the checkup
Health in the News and in Your Life

By Adapted from voices.washingtonpost.com/checkup
Tuesday, November 4, 2008

"Fall Back" for Your Heart

When you turned your clocks back last weekend for the end of daylight saving time, you may have been protecting your heart, according to new research out of Sweden.

Imre Janszky of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and Rickard Ljung of the National Board of Health and Welfare took advantage of their country's detailed health records to examine what happened as the clocks were changed twice a year between 1987 and 2006.

In a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the pair report that the number of heart attacks that occurred on the Monday after clocks were turned back each fall was about 5 percent lower than usual.

But that means we might want to watch out when spring comes around. Researchers found that there was a jump in heart attacks of 6 to 10 percent in the week after "springing forward."

-- Rob Stein

dragondancer1814 wrote:

Next year, why don't we just set our clocks ahead a half-hour and keep them that way instead of all this spring-forward-fall-back nonsense. No matter how you slice it, there's still a little over 24 hours in a day, and the little excess gets made up on Leap Day every four years.

What time is being saved? All it does is mess with your circadian twice a year, and for parents of little kids and farmers, it makes for a madhouse!

Clinical Studies and Kids

If your child's physician suggested enrolling your kid in a clinical study, would you know what to say?

A new Web site launched by the National Institutes of Health makes a good case for conducting medical research with children and answers any question that could possibly pop into a parent's mind.

The need for clinical testing involving children is acute: Most of the drugs and devices used to treat kids have never been tested on them. In most cases, it has been assumed that the treatment tested on adults will work the same way in children; the site refers to these as "hand-me-down" treatments.

-- Jennifer Huget

RedBird27 wrote:

It's important to remember that in a clinical trial the patient always receives treatment equal to the prevailing standard of care.

A parent may worry that if they participate in a trial that their child will not receive treatment, and that is not true. It's the accepted standard of care or the trial treatment.

Grief During the Holidays

It's easy to feel isolated during the holiday season when you've lost a loved one. Everyone else seems so happy when you feel so sad.

"It's a tough situation" says Dale G. Larson, a professor of counseling psychology at Santa Clara University in California.

"The key is to acknowledge that you have changed and that the holidays aren't going to be the same. It's important to know that from the outset."

David Kessler is a Los Angeles-based expert on grief and loss who maintains a Web site called Grief.com. He collaborated with the late Elisabeth Kubler-Ross on books about death and dying.

Kessler explains that "grief is the internal feelings we have, while mourning is an external process. One of the ways we help work through our grief is to externalize it."

-- Jennifer Huget

JohnDinHouston wrote:

Two years ago, we lost our mother and my children's grandmother on New Year's Day.

The holidays were special for my mom, and my kids loved to spend the holidays with her when they could. I've determined that the best way to celebrate each new year going forward was to remember mom and plan our year with thoughts toward what she would have been proud of our doing.

You have to believe that your loved one would want you to go on living and enjoy the season without them.

elainewilliams1 wrote:

As a widow of almost five years, I can attest to the fact that the holidays, anniversaries, birthdays are very difficult, especially the first of those days after loss.

With time, I've found it easier to cope. It is an individual process and we have to figure out what works best for each of us.

There is no right or wrong way to deal with grief. It can be messy, uncontrolled and unplanned, but we can also find joy again in living.

Cut yourself some slack and if you don't feel up to the holidays, do something that brings you a measure of joy or comfort.