The Selenia Dimensions 3-D system for three dimensional breast imaging will help improve screenings by revealing the inner architecture of the breast, free from the distortion typically caused by tissue shadowing or density. The new improved system scans 2-D as well as 3-D adding only a couple of seconds on to the screening which is well within FDA standards of radiation exposure for breast screenings.

The Selenia Dimensions 3-D system is already in use in Europe, Asia, South America and Australia and it’s no suprise that it got the okay with a 12-0 vote by the food and drug administration in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

“This, that I’ve seen today, is probably the tool that I’ve been looking for for the last 37 years,” a panel member Leonard Glassman, a radiologist in Washington who has been practicing breast imaging since 1973, said. “It will allow me to get rid of the overlap, to see around corners, to see behind things.”

According to experts women should start receiving yearly clinical breast exams by the age of 40 and breast exams every 3 years by a health care provider starting as early as 20.

In the pursuit of medical science Elizabeth Blackburn winner of  the Nobel prize for medicine together with Carol Greider and Jack Szostak have been duley noted for their work in  the existence and nature of telomerase, an enzyme that helps prevent the fraying of chromosomes and is the key to work on preventing and curing types of cancers.

A professor of biology and physiology at the University of California, San Francisco, Elizabeth  Blackburn was working on a federal grant that funded the ground breaking research.

“I was just following my nose,” she told a news conference after the announcement of her prize by the Nobel committee in Stockholm. “That would look pretty bad in a business plan,” she said, noting that basic research is long and costly.

Blackburn has been working in the field for almost thirty years and it has finally paid off big. Although this is only the beginning stages, it will most likely lead the way to a cancer fighting drug like non we have seen.

Biotech firms Merck and Geron have jumped on board to start trials for therapy based on the enzyme but there is still a long road ahead.

Funding for the project is running out fast but a new $5 billion grant from President Obama may be the key that can unlock the chest needed to push the research to the next level. Bio companies are in business to make money which is fine but we need long term cash flow to get the ball rolling and keep it rolling.

Whether any of the grant money, that was part of President Obama’s Stimulus plan, will reach Blackburn and her team is unknown as of yet, but everyone is hopeful that the research will continue at full speed.

“The old paradigm needs to be revamped,” said Sam Hawgood, dean of the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, who says star researchers may be able to attract corporate backing even for basic science. This can be hard to do however when the research may not lead to profit and stockholders start getting frustrated.

There is a lot of work to do but with grants like the Presidents stimulus money it is possible. We all just need to keep pushing forward.

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According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), women should start giving themselves breast exams (BSEs) as early as their 20s. Getting to know how they feel early on can heighten your sense about them helping you hone in on changes that may be happening creating a situation where the cancer could be found early on and reduce chances of spreading.

There are two easy ways to give yourself a breast exam and should be done at least twice a year. It’s quick simple and could save your life.

The Stand Up Breast Exam

1. Look at your breasts in the mirror, shoulders straight and your arms on your hips. Look for changes in your breasts: dimpling, puckering, or bulging of the skin; a nipple that looks different (possibly inverted); redness, soreness, rash, or swelling; fluid draining from the nipples.
2. Raise your arms and look for the same changes.
3. Feel for lumps in the right breast by making overlapping, coin-sized circular motions with the pads of your three middle fingers on your left hand.
4. Use three different pressure levels, one at a time: light pressure to feel the tissue closest to the skin; medium pressure to feel a little deeper; and firm pressure to feel the tissue closest to the chest and ribs.

The Lying Down Breast Exam

1. Choose a day of the month when your breasts are not tender or swollen.
2. Lie down (so your breast tissue spreads evenly over your chest wall and is as thin as possible). Place your right arm behind your head.
3. Feel for lumps in the right breast by making overlapping, coin-sized circular motions with the pads of your three middle fingers on your left hand.
4. Use three different pressure levels, one at a time: light pressure to feel the tissue closest to the skin; medium pressure to feel a little deeper; and firm pressure to feel the tissue closest to the chest and ribs.
5. Cover the entire breast by moving in an up-and-down pattern that starts at your side from the underarm and across the breast to the middle of the chest and bone.
6. Use the finger pads on your right hand to repeat these steps on your left breast.
7. Then stand in front of a mirror with your hands pressing down firmly on your hips and observe whether there are any changes in size, shape, contour, or dimpling, redness or scaliness of the nipple or breast skin.
8. Raise each arm slightly to examine each underarm for lumps.

It’s also necessary to get a professional mammogram (A safe, low-dose x-ray exam of the breasts to look for changes that are not normal. The results are recorded on x-ray film or directly into a computer for a doctor called a radiologist to examine) if your over 40 once two twice a year.

Self Breast Exam Video

[flashvideo file=http://epic-health.com/video-files/Self%20Breast%20Exam.flv /]
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Autism spectrum disorders are a group of neurodevelopmental conditions, including autism, Asperger, and pervasive developmental disorder. Symptoms including poor social interaction, difficulty with communication and repetitive behaviors.

The new study indicates that 110 of every 10,000 U.S.children will be diagnosed with autism. That translates to about 673,000 American children with the condition. While previously researchers thought the numbers were about 1 in 150 the new study suggests it’s a much higher number up to 1 in 91 meaning a long road ahead for these children and parents with estimated lifetime health care costs being around $1.5 million.

“I think this is a very important study that says the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders may be even higher than we suspected previously,” said Geraldine Dawson, chief scientific officer of Autism Speaks.

“Autism is a major public health challenge, and this study is another call to action that we need to be able to provide care across the lifespan,” she said.

The study also showed that autism diagnoses caseses  were four times higher for boys than girls, and that non-Hispanic black and multiracial children were less likely to have an autism disorder than white children with little evidence as to why.

“This is more data that adds to what’s already in existence that shows autism spectrum disorders are common,” Johnson said.

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In the study more than 50,000 African-American women, researchers found that the women that had a more nutritiously prudent diet lowered their risk for developing breast cancer by a whopping one third.

Eating whole grains, fruits, vegetables and fish as part of a regular diet and staying away from processed and red meats seems to be the diet of health according to the study. Out of the 50,778 black women from across the U.S. Between 1995 and 2007, 1,094 of those women were diagnosed with breast cancer. The study showed that the overweight women were more likely to develop breast cancer but also showed that overweight women sticking to this diet didn’t lower their chances for developing breast cancer.

The younger thinner women that stuck to the diet were 20% less likely to develop breast cancer then there thin counterparts that ate a more western world diet filled with red meat, sugars, and less fruits and vegetables. The reasons are unknown, but taken together, the researchers write, these studies suggest that the protective effect of a prudent diet may be “largely among thinner women.”

Whatever the effects on breast cancer, though, the prudent diet is one that is recommended for better overall health — including a lower risk of heart disease, the number-one killer of U.S. women.

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“Very long lives are not the distant privilege of remote future generations – very long lives are the probable destiny of most people alive now in developed countries,” Kaare Christensen of the Danish Ageing Research Centre wrote in a study in the Lancet medical journal.

It’s rare enough right now to turn on the news and occasionally see a person celebrating their one hundredth birthday, being asked questions like what their secret to living so long is and what they think of all the advances we’ve made as society, but in the not to distant future most people will fall into the same catagory.

With increasing medical advancements and awarness of health risks it’s really not that far fetched. In the twentyth century alone we’ve seen an increase in life expectancy of up to thirty years.

According to their analysis of data from more than 30 developed countries, death rates are dropping among people over 80. And three quarters of babies born in these nations over the past decade can expect to live to 75. The researchers also hypothesized that we can live longer by extending our working lives and shortening our work weeks—say, by making a four-day workweek the norm.

It will however increase the need for longer medical treatment and increase this cost. But if people work longer hopefully more money will be put towards theses needs and may end up working out in everyone’s benefit. With such a long life the human race is sure to see even more advances in all fields making a better world for us all.

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Swine flue vaccine

The H1N1 otherwise known as the swine flu vaccine is scheduled to arrive in states and cities across the country on Tuesday and should be ready for the public by Thursday if everything goes according to plan.

Dr. Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the first U.S. H1N1 vaccine to be delivered will be 600,000 doses of a nasal spray made by MedImmune, a division of AstraZeneca.

“This is a bit earlier than we were planning to get started,” Schuchat said in a telephone briefing.

The first vaccine on the market will be limited to only high risk patients such as the elderly and people with chronic conditions and will be available in spray form.

Since the H1N1 flu has quickly moved across the country, with numbers of infected well into the thousands, it’s important to get this vaccine to everyone that needs it. There have been deaths associated withe the virus but most of those people had other issues that helped the virus take over so there’s no need for panic as of yet.

According to the CDC the virus is most prominent in the southern states but is making its way north at a rapid rate and as of now there is no state that doesn’t have a confirmed case of H1N1.
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