Chill
Research tells us that there’s a relationship between patience and well-being, according to the Mayo Clinic staff. Various studies have found that people who are more patient experience less low mood, are more empathetic and feel greater gratitude. Your level of patience may even be related to your level of happiness. Patience is a skill, one that you can learn and practice. These three practices have been shown to help build mindfulness and improve patience:
- Mindfulness-based stress reduction, which has been shown to strengthen areas of the brain used to regulate emotions and process learning and memory
- Meditation, which has been shown to contribute to larger volumes of gray matter in the areas of the brain that regulate response control
- Mindful movement, such as yoga, aikido, tai chi and qigong.
Give your lymphatic system a boost
Your body relies on your lymphatic system to remove waste, like bacteria, viruses, toxins and abnormal cells, which can lead to cancer. And every step you take helps it do its job. That’s because the lymphatic system lacks an organ like the heart to pump fluid around your body. Lymph fluid relies on movement and the contraction of your muscles to make it flow. “The lymphatic system is stimulated by moving your muscles and getting your heart rate up,” says MD Anderson Senior Physical Therapist Sarah Cleveland. The contraction of your muscles becomes the pump that helps the fluid get around your body. Exercise can help the lymphatic system flow more effectively and potentially help prevent infections and other diseases, like cancer. “Any exercise is helpful for the lymphatic system,” says Cleveland. “Exercise under water is especially helpful because of the pressure from the water.”
Are Pap tests still needed after hysterectomy? It depends.
If you had a partial hysterectomy – when the uterus is removed but the lower end of the uterus (cervix) remains – your doctor will likely recommend continued Pap tests, says Mayo Clinic physician Tatnai Burnett, M.D.. Similarly, if you had a partial hysterectomy or a total hysterectomy – when both the uterus and cervix are removed – for a cancerous or precancerous condition, regular Pap tests may still be recommended as an early detection tool to monitor for a new cancer or precancerous change. In addition, if your mother took the drug diethylstilbestrol (DES) while she was pregnant with you, regular Pap tests are recommended, since DES exposure increases the risk of developing cervical cancer. You can stop having Pap tests, however, if you had a total hysterectomy for a noncancerous condition. Your age matters, too. Doctors generally agree that women can stop routine Pap test screening after age 65 – whether you’ve had a hysterectomy or not – if you have a history of regular screenings with normal results and if you’re not at high risk of cervical cancer.
Infants susceptible to measles earlier than previously thought
Infants are often assumed to be immune to measles through maternal antibodies transferred during pregnancy and, in many countries, receive their first measles-containing vaccine at 12 to 15 months. But it turns out immunity may wane before this time in measles-eliminated settings, placing infants at risk for measles and complications, according to research published in November by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Most infants in the study were found to be susceptible to measles by three months of age. “Our findings inform important policy discussions relating to the timing of the first dose of measles-containing vaccine and infant postexposure prophylaxis recommendations.”
Acute kidney injury in pregnancy
The rate of women hospitalized for acute kidney injury during pregnancy has increased in recent years and is associated with high rates of in-patient mortality, according to research presented at ASN Kidney Week, reports Helio Nephrology. The risk for pregnancy-related AKI is greatest for women with diabetes, according to the study. Although the incidence of AKI during pregnancy-related hospitalizations was low, the rates increased almost three-fold between 2006 and 2015. After identifying 15,550,459 hospitalizations, researchers found the rate of pregnancy-related hospitalization involving AKI was 0.1%, subsequently increasing from 0.09% in 2012 to 0.12% in 2015. Women who developed pregnancy-related AKI were more likely to be older (mean age, 40 vs. 30 years) and black (0.25% vs. 0.07% for white women). Silvi Shah, M.D., FACP, FASN, assistant professor in the division of nephrology at the University of Cincinnati, speculates the finding of increasing rates of AKI during pregnancy-related hospitalizations is likely due to greater awareness and detection of AKI during pregnancy, although she said further research is needed. In addition, the reasons for racial and ethnic differences in AKI rates remain unclear. She encourages clinicians to routinely check renal panels during in-patient hospitalizations.