Medical Library

Air Force Allows Pilots With Lasik to Fly

For the first time, the US Air Force is allowing aspiring pilots and aircrew members to fly even if they have had LASIK eye surgery.

Since 2001, the Air Force has permitted applicants to try for spots as pilots or aircrew members if they have had a corrective eye surgery, known as PRK (photo refractive keratectomy). The Air Force had said it needed more time to evaluate LASIK, a newer procedure. (Read more)

 

Avoiding Lasik Surgery Night-Vision Problems

All too often, problems with a patient's night vision have resulted following laser eye surgery - problems such as night glare, haloes and rings.

But these problems can be minimized, or even eliminated, by proper patient screening, skilled surgical manipulation and the proper, most up-to-date excimer laser technology. (Read more)

 

Choosing Between Traditional and Custom Lasik

Lasik eyesight-correction surgery, a phenomenal breakthrough when it was first approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration in 1995, has recently been trumped big-time by the innovation known as wavefront Lasik technology, which is some 25 times more precise than its older cousin.

The consumer still has both choices available today - the traditional versus the new custom technique - but there is an enormous difference in technology. (Read more)

 

Color Blindness

The first report on color blindness was written by the British chemist John Dalton who was himself afflicted with it. (Read more)

 

Conjunctivitis

Conjunctivitis or pink-eye is an infection of the lining of the eye or the eyelid produced by a virus or bacteria. Bacterial conjunctivitis produces a thick yellowish discharge. Both types are highly infectious. (Read more)

 

ENVIRONMENT AND OBESITY

So what does graffiti have to do with being obese?

According to new research, environment and obesity are linked. If you live around areas that are grafittied and littered, you’re more likely to be obese.

It’s an interesting take on obesity: looking at the link between one’s environment and obesity tendency. But it’s really a roundabout way to show that for the most part, it’s the classic reasons for weight gain which cause these individuals who live in the inner city to be obese. (Read more)

 

Enviga | Nutrition and Diet

There is a new soft drink hitting the market that does what no other soft drink has ever claimed to do: you drink it, and you’ll burn calories.

Is it truly possible?

Please say it’s so.

You know, there’s a lot to be said for a brownie and a diet coke; i mean, why add insult to injury.

At least the diet coke isn'’t pouring on more calories.

But what if--just if--there was something that could go one better, and negate the effects of that brownie?

From the folks who bring you nestle crunch bars and coca cola….

Comes…

Drum roll please…..

Enviga!

This puppy is being called the the calorie burner!

Don’t' believe it? (Read more)

 

Epi-LASIK Surgery Better in Two Ways

A relatively new eye surgery technique improves patients' recovery times and reduces the postoperative pain they experience.

The Epi-LASIK procedure was developed to avoid some of the potential problems with the LASIK and LASEK eye-surgery techniques. Procedurally speaking, Epi-LASIK falls in between the latter two, although all three involve cutting a flap in the surface tissue of the eye that can be folded back to allow for the laser sculpting of the cornea beneath. (Read more)

 

Exercise

You have taken the important first step on the path to physical fitness by seeking information. The next step is to decide that you are going to be physically fit. This pamphlet is designed to help you reach that decision and your goal.

The decision to carry out a physical fitness program cannot be taken lightly. It requires a lifelong commitment of time and effort. Exercise must become one of those things that you do without question, like bathing and brushing your teeth. Unless you are convinced of the benefits of fitness and the risks of unfitness, you will not succeed. (Read more)

 

FOOD LABEL CHANGES

The FDA is planning on overhauling the labeling of foods, so that you, the consumer, can know how much you’re really eating.
Right now, the food labels are deceiving, and you may be thinking you’re taking in fewer calories and carbs than you really are. If you look on a food label, the key is the number of servings to understand what you’re really taking in. Serving sizes come in varying shapes and sizes, and right now, food labels are deceiving, which may be part of the reason America has such an obesity problem. (Read more)

 

Fat Study

An important medical study shows what you see all around you. It might sound plain and simple, but the study looked at obesity trends and found that most of us are getting- plain and simple- fat.

This is one of those studies that makes people wonder whether time and money haven’t been invested in deducing the obvious.

What makes the study important is that the research comes out of a comprehensive survey of obesity trends in a community over decades. The message is very clear- most of us are headed down a fattening road of destruction to our health. (Read more)

 

GASTRIC BYPASS

Ann and Leslie are not just best friends, they’re sisters. And both have battled obesity since they were children. “As long as I can remember weight has always been an issue,” says Ann Greenberger, who recently decided to have a gastric bypass surgery. (Read more)

 

Gastric Surgery

Gastric surgery to treat obesity was first developed in 1967 in the United States. Over the years, several different types of gastric surgeries have been used. (Read more)

 

Gastric Ulcers

More than 10% of Americans have suffered from stomach ulcers in their lives. People who smoke, abuse alcohol, take asprin or some anti-inflammatory drugs are in a high risk category. (Read more)

 

HEALTHY HOLIDAY FOOD STUDY

As you cook up the holiday meal this weekend, did you remember to put out enough foods high in antioxidants, the cancer fighting, heart disease-battling chemicals? (Read more)

 

Health Wrap - Reports on Obesity Surgery, Asthma and Energy Drinks

A new study shows stomach stapling surgery may reduce one’s risk of heart disease.

Mayo clinic researchers were surprised by the findings.

The estimated 10-year risk for death or cardiovascular events, such as a heart attack, in the surgical group decreased from 37 percent to 18 percent as a result of the study but remained the same for the control group which didn’t get surgery.

Those who underwent bariatric surgery had a more significant improvement in body weight, cholesterol levels, blood pressure and fasting sugar levels, despite a reduction in medications for diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. (Read more)

 

Intac

Intrastromal Corneal Ring Segments or INTACs are the first FDA approved, non-laser, surgical technique for correcting near sightedness. (Read more)

 

LASIK STUDY

If you’re considering LASIK surgery to get rid of your glasses, you might want to ask your doctor about the risks of LASIK surgery. There are many factors that can play a role in the success of the procedure, even factors like the temperature and humidity.
A new study just released shows that climate factors like temperature and humidity can affect LASIK surgery outcomes. Often, the patient has to come back in to get a touchup, to fine tune the vision correction. (Read more)

 

Lasik

LASIK is a surgical procedure intended to reduce a person's dependency on glasses or contact lenses. The goal of this Web site is to provide objective information to the public about LASIK surgery. (Read more)

 

Lasik Helps U.S. Retain Pilots, Astronauts

The natural human aging process is in a constant war with the U.S. military and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Aging has always degraded the vision of Air Force pilots, Navy divers and NASA astronauts - and this has made it difficult for the respective services to retain them.

The government has always feared that eyeglasses and contact lenses could be broken or dislodged in the course of the service members' often grueling work, threatening life, limb and government property in the process. Even with the advent of Lasik surgery, the fear didn't subside. (Read more)

 

MILK AND WEIGHT GAIN

Emily Belmonte and Alana Whittaker are two peas in a pod. They share a lot, including, surprisingly, their disdain for soda and their love for milk.

“Love it! I drink it like three times at bedtime and once in the morning,” Emily says.

“Well, I don’t drink milk at every meal but I usually have two or three glasses a day,” Alana adds. (Read more)

 

Marketing Foods and Obesity

Do you curse at yourself when you step on the scale? Well, maybe you’re not all to blame. You might want to point a finger at the food industry, which is marketing huge portion sizes and foods full of fat.

But there’s a push now to reverse this trend, and solutions that are being implemented to help you shed the pounds or even stay trim.

As part of a food and obesity conference presented by Yale University, industry experts announced they believe the food business can make a big difference in many different ways-- including sneaking in healthier lower calorie ingredients that won’t change the taste--as far as you’ll know. (Read more)

 

New Excimer Laser

New Excimer Laser
Breakthrough Excimer Laser technology is leading to unprecedented results in the field of eye correction. (Read more)

 

New Lasic

Lasik is a new procedure that borrows technology from laser keratotomy and radial keratotomy to correct near sightedness and astigmatism. To correct near sightedness, doctors try to change the way light is refracted through the eye. (Read more)

 

OBESITY AND DIABETES RISK

Scientists have been warning that diabetes will be the next medical crisis in this country. Now – a new study may give us a better warning of who its next victims will be, showing that diabetes, particularly Type 2 diabetes and obesity may be linked.
For years, doctors have been weighing patients, and then determining their likelihood of developing type-2 diabetes. They did so by calculating their “body mass index”—a ratio of their weight to their height. (Read more)

 

OBESITY AND IMPOTENCE

There’s good news and bad news for men suffering from impotence. The bad news, it appears that obesity is a significant contributing factor--a concern given the overall fattening of America. According to the authors of the new study, obesity contributes to sexual dysfunction in men in several different ways, most of them physical, not psychological. But the good news is that new research shows losing weight can reverse the problem. Experts hope the new findings will provide some extra added motivation to get America…at least, American males…to slim down. (Read more)

 

OBESITY AND RACE

Recent studies have uncovered new links between obesity and race, showing that body fat distribution varies between different races.
We’ve all been told that America’s bulging waistline is increasing our risk for serious diseases like hypertension, stroke, diabetes and heart disease. But, what you may not know is that body fat distribution varies among individuals, thus varying individual susceptibility for developing heart disease. (Read more)

 

OBESITY IN AMERICA

The U.S. government has released a study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which shows unquestionably America shows no signs of slimming down. This is in spite of news last week when a major researcher said the epidemic of obesity in America is being overblown, that it’s just the fattest people who are getting fatter, throwing off the whole curve. But it is now clear is that America is overweight as a whole, and it’s not getting any thinner. (Read more)

 

OBESITY SURGERY AND METABOLIC SYNDROME

There’s new evidence that obesity surgery, which helps people lose weight provides significant health benefits that could prolong life and improve quality of life. The study was done in Taiwan, and looked at obese patients in a surgical weight loss program.
The study found the operation not only improves outward looks, but also markedly improves mental well being also. (Read more)

 

OBESITY SURGERY SURGE

With the unbelievable rise in obesity rates here in America comes what many would consider an expected consequence- the number of Americans having weight-loss surgery more than quadrupled between 1998 and 2002. (Read more)

 

Obesity Costs

There’s no question that the cost of obesity in America is not just a healthcare concern, but an economic concern as well. But exactly how severe is the cost of obesity, and can tackling the financial aspects of obesity help reverse the obesity trends?

This week the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University gathered government officials, academic and food industry experts to discuss the latest thinking and policies regarding food and the problem of obesity.

The proliferation of cheap fattening foods and the marketing of unhealthy foods to kids are just two of the financial factors feeding obesity. But if we manipulate the money, experts say we can reverse the fattening trends. (Read more)

 

Obesity Rates Expected to Soar in the US

Obesity is still on the rise. A new study released by the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health finds that by 2015, 75% of adults will be overweight, 41% will be obese. The study was a meta-analysis (comprehensive overview) of 20 different journal papers, reports, online data sets, and 4 different national surveys from 1960-2004. The study found that the obesity rate between those years had risen from 13% to 32%.

The lead author of the study, Youfa Wang MD, PhD called obesity a public health crisis, and said, "The obesity rate in the United States has increased at an alarming rate over the past three decades. We set out to estimate the average annual increase in prevalence as well as the variation between population groups to predict the future situation regarding obesity and overweight among U.S. adults and children." (Read more)

 

Obesity and Weight Loss Surgery

Severe obesity is a chronic condition that is difficult to treat through diet and exercise alone. Bariatric surgery is one of the best options for people who are severely obese and cannot lose weight by traditional means or who suffer from serious obesity-related health problems. The surgery promotes weight loss by restricting food intake and, in some operations, interrupting the digestive process. As in other treatments for obesity, the best results are achieved with healthy eating behaviors and regular physical activity. (Read more)

 

Post Gastric Bypass Eating Habits

By Dr. Thomas Cerebona, Dr. Ashutosh Kaul and Dr. Edward Yatco

Nutritional Expectations:
After Gastric Bypass you will need to make changes to your eating patterns. The diet after surgery progresses from a liquid diet to a pureed diet to a soft diet and then a modified regular diet. The diet progression is designed to allow your body to heal. (Read more)

 

Precursor Fat Cells May Shed Light on Diseases

To understand more about the mystery of obesity, it's important to understand how fat cells are born, nurtured and matured. And the enlightenment that will flow from understanding obesity may sweep away mysteries relating to the generation of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, which seem to be so much more prevalent among people who are obese.

So it was with delight that scientists greeted a recent study identifying precursor cells that develop into full-blown fat tissue. The research, performed on "skinny" mice genetically modified to have no fat deposits, showed that injecting one particular type of cell into the mice caused them to form fat. (Read more)

 

Pregnancy and LASIK Don't Mix

When a woman is pregnant or breastfeeding, her hormonal balance shifts dramatically. This causes her body to retain more fluid. And when this happens, her eyes' lenses swell, too, making a correct diagnosis to fix her vision problems with LASIK surgery all but impossible.

When the lens swells, it changes how a woman sees, making her more nearsighted, farsighted or astigmatic. But when her pregnancy is over, and when she stops lactating, her hormones - and her eyes' lenses - return to normal. If a LASIK diagnosis is performed on a woman during the period when her lenses are distorted, the readings will be invalid for her normal bodily state. (Read more)

 

Presbyopia

Presbyopia is a vision condition in which the crystalline lens in the eye loses its flexibility. The lens of the eye focus's the image upon the retina. (Read more)

 

Super Obesity Surgery

A less popular form of weight loss surgery appears to be better than the standard type currently done in most centers.

For so-called “super obese” patients, it could mean a better result.

It’s called the biliopancreatic diverserion with duodenal switch.

Like the older surgery, called the roux-en-y bypass (roo-en-y) gastric bypass surgery, it cuts the stomach and diverts the intestine.

But this does it differently, resulting in a greater amount of excess body weight that is lost.

You wouldn’t know it now, but Emilio Vingna piano, at 5 foot 8 inches tall, used to weigh 380 pounds. “Very difficult sleeping, very difficult time breathing, very difficult time functioning on every and any level just because you are carting around excess weight. I didn’t think I would reach 50 years old uh because of uh the amount of strain on your heart and respiratory system as a whole,” says Emilio.

But he’s lost 200 pounds, thanks to this lesser known surgery more commonly called the duodenal switch—a procedure intended for super obese patients.

Obesity is 30 and over. (Read more)

 

Teens and Obesity

A new study highlights the long term health impact of obesity starting in the teen years.

It’s unbelievable, but 15 percent of adolescents aren’t just overweight, they’re obese; that’s more than one in every seven kids.

“30 to 50 years ago I think the incidence of teen obesity would be around three to five percent much less than what it is now between fifteen to twenty percent.//This is a multi-factorial , multi dimensional problem and many issues at stake, including life style changes, easy availability of caloric rich dense food, we have very little play time even at school and at home, the increasing use of electronics, television, computers, people are spending less and less time outside,” says Dr. Ahutosh Kaul, Director of Bariatric Surgery at Westchester Medical Center. (Read more)

 

Weight Loss Surgery can be a Life Saver

Just how effective is weight loss surgery in improving health? Two studies published last year in the New England Journal of show that weight loss surgery weight loss produces as much as a 40% reduction in deaths in the 10 years after the operation. As a growing number of Americans become obese the demand for bariatric surgery has risen. Obesity has several co-morbidities, including: diabetes, high blood pressure, sleep apnea, heart disease, and infertility. (Read more)

 

Weight Loss Surgery for Older Americans

A new study published in the Archives of Surgery found no difference between outcomes of patients younger or older than 60 years who underwent gastric by-pass surgery.

This study at the Western Reserve University Medical Center, followed 900 patients after having gastric by-pass surgery. The researchers found, "no differences in outcomes between older vs younger nor for Medicare vs non-Medicare patients for any postoperative complication or mortality." There were no mortalities among 46 patients 60 years and older a year after surgery. (Read more)

 

Weight Watchers

Emily Loewenstein is one energetic weight watchers instructor. She has reason to be: she lost 70 pounds on the program.

Tom Pimpinelli has also had tremendous success losing weight.

“I did very well. Two pounds a week. I dropped from 268, my lowest was 214 or 212,” says Tom.

Tom and Emily are great stories.

But according to studies in respected medical journals like the Journal of the American Medical Association, Weight Watchers, on average, provides a loss of between six and thirteen pounds after one year.

That’s roughly a half pound to a pound a month, or less.

In this study, after the second year, the average person ended up only six pounds down; They had, in fact, gained some of the weight they lost back.

One expert told us, after five years, most people will have gained back most or all of the weight they lost.

“The people who seek help are the people who feel that they can’t do it on your own. Many of them have tried it before by one program or another and they have failed, and they try another program and they fail,” says Dr. Xavier Pi-Sunier, an obesity expert at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital Center. (Read more)

 

Weight-Loss Surgery 'Controls Diabetes'

Surgery to constrict the gastrointestinal tract is a safe and effective procedure to control type 2 diabetes in those who are morbidly obese, according to an authority in the field.

"Bariatric surgery controls obesity, which in turn controls diabetes," assistant professor of surgery Gregory F. Dakin told the International Conference on Childhood Diabetes and Obesity, which met recently in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. (Read more)

 

Weight-Loss Surgery With One Small Incision

Stomach banding is an important weapon in the war chest of the bariatric surgeon - but it typically requires five incisions and a considerable recovery time.

But a new technique just coming into use needs just a single incision to accomplish the task of gastric banding, that is, tying off the top portion of the stomach so that food flow is restricted and slowed down. When the small, top part of the stomach is full, it signals the brain, which tells the body it's no longer hungry. This can lead to large reductions in weight for the morbidly obese, who are the only category of patients allowed to undergo the surgery. (Read more)

 

Women, Obesity Rates, and the Fountain of Youth

The fattening of America is so out there, so obvious, the question has become how do we get the message that we need to reverse the trend?

Perhaps, the message is sinking in, at least among women.

New research released by the CDC shows, among women, no significant increase in obesity was observed between 1999 and 2004…roughly a third of females remain obese (Read more)