Technology Making Your Nine-to-Five Work Schedule Obsolete?

Steve Mason/Photodisc(NEW YORK) -- You may love your computer and smartphone but they might be making you work harder.

Government statistics show worker productivity has increased 400 percent since 1950, possibly because technology makes you available ‘round-the-clock, and the boss is taking advantage of that.

A new survey by Wright Management finds two-thirds of employees have gotten emails from their bosses over the weekend. One-third say the boss expects a reply.

Experts say if you need to set limits, do it in a face-to-face meeting, not a text or email.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Porexia: What to Do about Big Pores

Comstock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Move over Botox and collagen.  Forget wrinkles and sunspots.  Now more than ever, people are becoming obsessed with the pores on their face.

Dermatologists have even coined a new term for it: porexia.

"I see patients all day every day who are literally obsessed with the size of their pores," Doris Day, a dermatologist, told ABC's Good Morning America.

Enlarged pores are generally caused by genetics, but sun exposure and oily skin can make them appear like mini-craters.

"There's nothing that you can do to make your pores go away but there are things you can do both as a quick fix and over the long term to make your pores appear smaller," Day, author of the book Forget the Facelift, said.  "This is something as simple as using a product containing salicylic acid, or by gently exfoliating the skin."

Some A-list celebrities fret over their large pores and reportedly use products to conceal them.  But what can you do when makeup and creams don't get the job done?

For one, you can get a "Galvanic Current Mask," offered in places like New York City's Face Place.  The FDA-approved facial comes in three parts and takes just about one hour and thirty minutes to complete.

Tom Woodhouse, the head aesthetician at Face Place NYC, explains how the $140 treatment works: First, a leather mask called a heat dome is placed over the face and neck.  A heating element runs outside of the dome.  After 10 minutes, strips of cotton soaked with vitamins and minerals are applied to the face.  Then the galvanic current mask is applied.

"And it makes dry heat rather than the damp heat, steam.  It's much gentler on the skin.  It does a beautiful job gently opening the pores and it starts to liquefy the oil," Woodhouse said.

The treatment allows vitamins and minerals to go deep into the skin, and at the same time the galvanic current contracts the muscles in the face and neck, helping to firm the tissues and tighten the pores, Woodhouse added.  But if electrical current isn't your thing, how about something that's all-natural?

At Shizuka Day Spa, owner Shizuka Bernstein says her geisha facial -- which includes the use of purified bird droppings -- is in high demand.

"The ingredients in the droppings have a natural enzyme and it exfoliates, it breaks down the top layer of the skin, so it's a good exfoliation," Bernstein said.

But about that treatment, Day wasn't so sure.

"Anything that is a leftover or a by-product especially in feces of another animal I would be very hesitant to use on my skin," she said.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Heart Disease, Diabetes and Stroke: More Chocolate, Less Risk?

Pixland/Thinkstock(LONDON) -- A new review of previously published studies adds weight to the claim that chocolate is good for the heart.

Taken together, five of seven studies included in the review linked high chocolate consumption with a 37 percent reduction in cardiovascular disease risk, a 31 percent reduction in diabetes risk and a 29 percent reduction in stroke risk when compared to low chocolate consumption.

"Although over-consumption can have harmful effects, the existing studies generally agree on a potential beneficial association of chocolate consumption with a lower risk of cardiometabolic disorders," Adriana Buitrago-Lopez of the University of Cambridge in the U.K. and colleagues reported Monday in BMJ.

The findings held up even when factors such as age, diet, physical activity, body mass index and smoking were controlled for.  But the review stopped short of concluding that chocolate itself makes people healthier.

"This paper merely shows us that the association between habitual intake of chocolate and lower cardiometabolic risk is 'statistically robust,'" said Dr. David Katz, director of medical studies in public health at Yale University.  "But what if happier people eat more chocolate, and are at lower cardiometabolic risk because they are happier?  This paper cannot address such subtleties."

The review included data collected from more than 114,000 people.  But the large numbers don't prove cause and effect, Katz said.  The review does, however, support chocolate as a healthful indulgence -- in moderation, of course.

This is a wonderful example of the opportunity to love food that loves us back," said Katz.  "However, too much of a good thing is no longer a good thing."

Katz, who has published studies on the health effects of chocolate, said the next step is to establish a therapeutic window similar to that for red wine.

"Our conclusion is that dark chocolate -- 60 percent cocoa or higher -- and liquid cocoa have clear, potential benefits in terms of overall cardiac risk, but that we don't yet know enough about optimal dosing to best use this food 'as medicine,'" Katz said.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Study Links Psoriasis to Increased Risk of Stroke

JupiterImages/Thinkstock(OXFORD, U.K.) -- A new study has found that Psoriasis is linked to an increased risk of Atrial Fibrillation (AF) and ischaemic stroke.

The study involved approximately 4.5 million individuals, and found that people with severe Psoriasis faced a greater risk of AF. According to the study's findings, which were published in the European Heart Journal, Psoriasis patients were also found to have demonstrated a "severity-dependent increased risk of ischaemic stroke."

A report by BBC News states that the study found the highest risk of stroke to be among young Psoriasis patients, with researchers explaining that this may be as a result of skin and blood vessels sharing similar inflammation sources.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Health Workers Found More Likely to Use Alternative Remedies

Comstock/Thinkstock(MINNEAPOLIS) – A new report suggests that three-quarters of all U.S. health-care workers use alternative medicine in their regimen, according to HealthDay.

Doctors and hospital employees were found to be overall more inclined to use remedies like yoga, acupuncture, and herbal therapy in their own lives than the general public.

Lori Knutson of the Penny George Institute for Health and Healing in Minneapolis conducted the study with information from the National Health Interview Survey.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Mosquito Numbers Decline in Certain African Areas

Stockbyte/Thinkstock(TANZANIA) -- Malaria-affected mosquito populations are declining in certain areas across Africa, according to recent figures, though researchers are unsure as to why.

The Malaria Journal reports that researchers are unsure if the decline means the pesky insects have been eradicated for good, or if they will come back in a stronger force.

The BBC reports that malaria cases dropping in Tanzania, Eritrea, Rwanda, Kenya and Zambia, according to data.

Anti-mosquito bed nets are lessening the spread of the disease in some sub-Saharan countries.

Researchers also cite that mosquito traps installed over the course of 10 years have caught insects by the thousands in Tanzania, and the numbers have drastically been reduced over the years.

Scientists captured over 5,000 mosquitoes in 2004, and could only trap 14 in 2009.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

First Babies Born Amid Hurricane Irene

BananaStock/Thinkstock(WILMINGTON, N.C.) – Some newborns have made quite the entrance into the world, arriving in the middle of a hurricane.

New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, N.C. reported Saturday that 12 babies were delivered during Hurricane Irene’s fury.

Among the “hurricane babies,” the name “Irene” is being considered as a middle name.

Eight pregnant women were reported to be awaiting delivery, according to the hospital’s public affairs department.

The hospital typically delivers 4,000 newborns a year, but estimates that the recent 12 deliveries in that short time period is about 30 percent higher than usual.

The hospital is currently on lockdown so no visitors are allowed in.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Alternative Medicine Popular Among Health-Care Professionals

Creatas/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- Nearly 75 percent of U.S. health-care workers use some kind of alternative medicine to maintain good health, a new study finds.

HealthDay reports that the study, published in the August issue of Health Services Research, found that those in healthcare—doctors, nurses and their assistants, health technicians, and healthcare administrators—were more likely to use alternative medicine options like massage, yoga, acupuncture and herbal medicine than the general public.

Nearly 38 percent of Americans use some kind of alternative medicine, like dietary supplements, meditation, chiropractic services and Pilates, according to the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine—part of the National Institutes of Health.

The 2007 National Health Interview Survey sampled more than 14,300 working adults, 18 years old and up, and covered 36 different forms of health options, including mind-body therapies and energy-healing treatments.

The study revealed that doctors and nurses were twice as likely as non-clinical health-care support workers to have practiced alternative medicine services in the past year.

Overall, health-care workers used alternative medicine the most—more than those outside the health-care industry.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Vitamin A Could Save Children in Developing Countries

Paul Tearle/Thinkstock(LONDON) -- British and Pakistani researchers say thousands of children in developing nations could be saved if given vitamin A supplements, BBC reports.

An analysis of over 40 studies which included 200,000 children found that death rates were cut by as much as 24 percent for children who were given the vitamin supplement.  Cases of measles and diarrhea could also be reduced, according to BBC News.

Vitamin A, found in foods such as oily fish, cheese and eggs, is vital to the immune and visual systems.

According to the World Health Organization, it's possible that nearly 190 million children under age 5 have a vitamin A deficiency.  That said, researchers on the study say laws should be enacted that would provide the supplements to every child at risk, BBC reports.

The researchers calculate that more than 600,000 lives could be save each year if given the vitamin A supplement.

The findings of the analysis are published in the British Medical Journal.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Reduced 'Door-To-Balloon' Time Helping to Save Heart Attack Patients

Jupiterimages/Thinkstock(NEW HAVEN, Conn.) -- Most heart attacks are caused by a clot obstructing the flow of blood through an artery.  In a medical emergency, the time it takes to get a patient to treatment can be a matter of life or death.  When a heart attack patient arrives at a hospital, the faster blood-flow is re-established, the greater the chance of their survival.  "Door-To-Balloon time" or D2B is what healthcare professionals call the time between a patient's arrival at a hospital, to the time a balloon catheter or stent is inflated in the blocked artery.  

A new study by Yale School of Medicine finds that almost all heart attack patients who need this emergency artery-opening procedure, also known as angioplasty, are now receiving it within 90 minutes of walking through the hospital door.  In 2010, 91 percent of these patients were treated in a D2B time of less than 90 minutes; many (70 percent), in under 75-minutes.

That's a dramatic increase from just five years ago when only half as many patients (44 percent) received treatment in 90-minutes, the recommended time.

This improvement marks a great success for the healthcare community and their nationally coordinated campaign to get these times down, known as the "D2B Alliance."

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio