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Stress causes cortisol levels to increase within the body, which increases oil production and  causes acne breakouts. Getting more exercise, obtaining proper rest, and caring for skin are three basic steps to counteract these problems.

Dermatologists have found when you’re stressed out, your body releases a hormone called cortisol.

“When cortisol levels increase, oil production increases and sometimes that will cause acne in patients that have never even had acne before,” Flor Mayoral, M.D., a dermatologist in South Miami, Fla.

As if acne wasn’t bad enough, stress can cause your hair to fall out too! “When people are stressed out, your body also responds by taking a time out, and we really do not need hair,” Dr. Mayoral explains.

Men and women can develop alopecia — bald spots of hair in the beard or scalp — when they’re under stress. Nervous habits like twirling your hair can also pull hairs out, causing bald spots.

“And then when the hair grows back, sometimes it grows in as gray hairs.” Dr. Mayoral says.

Stay ahead of stress by taking better care of yourself during tough or hectic times. “Sometimes people meditate to help them deal with stress,” Dr. Mayoral says. “Exercising is a wonderful way to deal with stress. It releases endorphins..”

Dr. Mayoral says when adults suddenly develop acne, it is usually in response to stress. Stress stimulates the body to release a hormone called cortisol, which promotes the release of oil by the skin. This increase in oil is what encourages acne to develop. Ways to help minimize the effect of stress on skin include avoiding extra hot showers, applying moisturizer after bathing, and using sunscreen.

There are some easy, practical things humans can do to reduce the amount of stress in their lives.

• Be realistic and don’t try to be perfect.
• Don’t over-schedule and cut out an activity or two when you start to feel overwhelmed.
• Get a good night’s sleep.
• Get regular exercise to manage stress and follow a healthy diet.
• Learn to relax by building time into your schedule for reading or a nice long bath.

Source: ScienceDaily

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I found a few good reads around the web.

The first is from the Wall Street Journal. It talks about a 66 year old man and how for the past 30 years he has ran every day. What I find most suprising about the article is that his man is actually a doctor. He has ran atleast 2 miles every dance since 1978. I think the article is worth the read if you enjoy running or need some motivation to exercise. I really enjoy running myself, but I know that running more than 6 days a week really is not good practice. You usually feel more tired if you continue to run every day and don’t take atleast 1 day off every now and then. I no longer run very much due to knee injuries that have sidelined me.

The second article is from the Boston Globe. It discusses a $66.95 meal with detalied instructions on what to buy and how to make the food for this holiday season. The main dish is Glazed Braised Five-Spice Pork and for dessert Caramelized Clementine and Chocolate Tart. If you are looking to try something new or want to save some money for the family this holiday then it is worth the read.

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For those who are interested in learning about health, using blogs in addition to more tradition forms of media is a great idea. I have personally been interested in learning about other health bloggers. Last month I found a great rescource that ranks the top 100 health blogs based on a number of factors.

Some of the factors that go into the rankings are Google page rank, yahoo inlinks, bloglines subscribers, alexa ranking, and technorati. The rankings are provided by eDrugSearch.com. If you have a blog, you can add it to their database so that it can start to be tracked according to the above metrics.

I checked out the blogs in the top 100 and was not particulary impressed. I feel their algorithm still could use some work. For example, I am not sure why they are not looking at RSS feed subscribers. I do not know enough about bloglines to know if it includes all RSS subscribers. Also many bloggers have argued that technorati is not really a very good means to base popularity and authority on.

Even so, using the top 100 health blogs can help you find other health blogs on the web you are not familar with. There will always be controversy in algorithms. Just look at the current controversy over the Florida vs Oklahoma BCS national championship game. Many argue Texas should be there. Even so algorithms are a most in today’s world and this top 100 health blog algorithm is one of the many ways to become more exposed to popular health bloggers.

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Good dental hygiene and health may be crucial in preventing heart valve infection, according to research reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

In a study of 290 dental patients, researchers investigated several measures of bacteremia (bacteria released into the bloodstream) during three different dental activities — tooth brushing, a single tooth extraction with a preventive antibiotic and a single tooth extraction with a placebo.

Researchers found bacteria in the blood more often with the two extraction groups than with the brushing group. However, the incidence of bacteremia from brushing was closer to an extraction than expected. “This suggests that bacteria get into the bloodstream hundreds of times a year, not only from tooth brushing, but also from other routine daily activities like chewing food,” said Peter Lockhart, D.D.S.

In 2007, the American Heart Association modified its recommendation that preventive antibiotics be used prior to most dental procedures for the great majority of those at risk for infective endocarditis (IE) — a rare but life-threatening infection of the lining of the heart or heart valve that can occur when bacteria enter the bloodstream. The association now recommends preventive antibiotics only for patients at the highest risk for a bad outcome from IE.

In this double-blind, placebo-controlled study, researchers sought to determine if daily dental activities like tooth brushing posed as much risk for IE as major dental procedures (e.g., tooth extractions) for which preventive antibiotics might be prescribed. Researchers drew blood from each patient a total of six times — before, during and after these interventions — and analyzed the samples for bacterial species that are associated with IE.

They found that bacteria enter the bloodstream in most patients early on during a dental extraction or tooth brushing, and that bacteria can still be found in the blood as long as an hour after these procedures in a small number of cases.

“While the likelihood of bacteremia is lower with brushing, these routine daily activities likely pose a greater risk for IE simply due to frequency: that is, bacteremia from brushing twice a day for 365 days a year versus once or twice a year for dental office visits involving teeth cleaning, or fillings and other procedures,” said Lockhart, chair of the Department of Oral Medicine at the Carolinas Medical Center, Charlotte, N.C.

“For people who are not at risk for infections such as IE, the short-term bacteremia is nothing to worry about,” he said.

“If you stop oral hygiene measures, the amount of disease in your mouth goes up considerably and progressively and you’ll have far worse oral disease,” Lockhart said. “It’s the gingival (gum) disease and dental caries (decay), that lead to chronic and acute infections such as abscesses. It’s that sort of thing that puts you at risk for frequent bacteremia and presumably endocarditis if you have a heart or other medical condition that puts you at risk.”

“The incidence of IE-related bacteremia from all blood draws was 23 percent in the tooth-brushing group, 33 percent in the extraction plus antibiotic group, and 60 percent for the extraction-placebo group,” Lockhart said. The researchers therefore found that amoxicillin significantly decreased the incidence of bacteremia from an extraction but did not eliminate it altogether.

The highest incidence of positive IE-related bacterial cultures occurred within five minutes of all three procedures, with the majority (93 percent) of patients with bacteria in the blood experiencing the condition for less than 20 minutes after the procedures. Only 5 percent of the extraction-placebo group and 2 percent of the brushing group still had bacteria in the blood at one hour.

“The human mouth is colonized by a larger variety of bacteria than any other body area, and many of the bacterial species in the mouth that cause disease are found in the periodontal pocket (below the gum line) adjacent to the teeth,” said Lockhart, adding that some of those species have been associated with IE. “Bacteria commonly gain entrance to the circulation through ulcerated gingival (gum) tissue surrounding the teeth, but oral hygiene reduces gingival disease and reduces that risk.”

Patients in this study came to an urgent care clinic in need of tooth extractions. So it’s likely they had a higher level of dental disease and poorer oral hygiene than the general population.

According to the American Heart Association, those at highest risk for adverse outcomes from IE are 1) patients with a prosthetic cardiac valve or prosthetic material used for cardiac valve repair; 2) previous endocarditis; 3) cardiac transplantation recipients who develop cardiac valve abnormalities; and 4) congenital heart disease for unrepaired cyanotic congenital heart disease, including palliative shunts and conduits; completely repaired congenital heart defect with prosthetic material or device, during the first six months after the procedure; or repaired congenital heart disease with persisting leaks or abnormal flow at the site or adjacent to the site of a prosthetic patch or prosthetic device.

Adapted from materials from the American Heart Association.

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A new measuring technique determines the effect of dental care products and helps  them so they polish the rough tooth surfaces until they are perfectly smooth, while preserving the tooth enamel.

The tooth surface wears down and gets uneven – and the problem is that dental plaque adheres particularly well to a rough surface. Dentists therefore offer professional cleaning services, removing plaque and discoloration with abrasive prophylactic pastes.

This renders the tooth surface beautifully smooth, making it difficult for bacteria to gain a foothold. Yet there is a risk that the polishing treatment will also grind away precious tooth enamel and dentin at the exposed necks of teeth. The manufacturers therefore have to find the happy medium when developing their prophylactic pastes: The pastes should be just abrasive enough to remove superficial discoloration and plaque, but preferably not wear down the tooth enamel.

Until now, scientists lacked any realistic objective measuring techniques to assess tooth abrasion caused by chewing and by the effect of toothpastes. A leading manufacturer of dental hygiene products asked the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM in Freiburg, one of whose specialties is the analysis and visualization of surface roughness, to help them develop new prophylactic pastes. The effectiveness of a prophylactic paste has so far been measured by how well the granules that it contains are able to smoothen a rough surface.

The test is performed by first roughening tooth enamel or denture materials such as ceramics and titanium to a precisely defined value with an aggressive grinding material. But this does not truly reflect reality, as chewing wears out different materials at different rates. The new measuring method developed by the IWM researchers, a kind of chewing simulation, takes this factor into account.

Dr. Raimund Jaeger discovered when comparing pastes and subsequently analyzing the surfaces, some pastes polish the surface but also unnecessarily ablate the tooth material, producing slight grooves on the tooth surface. The ideal paste, on the other hand, polishes so lightly that only the roughness is eliminated while the tooth enamel is hardly ground at all.

“Obviously, every case is different,” says Jaeger. “Teeth with particularly heavy plaque or discoloration will need a more abrasive paste.” Normally, however, a gentler prophylactic paste will do the job.

Adapted from materials provided by Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.

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