Issue Date: November 30, 2003
The latest advances
EXERCISE: Mirrors affect workouts
Look around at the gym or health club and you'll likely see yourself staring back from multiple mirrors covering the walls. Exercise makes you feel better, but watching yourself exercise doesn't, according to a study by Canada's McMaster University, reported in Health Psychology, the journal of the American Psychological Association. Female beginning exercisers who watched themselves in mirrors as they rode a stationary bike felt worse (less calm, more fatigued) than those who didn't peek. The researchers think that women who gaze at their reflections also are more critical of their appearance. Using a mirror to check form during other types of exercise, however, can increase safety.
DIABETES: Exams save sight
Checking form is good. Critical gazes are bad.
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Anyone who has diabetes or a chronic eye disease (such as glaucoma or age-related macular degeneration) should get yearly dilated eye exams. Why? Even if you don't notice symptoms, your vision could be in danger. Eye exams can detect problems in time to prevent vision loss. The trouble is, people don't go to their eye doctors as often as they should, researchers reported in the journal Ophthalmology. In fact, only 50% to 60% of diabetes patients in the Medicare group they studied had annual eye checks. Solution: If you have an eye disease or diabetes -- especially newly diagnosed diabetes -- see your ophthalmologist at least yearly. Duke University eye doctors recommend yearly glaucoma exams starting at age 50, but they say African Americans need to start at age 40 because their rate of sight-stealing glaucoma is four to six times higher than that of whites.
INSOMNIA: Caution for melatonin users
Have trouble sleeping? Coping with jet lag? Be careful if you're thinking of taking melatonin, a popular dietary supplement, to help you catch some solid zzzs: A small study (of 12 volunteers) from Penn State College of Medicine suggests that melatonin may make symptoms worse for the half-million people who have a condition called orthostatic intolerance. When they stand up, their bodies can't keep their blood pressure high enough to maintain blood flow to the brain, so they get dizzy and may faint. Normally, the body compensates by preventing a drop in blood pressure when standing up. Melatonin disrupts that mechanism.
DRUGS: Sense of taste can be compromised
Prescription drugs can cause taste disorders, even though the medicine is beneficial in other ways. If you notice that your sense of taste has changed, don't stop taking a prescribed drug without consulting your doctor, urges the Public Citizen Health Research Group. The September edition of their newsletter, Worst Pills, Best Pills (worstpills.org), lists common drugs that have been linked to taste disorders, including ACE inhibitors and calcium channel blockers used to treat high blood pressure; erythromycin-type and fluoroquinolone antibiotics (including Cipro); ketoconazole and terbinafine antifungal medicines; levamisole, a cancer medicine; penicillamine, an antirheumatic drug; and rabeprazole, a stomach acid reducer.
-- Peggy J. Noonan
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