Anti-Smoking Injection Shows Promise

A vaccine designed to keep nicotine from reaching the brain may help people quit smoking.

The Associated Press reports that a preliminary study of 301 longtime smokers found that recipients of Nabi Pharmaceutical's NicVAX were more than twice as likely to quit smoking as people who got a placebo.

However, "twice as likely" is a loaded number: 15 percent compared to 6 percent. That's good, but not great -- and nearly a third of trial participants dropped out. On the other hand, the production of anti-nicotine antibodies correlated with reduced cigarette use, and even people who didn't quit still smoked less.

The WiSci verdict: promising, but there's a long way to go.

High-Fat, High-Protein Atkins Diet Increase Risk Of Heart Disease

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The high-fat, high-protein and low-carbohydrate Atkins diet of eggs, meat and cheese may put the followers at risk for heart disease in just one month, a new study suggests.

Researchers at the University of Maryland say the popular diet raises your "bad" cholesterol and damages the blood vessels thus increasing the risk of heart disease.

Dr. Michael Miller, lead author of the study said, "I think the Atkins diet is potentially detrimental for cardiovascular health, if maintained for a long duration and without attempts to lose weight."

"A stabilizing Atkins diet is not the way to go," he added.

After putting 26 people on three diets, the high-fat Atkins and the low-fat South Beach and Ornish diets, researchers found that the Atkins Diet raised the study subjects' bad cholesterol by an average of 16 points.

It also brought on symptoms of hardening of the arteries, a precursor to strokes or heart attacks. However, the subjects had better lab tests on the other two diets.

The Ornish Diet lowered their bad cholesterol by 25 points, while the South Beach Diet lowered it by 10 points. The conditions of their arteries also improved on both diets.

Though the Atkins diet does help in losing weight but the experts say the consumption of saturated fats are not good for heart health. In addition, many people experience rebound weight gain which is not good. The results were presented at this week's annual meeting of the American Heart Association in Orlando, Fla.

Trouble sleeping? Here are some tips

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We all need sleep, but many of us have difficulty getting it for one reason or another. About one-third of adults suffer from insomnia, according to the National Institutes of Health. So instead of taking that nap, check out some of the sleep tips Dr. Aparajitha Verma, a neurologist at the Methodist Neurological Institute's Sleep Disorders Center, shared with Houston Chronicle reporter Alexis Grant.

Q: Some parents give their children warm milk to help them fall asleep. Does that really work?

A: There are no documented studies. But the whole philosophy is that having a warm cup of milk or tea raises your body temperature a little bit, enough so it would help you fall asleep.

Q: What time should I stop drinking coffee to allow myself to sleep well that night?

A: The general rule is (caffeine) stays (in your body) for five to seven hours. If you are taking a cup of coffee around 6 p.m. at work because you're trying to stay until 7, guess what — you can't fall asleep at 9 or 10.

Q: Is it safe to use over-the-counter sleep medicine every night?

A: I'm not a big fan of using hypnotics, like sleeping pills. There have been studies that showed that (certain OTC sleep medicines), after four or five days of taking it every day, it loses its effect. After a while, you get dependent on it and you develop tolerance.

Q: Should adults avoid taking naps?

A: If you are very tired and you feel that the naps help, those are good. But anything more than 15- to 20-minute naps, (ask yourself) why you need to take those naps. Are you sleep-deprived? If you're taking long naps, multiple times of the day, you need to know why.

Q: What's your opinion of the snooze button?

A: It's not good because whatever sleep you're getting is very distracted, very interrupted. You wake up feeling more tired. If you are hitting the snooze button, that tells you that you are sleep-deprived. You need to change your lifestyle to go to bed early.

Q: How much sleep should the average adult get?

A: Seven to eight hours, on average, is a good night's sleep. Less than six hours has been shown to be clearly associated with obesity (and so has) more than nine hours.

Q: How long should it take an adult to fall asleep?

A: Anywhere from five to 15, to the max of 20 minutes. If you're in bed for 20 to 30 minutes or longer, turning, tossing in bed, you have a problem.

Q: What tips can you offer for getting a good night's sleep?

A: Try to stick to a standardized sleep schedule. Go to bed at the same time, try to wake up at the same time.

Have wind-down time. If your usual bedtime is 10:30, half an hour or so before that, try to do something that's nonstimulating. Read a book in another room.

Try not to do clock-watching. If you're always looking at the clock, I tell patients, set an alarm in the next room or turn your alarm around or put a blanket on it.

If you're in bed for 20 minutes or longer, if you're not able to fall asleep, I typically tell my patients to leave the room, go to another room, sit down somewhere quiet, and do something that's nonstimulating — whatever calms you down.

Use your bedroom only to sleep. No reading in bed, no eating in bed, no watching TV in bed. If you have computers or TVs in your bedroom, please take them out. You need to train your mind to associate bed with sleeping and nothing else.

Q: Is sleep apnea — when normal air flow is obstructed — the same as snoring?

A: There are people who can just have snoring without sleep apnea, but that's less likely in adults. If you snore or if you're obese and if you have daytime complaints — sleepy, tired during the day — there's a high chance that you have sleep apnea. The most common cause is obesity. Kids who have big tonsils and adenoids are also at risk.

It's no longer "Oh, my grandpa snores, my dad snores, everybody snores. It's just a noise, and it doesn't bother me." Patients who have obstructive sleep apnea are at a higher risk of developing high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes, heart attacks, strokes and sudden nocturnal death.

Q: What's the best way to get someone to stop snoring?

A: You have to go seek medical attention. There's no quick fix. All these breathe-easy and whatever strips and the pillows and mattresses might work, but there's no harm in making sure you don't have other symptoms (of apnea).

Q: What are the most common causes of insomnia?

A: Psychiatric conditions, followed by medical conditions. Psychiatric disorders that are associated with insomnia. The first one is anxiety disorder; the second is depression.

Q: What about for those of us who fall asleep but can't stay that way?

A: For middle-aged men and women, sleep apnea is the most common cause. Anxiety and depression, if they're not well-treated. Acid reflux disease is very common.

Q: Got any suggestions for going back to sleep?

A: If that happens more than two or three times per night, you need medical attention to find out what's waking you up.

Q: What causes insomnia in kids?

A: Number one is sleep apnea, where they're having difficulty breathing in. That wakes them up multiple times and they don't like that feeling, so they don't want to go to sleep. The second thing is restless leg syndrome, which also is very prevalent in children but very underdiagnosed.

High Blood Pressure May Vary By Season

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Study Shows Higher Doses Of Medication May Be Needed In Winter

If you're being treated for hypertension, take note: Your blood pressure is more likely to return to normal levels in summer than in winter, a new study shows.

The findings suggest that people with high blood pressure may need higher doses of medication or even different drugs in the winter months, says researcher Ross D. Fletcher, MD, chief of staff at the VA Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

The researchers analyzed the electronic health records of 443,632 veterans with high blood pressure treated at 15 VA hospitals throughout the U.S. over a five-year period.

Blood pressure was nearly 8 percent less likely to return to normal in the winter than in the summer, the study showed.

"In all cities, there was a seasonal variation that didn't seem to be related to outside temperature," Fletcher says.

Whether you're in San Juan, Puerto Rico, or Anchorage, Alaska, "every summer it gets better and every winter it gets worse," he tells WebMD.

One hopeful trend: In each of the 15 cities studied, the number of people with hypertension whose levels returned to normal rose an average of 4 percent per year, Fletcher says.

The findings were reported at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2007.

Understanding Your Blood Pressure Reading

"Normal" blood pressure is a measurement of less than 120/80; pre-hypertension is a blood pressure reading in which the top number is in the range of 120-139 and the bottom number is in the range of 80-89.

In the study, people with readings of more than 140 over 90 on three separate days were considered to have high blood pressure.

Explaining the Seasonal Gap

Fletcher says that weight and exercise may play a role in the seasonal variations. "People gain weight in the winter and lose weight in the summer. People tend to exercise more in the summer and less in the winter," he says.

Blood pressure rises with weight gain and falls with weight loss, says American Heart Association spokesman Jonathan Halperin, MD, a cardiologist at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York.

Halperin notes that other studies have shown that blood pressure and heart disease rates can vary over the course of a day.

Heart attacks, for example occur more commonly in the morning, he says, while blood pressure tends to drop at night. "But to my knowledge, this study is the first to show seasonal variations," Halperin tells WebMD.

Blood Pressure in Summer and Winter

Halperin advises doctors and patients to be more attentive to blood pressure in winter months.

"If a person has borderline readings in the summer, he should think about being screened again in six months to make sure blood pressure hasn't dropped further," he says.

If blood pressure does dip in the winter, a more potent treatment regimen should be considered, Fletcher says.

"Our goal is to get as many people to below 140 over 90 as possible," he says.

The other 13 VA hospitals studied were in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Fargo, N.D., Honolulu, Houston, west Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, Ore., and Washington, D.C.