Takeda says cancer drug Alunbrig shows longer benefit vs. crizotinib

Takeda says cancer drug Alunbrig shows longer benefit vs. crizotinib
Reuters: Health
Japan's biggest drugmaker, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd, said long-term data show better outcomes for its Alunbrig drug in certain lung cancer patients compared to an existing treatment.

In­creased use of an­ti­bi­ot­ics may pre­dis­pose to Par­kin­son's disease, suggests new study (n=13,976), which may be explained by their disruptive effects on the gut microbiome. In the gut, pathological changes typical of Parkinson's disease have been observed up to 20 years before diagnosis.

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source https://www.reddit.com/r/Health/comments/e0bwkf/increased_use_of_antibiotics_may_predispose_to/

In­creased use of an­ti­bi­ot­ics may pre­dis­pose to Par­kin­son's disease, suggests new study (n=13,976), which may be explained by their disruptive effects on the gut microbiome. In the gut, pathological changes typical of Parkinson's disease have been observed up to 20 years before diagnosis.

submitted by /u/mvea [link] [comments]

In­creased use of an­ti­bi­ot­ics may pre­dis­pose to Par­kin­son's disease, suggests new study (n=13,976), which may be explained by their disruptive effects on the gut microbiome. In the gut, pathological changes typical of Parkinson's disease have been observed up to 20 years before diagnosis.

In­creased use of an­ti­bi­ot­ics may pre­dis­pose to Par­kin­son's disease, suggests new study (n=13,976), which may be explained by their disruptive effects on the gut microbiome. In the gut, pathological changes typical of Parkinson's disease have been observed up to 20 years before diagnosis.

submitted by /u/mvea [link] [comments]

https://ift.tt/2ObctRU November 23, 2019 at 08:19AM https://ift.tt/1R552o9

Why Women in Recovery Must Combat the Diet Culture

Diet culture is insidious. We spend our lives obsessed with our bodies — always wishing for a smaller shape, scrutinizing the size of the portions on our plates, and unscrupulously comparing ourselves to thinner people. It’s damaging because it leads us to equate our worth with our appearance. For people in recovery, that is especially harmful. We experience physiological changes quickly — including weight gain — once we find recovery, and we can often leap to the assumption that we have a food addiction and reach for harmful, quick-fix solutions. But what if that weight gain is actually the inevitable evolution of our bodies in early recovery?

When we stop taking drugs and drinking and instead prioritize basic human needs that we previously neglected, like eating, we often gain weight. Unfortunately, before allowing our bodies and appetite to achieve homeostasis, we seek to avoid feelings of discomfort which makes us vulnerable to the pervasive messaging from diet culture.

What Is Diet Culture?

Diet culture affects people of all body sizes, but it is particularly harmful for people who have larger bodies. It also perpetuates eating disorders because being seen as fat is believed to be one of the worst things that can happen to a person. And in many ways, it is: we’re treated differently, we’re stigmatized, and we’re valued less.

The National Eating Disorders Association states: “Diet culture creates the belief that it’s okay to risk the life of a fat person in order to make them a thin person.”

In order to overcome diet culture, however, we must first create awareness of what it looks like. NEDA identified the key tenets of diet culture as:

• Encouraging rules about what, when, and how much to eat. This can manifest as restrictive diets — perhaps marketed as juice cleanses or liquid diets — and the trend to label food “good” and “bad.” We can also see it demonstrated in fasting diets and not eating within certain time frames.
• Suggesting that people are more or less good/moral/worthy based on their body size. As a culture, we reward people for thinness. Compliments are almost always based on how someone looks, and we’re particularly congratulatory if the person we’re complimenting looks like they’ve lost weight. Conversely, we stigmatize, oppress, stereotype, shame, and harass fat people because they don’t meet our perception of how we think they should look. Fatness is the butt of many jokes, it is the source of much ridicule, and it is the reason we make assumptions about people in larger bodies. We assume that fat people are lazy, that they sit in front of the TV favoring binge-eating over exercising, and that they are probably depressed.
• Creating thin privilege. Weight becomes a barrier to jobs, benefits, support, comfort, and accommodation. Expecting that public transportation, amusement park rides, medical facility waiting rooms, and exam rooms will accommodate you is thin privilege.
• Using exercise as punishment. Instead of exercise being joyful, movement is seen as a means of punishing ourselves for eating too much, or a way to “earn” a “cheat meal.”
• Viewing fat people as higher risk medically. Clinicians often recommend restrictive surgeries or prescribe medications to fat people, even though there are serious (sometimes fatal) and lifelong risks associated with these treatments. These invasive and drastic measures are often favored by doctors over evidence-based interventions, completely overlooking the patient’s quality of life and the associated risks.

The Risks of Diet Culture for People in Recovery

We often overlook our physical needs in early recovery, instead focusing on getting and staying sober. But programs focused solely on spiritual well-being aren’t enough. Overlooking the physical impact that substance use disorder has had on our bodies will only exacerbate disordered eating and poor mental health. Prioritizing proper nutrition, however, has been shown to significantly improve rates of recovery.

Substance use disorder can cause considerable damage to our bodies that can take years to even out. It can disrupt metabolic and hormonal processes leading to poor calorie consumption and nutrient deficiencies. These deficiencies can be serious as they impact our mental health, vital organs, and immunity — that’s why we often feel depressed, agitated, and out of sorts in early recovery. What we eat during this crucial time has the potential to impact our mental well-being and how our bodies heal. Part of that healing often includes weight gain, whether we like it or not.

Once we remove drugs and alcohol, we experience biochemical changes that can lead to an increased appetite and a desire to boost our low mood. Our brains are now wired to seek that pleasure externally, so we look to highly palatable foods: candy, fried foods, fast food, cake, cookies, and sugary caffeinated drinks.

People in recovery often lack sufficient nutritional education about the right foods to eat. We also move less in early recovery, sitting in meetings, spending a lot of time in coffee shops, or sleeping. The combination of increased consumption of highly palatable foods, disrupted bodily processes, poor food choices, and a lack of exercise inevitably lead to weight gain.

However, despite the fact that many of us were underweight when we came into recovery, we still treat any weight gain as a negative. That’s because of diet culture. We are quick to label our sudden increase in appetite and desire for highly palatable food as a problem. Some jump to the conclusion that they are addicted to sugar or food.

Many women in recovery have a disordered relationship with food. As many as 72 percent of women with alcohol use disorder also have an eating disorder. This makes it even more crucial that we allow the process of recovery to take place and eat a balanced diet free from restrictions.

Carbohydrates are needed to produce the neurochemical serotonin to balance our mood, help us sleep, curb food cravings, and sustain energy. Protein is crucial to healing and mental health: a lack of dopamine can trigger a return to substance use to improve mood. Fat is essential for mental health and also plays a role in stabilizing mood and reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression.

It can be hard to accept weight gain. It leads us to look at our bodies and our relationship with food more critically.

But this hyper-focus on our appearance leads to further harming our already damaged self-esteem…

Many women in recovery are already dealing with shame; they don’t need the diet culture adding to it. Find out how women in recovery can combat the diet culture in the original article How Diet Culture Harms Women in Recovery at The Fix.

Art Therapy: A Crash Course

Many adults shy away from artistic activities because they believe themselves to be lacking in this skillset. While you may not be able to duplicate The Starry Night, I believe Van Gogh himself would agree that anyone could benefit from artistic expression and exploration. 

Art Therapy is widely used as a tool for expression and also exploration in therapeutic environments. It has the ability to provide opportunity for reflection that can be very revealing or make way for conversations that are very difficult. Individuals can attempt art activities with a therapeutic intent, keeping these basic things in mind:

Concrete Materials

You cannot create anything without materials with which to do so. Choosing the material you’re interested in working with is half the fun.

Maybe you are more of a three dimensional thinker and you want to try sculpting with clay. You can do this with just your hands or experiment with various types of tools. Tools can include anything from specifically designed rollers and scrapers to items you have laying around the house like a pencil or paperclip. Or maybe you are more inclined to work with paint and canvas. The different combinations of this media are limitless. You can work with watercolor, oil paints, or acrylic. Or try your hand at pencil, chalk, or pastel drawing. Give yourself some time to explore different types of materials and decide what works best for you.

Let Go of Preconceived Ideas

Here’s a great way to consider expectations versus reality. If your only definition of artistic success looks like the Mona Lisa, then you may find yourself consistently disappointed. No matter the materials you decide to work with, the next most important step is to let go of preconceived notions of what you are going to create. You can give yourself a topic to explore or an end goal to visualize, but you must free yourself from the constraints of realistic depiction, if you are truly interested in exploring what this process has to offer. Remind yourself the value is in just that — the process rather than the product. 

Creation and Destruction

One interesting thing that is simply inherent about art is that in order to create, you must destroy and vice versa. It is a beautiful dichotomy of these opposing concepts working together. To paint an image, the pastels must be spread out of their container, marring the crisp, white paper. To build a statue, the clay must be molded and chipped away into fresh form. Accompanying your creation will always be a wake of destruction in the materials you used and the pieces you discarded. This is a great illustration of the transformative experiences we all go through in our growth and development. Once again, it is all a part of the process. 

Interpretation

Maybe more valuable the art you create is your own interpretation of it. This involves reflective questioning through every part of the process. Some examples to consider:

• Why did you choose the materials you chose? What did you like or not like about them? Was the decision based on physical sensory or prior experience?
• Is there a pattern in the colors you chose? Are they warm? Cool? Are your lines sharp and jagged or smooth and flowing? Did you depict people, animals, or is your image abstract?
• How did it feel to create this piece? How did it feel when it was finished? How did you know it was finished?
• Did this project take multiple attempts? What did you change about each attempt? 
• What does this project mean to you? What experiences is it related to? How does it fit into your understanding of yourself or your circumstances? 

There are many therapeutic themes and activities that can be explored artistically including self-perception, identity, conflict, loss, emotions, fears, family dynamics, and personal progression. The topics and concepts you may choose from to explore are limitless. The important thing to remember is to keep an open mind about your experience and seek professional help if you find yourself really struggling with something your exploration has brought up or revealed. 

Remember, art is not just for children and professional artists. It can be a great avenue for self-expression or to relieve stress. And who knows? Maybe allowing yourself some exploration of this outlet may even turn into a fulfilling hobby that you practice regularly.

After New Food Poisoning Outbreak, U.S. Officials Warn Consumers Not to Eat Romaine Lettuce Grown in Salinas, California

(NEW YORK) — U.S. health officials on Friday told people to avoid romaine lettuce grown in Salinas, California, because of another food poisoning outbreak. The notice comes almost exactly one year after a similar outbreak led to a blanket warning about romaine.

Officials urged Americans not to eat the leafy green if the label doesn’t say where it was grown. They also urged supermarkets and restaurants not to serve or sell the lettuce, unless they’re sure it was grown elsewhere.

The warning applies to all types of romaine from the Salinas region, including whole heads, hearts and pre-cut salad mixes.

“We’re concerned this romaine could be in other products,” said Laura Gieraltowski, lead investigator of the outbreak at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Read more: Here’s Why the CDC Wants You to Throw Away All Your Romaine Lettuce

Officials said their investigation led to farms in Salinas and that they are looking for the source of E. coli tied to the illnesses. Salinas is a major growing region for romaine from around April to this time of year, when growing shifts south to Yuma, Arizona.

After last year’s pre-Thanksgiving outbreak tied to romaine, the produce industry agreed to voluntarily label the lettuce with harvest regions. Health officials said that would make it easier to trace romaine and issue more specific public health warnings when outbreaks happen.

Officials never identified exactly how romaine might have become contaminated in past outbreaks. But another outbreak in spring 2018 that sickened more than 200 people and killed five was traced to tainted irrigation water near a cattle lot. (E. coli is found in the feces of animal like cows.)

It’s not clear exactly why romaine keeps popping up in outbreaks, but food safety experts note the popularity of romaine lettuce and the difficulty of eliminating risk for produce grown in open fields and eaten raw.

Industry groups noted that they tightened safety measures following last year’s outbreaks, including expanding buffer zones between growing fields and livestock. “It’s very, very disturbing. Very frustrating all around,” said Trevor Suslow of the Produce Marketing Association.

The CDC says 40 people have been reported sick so far in 16 states. The most recent reported illness started on Nov. 10. The agency says it’s the same E. coli strain tied to previous outbreaks, including the one from last Thanksgiving.

The CDC’s Gieraltowski said that suggests there’s a persisting contamination source in the environment.