depression, could using them together work even better?

This is a valid question, and one often brought up by patients. But the efficacy of combining these treatments is controversial in medical circles: Studies have come to different conclusions about it. As a result, many patients still receive one or the other first.

In 2016, the American College of Physicians released guidelines about using antidepressants as opposed to non-pharmacologic therapies for depression. After reviewing decades of evidence, a committee concluded that CBT and newer-generation antidepressants are “similarly effective treatments” for adults with major depression. The guidelines recommend that “clinicians select between either cognitive behavioral therapy or second-generation antidepressants” for treating patients with depression.

The authors of these guidelines also raise an important point: Doctors commonly turn first to antidepressants when treating patients with depression, even though evidence suggests alternate therapies are just as effective. The medications can also have side effects including nausea and vomiting as well as dangerous interactions with other drugs.

Antidepressants rank among the top-prescribed types of medications in the United States, and surveys suggest that more than 250 million antidepressant prescriptions are filled annually nationwide. A 2015 JAMA study found that 13 percent of American adults took antidepressants in 2012, a figure that nearly doubled since 1999.

Does this mean antidepressants are overprescribed?

It depends on how you interpret the question. Antidepressant use has risen considerably in recent years, while psychotherapy use appears to be stable or declining, because these treatments are often equally effective in managing depression, this might suggest we’re relying more on these drugs.

Some patients may prefer to take medications for depression. Many people do not have the time to participate in psychotherapies like CBT or psychodynamic therapy — a type of talk therapy that explores the interplay between unconscious feelings and distressing symptoms — which can span multiple hour-long sessions over months. Others may not have access to mental-health specialists who can provide appropriate therapy. Then there are patients who would rather take a pill in the comfort of their own home, instead of opening up about intimate experiences in a doctor’s office.

The structure of our health-care system may also be a factor. Higher insurance reimbursements for medications rather than psychotherapies may make physicians quicker to pull out the prescription pad. The crunched time and administrative burdens of today’s medical practice can lead to pressured patient visits that are more conducive to quick check-ins and pills than to in-depth conversations.

Patients should be aware that there are treatment options in addition to therapy and medication. Several studies have shown that exercise may be helpful in managing mild to moderate depression. For patients with more severe depression, transcranial magnetic stimulation and electroconvulsive therapy — approaches that use brief electric currents to influence brain activity — can be lifesaving treatments.

As the ACP guidelines recommend, providers should discuss “treatment effects, adverse effect profiles, cost, accessibility, and preferences with the patient” when treating depression. But in today’s hurried medical environment, completing that task in a thorough and comprehensive manner can often be difficult, if not impossible.

Researchers are developing tools including brain imaging and genetic testing to help guide this decision-making. Such individualized treatment has long been sought in mental-health care.

These technologies have shown promise, but they remain far from standard clinical practice. And adding more tests to doctors’ visits may ignore the central issue when treating depression: Do we have enough time to truly talk with our patients about their options?

Morris is a resident physician in psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine

Eating Nuts May Strengthen Some Brain Waves

New research has found that eating nuts on a regular basis strengthens brain wave frequencies associated with cognition, healing, learning, memory, and other key brain functions.

Researchers at Loma Linda University in California found that some nuts stimulated some brain frequencies more than others.

Pistachios, for instance, produced the greatest gamma wave response, which is critical for enhancing cognitive processing, information retention, learning, perception, and rapid eye movement during sleep.

Peanuts, which are actually legumes, but were still part of the study, produced the highest delta response, which is associated with healthy immunity, natural healing, and deep sleep.

While researchers found variances between the six nut varieties tested, all of them were high in beneficial antioxidants, with walnuts containing the highest antioxidant concentrations of all, according to the study’s principal investigator, Lee Berk, Dr.P.H., M.P.H., associate dean for research at the LLU School of Allied Health Professions.

Previous studies have demonstrated that nuts benefit the body in several significant ways: protecting the heart, fighting cancer, reducing inflammation, and slowing the aging process.

But Berk believes too little research has focused on how they affect the brain.

“This study provides significant beneficial findings by demonstrating that nuts are as good for your brain as they are for the rest of your body,” he said, adding that he expects future studies will reveal that they make other contributions to the brain and nervous system as well.

For this study, Berk assembled a team of 13 researchers to explore the effects of regular nut consumption on brainwave activity.

The research team developed a pilot study using subjects who consumed almonds, cashews, peanuts, pecans, pistachios, and walnuts.

Electroencephalograms (EEG) were taken to measure the strength of brainwave signals. EEG wave band activity was then recorded from nine regions of the scalp associated with cerebral cortical function, the researchers explained.

An abstract of the study, which was presented in the nutrition section of the Experimental Biology 2017 meetings, was published in The FASEB Journal.

First Successful Head Transplant Carried Out In China

The world's first human head transplant has been carried out on a corpse in China, according to an Italian Professor Sergio Canavero.

Dr Xiaoping Ren, who grafted a head onto the body of a monkey in 2016, carried out the operation, which took 18 hours.

Italian Professor Canavero, who is the director of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group, announced the success in a press conference in Vienna.

The professor said: "The first human transplant on human cadavers has been done.

"A full head swap between brain dead organ donors is the next stage and that is the final step for the formal head transplant for a medical condition which is imminent."

It had previously been hoped that 30-year-old Valery Spiridonov would be the first human to undergo the operation but the Russian decided he did not want to experience the surgery.

Spiridonov had volunteered because he suffers from Werdnig-Hoffmann disease, which causes severe spinal muscular atrophy, and he was willing to try anything to prolong his life.

There had been an angry backlash to the potential surgery from religious groups, who said it was going against God.

Spiridonov was fully prepared for the body to reject his head but it was also possible that fusing his head with another body - including the spinal cord and jugular vein - might result in never-before experienced levels of insanity.

Doctor Canavero said before the operation that he was anticipating it to be a 36-hour procedure that would involve 150 doctors and nurses.

Arthur Caplan, director of medical ethics at New York University's Langone Medical Centre, had previously said that the bodies of head transplant patients "would end up being overwhelmed with different pathways and chemistry than they are used to and they'd go crazy".

Credit: PA. Valery Spiridonov 

In 1970, a head transplant was successfully performed on a monkey. Well, it was sort of successful. The monkey lived, but only for eight days.

The body rejected the new head and the monkey was left unable to breathe or move because the spinal cord of the head and body weren't properly connected.

Hopefully, technology has advanced enough in the past 45 years.

Gong Shou Dao (GSD) Features the Top 3 Martial Arts Choreographers

Gong Shou Dao (GSD), a new short film produced by Jet Li, features the top three Chinese martial arts choreographers. The film is expected to demonstrate the most astonishing and sophisticated aspects of Chinese martial arts.

A movie poster published on Jack Ma’s blog made a big splash in the fields of action movie-making industry and Chinese martial arts.

GSD is a short film made for promoting the culture of Taiji. Jack Ma will play the role of the leading actor in this movie together with 11 other famous Kung Fu icons representing different martial art disciplines. The short film is made as a tribute to all master kung fu predecessors and for promoting the excellence of traditional Chinese culture.

Participation of Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group, in the cast will undoubtedly maximize the understanding and value of Taiji culture throughout the world due to Ma’s worldwide influence. Since all the stars performing in the film are well trained in martial arts, the super cast guarantees the quality of the movie.

For most of the fans of action movies, the beauty and the strength of actions presented through a film are the main attractions. As a result, the martial arts choreography serves as the key in the success of an action movie.

Currently the top three master-level Chinese martial arts choreographers in

 the world are Yuen Woo-Ping, Sammo Hung, and Tony Ching. In the filming of GSD,

 the expertise of these top three Chinese martial arts masters were integrated.

Sammo Hung is a Chinese kung fu actor who has a solid foundation in the practice of kung fu. He is noted for the choreography of kung fu sparring with a touch of occasional humor

 and imagination. The master’s top action movies include “Ip Man“, “Detective Dee

 and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame“, and “Once Upon a Time in China and 

America” etc.

Yuen Woo-Ping served as the martial arts choreographer in classical action films

 including “Once Upon a Time in China II”, “The Tai-Chi Master“,  “Fist of Legend”

 and Hollywood classic “The Matrix”. His choreography of actions is known for its 

reflection of reality. His design of actions is characterized by swiftness, exactness,

 and ruthlessness. Yuen’s brand of actions delivers visual punch to the audience.

Tony Ching is well-known for his martial arts choreography of the classical movie

 “New Dragon Gate Inn“. His choreography features beauty and elegance. He used slow motions to magnify many graceful actions which helped form the image of martial art

 characters and classical actions. Ching’s other signature works include 

“Swordsman II” and “Hero” both starring our founder Jet Li.

The three master choreographers worked out different stereotypes of legendary

 martial art masters Zhang Sanfeng, Ip Man, and Ling Wu Chung, respectively. 

By integrating the various creative styles of these three directors, the resulted 

film is expected to showcase scenes of ruthless sparring, standard martial

 art techniques, and seamless elegance. The fans may expect a creative 

work featuring seemingly familiar feelings and ultimate duels.

According to Jet Li, all actors and directors worked pro bono in the making 

of this film as a tribute to Chinese culture and all the Chinese martial arts

 masters past and present. The film is made as an endeavor to share Chinese 

culture with the world.

Jack Ma said, “No further development will be made for a society or individual if there is no pursuit of culture or innovation.” The responsibility and obligation of this generation is to let the world know about the excellence of the Chinese culture and share the thoughts and strength contained in traditional Chinese philosophy, Ma stated. “This cultural heritage not only belongs to China, but also to the world,” Ma added.

The three Chinese martial arts choreographers have been making extraordinary contributions to the promotion and interpretation of martial arts. The collaboration of the three masters marked a milestone in Chinese action movie making industry. They are determined to produce a legendary new generation martial arts film.

Self-driving bus involved in crash less than two hours after Las Vegas launch

It took less than two hours for Las Vegas’s brand new self-driving shuttle to end up in a crash on Wednesday – thanks to a human.

The autonomous bus made its debut on public roads around the so called Innovation District in downtown Las Vegas in front of cameras and celebrities, dubbed America’s first self-driving shuttle pilot project geared toward the public. But within two hours it had already been involved in a minor crash with a lorry. No injuries were reported.

Jenny Wong, a passenger on the shuttle at the time of the crash, told local news station KSNV: “The shuttle just stayed still. And we were like, it’s going to hit us, it’s going to hit us. And then it hit us.

“The shuttle didn’t have the ability to move back. The shuttle just stayed still.”

Las Vegas police officer Aden Ocampo-Gomez said the truck’s driver was at fault for the crash and was cited for illegal backing.

“The shuttle did what it was supposed to do, in that its sensors registered the truck and the shuttle stopped to avoid the accident,” the city said in a statement. “Unfortunately the delivery truck did not stop and grazed the front fender of the shuttle. Had the truck had the same sensing equipment that the shuttle has, the accident would have been avoided.”

The oval-shaped shuttle can seat up to eight people and has an attendant and computer monitor, but no steering wheel or brake pedals. Developed by French company Navya, it uses GPS, electronic kerb sensors and other technology to find its way at no more than 15mph.

Before it crashed, dozens of people had lined up to get a free trip on a 0.6-mile loop around Fremont East, Las Vegas, including Nascar driver Danica Patrick and magic duo Penn and Teller. City spokesman Jace Radke said the shuttle took two more loops after the crash.

The year-long pilot project, sponsored by AAA Northern California, Nevada and Utah, is expected to carry 250,000 people. The AAA said human error was responsible for more than 90% of the 30,000 deaths on US roads in 2016, and that robotic cars could help reduce the number of incidents.

Google sibling Waymo announced on Tuesday that it is launching a fully autonomous Uber-like ride-hailing service with no human driver behind the wheel in Phoenix, Arizona in the next few months, making it the first such service accessible to the public without no one to take control in an emergency.

A Common Contraceptive Is Linked to a "Stunning" Reduction in Cervical Cancer Risk

One of the longest-lasting and most effective forms of female contraception may be offering an unexpected health benefit to the women who use it.

A new analysis of intrauterine devices (IUDs) has found women using the contraceptive were significantly less likely to develop cervical cancer, with IUDs reducing incidences of the cancer by approximately one-third.

"The pattern we found was stunning. It was not subtle at all," says preventive medicine specialist Victoria Cortessis from the University of Southern California.

"The possibility that a woman could experience some help with cancer control at the same time she is making contraception decisions could potentially be very, very impactful."

Cortessis and fellow researchers reviewed data from 16 observational studies monitoring more than 12,000 women, identifying both participants' use of IUDs and their incidence of cervical cancer, which is the fourth-most common cancer in women worldwide.

What they found was that among women who took part in the studies, those using IUDs were 36 percent less likely to get cervical cancer than women who didn't use the contraceptive.

Of course, meta-analyses like this are only observational in nature – neither the new research nor the studies it draws from are demonstrating any kind of causative effect.

But, nonetheless, it's a striking, unexpected result that the researchers say definitely warrants further investigation.

"It looks real. It smells real," Cortessis told Live Science.

"[B]ut to be really convinced, we need to go back and do studies to find a mechanism."

What that mechanism is exactly, nobody's sure, but the team speculates the placement of an IUD may somehow stimulate an immune response in the cervix, leading the body to protect itself against any existing human papillomavirus (HPV) infection – the virus that causes more than 70 percent of all cervical cancer cases.

"[Previous] data say the presence of the IUD in the uterus stimulates an immune response, and that immune response very, very substantially destroys sperm and keeps sperm from reaching the egg," Cortessis explained to HealthDay.

"It stands to reason the IUD might influence other immune phenomenon."

Another hypothesis is that when IUDs are removed from the body, a scraping effect could take out infected cells at the same time, which could potentially help lower the risk of cancerous tissue developing.

Regardless of what makes the reduced cancer risk happen, the sheer size of this gap seen in the data means it's something health researchers will want to look into.

"I would be shocked if it's not a real phenomenon," Cortessis told Time.

"We need to figure out what's going on mechanistically and do some fine tuning and see what kind of use could prevent cervical cancer and integrate that with contraceptive counselling."

The researchers are keen to emphasise that their findings shouldn't be taken as a recommendation that women should use IUDs to lower their chances of getting cervical cancer.

The best way to do that is to have regular cervical screenings and be vaccinated against HPV.

"Screening is everything," Cortessis told Newsweek.

"If a woman has one lifetime screening visit in her entire life, her risk is much lower."

The findings are reported in Obstetrics & Gynecology.