Enzaime Health Stories

Most would assume winning 28 Olympic medals – 23 of which were gold medals – would be the most rewarding part of Michael Phelps’ life. However, he says helping others with depression has been even more fulfilling. As part of The Kennedy Forum in Chicago addressing depression, suicide, and mental illness, Phelps spoke with political strategist David Axelrod about how he has spent the years since his last Olympics appearance coming to terms with depression and helping others. The Cycle of Depression Phelps’s Olympic wins have frequently been punctuated by issues with substance abuse and depression. “Really, after every Olympics I think I fell into a major state of depression,” said Phelps when asked to pinpoint when his trouble began. He noticed a pattern of emotion “that just wasn’t right” at “a certain time during every year,” around the beginning of October or November, he said. “I would say ’04 was probably ...

Body dysmorphia is a widely recognized condition which affects how people perceive their own bodies. Over time, the dissatisfaction from this misperception is known to contribute to the development of eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. Despite being accepted by the medical community, little is actually known about how body dysmorphia develops or the mechanisms underlying the condition. However, new research from a team at Macquarie University claims to have found evidence that could help understand how body dysmorphia can develop. In a study published in PLOS ONE, the team says they have found a “psychological pathway” which can lead to misperception of body size and shape and eventually dysmorphia. The team says that those who are more dissatisfied with their body spend more time examining thinner body parts, which then leads to an adaption in the brains’ visual perception mechanisms. This causes these individuals to perceive thinner bodies as “norma...

Binge eating disorder can lead to a wide number of mental and physical health problems which can negatively impact a person’s well-being. However, a new study may have found factors that could help pinpoint women whose quality of life may be most severely affected. According to a study published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders, overvaluation and binge eating appear to be the strongest predictors of distress and impairment among women with binge eating disorder. The researchers from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, led by Deborah Mitchison, Ph.D., analyzed data from a sample of 174 women to identify the most significant factors contributing to distress and disability in those with binge eating disorder. The factors evaluated included binge eating, body image disturbance, and body mass index. The results showed a strong association between binge eating and overvaluation with distress and functional impairment, while they found little to no association for ...

Depending who you ask, social media is either a major driving force encouraging eating disorders or a safe place to find or develop communities offering support for those suffering from eating disorders. Of course, the truth is most likely somewhere in the middle. While so-called “pro-ana” or “pro-mia” communities can promote dangerous body idealization and eating disorder advice, there is no denying that even more eating disorder survivors are using platforms like Instagram and Facebook to find others who have lived through similar struggles and offer support. One of the biggest ways this takes shape is in young women sharing photos of their bodies during recovery and messages of encouragement for health-focused eating. Unfortunately, some experts believe this phenomenon may be unintentionally perpetuating stereotypes about eating disorders across social media. Andrea Lamarre, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Family Relations and Applied Nutrition at the U...

Recent shifts in how the U.K.’s government health system handles eating disorders have led to a huge increase in the number of people receiving treatment, according to recent figures released by the National Health Service (NHS). The number of people admitted to hospitals for inpatient eating disorder treatment has almost doubled in the past six years and are now at their highest rate in more than a decade. Data collected from NHS Digital show that admissions for anorexia and bulimia leapt from 7,260 admissions in 2011, to 13,885 between April 2016 and 2017. The increase was most notable among girls under 18-years-old, who went from 961 to 1,904 yearly admissions over the course of the study. These jumps in inpatient treatment rates could seem concerning, but they are more likely the result of recent NHS initiatives to improve treatment access than the result of a sudden wave of eating disorders. The NHS has set a goal of providing treatment for 95% of children and young people wi...

U.S. Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon might look like any other male figure skater to the untrained eye, but those more familiar with the sport might notice the differences in his body: taller, more muscular, more powerful thighs, and more prominent body features. Rippon himself certainly noticed the difference. “I looked around and saw my competitors, they’re all doing these quads, and at the same time they’re a head shorter than me, they’re 10 years younger than me and they’re the size of one of my legs,” Rippon told The New York Times. These days he recognizes this is what makes him stand out and contributed to taking home a bronze medal in figure skating team competition. Not too long ago, though, he lived with a much more fraught relationship with food and the constant desire to be smaller. The 28-year-old Olympian grew up idolizing figure skaters like Nathan Chen and Vincent Zhou, whose light frames helped them accomplish quadruple jumps and ot...

Weigh-ins and restricted diets are considered a normal part of athletics, especially for those elite few who get to compete at the Olympic level. It has just been accepted that athletes have their weights publicly available for everyone to see, theoretically to provide some sort of statistical comparison for matchups. One country, however, has broken that tradition to be more sensitive to those with eating disorders. Norway has opted to withhold the weights of its athletes from publicly available Olympics data, saying they believe it puts the focus on the wrong thing. “Focus on sport should be something else than weight,’’ Halvor Lea, spokesman for the Norway Olympic Committee, told USA TODAY Sports in an email, “and in a society with a lot of challenges regarding weight focus on young men and women, our choice is to drop to inform about athletes weight.” Several Olympic athletes who have struggled with disordered eating and body image problems throughout t...

Researchers say they have found unique brain cells responsible for controlling anxiety in mice. The discovery of these “anxiety cells” could signify a massive change in how anxiety is understood and treated if similar cells are found in our brains. “The therapies we have now have significant drawbacks,” said Mazen Kheirbek, an assistant professor at the University of California, San Francisco and an author of the study. “This is another target that we can try to move the field forward for finding new therapies.” Kheirbek says the study was motivated by a desire to understand “where the emotional information that goes into the feeling of anxiety is encoded within the brain.” Anxiety is typically thought of as a negative feeling or experience, but there is evidence indicating some amounts of anxiety are actually healthy. Anxiety keeps us aware of dangerous situations and stay alert when at higher risk for harm. The problem is when anxiety pe...

Next week, February 26 through March 4, is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week and this year the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) is marking the occasion with events across the country. This year, the theme is “Let’s Get Real”, which the group hopes to do by fighting the myths about eating disorders and body image. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZuXOEjMsfw Most estimates suggest that approximately 30 million Americans live with eating disorders, but experts widely agree this number is an understatement. Because of the stigma, stereotypes, and misunderstandings around these conditions, many live with eating disorders without ever seeking help. Brookhaven will be doing our part to further this conversation and break down the stereotypes about eating disorders by spending next week discussing how the old ways of thinking about eating disorders not only prevent many from sharing their struggles or ever finding treatment, but how they harm entire demograph...

This week marks National Eating Disorders Awareness Week and this year’s theme is “Let’s Get Real”. Brookhaven is honoring this event by discussing how the widespread myths and misunderstanding about eating disorders harm vulnerable communities and prevent people living with a life-threatening disorder from ever seekiMost people think of eating disorders as a “young white girl problem.” Thanks to the media and misperceptions about how eating disorders develop, people have come to believe that only these young Caucasian females are vulnerable to anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating disorder. Obviously, the truth isn’t so simple. First off, eating disorders are a real mental illness, not a “problem” that can be caused by a single factor like “wanting to shed some pounds” or wanting attention. As such, eating disorders can affect anyone and can be mentally and physically disabling. If untreated, eating disorders can even be fa...

Being able to look deep inside a cell, study its finely tuned recycling system and use that knowledge to test novel interventions for heart disease gives Roberta A. Gottlieb, MD, a tremendous sense of wonder and satisfaction. "The cell is such a complicated network—it's amazing," said Gottlieb, director of Translational Research in the Barbra Streisand Women's Heart Center, director of Molecular Cardiobiology in the Smidt Heart Institute, and the Dorothy and E. Phillip Lyon Chair in Molecular Cardiology in honor of Clarence M. Agress, MD. Now, researchers in the Gottlieb Laboratory have invented a powerful tool that enables them to see up close and in real time how cells process unwanted, unnecessary or damaged components. Of particular interest is the disposal of organelles, specialized structures within each cell that include the mitochondria, which serve as cells' energy factories. This tool paints the mitochondria in different colors based on how long they...

Drew Logan doesn't remember being dead. He does, however, remember the day he died. Mostly, it was just an ordinary Monday. It was Oct. 4, 2004, and death was nowhere near Drew's mind. The 30-year-old fitness coach had spent the day training clients at the gym near his home in Nashville, Tenn. An avid athlete since the age of 5, he'd parlayed his athletic skills and passion for fitness into a successful career as a personal trainer, building a clientele of country music industry professionals and NFL and NBA athletes. He was in phenomenal shape, with only 5 percent body fat. But later that cool Monday evening, he would find himself face-down on the hallway floor — dead. In fact, Drew would die not just once, but three times in the same night. The culprit each time: sudden cardiac arrest, a sudden electrical chaos in the heart that stops a heartbeat cold and brings death in mere minutes. Unlike a heart attack, which occurs when a blocked artery disrupts the flow of oxygen-ri...

At 6:30 most mornings Mary Leier, NP, begins her day in the Electrophysiology Program at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, by responding to emails and telephone calls from cardiac arrhythmia patients. How can they prepare themselves for their upcoming diagnostic test or procedure? Could she help them with a prescription issue? Now that they have their pacemaker or defibrillator, how soon will they see an improvement? "Each patient is an individual," said Leier, a nurse practitioner with advanced education and training in the diagnosis and management of conditions such as cardiac arrhythmia. "Some have a harder time dealing with their condition and need support for a while, whereas others just bounce back." Having the opportunity to work closely with these patients was one of the reasons Leier decided to join the Electrophysiology Program in 2015. She also wanted to be involved in providing the comprehensive care that the program offers to patients, and she looked fo...

Los Angeles - Nov. 1, 2012 – Researchers of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, sharing raw data and newly collected genetic information from centers around the world, have found associations suggesting a fundamental connection between risk of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and genes involved in immune-related diseases and the immune system’s response to pathogens. The study, published in the Nov. 1 edition of Nature, brings together data from 75,000 inflammatory bowel disease patients and controls and marks an important step toward homing in on why these illnesses occur and personalizing treatments for them. The study also identified 71 new genes associated with IBD, many of which are shared with other autoimmune conditions such as psoriasis, diabetes and ankylosing spondylitis. “This is a real pathway to personalized medicine,” said Dermot McGovern, MD, PhD, director of translational medicine at Cedars-Sinai’s F. Widjaja Foundation Inflammator...

The Pancreatic and Interventional Endoscopy Services at Cedars-Sinai specializes in diagnosing and treating the full spectrum of diseases of the pancreas and bile ducts. In the past few years, great strides have been made in diagnostic and therapeutic tools. Today, they are more accurate and less invasive than traditional procedures. Below is a brief description of some of these medical breakthroughs. About Endoscopy and Endoscopes Endoscopy refers to the process of looking inside a hollow organ with an endoscope. An endoscope is a flexible tube with a light and an optical system. It may be able to project images onto a monitor or computer screen. There are several types of endoscopes. Some have instruments to take tissue or fluid samples for laboratory analysis. Although most are used for diagnosing illnesses, they may also be used to "stage" cancer and do what is known generally as interventional radiology. Interventional radiology uses imaging technology to treat a wide ra...

Creativity, Critical Thinking Play Key Roles in Stroke Rehabilitation Motivated by music and forward-thinking therapists, Carla Musselman-Smith is on a path to regaining her independence. Musselman-Smith, right, found inspiration and motivation in Clinical Recreation Therapist Wilson Wong’s holistic approach to her recovery. Once an avid concertgoer who would stand for hours while waving a lighter above her head, Musselman-Smith recently found herself facing a very different reality – one where she was begging her limbs to reawaken after an ischemic stroke caused severe weakness and nerve damage to the right side of her body. "Arm, I love you," she remembers saying, tears running down her cheeks, just weeks after the stroke. "Do you remember what you use to do for me? I need you to remember how to be an arm again. And leg, you have been so strong. You have to learn to do it all over again. "We will all start all over again." Musselman-Smith knows her journey to...

Young patients with congenital heart disease are living longer as a result of breakthroughs in treatment, but many still face a multitude of physically traumatic open-heart surgeries as they grow into adulthood. The Smidt Heart Institute's congenital heart team is pioneering ways to ease the burden of such procedures by combining hybrid approaches to care with 3-D technology. A key challenge facing physicians is the limited number of treatment options available to young congenital heart patients suffering from pulmonary dysfunction after open-heart surgery. Just 15 percent of cases can use the only available pulmonary valve repair procedure, the Melody Transcatheter Pulmonary Valve. For everyone else, open-heart surgery typically has been the only choice. Doctors in the Guerin Family Congenital Heart Program are harnessing 3-D imaging and printing technology to make the less-invasive transcatheter valve technology available for more patients. The 3-D printer emits layer upon layer ...

In 1996, people with HIV­–the virus that can lead to AIDS–found new hope in a cocktail of drugs known as highly active antiretroviral therapy. Average survival from the time of diagnosis jumped from eight to 35 years. That was the good news. There was bad, as well. Although people with HIV are now living decades longer, they are dying of illnesses (known as opportunistic infections) they have contracted along with HIV. “What is killing these patients is hepatitis C and cirrhosis, not AIDS,” says Nicholas Nissen, MD, assistant surgical director of Cedars-Sinai’s Comprehensive Transplant Center. In fact, liver disease is the fastest-growing cause of death in the HIV-infected population. Hepatitis means inflammation of the liver. Of the one million people in the U.S. with HIV, 20 to 30 percent are co-infected with hepatitis C. A smaller percentage has hepatitis B, alcohol-related liver disease, or any number of other liver conditions. Like HIV, the hepati...

Surgeons at the University of Chicago Comer Children's Hospital told Jessica Nelson one of the scariest things she will ever hear as a parent: they wanted to treat her daughter's epilepsy by cutting out or disconnecting half of her brain. Then something extraordinary happened: it worked. Suffering from seizures, her daughter, Brooklyn Bauer, had undergone different treatments and tried different medications for more than three years with no success. Her speech and motor skills were extremely delayed. She walked on her knees and spoke in two-word phrases. Now after surgery and recovery, Brooklyn is in kindergarten. She has come a long way from the time when she was heavily medicated and lethargic, and has even become a spokesperson for the Epilepsy Foundation's Northern Illinois region. Brooklyn Bauer and her mom, Jessica Nelson Nelson remembered how her daughter's seizures were barely visible, but she had that sense as a mother that they were happening. "She would ...

The Neuro Intensive Care Unit at Cedars-Sinai has the hospital’s first mobile robot, which allows physicians to remotely perform rounds, assist residents, and communicate with patients’ families when they are not physically present. Physicians use a joystick in their home or office to maneuver the robot around the ICU. A camera atop the robot is sufficiently sensitive to detect pupil dilation, and there is an attached stethoscope that a nurse can place on the patient to allow the physician to check vital signs. The physician’s face appears on a monitor, and a phone handset allows staff and patients to speak with the physician. The robot – named RP-7 in standard robotics fashion – enables extension of the Neuro ICU staffing while maintaining quality care, according to David Palestrant, MD, director of Neuro-critical Care and the Cedars-Sinai Stroke Program. Dr. Palestrant and other use the RP-7 between 9 and 11 p.m. nearly every night. Original Published Lin...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOSyVcUyynk An 18-inch tumor clung to Nicole Lobato's spinal cord, starting in her brain and extending nearly the full length of her back. She was 9 when it was discovered. She'd initially been told scoliosis, a sideways curvature of the spine, was causing the agonizing pain that woke her in the middle of the night. The first specialists she saw with her grandmother Debbie Lobato, who is also her legal guardian, were reluctant to offer any prognosis. They offered to do surgery but did not seem confident it would succeed. That wasn't good enough. Debbie Lobato sought a second opinion at Cedars-Sinai. Moise Danielpour, MD Moise Danielpour, MD, director of the Pediatric Neurosurgery Program, specializes in spinal tumors. Nicole's tumor was the largest he had ever seen or operated on — and as part of one of the largest neurosurgery programs in the United States, Danielpour has operated on hundreds of tumor patients. "This was a tumor in ...