Back to School Shots Dont Have to be Painful

(ARA) - Its that time of year again -- the end of summer heralds the return to reading, writing and rithmatic. Getting ready for back to school means more than buying school supplies -- it means getting your child immunized against dangerous diseases, including measles, mumps, and polio. Many states have rigid requirements about which immunizations are required before attending school; even some colleges require booster shots.

Immunization is one of the most effective ways of preventing disease. Prior to widespread immunization in the United States, infectious diseases killed or disabled thousands each year. Preparing early and getting your child immunized can prevent a frantic call to your pediatrician once school gets underway.

You can protect your child by taking him or her to a doctor or public health clinic for immunizations. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends vaccinations through the first 18 years, and many school systems require a full course of shots as well.

Yet, some parents are afraid shots will hurt their child. Thanks to Gebauers Ethyl Chloride Pain-Ease, immunization doesnt have to be painful. Just before giving the injection, the doctor or nurse can spray the anesthetic directly onto the childs skin, cooling and numbing the area, then swabbing the target area with antiseptic and quickly performing the injection. This eases anxiety for both parent and child -- there will be no bad memories of painful shots or anxiety over the next inoculation. The Ethyl Chloride Pain-Ease anesthetic effect wears off in about two minutes with virtually no side effects.

For more information about making shots less scary by using a skin refrigerant like Gebauers Ethyl Chloride Pain-Ease, contact Gebauer at (800) 321-9348 or visit on the Web at www.gebauerco.com.

Courtesy of ARA Content

Tips for a Longer, Healthier Life ARA(ARA) - Life expectancy in the United States is at an all time high of 77.2 years. Americans are living longer for many reasons, including progress in fighting illnesses such as heart disease, cancer and stroke. In addition, individuals are now better informed on how to be more in control of their health by eating right, exercising regularly and taking other simple steps to promote good health and prevent serious illness and disease.

Proper nutrition plays a key role in healthy aging. As we age, our nutritional needs change. So while seniors need the same nutrients as younger people, they need them in different amounts. And while the need for most nutrients decreases with age due to decreased activity levels, the need for protein actually increases later in life.

For seniors, getting enough protein helps maintain adequate muscle mass, fights infection and aids in maintaining strength during trauma. However, studies have found that age brings a decrease in energy intake. Older adults may have trouble chewing, swallowing or digesting protein-rich foods such as meat or poultry. In addition, decreased functions of taste and smell may make food less appealing overall, leading to a lack of calories and nutrients.

To increase their overall intake of protein, seniors should consider adding whey protein to their diet. Whey protein, one of the highest quality proteins available, comes from cows milk and contains many of the same components found in mothers milk. It is easily digested and efficiently used by the body. Whey proteins are complete proteins, supplying the body with essential amino acids required for good health. This is why whey proteins provide excellent nutrition for people at every stage of life, including seniors, says Carla Sorensen, director of the Whey Protein Institute.

Whey proteins also enhance the production of glutathione, one of the body's natural anti-oxidants and help maintain adequate glutathione (GHS) levels to aid the immune system. GSH plays a key role in maintaining and building the immune system. "We see a link between a lower glutathione content in older individuals and an increase in the incidence of many diseases such as stroke, arthritis, macular degeneration and heart disease," says Patricia Kongshavn, Ph.D., an immunologist and pioneer in whey protein research.

A recent clinical study found that a specific type of whey protein helped to reduce blood pressure in individuals with borderline hypertension. While whey protein should not be substituted for prescription medication, it may be a good complement to your current program, says Sorensen. She also points out that cancer patients who are undergoing radiation or chemotherapy often have reduced levels of GSH and may find whey protein beneficial in boosting their immune system.

If you arent familiar with whey protein, you may be wondering how you can incorporate it into your diet. Adding whey protein to your menu is simple and tasty. Whey protein bars and beverages can be purchased in grocery stores, or you can make your own healthy snacks using whey protein powder, which is readily available in health food stores, natural food stores and many fitness centers.

Here is a simple recipe to show how easy it is to incorporate the benefits of whey protein into your diet.

Pudding with Whey Protein

Ingredients:

1 package instant pudding (any flavor)*

2 servings whey protein, natural, vanilla or chocolate flavor

2 cups skim milk

Directions: Combine instant pudding and whey protein. Add skim milk and mix according to package directions. Refrigerate 15 minutes before serving. Makes 4 servings.

Nutrition information (per serving): 200 calories, 15 grams of protein, 1.5 grams of fat, 31 grams of carbohydrates.

Dietary exchanges: 2 starch, 1 lean meat.

* Sugar free pudding may be used in place of regular pudding to reduce calories and carbohydrates.

For more recipes and information on the health benefits of whey protein, visit the Whey Protein Institutes Web site at www.wheyoflife.org, or call toll-free (866) WHY-WHEY.

Courtesy of ARA Content

Unlocking Mysteries of the Immune System May Be the Key in Curing Inflammatory Disease ARA(ARA) - A 10-year-old student, instructed by the school nurse to not come back to school, because of his psoriasis.

A young mother, disabled by multiple sclerosis, forced to use a cane where she once strolled freely.

An esteemed university chemistry professor, unable to grasp the tools so vital to teaching his craft because of rheumatoid arthritis.

For all three, each day is a struggle against bodies that have turned against them. The natural process of inflammation, normally enacted to repair tissue and fight infection, has gone awry, attacking the skin, central nervous and musculoskeletal systems, respectively. As a result, the boy lives with scaly, red patches of skin which, though not contagious, make adults shy away and prompt his classmates to tease him mercilessly. The mother battles relapses of fatigue and loss of balance which appear without warning and outstay their welcome. And the professor, who teaches through the painful swelling in his hands, lives from bottle to bottle of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents.

For years, a group of chronic, inflammatory diseases has frustrated physicians and patients seeking effective treatment, says Cecil B. Wilson, M.D., an internist in Winter Park, Fla. and an American Medical Association (AMA) trustee. The growing body of knowledge about the immune systems role in diseases such as psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, myasthenia gravis, scleroderma and multiple sclerosis (MS) means that there is hope for long-term treatments and perhaps even cures.

In light of such recent discoveries, the AMA held an inflammatory diseases media briefing in New York City, where experts gathered to discuss the evolving body of thought surrounding the treatment of these chronic autoimmune diseases which, as of now, have no cure.

All of these disorders are chronic progressive diseases, says Anthony Gaspari, M.D., a dermatology expert from the University of Maryland in Baltimore and a speaker at the AMA media briefing. Unlocking the secrets of some might lead to therapies for others. For example, he said, while the immune system has long been implicated in MS, it has only been in the last five years or so that weve believed that the immune system plays a role in psoriasis.

New Biologic Treatments Offer Hope

Although many inflammatory diseases seem to have a genetic component, some are triggered by other processes. Cytokines, for instance, are naturally-produced proteins that trigger inflammatory and disease-fighting responses to toxins, injury, viruses and bacteria. These proteins are of particular interest when studying inflammatory disorders, Gaspari says, as their malfunction may be responsible for everything from the over-production of skin in psoriasis to the destruction of nerve insulating material in MS to the abnormal growth of connective tissue in scleroderma.

Psoriasis, which affects up to 7 million men and women, serves as a particularly good bench-to-bedside example of how scientific discoveries are making their way from the lab into clinical practice. While the exact cause of psoriasis is not known, experts do know that symptoms are a result of cells in the outer layer of the skin reproducing quickly and piling up on the skins surface. Although certain cases are limited to areas such as the elbows, knees and scalp, others can involve anywhere from 10 to 100 percent of the body.

For those patients who suffer from more aggressive cases, new biologic agents offer an alternative in treating psoriasis, said Kenneth B. Gordon, M.D., associate professor of medicine in the division of dermatology at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Ill. Designed through genetic engineering to affect only the target organ system -- in this case the immune system and the skin -- biologic therapies avoid the multiorgan toxicity often seen with traditional treatments such as methotrexate and cyclosporine. Biologics are delivered via injection rather than orally, because the proteins would be broken down in the stomach, and improvements are typically seen after a couple of months of twice-a-week to every-other-week treatment.

The first biologic for the treatment of psoriasis was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in February 2003; others are being looked at for potential use. These agents, Gordon says, may help more patients in returning to normal lives.

Many patients no longer seek healthcare for this condition because they believe their options are exhausted and they must live with the disease, Gordon explains. They are frustrated with therapy because their physician doesnt think their condition merits aggressive therapy or doesnt understand the therapies that are available. People who have given up hope need to know that there are new treatments available. And while therapies such as specific alteration in gene expression are on the distant horizon, for now, Gordon believes, biological agents are the future for the next decade or beyond.

Optimistic Future for Patients

In MS, a life-long chronic disease affecting 250,000 to 300,000 Americans, the disease attacks random patches of the central nervous systems white matter, causing partial destruction of myelin, the substance which insulates the nerve fibers of the brain and spinal cord. Initial symptoms are often vision-related, such as blurred or double vision, distortion of red and green, or blindness in one eye. Muscular weakness, loss of coordination or balance, numbness or pain, fatigue and slurred speech typically follow. Studies show that the aforementioned cytokines may cause this abnormal autoimmune response and influence myelin damage.

Standard therapy has included corticosteroids to suppress the immune system. But now, for the first time, people with MS have a choice of several biologically-based anti-inflammatory treatments to effectively modify the course of their disease. New biologic agents such as beta-interferons are immunomodulatory -- not immunosuppressive -- in nature, halting MS inflammation by repairing the blood-brain barrier and reducing the inflammatory process. Depending on the beta-interferon prescribed, patients may experience decreased relapse rates, increased time between relapses, decreased attack severity and a reduced number of MS lesions.

Patients should be very optimistic about the long-term outlook for multiple sclerosis, says AMA media briefing speaker Brian R. Apatoff, M.D., director of Multiple Sclerosis Clinical Care and Research Center at New York-Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City. Twenty years ago there werent really any treatments for MS, we were fumbling around with corticosteroids as the mainstay in immune intervention. Now we have become more sophisticated and developed new therapies which have fewer side effects than steroids but still control the inflammation.

Multiple sclerosis patients arent the only ones who should be feeling optimistic about their diagnosis. For although there is currently no cure for any of these diseases, the future looks promising. As we unravel the mysteries of the immune system and identify the genes that are passed on in families, Gaspari says, we may be able to develop therapies that can be used long-term or that actually cure these disorders.

For more information, visit www.ama-assn.org/go/briefings.