1. Fibromyalgia, pain to depression …

The diagnosis of fibromyalgia based on two criteria (defined by the American College of Rheumatology): 1) the presence of widespread pain for more than three months, and 2) a sensation of pain to touch on at least 11 of 18 points disease characteristics (some are located in the neck, others inside the elbows, knees, shoulders, etc.)..

This pain syndrome is associated with a host of other symptoms including severe fatigue and non-restorative sleep. Most people with fibromyalgia also report psychological symptoms, including mood disorders.

This typical picture of fibromyalgia affects strongly on the quality of life. Yet there is currently no specific treatment for fibromyalgia. However, it is essential to take care of such patients.

2. New evidence of the effectiveness of antidepressants

A new study confirms the effectiveness of antidepressants. It brought together the results of 18 trials involving a total of 1,400 people affected by fibromyalgia. The establishment of an antidepressant treatment has significantly reduced the sensation of pain, but also alleviate fatigue, depression and sleep disorders. Knowing that there are different classes of antidepressants, some were more effective than others, including tricyclic antidepressants: Anafranil ®, Tofranil ®, Surmontil ®, Laroxyl ®, Prothiaden ®, Kinupril ®, Defanyl ®.

We note that antidepressants are effective in improving pain syndrome, fatigue, sleep disturbance, mood and overall quality of life of fibromyalgia.

The fact remains that the management of fibromyalgia should be multidisciplinary and include seek alternatives such as cognitive behavioral therapy, biofeedback, etc..

Unsaturated fatty acids, known as “good fats” are found primarily in oils, oilseeds and fish.

Omega-3 is relevant because in our modern diet is sorely lacking: these unsaturated fatty acids contribute to the efficient functioning of the cardiovascular system. They are found only in foods (they are not produced by our bodies), particularly in fatty fish and rapeseed oils, walnuts and soybeans.

Other unsaturated fatty acids (omega 6, omega 9.) are beneficial: omega 6 for example, are particularly present in sunflower oil, soya or maize.

For a balanced diet, nutritionists recommend to make these unsaturated fatty acids omega 6 and omega 3 fats in our diet balanced (recommended ratio omega 6 / omega-3 close to 5).

Today intakes of omega 3 are insufficient to achieve this balance.

Excess cholesterol is it related to weight?

Cholesterol and weight can be linked. Overweight, which is housed preferably in the upper parts of the body (neck, shoulder girdle, abdomen) is very often accompanied by numerous anomalies: hypertension, type 2 diabetes, elevated triglycerides and cholesterol. Even a moderate weight loss improves the health of people whose body mass index (BMI) is above normal.

Fatty foods are they to be banned permanently?

To reduce cholesterol, there is no mystery we must first change his eating habits. All fatty foods are not avoided. Avoid excessive intake of saturated fat intake and preference of fat called “unsaturated” in the diet.

Essential to the functioning of the body, cholesterol is a fat made to both parties by the liver and provided to third from food. Present in the cell wall, cholesterol gives them flexibility and strength. It also provides protection against external attack. To reach the various organs, cholesterol uses carriers that allow it to circulate in the blood. HDL (High Density Lipoproteins), known as “good”cholesterol, recover the excess cholesterol and take it to the liver where it is processed before being eliminated. LDL (low density lipoproteins) carry cholesterol from the liver to all cells. When LDLs are malfunctioning or are in excess cholesterol in the blood increases. Cholesterol accumulates and forms plaques that gradually clog the arteries. This is why LDL is called “bad cholesterol”.

1. Antidepressants

Provided that those who consume them will not increase spontaneously doses of treatment, antidepressants do not cause physical dependence, whatever the duration of their use. However, there may be some psychological dependence mainly due to the reassuring function of drugs. A sharp reduction in dosage can cause mild physical symptoms: dizziness, nausea, sweating. These effects do not occur if the dose is tapered.

2. Anxiolytics or tranquilizers

They are mainly indicated in anxiety states, sometimes insomnia or withdrawal (including alcohol). There were main effects of appeasing anxiety, relax muscles, and lower the tone in general (sedative). There are side effects, especially drowsiness, which can be dangerous, especially for drivers of vehicles and machinery. Many tranquilizers are prescribed based benzodiazepine, a substance that carries the risk of physical and psychological dependence. One person in ten regularly use and an estimated 7% the proportion of consumers that regular exhibits at the risk of addiction.

3. Hypnotics or sedatives

These drugs lower alertness and induce sleep. 9% of women and 4% of men consume * each night, and the elderly have more recourse. Such as tranquilizers, sleeping pills are prescribed most belong to the benzodiazepine family. Sleeping pills are sometimes ingested in large doses, or associated with other products, like alcohol, which potentiate the effects and redouble psychic phenomena and psychological dependence.

4. Signs and treatment of addiction

Dependence on psychotropic drugs results in tolerance requiring increasing doses to achieve the same psychic effects or do not feel lacking. To stop taking the drugs, weaning causes characteristic symptoms: significant anxiety, irritability, occasional seizures, especially among alcoholics. The risk of dependence is aggravated when the patient associates himself more products using prescription from different doctors. In addition, some patients continue to complain of their symptoms to their doctors, who by increasing the dosage, paving the way for escalating drug. The dependence treatment course based on prevention, with a limitation of prescribing anxiolytics from the doctor. Moreover, any anxiety state does not require the use of tranquilizers. Your doctor will know you administer the appropriate treatment. In cases of dependence, it will recommend a gradual reduction in dose for two to three weeks.

1. Omega-3 and depression

Long, omega-3 are thought to represent an alternative to antidepressants. But in the absence of direct evidence, supplementation with omega-3 was more reserved than the real depression depressions.

Data changes with this new clinical study focused on 430 patients who were diagnosed with depression (68% women, mean age 46 years).

Divided into two groups, one received a placebo while the others take 3 capsules of fish oil daily for 8 weeks.

2. Fish oil: EPA + DHA

Namely: 3 capsules represented a contribution of 1,050 mg of EPA and 150 mg DHA. EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) are derived from omega-3 primary, ALA (alpha-linolenic acid). Fish oils are direct sources of EPA and DHA. Indeed, the fish themselves have consumed directly or indirectly from phytoplankton, rich in ALA, which they converted into EPA and DHA.

3. Omega-3: effective antidepressants

Treatment with fish oil capsules had no effect in patients with depression who also suffered from anxiety disorders. However, only in people with depression, omega-3 proved highly effective, with an action similar to antidepressant drugs.

In conclusion, supplementation with omega-3 represents an interesting alternative to antidepressant drugs. One course of fish oil capsules can be attempted as first-line over a period of two months or in case of reluctance to take antidepressant medication.

Caution, however, supplementation appears unnecessary in cases of anxiety associated with depression!
Talk to your doctor, only he can advise the best solution for you.

1. Your risk of death increases if you use antianxiety

It is now demonstrated in a Canadian study: people who use anti-anxiety had a significantly increased risk of mortality. Fortunately, this increase is still modest. The survey studied between 1994 and 2007, more than 14,000 people aged 18 to 102 years.

If you take tranquilizers, your mortality over 13 years (duration of the investigation) could spend (on average) from 11% to 16%.

2. What are the reasons for this increase in mortality anxiolytics?

Accidents may be more common, anxiolytics increasing reaction time, impair psychomotor coordination. Serious falls may also become more common in the elderly.

These drugs are respiratory depressants and might tend to aggravate heart or lung disease.

3. Anxiolytics are they really involved?

It could be that the highly anxious or sleep poorly are in worse health than others, causing an anti-anxiety medication more frequently than in healthy people. In other words, even if these drugs sedatives, tranquilizers are involved, it could be they are a consequence of a severe disease that can lead to death rather than a direct cause of death.

Anyway, it is strongly advised not to take long-term anxiolytics. Better a natural psychological health and a healthy life rather than a chemical carrier to decrease your anxiety!

1. Surgery

Surgery remains the treatment most commonly practiced.

The surgeon removes the tumor, which will be analyzed by the pathologist, to specify the size, aggressiveness, the presence or absence of hormone receptors. These data are essential to the choice of therapeutic option.

The type of surgery (total removal of the mammary gland, or lumpectomy) depends essentially on the size of the tumor clinic. In the same operation, it achieves axillary dissection on the same side as the tumor, to detect any cancer foci in the lymph nodes examined. This dissection may be limited by the methods of scintigraphic study coupled with extemporaneous histological examination performed in the operating room, and shows the absence or presence of cancer cells in lymph nodes removed first (sentinel node).

It is important to examine these nodes because they filter the lymph that flows from the breast and across the organization. They represent the first sites of tumor spread. If the lymph nodes examined were positive, there may be cancer cells during migration in the body. This risk will determine the choice of treatment after surgery. All information gathered in the “staging”.

Different types of surgeries are performed in the treatment of breast cancer. The technique used depends on several factors but primarily on the size and location of the tumor:

• Lumpectomy: removal of the tumor.
• Partial mastectomy: removal of the tumor, a portion of surrounding tissue and lining the chest muscles near the tumor.
• modified radical mastectomy: removal of the breast and the lining of the pectoral muscles (keeping the muscles).
• or radical mastectomy Halsted operation: removal of the entire breast, chest muscles, and some fatty tissue and skin. It is no longer practiced today because very mutilating.

2. Radiotherapy

Radiation therapy uses high-energy radiation to destroy cancer cells and prevent their development. Like surgery, it is a local treatment, without any action on any remote metastatic sites. It can be administered in different ways:

• either from an external source of radiation;
• or from radioactive materials implanted directly into the breast. This is known as “brachytherapy”.

Both methods can be combined. External radiation therapy is most often done without hospitalization. At the end of this conventional radiotherapy, an overlay can be performed radiotherapy to the tumor site. This additional radiation therapy can also be applied by brachytherapy. In the latter case, the patient should be hospitalized for a short period.

Radiotherapy is often used to complement surgery, either before (known preoperative radiotherapy, the aim being to reduce the size of the tumor) or after (it is then postoperative radiotherapy, the aim to prevent a recurrence of the tumor).

3. Chemotherapy

It comprises a single drug or a combination of anti-tumor (most common), it is a treatment whose interests the general circulation throughout the body (treatment called “systemic” just like hormone treatments as opposed to “local” as surgery or radiotherapy). It can be administered before or after surgery.

If it is prescribed to destroy any metastatic foci after surgery, it is called “adjuvant”. Its guidance depends on a number of factors called “prognostic”.

The main drug treatments combine the molecules of doxorubicin (anthracycline family) of cyclophosphamide or fluorouracil. Molecules from a tree, yew, also made their appearance: they are the taxanes used in metastatic breast cancer and recently in an earlier stage of the disease.

4. Hormone

Hormone therapy is a “systemic”. It aims to prevent, in some cases, tumor cells receive hormones for their development. His administration is determined based on hormone receptor in tumor tissues.

This method involves inhibiting the production of hormones implicated, either by administration of anti-hormones, or by suppressing production of these hormones (definition: surgical castration or radiotherapy, or transiently: chemical castration).

The choice between chemotherapy, hormone therapy or both, is a function of patient age, hormonal status and the detection of hormone receptors. If positive, hormone therapy is usually effective.

5. Targeted therapies

Therapies targeted specifically to attack cancer cells without touching healthy cells.One therapeutic target is based on “monoclonal antibodies”. They are manufactured specifically for antibodies recognize an antigen expressed by a tumor. These monoclonal antibodies can be directly targeting the tumor or its environment.Trastuzumab (Herceptin ®) is one of these molecules, whose mode of action is to attack the tumors overexpressing (that is to say too much) a protein (HER2). It is used alone or in combination with chemotherapy.

Other targeted therapies will block the growth of blood vessels needed for tumor development. ”Hungry,” the latter, will stop proliferating or die. These are molecules called “anti-angiogenic” such as sunitinib.

The “borderline lesions. These cancers in situ or noninvasive, should be considered separately. Treatment can range from conservative surgery to mastectomy, the choice of therapy depends mainly on the histological type encountered.

In some cases, radiation therapy may be necessary after partial surgery. In contrast, treatment of inflammatory cancer chemotherapy based on early and aggressively, then surgery and / or radiotherapy, and as appropriate, hormone.

The doctor will perform a complete physical examination, and conduct a detailed investigation of personal or family history of the patient.

1. Clinical examination

The doctor observed whether the skin covering the breasts will change in some areas, asking the patient to put his arm in different positions.

A careful palpation of the breast can say many things about the medical nature of a lump. Its size, its consistency, so it rolls under your finger, etc..

2. Mammography

A radiograph can provide the physician with important information about a lump or swelling in the breast.

This examination can reveal tumors too small to be detected by palpation (microcalcifications, for example).

In addition to the mammogram, the doctor has other methods to aid in diagnosis.

3. MRI

Magnetic Resonance Imaging, is a means of investigation in the diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring of cancer.

Providing a visualization of anatomical sections extremely thin, it allows to differentiate diseased tissue and healthy tissue to perform a “mapping” very accurate three-dimensional tumors.

4. Ultrasound

It can produce images from the echo of high-frequency sound waves (ultrasound) sent in the breast.

Ultrasound is often more effective in young women who have dense breasts.

5. Samples

• The aspiration cytology or biopsy: vacuuming using a needle and syringe some fluid or tissue size, we will know if it is a cyst (and not a cancer) or a solid mass (which can be cancerous or not).
• Biopsy to confirm the diagnosis. This technique involves removing part or all of a lump or a suspicious area, and to examine anatomical and pathological microscope. It is usually performed under local anesthesia.

6. Analysis

If breast cancer is found, the pathologist may specify the type. Other laboratory tests, more specialized, are sometimes performed on cancerous tissue, to better understand the cells that form them.

If the biopsy shows cancer, it is necessary to conduct tests on the tumor (dose estrogen receptor and progesterone). These reviews are intended to determine whether hormones feed the tumor and facilitate its growth (hormone-dependent tumors). This information gives the physician the opportunity to decide the value of hormone therapy, either immediately or subsequently.

7. Staging

It also has a number of tests to determine whether the disease has spread to other parts of the body. They are the “staging”.

Will be performed blood tests, chest radiograph, bone scan and laboratory tests, including tumor markers (CA15-3).

Breast cancer can swarm into the lungs, liver, bones or brain, the doctor may order tests specific for these organs. All of these tests allows the physician to assess the extent or stage of disease. It evaluates the size of the tumor, the existence of a clinically node-negative, then the presence of distant metastases of the breast. This is the “TNM” which allows the physician to develop a therapeutic strategy.

8. The Treatment Planning

The treatment strategy developed by the physician depends on the TNM

T: tumor size. Of T0 (primary tumor) to T4 (tumor extending to the chest wall or skin)
N: lymph node
M: the presence or absence of metastases

Finally, the record allows for a classification of cancer: Stage I to Stage IV. Are also taken into account in developing a treatment, patient age, hormonal status (menopause or not), his general condition and certain tumor characteristics (expression of hormone receptors, for example).

1. Symptoms of Breast Cancer

The breasts are in women, a great diversity of size, shape and texture. A woman sees her breasts also change throughout his life.

These changes may be related to many factors: age, menstrual cycle, pregnancy, birth control pills or other hormones. A swelling or induration within or armpit or any other abnormal change and persistent should lead them to consult his doctor.

Each woman should also be regularly examining the breasts by a physician, whether generalist, a gynecologist or doctor.

Breast cancer can occur with other symptoms such as:

• a change in size or shape of a breast;
• a discharge from the nipple;
• a change of color or texture of the skin of the breast or areola.

The pain is usually not a 9212/signe16117 / breast cancer. However, any change affecting the breast should be reported immediately to a doctor. Symptoms may be caused by cancer or by a number of other conditions.

2. Breast cancer: mass screening

Research has proven that it is possible to detect breast cancer long before it is palpable, and that mammography combined with clinical examination could reduce mortality from this cancer.

Since the Cancer Plan, breast cancer has a systematic organized screening test is supported 100% by Social Security. Women 50 to 74 are invited every two years to visit a certified radiologist of their choice.

After a clinical examination (palpation), this practice a mammogram (breast X-ray). If the snapshot is normal, it will be read by another practitioner. If an abnormal image is detected, the radiologist practice exams complementary expansion of shots, ultrasound, and if the judge is required to practice a levy under local anesthesia for analysis of cells under a microscope.

Breast cancer in humans. Breast cancer in men is 1% of all cancers and 0.5% of male cancers. His event is so unique it is often ignored, at least neglected. However, as in women, the chances of recovery are more important than screening, diagnosis and treatment are early.