Simple stretching can ease the pain of tennis elbow. THE MOVES: Stretch for tennis elbow. SMASHING TENNIS ELBOW - With her arm extended and fingers pointed down, firefighter Melissa Cleary gently pulls on her hand, stretching the back of her forearm to help prevent and ease a tennis elbow injury. CNS Photo by Howard Lipin. WORKS ON: Stretches the back of the forearm. SET-UP: Extend your right arm in front of you with the ... [full story]

NEW ORLEANS - Oral cancer is diagnosed in more than 30,000 individuals in the US annually, claiming 10,000 lives each year. Early detection remains the best way to ensure patient survival and quality of life. Today, during the 85th General Session of the International Association for Dental Research, scientists from the University of California- Irvine present two novel, non-invasive, ultra-fast imaging approaches to oral cancer detection, diagnostic screening, and mapping. More than 2/3 of all ... [full story]

There are nearly 21 million Americans living with diabetes.  That’s roughly 7% of the population, and about one-third have not yet been diagnosed.  Additionally, there are an estimated 54 million prediabetics.  Diabetes has become a reality for an increasing number of Americans, but many still don’t know the facts about the disease.   Douglas W. Laube, MD, MEd, President, The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Diabetes is caused when insulin, a hormone that helps glucose from ... [full story]

Medtronica National Center for Alternative and Complementary Medicine http://nccam.nih.gov/ This offers general information about alternative and complementary therapies with links to research being conducted on addiction, aging, AIDS, cancer, asthma, stroke and women's health. CAN'T STAND THE HEAT Hot tubs may be fine places for a bit of romance, but if the guy's planning on having kids eventually ... well, there may be better places to hang out. A three-year study by a University of ... [full story]

Within hours of birth, most newborns have begun to imitate the facial expressions of adults. Soon they will start to distinguish between familiar faces and those of strangers. They will gaze longest at their mothers and display a notable preference for attractive people. These early-in-life abilities are well-documented, yet they raise more questions than they answer. Most centrally: How do newborns know what a face looks like? Is facial recognition hard-wired into their brains? Or ... [full story]

For years, Buddhist monks, yogis and the Beatles have been telling us about the benefits of meditation. Now, scientists and doctors are hopping on the meditation bandwagon. Thanks to cutting-edge technologies like functional MRI scans, neuroscientists can look inside the brain to see if meditation actually produces physical change. Although they're still not sure how meditation works, research is beginning to show that, in fact, it does.   WORLD OF CALM - Katie Beroukhim meditates while at the ... [full story]

Childhood obesity might play a role in the early onset of puberty in girls, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital have concluded that girls with a greater body mass index, BMI, were more likely to start puberty at a younger age. Their study was recently published in the journal Pediatrics. Dr. Joyce Lee, the lead author and a university pediatric endocrinologist, said that girls in the ... [full story]

Stretching is one of the key ways to increase shoulder flexibility. THE MOVE: Step through. STRETCH IT - To stretch the front of the shoulder, firefighter Michael Nelson lunges in a doorway while keeping a hand at door's edge. CNS Photo by Nadia Borowski Scott. WORKS ON: This exercise stretches the muscles of the anterior (front) shoulder (pectoralis major and anterior deltoid). This exercise helps improve mobility of the shoulder blade and its ability ... [full story]

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has requested that all manufacturers of sedative-hypnotic drug products, a class of drugs used to induce and/or maintain sleep, strengthen their product labeling to include stronger language concerning potential risks. These risks include severe allergic reactions and complex sleep-related behaviors, which may include sleep-driving. Sleep driving is defined as driving while not fully awake after ingestion of a sedative-hypnotic product, with no memory of the event.  "There are ... [full story]

MEDTRONICA Internet Health Resources www.ihr.com This is a wide-ranging site that covers the issues of infertility, from basic biological causes to treatments to alternatives like adoption. BLOWING AWAY DISEASE It's estimated that one in 10 patients will get sick - or rather, sicker - from something they contract while staying at a hospital. So-called nosocomial infections are bad news, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Americans each year at a cost of billions of ... [full story]

Choose your weapon. Soap, hand sanitizer, bleach or using body parts other than your hands to open doors and push elevator buttons. No matter what your form of germ warfare, and how diligently you use it, you're never going to rid yourself or your environment of germs. Trillions of germs and bacteria are everywhere. They reside on our skin and in our mouths and line our intestines. They can lurk for days on kitchen counters, ... [full story]

A recent study shows that signs of stress might be as plain as the blemishes on a teenager's face. The study, completed by researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and reported in the Swedish medical journal Acta Derm Venereol, shows that increased levels of stress is a contributing factor to severe acne in adolescents. "Acne significantly affects physical and psychosocial well-being, so it is important to understand the interplay between the factors that ... [full story]

What are you doing to stay healthy this year? We recently asked readers this question, and they responded simply by saying they are eating better and exercising. "My life is very busy, but I need to exercise," said Lisa Bray of North Canton, Ohio. "It makes me feel better." Bray seriously added exercise to her regular schedule last year, and although she tries to get some in every day, she said she is not fanatical ... [full story]