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Mesothelioma: A Killer
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Yes, you really do need that coffee
Last Updated: 2004-09-30 10:22:30 -0400 (Reuters Health)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It's official -- you really do need that coffee in the morning and if you don't get it, you are in withdrawal, researchers said on Wednesday.
As little as one cup of coffee a day can produce caffeine addiction, researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore said.
"Caffeine is the world's most commonly used stimulant, and it's cheap and readily available so people can maintain their use of caffeine quite easily," said Roland Griffiths, a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience who led a review of 170 years' worth of studies on caffeine.
"The latest research demonstrates, however, that when people don't get their usual dose they can suffer a range of withdrawal symptoms, including headache, fatigue and difficulty concentrating. They may even feel like they have the flu with nausea and muscle pain."
Griffiths and colleagues are pressing for caffeine addiction to be included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, considered the bible of mental disorders, as well as other references.
He and Laura Juliano of American University in Washington looked at 57 experimental studies and nine surveys to validate what any coffee drinker could have told them -- missing that daily cup causes fatigue, grumpiness and often severe headache.
Experiments have shown that 50 percent of people got headaches when their java was taken away and 13 percent were sick enough to lose time at work.
Writing in the October issue of the journal Psychopharmacology, Griffiths and Juliano also said it was possible to free oneself of caffeine addiction.
"We teach a systematic method of gradually reducing caffeine consumption over time by substituting decaffeinated or non-caffeinated products. Using such a method allows people to reduce or eliminate withdrawal symptoms," Griffiths said.
In North America, 80 percent to 90 percent of adults drink caffeine regularly. Average daily intake in the United States is about 280 milligrams, found in one to two mugs of coffee or three to five cans of soft drink.
Copyright © 2004 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
Breathing disorder linked with blood-related hormone
Last Updated: 2004-09-29 16:36:24 -0400 (Reuters Health)
By Anthony J. Brown, MD
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Levels of the blood-forming hormone erythropoietin appear to be increased in patients with severe obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a disorder in which breathing stops for short periods during sleep. This could help explain why high blood pressure, which is influenced by the hormone, is often seen in patients with OSA.
Erythropoietin is a hormone secreted by the kidneys in response to low oxygen levels in the blood. The hormone attempts to solve this problem by stimulating the production of red blood cells -- the oxygen-carrying cells of the blood. However, in addition to this potentially useful effect, the hormone has been shown to increase blood pressure.
"We were interested in the mechanisms that cause blood pressure to go up with OSA," senior author Dr. Virend K. Somers, from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, told Reuters Health. "Once the mechanisms are identified, we can potentially focus treatments on those mechanisms."
"Erythropoietin is known to raise blood pressure among other effects," Somers pointed out. "We were interested in determining if erythropoietin levels rose with OSA," a condition that can cause low blood oxygen levels, he added.
As reported in the American Journal of Hypertension, the researchers measured erythropoietin levels in 18 severe and 10 mild OSA patients before and after receiving a breathing treatment for their condition. The erythropoietin levels in these patients were compared with those seen in 12 healthy subjects.
Before sleep, OSA patients and healthy subjects had similar erythropoietin levels. However, after about 4 hours of sleep with no treatment, severe OSA patients experienced a 20-percent increase in erythropoietin levels. The breathing treatment caused their levels to return back to normal.
In contrast, mild OSA patients had erythropoietin levels that remained stable throughout the night and were comparable to those seen in healthy subjects.
The low blood oxygen levels that occur with "severe OSA seem to produce a modest rise in erythropoietin levels," Somers observed. But, he added that further studies are needed to determine if "erythropoietin is actually involved in the high blood pressure seen with OSA."
SOURCE: American Journal of Hypertension, September 2004.
Copyright © 2004 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
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