Your Health
The daily aspirin
Plenty of people take daily low-dose aspirin for heart health, but doctors don't know whether other over-the-counter painkillers negate aspirin's anti-clotting effects.
To play it safe, take ibuprofen (Motrin or Advil) or naproxen (Aleve) an hour after the aspirin, the Cleveland Clinic advises.
Acetaminophen (Tylenol) is safe to take with aspirin.
A daily low-dose aspirin
Doctors have yet to reach a verdict on whether some OTC painkillers are safe to take with daily low-dose aspirin. The main concern: The pills may interfere with aspirin's anti-clotting effects, negating heart-health benefits. A 21,000-patient trial run by Steven Nissen, MD, chair of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, aims to find a definitive answer by 2010. In the meantime, if you're a low-dose aspirin user, here's how you can safely get the pain relief you need:
Botox brain?
Botulinum toxin, injected into the face as an anti-wrinkle treatment, can travel along nerves and into the brain within days, says a study in The Journal of Neuroscience.
Italian scientists found that rats who got injections near their whiskers showed evidence of botulinum in their brainstems days later.
The effects aren't clear. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is reviewing Botox after its use was linked to breathing problems and death, mainly in children given doses for spastic muscle.
But Matteo Caleo of Italy's Institute of Neuroscience said his finding might not be bad news. "One might imagine that some of these distant effects are even beneficial for the patients," he says.
Botox disrupts nerve signaling by targeting a protein called SNAP-25 that helps carry neurotransmitters. To test whether it could affect nerve signaling elsewhere in the body, Caleo's team injected rats with botulinum at various points in the face and brain and tracked its spread by looking for fragments of SNAP-25 destroyed by the drug.
The toxin spread from the site of injection after just three days. Rats that received a botulinum jab into one of their hippocampi showed evidence of broken SNAP-25 in their opposite hippocampus, and rats injected in their whisker muscles had signs of botulinum activity in their brainstems. "We suspect that this spread is a common occurrence after toxin delivery," says Caleo (The Journal of Neuroscience).
Lip service
Yeah, we know. You're inundated with warnings about sun exposure this time of year.
So we just have this to add: Don't forget your lips.
The American Society for Dermatologic Surgery sent surveyors to Texas beaches and found 78 percent of people wearing sunscreen, but only 47 percent protecting their lips.
The skin on your lips is just as susceptible to damage as the skin on your face -- and lip cancer is nothing to smile about. If you don't like the taste of your regular sunscreen, buy a balm or lipstick with at least SPF 30.
Power of the peel
The next time you eat an orange or juice a lemon, save the peel.
It's full of compounds that can fight cancer, like limonene, which has been shown to inhibit some cancers in animals, and salvestrol Q40, found in tangerine peels, which kills an enzyme that promotes the growth of human cancer cells.
Wash the fruit well and use a zester to remove the colored part of the peel, discarding the bitter white pith. Add the zest to soups, baked goods, yogurt or hot tea.
10,000 steps
That's how much some experts say you should walk each day to reach a healthy weight and stave off obesity-related disorders like heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.
You can keep count with a free pedometer from the Illinois Podiatric Medical Association and New Balance stores in the Chicago area.
To get one, find a participating podiatrist at www.ipma.net or (888) 869-3338 and make an appointment to stop by the office, where you'll also be given tips on walking for exercise and on foot health.
That's important, since a 150-pound person walking a mile puts 63 tons of pressure on each foot, says Theodore Polizos of Arlington Heights, president of the podiatrists' group.