Winter Skin-Care Tips from a Pro

Winter can be hard on your skin, but there are several ways to deal with those challenges, a dermatologist says.

If you skin gets drier in the winter, use oil-based ointments and creams that tend to be more moisturizing and less irritating that water-based lotions, suggested Dr. Nicole Burkemper, an associate professor of dermatology at Saint Louis University.

People with dry skin on the face should avoid harsh peels, masks, alcohol-based toners or astringents that can strip oil from the skin, Burkemper said in a university news release. Products with alpha-hydroxy and retinoid can also worsen dry facial skin, she added.

For dry lips, plain petroleum jelly is an effective and cheap way to prevent chapping, Burkemper said.

When having a bath or shower, she recommends closing the bathroom door to trap humidity, and limiting baths or showers to 5 to 10 minutes. Use warm, rather than hot water and a gentle, fragrance-free cleanser. And blot your skin dry with a towel, and apply moisturizer immediately after you dry your skin.

When outside, protect exposed skin with sunscreen, Burkemper said. “Gloves are important, and leather gloves hold in warmth better than cloth or woven gloves,” Burkemper added. “You should also remove wet gloves and socks as soon as possible since the moisture can actually worsen dry, irritated skin.”

If you have dry skin on your hands, apply moisturizing cream after washing your hands, she said.
“If dry, itchy skin does not respond to the above recommendations, see a dermatologist,” Burkemper said. “Severe dry skin may need a prescription ointment or cream, and dry skin may be a sign of a skin condition that needs medical treatment.”

Cholesterol in Eggs May Not Hurt Heart Health

Finnish researchers say that even carriers of a gene – called APOE4 – that increases sensitivity to dietary cholesterol don’t seem to have anything to fear when it comes to the impact of eggs, or any other dietary cholesterol on heart health.

The finding followed the 20-year plus tracking of dietary habits among more than 1,000 middle-aged Finnish men. All were heart healthy at the study’s start, and about a third carried the APOE4 gene, the researchers said.

“It is quite well known that dietary cholesterol intake has quite a modest impact on blood cholesterol levels, and cholesterol or egg intakes have not been associated with a higher risk of heart disease in most studies,” said study author Jyrki Virtanen. He is an adjunct professor in nutritional epidemiology with the University of Eastern Finland Institute of Public Health and Clinical Nutrition in Kuopio Finland.

“However, dietary cholesterol intake has a greater impact on blood cholesterol levels among those with [APOE4],” Virtanen added. “So it was assumed that cholesterol intake might have a stronger impact on heart disease risk among those people. However, our study did not find an increased risk even among those carrying [APOE4].”

Virtanen and his colleagues report their findings in the Feb. 10 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The University of eastern Finland provided funding for the study, and Virtanen added that there was no funding from egg industry sources.

At the end of the 21-year tracking period, 230 of the men had experienced a heart attack. But, the study authors determined that neither egg habits, nor overall cholesterol consumption had any bearing on heart attack risk or the risk for hardening of the arterial walls.

Wisdom Wednesday: Reliable Weight-Loss Programs May Be Hard to Find

For people who need to lose a lot of weight, it might be tough to find a program in their community that meets nationally recommended guidelines for shedding pounds, researchers suggest.

In a new study, almost 200 weight-loss programs were evaluated on whether they included five key standards: high-intensity intervention of at least 14 sessions in six months; an evidence-based diet; physical activity guidelines; self-monitoring tools such as food tracking, and a recommendation against the use of nutritional supplements, said study author Dr. Kimberly Gudzune. She is a weight-loss specialist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in Baltimore.

Those standards are agreed upon by the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology and the Obesity Society, Gudzune said.

But very few programs in the study met the standards, the researchers found.

“There is very little oversight [of weight-loss programs], and it’s hard for consumers and medical professionals alike to tell what is effective, reliable and meets guidelines’ standards,” Gudzune said in a statement.

“Only 1% of the programs even mentioned all those [five] criteria on their website,” Gudzune said. And only 9% actually adhered in some way to the guidelines, she said.

The findings, published Feb. 10 in the journal Obesity, indicate that more oversight is needed for weight-loss programs around the country, Gudzune said.

Prenatal Acetaminophen Use Tied to Higher Asthma Risk in Kids

Pregnant women who take the pain killer acetaminophen – best known under the bran name Tylenol – may be more likely to have a child with asthma, new research suggests.

However, the study authors and a U.S. expert agreed that the effect seen in the study doesn’t yet warrant any change in guidelines regarding pain relief during pregnancy.

In the study, Norwegian researchers tracked data from a large database – the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study.

The investigators focused on conditions during pregnancy for which some expectant mothers took acetaminophen, and compared that data against rates of asthma among 114,500 children as they reached the ages of 3 and 7.

Overall, 5.7% of the children were diagnosed with asthma by age 3, while 5.1% had developed the condition by the age of, according to the team led by Maria Magnus, of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health in Oslo.

Her group found a consistent link between asthma among the 3-year-olds and exposure to acetaminophen before they were born. This link was strongest among children whose mother used the drug for more than one health complaint, the study authors said.

U.S. Dementia Rates Seem to Be Falling

More than 5,000 people followed for almost 40 years starting in the mid-1970s experienced an average 20% reduction in their risk of developing dementia, a new study suggests.

At the same time, the average age at which the participants fell prey to dementia rose, from about 80 in the late 1970s to age 85 in more recent years, added study author Dr. Sudha Seshadri. She is a professor of neurology at Boston University’s Alzheimer’s Disease Center.

Despite these findings, the United States still faces a dementia crisis with the aging of the baby boom generation, Seshadri noted.

As many as 5.2 million Americans 65 and older are estimated to have Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia. And these numbers are expected to rise with the aging population, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Seshadri said that even though the average age of dementia shifted upward during the course of the study, there are more people over the age of 85 now than there were people older than 80 decades ago.

“People are going to live to be older and be at greater risk of developing dementia,” Seshadri said. “It’s not that the burden of disease is going to decrease but it may not be exploding quite as rapidly as we feared.”

However, the study offered some important clues about ways to prevent or delay dementia, she said.

Wisdom Wednesday: What Do I Do After Taking Antibiotics?

This is a reader request for someone who’s health declined dramatically after taking an antibiotic.

Let’s assume that you need the antibiotic. You have a bacterial infection (not viral) that is not responding to natural alternatives. Your physician has laboratory testing to document this need. If possible, the doctor has ordered a culture to determine what the infection is and what antibiotics will be most effective against the infection. In the meantime, a broad spectrum antibiotic is prescribed.

Hopefully, the antibiotic will kill the offending infection. However, it will undoubtedly kill some of the healthy bacteria in the gut as well. This disturbance of the microbiome can have far reaching consequences. C. difficile is the most serious aftermath. This commensal bacteria normally found in the gut can grow in the void created by the antibiotic. It creates a diarrhea that can be fatal. Most often C. difficile occurs in hospitalized patients given antibiotics. However, in children is generally occurs within three months of antibiotic use for a URI (upper respiratory infection). Ninety percent of URI are viral and will not respond to antibiotics anyway.

So you start taking the antibiotic and develop some diarrhea. Don’t wait, start taking a probiotic three hours after each antibiotic dose. Most of the probiotic will not survive, but some will and that should be enough to stop the diarrhea. If not, consult with your physician immediately.

If you do not develop diarrhea, there is little value in taking a probiotic with the antibiotic. However, a prebiotic is recommended. Slippery Elm Bark is my favorite. It contains the soluble fiber that feed healthy bacteria and reduces inflammation in the gut. Make sure the fiber is soluble not insoluble fiber like psyllium husk.

Why Americans Have Shorter Lifespans

Car crashes, shootings and drug overdoses, which cause more than 100,000 deaths a year in the United States, may explain why Americans’ life expectancy is lower than in similar countries, a new study suggests.

Americans’ life expectancy is about two years shorter than residents of Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. For U.S. men, that difference translates into 76.4 years versus 78.6 years, while it means 81.2 years versus 83.4 years for women, the researchers reported.

“About 50% of the gap for men and about 20% for women is due just to those three causes of injury,” said lead researcher Andrew Fenelon. He is a senior service fellow at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics.

Although shootings, car crashes and drug overdoses account for only about 4% of U.S. deaths overall, they area large part of why American life expectancy is lower than in similar countries, especially among younger people, he said.

“When young people die, they lose many more years of life than older people, so the things that kill younger people may be more important for life expectancy,” Fenelon said. “If we reduced deaths from these causes, we would gain back about a year of life expectancy,” he added. “I don’t know how to do it.”

The report was published Feb. 9 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.