Polar Bear Medical Blog

During these cold winter months many of us tend to become stressed out and rightly so. Winter brings a great number of things that leave even the most cool-headed man feeling stressed out. There’s the lack of sunlight, and the drop in the temperature, but there’s also holiday shopping for family members and making New Year’s Plans. After all that there’s always that exercising and dieting you seem to find yourself needing after all the turkey and stuffing. Just talking about it gets me all stressed out. However don’t worry, there are things you can do.

1. Holy Basil Batman! - Stressed out? Maybe you should try some Holy Basil. Holy Basil is an herb that has long been used as a natural remedy for a variety of ailments. The popularity of the herb is most likely due to its anti-inflammatory effects, antioxidant properties, and its success in relieving stress.

2. Breathe – Yes, we all breathe every day, but doing some deep breathing is a great way to get rid of some of that tension. Take a quick 5 minute break during your day to just stop everything and just breathe.

3. Yoga – Doing yoga is a great way to blow off steam while getting some physical activity involved. Yoga can help you clear your mind and just make you forget about whatever is troubling you. And to all the guys who might think yoga is too “girly” just remember that many of the top male athletes are doing yoga now too, including MMA fighters, hockey players, football players, and basketball players.

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Congenital insensitivity to pain is quite an interesting medical condition. There are very few cases of this type of condition, about 100 documented in the United States. The condition involves the inability to feel pain.

Congenital insensitivity to pain is caused by a genetic mutation that affects the reception and transmission of pain stimulus. What is very interesting is that people with this condition still have their sense of touch. They can feel when people are touching them, and can feel different temperatures (although in some cases the person is unable to detect temperature). Only when an action that would cause pain occurs does the person have a defect in their sense of touch.

Unfortunately, due to many problems that can arise from this condition, many who have it die young. The death of those with this condition is not directly cause by it, but is a result what the condition does. Because these people do not feel pain, many cuts and other injuries can go untreated, leading to infection. Sometimes, too much the body will experience too much trauma without the person’s knowledge and death will follow. Many children with this condition have to have constant supervision, to prevent as many injuries as possible.

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In today’s day and age, more stress has been placed on physical fitness, but not everyone is getting serious about getting in shape. Men’s Fitness annual survey shed some light on some of the country’s most fit and most unfit cities.
I would like to congratulate Colorado Springs for being this year’s most fit city in the United States of America.

Obviously the people of Colorado Springs recognize the importance of physical fitness and being healthy. For all those cities wondering how to become fit, look to Colorado Springs and I’m sure you’ll learn something.

However, if you’re wondering what the fattest city is, look to the city of sin itself, Las Vegas. Las Vegas is the one place in the United States where you can get just about everything, for a price that is. Gambling, women, and apparently food are among the top purchases in Las Vegas.
What’s that Texas, you’re laughing at Las Vegas for being the fattest city two years in a row? I wouldn’t be so happy, considering Texas is easily the fattest STATE in America. Of the top 10 fattest cities, 6 of them are found in Texas. So yes, Las Vegas could use a few push up and sit ups here and there, but Texas needs to needs a lot.

Fittest Cities
1. Colorado Springs
2. Minneapolis
3. Albuquerque
4. Denver
5. Portland
6. Virginia Beach
7. Seattle
8. Honolulu
9. San Francisco
10. Milwaukee
Fattest Cities
1. Las Vegas
2. Arlington
3. San Antonio
4. Fort Worth
5. El Paso
6. Dallas
7. Miami
8. Oklahoma City
9. Mesa
10. Houston

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A recent study has led to the findings that ultrasounds are superior to symptoms at predicting ovarian cancer. This finding was published in the July 13th online issue of Cancer. However, while ultrasounds are better at predicting ovarian cancer, symptom analysis is better at distinguishing benign tumors.

Dr. Edward J. Pavlik, from the University of Kentucky, Lexington, and colleagues note. Exactly how symptom analysis stacks up against TVS was unclear. “Although ovarian cancer has been perceived as a ’silent killer’ that produces few specific symptoms, recent studies have indicated that certain symptoms are significantly more common in women with ovarian cancer than in women in the general population.”

The most interesting finding however, may be that although the ability to distinguish benign tumors is enhanced when both transvaginal sonography (TVS) and symptom analysis are combined, the detection of malignancy is actually worse.

The study analyzed 272 women to assess the performance of TVS and symptom analysis in the prediction of ovarian cancer. In the detection of ovarian cancer, TVS had a significantly greater sensitivity than symptom analysis, at 73.3% vs. 20%. However, in distinguishing benign tumors, the specificity of symptom analysis was greater than TVS at 91.3% vs. 74.4%.

The most remarkable statistic is how much the detection of ovarian cancer fell when both TVS and symptom analysis were combined; the detection fell to 16.7%. Yet, the specificity in distinguishing benign tumors rose a great deal to 97.9%!

This study could be the first step in discovering new, and more accurate ways to detect ovarian cancer earlier, and then possibly being able to treat it.

“Until an effective screening test for ovarian cancer is found, the clinical challenge remains how to discriminate between significant and common symptoms to best care for patients,” Dr. Ilana Cass, from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, comments in an accompanying editorial. “Given the vague nature of these symptoms that lack an exact threshold for further costly evaluation, this is no small task.”

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Well if you are like most people and you do not particularly enjoy being sick then continue reading. However, if you do enjoy being sick, then I would suggest some immediate psychiatric help. Anyway, for the normal person there are ways to better your chances at fighting off the flu.

1.The first step is to optimize your vitamin D levels. Vitamin D will help you fight off almost all infections and a lack of vitamin D is often the real cause behind the seasonality of the flu. Maintaining a good level of vitamin D all year will help you stay flu free.
2.Avoid sugar and processed foods. Although sugar is sweet and tasty, it doesn’t help very much with defending your body against the flu. It’s like that creepy guy your mom told you to stay away from because he drives around in an ice-cream truck that has no ice-cream in it. Though it is very hard not to have sugary foods, sugar actually decreases the function of your immune system almost as your drinking it. Obviously your immune system is important for fighting off the flu so try not to have too much.
3.Get enough rest. When your body is tired it is harder to fight the flu, it’s as simple as that.
4.Have effective tools to address stress. Stress is well, stressful. Stress is not good for your body and can lead to some serious medical problems. Also if you are too stressed out you are more susceptible to the flu and less capable of being able to fight it.
5.Exercise. When you exercise the circulation throughout the body increases. Therefore, the different parts of your immune system are also better circulated and that means there is a greater chance that you immune system can find and destroy an illness before it really spreads.
6.Wash your hands. Because there is bacteria basically everywhere, washing your hands quite frequently will help you prevent illness. And although most people think antibacterial soap is a good alternative to soap, it actually does much more harm than good. Don’t settle for antibacterial soap, get the real thing and make sure you wash for long enough.

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Prescription Drugs

Teenage illicit drug use is a result of ongoing substance abuse. Many teenagers with drug misuse problems involve drugs that are obtained from the family medicine cabinet. Prescription drug abuse by teens is rising even though alcohol, tobacco, and other illegal drug use is decreasing.

Marijuana, alcohol, and tobacco are the leaders of drug use in American adolescents; however prescription drug misuse is right behind them. A study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry by Ty Schepis PhD and Suchritra Krishnan-Sarin found that the majority of this drug use begins at home. Dr. Schepis and Dr. Krishnan-Sarin from the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine used data to show that nearly 50% of all classes of medicine (opioids, stimulants, tranquilizers, and sedatives) were obtained for no charge by family members and friends.

The most common way for teens to obtain opioids was via a physician. However, the most common source for other drugs was family and friends (13.1% – 29.7%). The second most common was through a drug dealer (4.6%-12.0%). MD Richard A. Freidman, professor of Clinical Psychiatry and director of the Psychopharmacology Clinic at Cornell University’s Weill Medical College who studies teenage drug abuse said “these data underscore how easy it is for young people to obtain potentially abusable prescription drugs. It is clear from these data that the main source is not street dealers, but friends, family members, and physicians.”

The availability of drugs is a big factor. Dr. Schepis cautions that “many people have medications that they previously needed that remain in their medicine cabinet, perhaps and opioid analgesic for a surgery. These medications are easy targets for adolescents wishing to experiment, continue to use, or sell medications to peers. Thus, proper medication disposal is really important, and all patients should be counselled on that.”

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Lately, President Obama has been making a strong push towards health care reform, a shake up of the current system If you will. Some do not fully understand why, but looking at the statistics Obama may be on to something here.

Although the United States is one of the most wealthy, and arguably the most powerful nation in the world, our medical services are highly overpaid. According to the American Human Development Index (AHDI), of the 30 most wealthy nations in the world, the United States ranks 24th in life expectancy. If this is not bad enough Americans actually spend more on health care than any other nation. However, even with the extra money Americans put into the health care system, the United States has fallen into last place, among the more wealthy and developed nations, in preventing avoidable deaths through use of timely and effective medical care (AHDI).

Regardless of whether the health care reform is successful or not, the main idea behind it is quite noble. On a broadcast to American citizen’s, President Obama described what he intends to do about the health care system, “We will pass reform that lowers cost, promotes choice and provides coverage that every American can count on. And we will do it this year.”

The goal would be to provide access to AFFORDABLE health care. Why did I capitalize, bold, and change ‘affordable’ to italic? Simply for the reason that currently, health care is robbing many Americans. More than half of all personal bankruptcies that occur in the United States are related to the inability to pay for illness or injury(AHDI).

Obviously something needs to be done to help American citizens, mostly the middle and lower classes, that have a difficult time paying for medical care. Every person deserves to have adequate medical treatment without having to worry about the financial issues.

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Polar Bear Medical, a supplier of medical supplies, injections and devices for OB/GYN, Cosmetic and Orthopedic disciplines received it’s PharmacyChecker seal today. Receiving this online pharmacy standard is essential, and shows that Polar Bear Medical is following very strict online pharmacy regulations. Doctors, Medical Centers should not hesitate to deal with companies that are verified by this 3rd party trusted source.

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Welcome to Polar Bear Medical’s Blog.  We are excited to update medical doctors in the OB/GYN, Cosmetic, Orthopedic, and Fertility specialties of products and news in their field.  Please follow our posts weekly.  Enjoy!

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