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Credit Newswise — Debra Merritt, a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA), has been on the board of directors for the Malignant Hyperthermia Association of the United States for the past 20 years. She is a staff CRNA who works primarily at Women’s Hospital Cone Day Surgery Center, but also administers anesthesia to patients at Moses Cone Health System and Wesley Long Surgery Center in North Carolina Merritt is a highly sought-after lecturer on malignant hyperthermia at state and national meetings in the healthcare profession. A published researcher, Merritt co-authored “Developing Effective Drills in Preparation for a Malignant Hyperthermia Crisis” in the March 2013 AORN Journal. In addition, she was one of three authors responsible for a chapter, “Malignant Hyperthermia: Dantrolene,” published in the 2010 book edition of Pharmacology for Nurse Anesthesiology. Merritt has been practicing anesthesia since 1992 after graduating with a Master of Science in Nurse Anesthesia and a Bachelor of Science from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. A member of the AANA since 1990, she is an active member of several other associations, including the North Carolina Association of Nurse Anesthetists and Sigma Theta Tau, the National Honor Society of Nursing. Merritt has been an adjunct nursing instructor and an associate director of didactic education and research. Merritt resides in Elon, North Carolina. 

These daily fluctuations might be subtle, but that doesn't mean they're not happening. By denying or resisting your own transitory nature, you will make yourself utterly miserable.  Most of us do pick up on these changes, whether we're tuned into them every second or every few days. (How many times have you been guilty of muttering, "I feel so fat today" to your best friend?)  Acknowledging them is not only okay, it's normal. Society likes to make women out as "crazy" for having feelings, intuition, and sensitivity. We're judged by standards that were never meant for us, thanks to the patriarchy and our sexually repressed Anglo-Saxon foundation. Guess what? "Sensitivity" just means we have the gift of being able to pick up on subtle sh*t. If someone calls you "too sensitive," what they really mean "you're making me feel crazy because I can't see the subtle things you see, and I don't like that." Immediately let go of any narrative you've been clinging to that your emotions or ability to perceive things make you crazy. They don't. A problem arises, however, when you become deeply attached to only one part of your body's total experience. When your body isn't in the one exact state you are attached to, you might feel shame, anger, or sadness. Maybe you feel like you should look and feel a certain way all the time. If you desperately crave arrival at an end point, where you can finally rest from the exhausting pursuit of your body's perfection, then it's time to let that go. There is no such end point. The only way you can rest is by letting go of the attachment. How to do that? By realizing that these fluctuations are a very normal—healthy even—part of existing in a human body. Let's take a look at a handful of changes your body might go through on a daily basis that could trigger attachment anxiety.  On a Thursday you look in the mirror. You've been eating well since Sunday, crushing your workouts, and getting lots of sleep all week. You look at your naked body and think, God, yes! I look awesome. Then you put on something hot and go out to happy hour for margaritas and Mexican food. You wake up on Friday morning to find a bloated hippopotamus looking back at you in the mirror. If you weighed yourself, you might even be up three to five pounds from the night before. Now, let's look at the facts here. Did you gain a bunch of fat since yesterday? No, that's impossible. Is it all in your head? No, because as we've established already, you're not a crazy person. (You have a female superpower. You pick up on subtle changes.) So what caused this overnight change? Water retention. Due to some awesome chemistry between salt, water, carbs, and even alcohol, your body can either be holding a little water or a lot. Bodybuilders and fitness models manipulate the way their bodies hold water in order to "peak," which just means they get as dehydrated and "dry" as possible for a very temporary appearance of maximum leanness.  The "water pills" and diuretics that are sold over the counter create a similar effect. The results of a dedicated peaking protocol, which have nothing to do with fat, are dramatic. You can go from pretty lean to "holy sh*t, I'm shredded" just by playing with water retention. However, it's extremely temporary, and in many cases, it's also wildly unhealthy. At some point in your life, you may have accidentally "peaked." In my example above, you might have felt de-puffed on Thursday night thanks to a week of drinking lots of water, sweaty workouts, and eating low-sodium and low-carb home-cooked dinners. By attaching your happiness to this one small part of the experience, of having a body in which you retain very little water, you set yourself up to feel awful the next day when it shifted again. It's also worth mentioning here that the stress hormone cortisol causes you to hold water in a major way. So if you've been restful, sleeping a lot, and happy all week, your cortisol will be low, and therefore, so will your water-retention levels. This is one of the main reasons for that mysterious "vacation abs" phenomenon, when (despite eating whatever you want and not working out) your body looks inexplicably lean and sexy on vacation. If you hold a lot of water normally due to stress, suddenly being restful and joyful will bring about some fluctuations. Elevation, like traveling by plane, can also cause changes in water retention. So what to do? Stop worshipping one half of this cycle and condemning the other. There are certainly some habitual lifestyle factors worth considering and improving here, such as getting more sleep, lowering stress, drinking more water, and eating less processed foods. But water fluctuations are normal. Even someone who is super healthy will notice them from time to time. So find love for the puff.   To read full story click here Credit JESSI KNEELAND

If you were wondering why your hair was looking somewhat less lustrous than in previous years, we finally have an answer for you: it's because your thinning hair is turning into skin. For the first time, researchers have pinpointed a mechanism that turns age damaged stem cells in hair follicles into skin. As it happens to more and more stem cells, the hair follicles shrink and eventually disappear -- leaving you hairless. It's the first time such a mechanism has been identified with ageing. Unlike stem cells elsewhere in the body, hair follicle cells regenerate on a cyclical basis -- a growth phase is followed by a dormant phase in which they stop producing hair.  To find out why hair thins, Emi Nishimura and her team at Tokyo Medical and Dental University began looking at follicle stem cell growth cycles in mice. They found that age-related DNA damage triggers the destruction of the protein Collagen 17A1, which in turn triggers the transformation into 'epidermal keratinocytes' -- or skin. When the research was replicated in humans, they found that follicles in people aged over 55 were also smaller, and lower in Collagen 17A1. "We assume that ageing processes and mechanisms explain the human age-associated hair thinning and hair loss," Nishimura said.  Hair follicle stem cells are now likely to be used as a model for studying more general stem cell behaviour. Researchers are keen to point out that stem cell depletion is unlikely to be the only cause of hair loss, but suggest that Collagen 17A1 could be used as a target for hair loss treatments.    To read full story Click Here Credit Emily Reynolds  

Newswise — Jan. 22, 2016─A diet rich in fiber may not only protect against diabetes and heart disease, it may reduce the risk of developing lung disease, according to new research published online, ahead of print in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society. Analyzing data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, researchers report in “The Relationship between Dietary Fiber Intake and Lung Function in NHANES,” that among adults in the top quartile of fiber intake: • 68.3 percent had normal lung function, compared to 50.1 percent in the bottom quartile. • 14. 8 percent had airway restriction, compared to 29.8 percent in the bottom quartile.In two important breathing tests, those with the highest fiber intake also performed significantly better than those with the lowest intake. Those in the top quartile had a greater lung capacity (FVC) and could exhale more air in one second (FEV1) than those in the lowest quartile. “Lung disease is an important public health problem, so it’s important to identify modifiable risk factors for prevention,” said lead author Corrine Hanson PhD, RD, an associate professor of medical nutrition at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. “However, beyond smoking very few preventative strategies have been identified. Increasing fiber intake may be a practical and effective way for people to have an impact on their risk of lung disease.” Researchers reviewed records of 1,921 adults, ages 40 to 79, who participated in NHANES during 2009-2010. Administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, NHANES is unique in that it combines interviews with physical examinations. Fiber consumption was calculated based on the amount of fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains participants recalled eating. Those whose diets included more than 17.5 grams of fiber a day were in the top quartile and represented the largest number of participants, 571. Those getting less than 10.75 grams of fiber a day were in the lower group and represented the smallest number of participants, 360. Researchers adjusted for a number of demographic and health factors, including smoking, weight and socioeconomic status, and found an independent association between fiber and lung function. They did not adjust for physical activity, nor did the NHANES data allow them to analyze fiber intake and lung function over time—limitations acknowledged by the authors. Authors cited previous research that may explain the beneficial effects of fiber they observed. Other studies have shown that fiber reduces inflammation in the body, and the authors noted that inflammation underlies many lung diseases. Other studies have also shown that fiber changes the composition of the gut microbiome, and the authors said this may in turn reduce infections and release natural lung-protective chemicals to the body. If further studies confirm the findings of this report, Hanson believes that public health campaigns may one day “target diet and fiber as safe and inexpensive ways of preventing lung disease.” To read the article in full, please visit: http://www.thoracic.org/about/newsroom/press-releases/resources/White-201509-609OC.PDF