This Row Will Kick Your Core Into Overdrive
He single-arm is a classic exercise, but it's not always done correctly. You'll often see people rocking their entire upper bodies on the move, putting their lower back at risk for injury and not getting the most out of the row.
That's where this TRX row comes in, because it forces you to keep near-perfect form. It's an exercise that will keep you honest on all your single-arm rows, and combined with a at the end that's also on the , it makes a perfect finishing move to a pull-day workout.
8 Things Your Dentist Knows About You Just By Looking In Your Mouth
You flossed right before your appointment—and that's the only time.
Sorry, but you can't fool your dentist into thinking you floss daily by doing it the night before or morning of your visit.
"The gums of people who only floss right before a visit are bleeding or look damaged," says Timothy Stirneman, D.D.S., of All Smiles Dental in Algonquin, Illinois. "Healthy gums are nice and tight and pink."
Santa Monica-based dentist Kenneth Wong, D.D.S., is on to you, too. "When patients floss right before coming in for a cleaning, I can see the slices where the floss cut at the gum because they were overzealous," he says.
5 Reasons Why Skin Cancer Surgery Isn't So Scary
Veva Vesper has dealt with more than her fair share of skin cancer in the last 25 years. The 69-year-old Ohio resident has had more than 500 squamous cell carcinomas removed since the late 1980s, when the immunosuppressant medication she was taking for a kidney transplant caused her to develop them all over her body — everywhere from the corner of her eye to her legs.
While Vesper's story is unusual, skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States. In fact, it's currently estimated that one in five Americans will get skin cancer in his or her lifetime.
Mike Davis, a 65-year-old retired cop, and like Vesper, a patient at The Skin Cancer Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, has a more familiar story. Earlier this year, he had a basal cell carcinoma removed from his left ear — the side of his face most exposed to UV damage when driving on patrol.
The buildup of sun exposure over your lifetime puts you at greater risk for developing basal and squamous cell skin carcinomas as you age. Both Vesper and Davis had Mohs surgery, the most effective and precise way to remove the two most common types of skin cancer.
Giving the 'Green Light' to Migraine Relief
A new study sheds light -- literally -- on a potential means of easing migraine pain.
Researchers in Boston exposed 69 migraine patients to different colors of light. They found that while blue light exacerbated headache pain, a narrow spectrum of low-intensity green light significantly reduced light sensitivity.
In some cases, this green light also reduced migraine pain by about 20 percent, the researchers found.
They noted that migraine headache affects nearly 15 percent of people worldwide, and a frequent symptom of migraine is light sensitivity, also known as photophobia.
"Although photophobia is not usually as incapacitating as headache pain itself, the inability to endure light can be disabling," study author Rami Burstein, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, said in a medical center news release.
RELATED: Home Remedies for Headache Treatment
"More than 80 percent of migraine attacks are associated with and exacerbated by light sensitivity, leading many migraine sufferers to seek the comfort of darkness and isolate themselves from work, family and everyday activities," he added. Burstein directs the medical center's Comprehensive Headache Center.
Two experts said the treatment may have merit.
"Certainly Dr. Burstein's work suggests that more research should be done, as this is a potentially beneficial new avenue for treatment," said Dr. Noah Rosen, who directs Northwell Health's Headache Center in Great Neck, N.Y.
He pointed out that "light therapy has been used successfully in other conditions such as certain dermatologic issues and seasonal affective disorder [SAD]."
Dr. Gayatri Devi is a neurologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
He said the success in some patients with light therapy "implicates the thalamus -- a brain 'relay station' between the sensory organs, including the eyes and the cortex of the brain -- as the area where migraine-related photophobia is amplified."
For his part, Burstein said he's now trying to develop an affordable light bulb that emits narrow-band green light at low intensity, as well as sunglasses that block all but the narrow band of green light.
Rosen stressed, however, that more study may still be needed.
"In general, it seems a safe treatment but one that is limited by cost, access and whether its use on a regular basis would decrease disability," he said.
The findings were published May 17 in the journal Brain.
Expert Panel Recommends Questionnaire to Help Spot Depression
Part of your next visit to your family doctor's office should be spent filling out a questionnaire to assess whether you're suffering from depression, an influential panel of preventive medicine experts recommends.
What's more, people concerned that they might be depressed could download an appropriate questionnaire online, fill it out ahead of time and hand it over to their doctor for evaluation, the panel added.
In an updated recommendation released Monday, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force urged that family doctors regularly screen patients for depression, using standardized questionnaires that detect warning signs of the mental disorder.
If a patient shows signs of depression, they would be referred to a specialist for a full-fledged diagnosis and treatment using medication, therapy or a combination of the two, according to the recommendation.
These questionnaires can be self-administered in a matter of minutes, with doctors reviewing the results after patients fill out the forms, said Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, vice chair of the task force.
"This could be a checklist that patients fill out in the waiting room, or at home prior to the visit," she said. "The good thing is we have many instruments, measures that have been studied for screening for depression."
About 7 percent of adults in the United States currently suffer from depression, but only half have been diagnosed with the condition, said Bibbins-Domingo, who is a professor of medicine, epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco.
"We know that depression itself is a source of poor health," she said. "It leads people to miss work, to not function as fully as they might, and we know it is linked and associated with other types of chronic diseases."
It makes sense that family doctors perform front-line screening for depression, since they are more likely than a mental health professional to come across a person with undetected symptoms, said Michael Yapko, a clinical psychologist and internationally recognized depression expert based in Fallbrook, Calif.
"Only about 25 percent of depression sufferers seek out professional help, but more than 90 percent will see a physician and present symptoms and signs that could be diagnosed," said Yapko, who is not on the task force.
The panel has recommended regular depression screening for adults since 2002, but their guidelines currently urge doctors to ask two specific questions that provide a quick evaluation of a person's mood. The questions are, "Over the past two weeks, have you felt down, depressed, or hopeless?" and "Over the past two weeks, have you felt little interest or pleasure in doing things?"
The updated recommendation expands doctors' options for depression screening, adding commonly used questionnaires like the Patient Health Questionnaire, or PHQ-9.
The PHQ-9 is a list of 10 questions that focus on problems that a person might have experienced during the past two weeks, including poor appetite, low energy, sleep problems and a lack of interest in doing things.
"These are not instruments that diagnose depression," Bibbins-Domingo noted. "They give clinicians the first indication of something that should be followed up on."
Yapko said that someone who wanted to could lie on the questionnaires and avoid having their symptoms detected, but he added that in his experience it's not a very likely scenario.
"When you have people who are suffering who genuinely want help, they're happy to give you as accurate a portrayal as they can give you," he said. "Generally speaking, the people seeking help want help and they want to do their best in filling these things out. That's what makes the test worthwhile."
The task force is an independent, volunteer panel of national experts that has been issuing recommendations on preventive medicine since 1984.
Yapko and Bibbins-Domingo said depression screening shouldn't eat into a doctor's time, since patients can fill out and score the questionnaires on their own.
Instead of wasting time reading magazines in the waiting room, patients "could be filling out an inventory that is self-administered, self-scored and wouldn't take any physician time at all," Yapko said.
Patients also could download and fill out a depression questionnaire at home and hand it in when they go to the doctor, but Yapko said patients should make sure they're using the form their doctor prefers.
"Which of the many inventories and questionnaires a doctor might wish to use is a matter of personal and professional judgment," he said. "So, a doctor would need to specify which form to obtain online and the patient would then need to remember to bring it in, not always easy when depression negatively affects your memory. Easier to have the form in the office and have them fill it out in the waiting room."
Yapko added that it's important that doctors who screen for depression follow up by referring patients to a mental health professional, rather than trying to diagnose and treat depression themselves.
"When physicians get a diagnosis of depression, their most immediate thing to do is prescribe an antidepressant," Yapko said, noting that more than 70 percent of antidepressants are prescribed by non-psychiatrists. "Only a minority of people walk out of a doctor's office with a referral to a mental health professional, a fact which drives me a little crazy."
All Diet and Nutrition Articles
8 Healthy Game Day Snacks for Football Season
1 / 9 Skip the Takeout and Whip Up These 8 Winning Snacks
Even if you're not a football fanatic, game day is always an excuse to watch a good matchup, spend time with family and friends, and especially to eat your favorite foods. Nachos, chili, cheese dips — your upcoming game-day gathering will probably boast some of the best non-holiday spreads of the year. Game on! This year, it's not about what foods you should avoid; instead, we scoured our favorite blogs for healthier game day dishes that score major points for flavor, originality, and nutrition. One look at these winning recipes and you won't want to order out.
10 Winter Foods for Depression
1 / 11 Boost Your Mood With Seasonal Bounty
It's winter, and depending on where you live, it could be very cold and gray, with sunshine in short supply. The winter doldrums plus holiday high anxiety make this season especially stressful and depressing for many people. But you might be able to eat your way to a better mood. Load your plate with these winter foods for depression to lift your spirits.
For Pain, It Matters Which Doctor You See
As a physician anesthesiologist, I know how challenging it can be to treat patients who are in pain. For most people, pain is temporary. But for more than 100 million Americans, there is no end to pain.
Chronic pain can be broad or focused, dull or sharp, distracting or excruciating, and in many cases, debilitating.
Your likelihood of experiencing chronic pain increases with age. Gender can also influence how much pain you have. In general, women report having more pain than men.
The Serious Effects of Pain
Living with chronic pain can affect your life in many ways:
Mental health changes. According to a 2006 survey from the American Academy of Pain Medicine, almost two-thirds of people living with chronic pain have reported a decrease in overall happiness and 77 percent reported feeling depressed.
Increased fatigue. Pain can affect your daily functioning, resulting in decreased concentration, diminished energy levels, and difficulty falling or staying asleep.
Decreased job performance. Chronic pain costs the U.S. more than cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. Health economists estimate that the cost of chronic pain may be as high as $635 billion a year, according to a report published in the Journal of Pain. We can only guess how many people have been limited in their professional advancement because of pain.
Which Doctor Is Best at Treating Pain?
If you are experiencing pain, your first stop should be to visit your primary care physician. A 2010 analysis of a national medical database found that 13 percent of all doctors visits were to discuss pain. Of these visits, 45 percent were at a primary care physician's office. Less than 1 percent of those surveyed sought help from a specialized pain physician.
Specialized pain physicians are underused by patients, probably because the specialty is relatively new and people don't know about it. These physicians are trained to treat difficult pain conditions using the most advanced treatments.
I like to compare pain physicians to football players. The goal of all of these doctors is the same — to relieve pain — but the role they play varies:
Anesthesiologists spend four years of their training managing anesthesia and pain control in surgical patients. Most pain specialists are anesthesiologists, and they can offer a full array of pain treatments.
Neurologists focus on targeting the neural, or nerve, aspects of pain. Treatments include medications and procedures to treat nerve-related pain.
Physical medicine and rehabilitation physicians focus on relieving pain and improving their patients' day-to-day functioning via physical therapy and physical reconditioning.
The Future of Pain Treatment
Recently, the American Society of Anesthesiologists analyzed dozens of peer-reviewed medical journals from the past year to create its first Women's Pain Update. Highlights from the report include:
Success with alternative pain-relief methods such as music, yoga, and rose oil.
Breast cancer research that found the type of anesthesia used during breast cancer surgery can affect how quickly and comfortably you recover.
New research has also led to the development of medications that can decrease nerve irritation and depression caused by pain. Similarly, there are several new procedures that can treat pain.
For example, pain specialists can use X-ray or ultrasound imaging guidance to provide relief through steroid injections that target specific nerves and areas of the spinal cord. The procedure is fairly low risk when administered by a physician specifically trained in interventional pain treatments. All three major pain societies, the American Pain Society, the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians, and the American Academy of Neurology, state that epidural steroid injections are best suited for those with a pinched or inflamed nerve root (also called radiculopathy).
However, we still have a lot to learn about steroid procedures. Studies have shown that any type of epidural injection — including saline — can relieve pain. In fact, such injections provide twice the pain relief of intramuscular steroid injections, without the associated risks.
Don't resign yourself to a life in pain. If you are one of the millions of people lacking an effective remedy for your pain, a trained pain medicine physician may be able to help you achieve your pain management goals.
Depression Screening Should Include All Pregnant, Postpartum Women
All U.S. adults, including pregnant and postpartum women, should be screened for depression by their family doctor, the nation's leading preventive medicine panel recommends.
Further, doctors need to follow through and get treatment for anyone who tests positive for depression, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force concluded in an update of its depression screening guidelines.
This is the first time the panel has specifically advocated depression screening in pregnancy and shortly after giving birth. It cited a U.S. study that found that 9 percent of pregnant women and more than 10 percent of postpartum women exhibited signs of major depression.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) applauded the recommendation.
"Because fewer than 20 percent of women in whom perinatal depression is diagnosed self-report their symptoms, routine screening by physicians is important for ensuring appropriate follow-up and treatment," said ACOG president Dr. Mark DeFrancesco in a statement.
Depression can harm both the child and mother, interfering with their interactions and affecting social relationships and school performance, the panel noted. Risk factors during pregnancy and after delivery include poor self-esteem, child-care stress, prenatal anxiety and decreased social support, the report said.
The new report -- published Jan. 26 in the Journal of the American Medical Association -- updates a similar recommendation the panel issued in 2009 that called for routine screening of adults.
In general, primary care physicians should be able to treat most cases of uncomplicated depression, and refer more complex cases to a psychiatrist, said Dr. Michael Pignone, a member of the task force and director of the University of North Carolina's Institute for Healthcare Quality Improvement.
"That's part of our job," Pignone said.
Options for treatment include therapy with a psychologist or licensed clinical social worker or antidepressant medications.
The task force is an independent, volunteer panel of national experts in preventive medicine. It issues recommendations, and revisits them on a regular basis to make sure that medical evidence still supports the guidelines.
RELATED: 9 Depression Types to Know
Depression is among the leading causes of disability in persons 15 years and older, the panel noted.
Millions of adults suffer from depression and don't know it, said Dr. Michael Thase, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.
At any given time, between 5 percent and 10 percent of U.S. adults suffer from a depressive disorder, but half receive no treatment for their depression, Thase said.
The task force's depression guidelines are aimed at detecting and helping those adults who unknowingly have depression, Pignone said.
"This is about screening, not about diagnosing people who come to a doctor's office saying, 'I feel depressed.' The potential value of screening is in those people who would not be found as part of regular clinical care," he said.
Some people may not want to acknowledge they are depressed because there is a stigma around mental illness, Pignone said. Others might just think they are feeling blue, and will get over it.
"In some people, their symptoms may seem more physical to them," he added. For example, depression might cause stomach pain, headaches or sleeping problems.
The task force did not recommend any particular questionnaire for depression screening, because "there are many good tools and there's no single tool that should be recommended above others," Pignone said.
The most common screening tool, the Patient Health Questionnaire, consists of 10 simple questions that can be answered in minutes, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The task force also could not recommend how regularly people should be screened, because not enough research has been done in that area, Pignone said.
"The task force recommendation is that people should be screened at least once," he said. "For the meantime, clinicians should use their judgment about the risk of depression in their patients, in deciding how often to screen."
However, the task force did emphasize the need to follow up a positive screening with treatment.
Dr. Michelle Riba, a former president of the American Psychiatric Association, agreed that primary care doctors should be able to treat most patients with depression.
However, Riba added that doctors should develop a relationship with a psychiatrist they can consult on cases of depression. The psychiatrist could talk with the practitioner on the phone, review patient charts, and help decide the best course of action.
Doctors also should be open to other forms of treatment for depression, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy or light therapy, said Elizabeth Saenger, a psychologist in private practice in New York City.
Light therapy affects the body's production of the hormone serotonin, and studies have shown it can help alleviate depression symptoms, Saenger said.
It makes sense for primary care doctors to lead the way on depression screening because they see patients most often, said Dr. Alan Manevitz, a psychiatrist with Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
Treating depression can help patients face other health problems with which they are struggling. "As depression gets worse, so many other chronic illnesses also get worse," Manevitz said. "People don't take care of their health as well when they are depressed."
8 Reasons You Have No Energy
You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn't hit snooze or experience the midafternoon slump every once in a while, but if you constantly feel like you're dragging it may be time to take a closer look at your routine. If you don't have a related health condition and are getting enough shuteye each night, you may be to blame for the constant fatigue. Here are 8 energy-zapping habits that you can change today.
1. You're eating too much sugar. While the candy jar is an obvious culprit, refined carbohydrates like white bread and rice, chips, and cereal are a major source of sugar,too. This type of simple sugar is digested quickly by the body, leading to a dip in blood sugar levels that leaves you feeling fatigued. Be sure to replace refined carbs with whole grain varieties for a lasting energy boost.
2. You aren't exercising enough. It may seem counterintuitive that exerting energy will actually increase it, but adding a workout to your daily routine will give you a short-term energy boost. Plus, regular exercise improves sleep quality, which will ultimately leave you feeling more well rested.
3. You're skipping breakfast. "Skipping breakfast can definitely contribute to low energy in the morning," says Johannah Sakimura, MS and Everyday Health blogger. "It's important to give your body good fuel to start the day after an extended period of fasting." Without this fuel, your body is running on empty – leaving you famished by lunchtime and more likely to make unhealthy choices that will cause that midafternoon dip in blood sugar. "Try to combine healthy carbohydrates, like fruit, veggies, and whole grains, with a protein source, such as eggs, nuts, or dairy. The carbs give you an initial boost, and the protein helps sustain you until your next meal," says Sakimura.
4. You're sitting too much. Not only is sitting for prolonged periods of time harmful to your health (just one hour of sitting affects your heart!), but it's a major energy zapper as well. Standing up and moving for even a few minutes helps get your blood circulating through your body and increases the oxygen in your blood, ultimately sending more oxygen to your brain which increases alertness. If you work a desk job, try this move more plan to keep your blood pumping.
5. You're drinking too much caffeine. Whether it's a can of soda or constant refills of your coffee mug, many of the beverages we reach for when we feel tired are packed with caffeine – a stimulant that will give you a quick jolt, but can also leave you crashing soon after if you ingest too much. Plus, if you're drinking caffeinated beverages into the afternoon, they may start to have an effect on your sleep quality. If you're a coffee drinker, switch to water late-morning and replace soda with seltzer for a bubbly afternoon pick-me-up without the crash.
6. You're dehydrated. We all know the importance of drinking enough water – and even mild dehydration can have adverse effects on your energy level, mood, and concentration. Aim for at least one glass of water per hour while sitting at your desk, and be sure to fill your bottle up even more if you're doing strenuous activity or are outdoors in high temperatures.
7. You have poor posture. A study found that slouched walking decreased energy levels while exacerbating symptoms of depression. The good news: Simply altering body posture to a more upright position instantly boosted mood and energy, while enabling participants to more easily come up with positive thoughts. So sit up straight! Set reminders on your phone or calendar throughout the day to remind yourself to check in with your posture and straighten up.
8. You're not snacking smart. If you're running to the vending machine for a quick afternoon snack, your selection – most likely high in simple carbs and sugar – will take your energy levels in the wrong direction. Instead choose a snack that has a combo of protein and complex carbs for an energy boost that will last throughout the afternoon. Think trail mix, veggies and hummus, or peanut butter on whole wheat toast.