Month: November 2018

I was in a park field with the kids this afternoon and getting stung by mosquitos like they had never seen me before. This got me to wondering what the first symptoms of West Nile Virus would be.

After a bit of a search around I was able to find a great faq of info from the CDC on what and how to tell if you have West Nile Virus.

Q. What are the symptoms of West Nile virus (WNV) infection?
A. Infection with WNV can be asymptomtic (no symptoms), or can lead to West Nile fever or severe West Nile disease.

It is estimated that about 20% of people who become infected with WNV will develop West Nile fever. Symptoms include fever, headache, tiredness, and body aches, occasionally with a skin rash (on the trunk of the body) and swollen lymph glands. While the illness can be as short as a few days, even healthy people have reported being sick for several weeks.

The symptoms of severe disease (also called neuroinvasive disease, such as West Nile encephalitis or meningitis or West Nile poliomyelitis) include headache, high fever, neck stiffness, stupor, disorientation, coma, tremors, convulsions, muscle weakness, and paralysis. It is estimated that approximately 1 in 150 persons infected with the West Nile virus will develop a more severe form of disease. Serious illness can occur in people of any age, however people over age 50 and some immunocompromised persons (for example, transplant patients) are at the highest risk for getting severely ill when infected with WNV.

Most people (about 4 out of 5) who are infected with West Nile virus will not develop any type of illness (an asymptomatic infection), however you cannot know ahead of time if you’ll get sick or not when infected.

A new study was released over the last week showing what many older people already know, that training is a very important part of keeping you young.

The study says resistance exercise for people 65 and older can actually reverse important aging effects on skeletal muscles, to the point where they work genetically like those found in people four decades younger.

“We see big improvements … after training,” said Dr. Mark Tarnopolsky, an associate professor at the McMaster University Medical Centre.

“Many people were reporting they could pick up their grandkids, they could carry more groceries, it was easier to go up the stairs,” said Tarnopolsky, an expert on muscle diseases and one of the paper’s two lead authors.

There are several reasons for this change and most of it is in the physical changes that take place in the mini powerplants of cells and this, says the good doctor promises to make things better for many people for years to come.

The study looked at DNA expression in the muscle cells of 25 healthy seniors, who had undergone twice-weekly resistance training for six months.

It concentrated in particular on the cellular mitochondria, the “powerhouses” that fuel activity in cells. They are typically depleted in older people, with many of the genes that affect them turned on or off by age. This depletion resulted in a loss of muscle mass and many of the mobility restrictions often found in seniors.

It may seem like a backwards way to think but you can indeed eat to lose and here are four tips to help you lose by eating.

1. Plan your meals. Not three meals but instead three bigger meals and three smaller snacks. I know that we are always taught that snacking is bad but if it is not junk food than the snacking will help to raise your metabolism by confirming to your body that it is not starving and keeping your fat burning going.

2. Eat more protein than you are used to. Protein is not only a building block of muscles but more importantly your body will burn fat and protein in nearly equal parts. If there is more than enough protein in your diet then your body will not cannibalize your muscles to burn protein.

3. Strategize eating around exercise. It is important to eat properly around your exercise. Eat carbs to fuel your endurance and protein to help to repair you muscles. Just prior to working out get a lot of carbs and right after your workout take in protein to start beating out that nitrogen negative in your body.

4. Eat lots of high fiber foods. Keep yourself regular, keep your body burning food. A high fiber diet will do three things. First you will have the bulk in your system to keep your body clean and efficient. Secondly fiber will raise your metabolism and thirdly if your drink lots of water your fiber diet will help to regulate the water in your body