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Americans are living longer than ever before and most people who live into their 70s and beyond will develop cataracts at some point.

That’s why it’s important to know the risks and symptoms of cataract, what to do to delay onset, and how to decide when it’s time for surgery, experts at the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) explained in a news release.

People should get a baseline eye screening exam at age 40, when early signs of disease and vision change may begin to occur, according to the AAO. During the visit, the ophthalmologist will explain how often to schedule follow-up exams. People of any age who have symptoms or are at risk for eye disease should make an appointment with an ophthalmologist to establish a care and follow-up plan.

Risk factors for cataract include family history, having diabetes, smoking, extensive exposure to sunlight, serious eye injury or inflammation, and prolonged use of steroids, especially combined use of oral and inhaled steroids.

People can reduce the risk for cataract by wearing UV-rated sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat when outdoors, and by not smoking. Patients with diabetes should carefully control their blood sugar levels through diet, exercise and, if needed, medications, said the AAO.

If cataracts do develop, patients are urged to become well-informed about when to consider surgery, which has a success rate of more than 95 percent, the experts advised. The decision should be based on how symptoms such as glare, halos, blurriness, dimmed colors or other cataract-related problems affect daily activities such as driving or reading.

Once the decision to undergo cataract surgery has been made, patients need to be sure to inform the surgeon if they take Flomax, Hytrin, Uroxatral or Cardura, because these medications can cause the iris to move out of its normal position, leading to problems during cataract surgery. Informing surgeons about use of these drugs allows them to adjust their surgical technique.

In addition, patients who have had LASIK or other laser refractive surgery should provide the surgeon with their pre-surgery vision correction, the AAO noted, which is sometimes known as a “K” card.

SOURCE: American Academy of Ophthalmology

At least for young girls, being open and honest is the key to better relationships and a happier life, a new study suggests.

The findings are the result of work with 108 young girls, aged 14 years, who were asked how they felt about expressing their true opinions and feelings to their parents, teachers and friends.

“Authenticity in relationships can be defined as the extent to which one feels comfortable being open and authentic in meaningful relationships, and is able to represent one’s own inner experiences in the relationships,” Sally Theran, assistant professor of psychology at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Mass., explained in a school news release.

“The more that one is authentic in meaningful relationships, the more intimate and close their friendships will be,” Theran suggested.

The findings are published in the June issue of the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.

Although past work has indicated that social connections may be undermined by too much honesty, the author found evidence to the contrary. In fact, she noted that seeking to avoid conflict by sacrificing honesty did not appear to be an effective way to handle disagreements.

The results suggest that “some conflict is inherent — and probably healthy — in close relationships,” Theran said.

Girls who strove for authenticity with their parents, teachers and peers developed stronger bonds and were less troubled by depression or self-esteem issues, the study revealed.

Those girls who nonetheless chose to hide their true feelings from their parents and teachers — or were too shy or worried to share them — risked being depressed by their lack of openness, Theran found. But extra attention and emotional support from family members seemed to help diminish some of the feelings of depression.

SOURCE: Wellesley College, news release.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, most girls who start developing a year or two before their classmates don’t face any more long-term problems than their peers, according to a new study.

However, depression may be somewhat more likely among such girls, Duke University researchers report this month in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

“This is a hopeful study,” co-author William Copeland told Reuters Health.

Two decades of research suggests early-maturing girls are more likely to engage in numerous high-risk behaviors such as sexual activity, substance abuse, minor criminal activity, and clashes with authority figures. It was thought that this behavior persisted into young adulthood.

The Duke study, however, is the first study to follow a large group of girls until the age of 21.

The Copeland group used data from the Great Smoky Mountain Study, a long-term study of more than a thousand city and rural boys and girls in North Carolina. The girls enrolled in the study were followed from age 9 to 21. Of the 630 girls enrolled, 115, or about one in five, were defined as early-maturers.

Based on regular surveys of the subjects and their parents, while the research reinforced the belief that early-maturing girls have more problems in adolescence, it also found “little evidence of continued problems into young adulthood.”

In fact, the discrepancies between the early and on-time maturing girls disappeared for two reasons: early-maturers gradually reduced risky behaviors, while their on-time peers increased theirs.

Depression in young adulthood was the only exception and showed a stubborn persistence in one small group of early-maturers.

Compared to all study participants, early-maturers were 3 times more likely to be depressed as young adults: Fifteen percent of early-maturers suffered depression in young adulthood, compared to five percent of girls who matured on time or late.

The effect was particularly pronounced in a small group of early-maturers. More than 80 percent of the early-maturing girls reporting a history of behavior problems were depressed at 21, compared to nine percent of those without histories of misbehavior.

The finding offers opportunities for helping these girls, Copeland said. “We can identify them early through their behaviors and target them for intervention,” he said.

This study, Copeland said, offered “good news all around.” Although as a whole, the early-maturers showed a higher rate of depression, “most of these girls are doing just fine.”

SOURCE: http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/appi.ajp.2010.09081190v1 American Journal of Psychiatry, published first online.

A new study counters an influential theory that people with autism have trouble communicating with others because of problems in something called the mirror neuron system, which is crucial to human communication skills.

The mirror neuron system, which encompasses two areas of the brain, activates when you do something — like move an arm — or when you watch someone else do something. This system appears to play a role in how you figure out what’s going on around you and determine other people’s motivations.

In the new study, researchers scanned the brains of autistic and normal subjects as they watched hand movements and made the movements themselves. As it turned out, the mirror system responses of the people with autism were equivalent to those of the subjects who weren’t autistic.

The results argue against the “dysfunctional mirror system” theory of autism, the researchers wrote, suggesting that it would be more promising to focus on other directions in autism research.

The study appears online in the journal Neuron.

The researchers are from Carnegie Mellon University, New York University and the University of Pittsburgh.

SOURCE: New York University, press release.

Brain development in very young boys with fragile X syndrome differs from that in boys without the genetic disorder, a new study has found.

Fragile X syndrome, which is triggered by a mutation in a gene on the X chromosome, is the leading cause of inherited intellectual disability and autism. Though the syndrome affects about one in every 4,000 people, males with the disorder experience more significant symptoms than females.

U.S. researchers used high-resolution MRI to monitor long-term changes that differentiated the brain anatomy of 41 boys with fragile X syndrome and a control group of 21 healthy boys and seven other children who were experiencing developmental delays not caused by fragile X syndrome.

Detailed images of the children’s brains were first taken when they were 1 to 3 years old. Follow-up images were taken up to two years later. The first sets of images revealed that the children with fragile X syndrome had an overabundance of gray matter in some brain regions (caudate and thalamus) and a reduced amount of gray matter in a part of the cerebellum called the vermis.

The findings suggest that the genetic mutation had already started to cause identifiable, consistent alterations in brain development, perhaps even before birth, the study noted.

The researchers also found that other areas of the brain, such as the basal forebrain and many regions of the cerebral cortex, were the same in children with fragile X syndrome and those in the control group at the first imaging session. However, differences were seen two years later, which suggests that certain effects of the X chromosome mutation become evident only later in brain development.

The study findings were published online May 3 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“A number of years ago, we saw new treatments [for fragile X syndrome] quickly coming down the line,” Dr. Allan Reiss, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and radiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the study’s senior author, said in a university news release. “We wanted to provide information that could be used to guide those treatments.”

Knowing where and when fragile X syndrome affects brain development can help researchers monitor the effects of new treatments, Reiss explained.

SOURCE: Stanford University.

The eruption of an Icelandic volcanic that has paralyzed air traffic in much of Europe could also harm people with breathing problems, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

The U.N. health agency said the fine particles in the ash cloud were not harmful so long as they remained in the upper atmosphere, but could be more problematic if they fell to earth.

About a quarter of the ash particles were believed to be less than 10 microns in size, the most dangerous because they could penetrate deeper in the lungs, the WHO said in a statement.

“People with chronic respiratory conditions like asthma, emphysema or bronchitis may be more susceptible to irritation if ash is in the lower atmosphere in high concentrations,” it said.

“If people are outside and notice irritation in their throat and lungs, a runny nose or itchy eyes, they should return indoors and limit their outdoor activities.”

A British expert on respiratory disease said ash falling on Britain was unlikely to cause much harm.

“There is a massive diluting effect in the atmosphere as it gets dispersed by wind which means the amount reaching land is very small,” Ken Donaldson, professor of respiratory toxicology at the University of Edinburgh, told Reuters.

The WHO said people with asthma or respiratory problems should take “normal precautions” such as those on days with high air pollution, for instance avoiding strenuous exercise.

Donaldson agreed that people with lung disease should stay indoors if there was a measurable change in particle levels. The eruption which began on Wednesday has caused chaos in European air travel not seen since the September 11 attacks in the United States nine years ago.

(WHO paper on air pollution is at http://r.reuters.com/suz97j )

Endometrial cancer patients at medium to high risk for cancer recurrence are more likely to survive if both the pelvic lymph nodes and para-aortic lymph nodes are removed, rather than just the pelvic lymph nodes, say Japanese researchers.

The para-aortic lymph nodes, which are located in front of the lumbar vertebral bodies near the aorta, receive drainage from the lower gastrointestinal tract and the pelvic organs, according to a news release about the study.

The study included 671 women with endometrial cancer who had pelvic lymph nodes removed or both pelvic and para-aortic lymph nodes removed. Women at medium or high risk for cancer recurrence were offered additional treatment in the form of chemotherapy or radiotherapy.

Those at medium to high risk for recurrence who had both pelvic and para-aortic lymph nodes removed were 56 percent less likely to die than were those who had only their pelvic lymph nodes removed, the study found. The removal of both pelvic and para-aortic lymph nodes was found to have no impact on survival among people at low risk for cancer recurrence.

Analysis of 328 medium- to high-risk women who were also treated with radiotherapy or chemotherapy showed that having the complete procedure decreased the risk for dying prematurely by 52 percent, and having just chemotherapy decreased the risk by 41 percent, independently of one another, according to the study, authored by Noriaki Sakuragi and Dr. Yukiharu Todo of the Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine in Sapporo, Japan, and their colleagues.

The findings show that removal of both pelvic and para-aortic lymph nodes should be recommended for endometrial cancer patients at medium to high risk for recurrence, the researchers concluded, adding that the results suggest that adding chemotherapy could further improve their likelihood of survival.

The study was published online in The Lancet.

Antibiotic or antiseptic drops are the best approach to treating swimmer’s ear, according to a new research review. And while oral antibiotics are often prescribed along with ear drops to treat swimmer’s ear, this is not necessary, the reviewers say.

Swimmer’s ear — known medically as acute otitis externa — is an inflammation of the ear canal that may or may not involve infection. A person’s ear may feel blocked and touching or gently pulling the ear may be painful.

Eardrops have been the mainstay of treatment for swimmer’s ear for over 50 years, but studies have shown as many as 40 percent of these patients may also receive a prescription for oral antibiotics.

To investigate the best approach to treating the condition, Dr. Vivek Kaushik of the Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport, UK, and colleagues looked at 19 randomized clinical trials including 3,382 patients in all. Treatments evaluated included astringent (drying), antiseptic, antibiotic, and steroid ear drops; various combinations of these topical treatments; oral antibiotics; and ear cleaning.

Overall, the researchers found, antibiotic or antiseptic drops, with or without steroids, produced a 55 percent to 100 percent cure rate for swimmer’s ear, compared to a 10 percent cure rate for inactive placebo drops.

Given that all of the topical treatments tested seemed to be equally effective, Kaushik and colleagues say, doctors may decide which therapy to use based on cost, risk of toxicity to the ear, and other concerns.

Typically, symptoms will last for about six days after a person starts treatment, the researchers say, and doctors usually recommend a patient use the treatment for seven to 10 days. “It may be more useful when prescribing ear drops to instruct patients to use them for at least a week,” they add. If symptoms persist, according to the researchers, the patient should keep using the drops for up to seven more days; if symptoms last for more than two weeks, another treatment should be tried.

A prescription for oral antibiotics may be warranted in certain cases, Kaushik notes, for example when the infection has spread to the inner ear or face.

The findings appear in the most recent issue of The Cochrane Library, a publication of the Cochrane Collaboration, an international non-profit group that evaluates medical research and makes evidence-based recommendations on treatment.

People who are prone to developing swimmer’s ear can protect their ears when they swim by using ear plugs or a bathing cap, or even placing petroleum jelly-smeared cotton balls over the ear canal, Dr. Richard Rosenfeld, chairman of otolaryngology at SUNY-Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, told the Health Behavior News Service.

Those who get frequent infections can help prevent them by using antibiotic or antiseptic drops after swimming, noted Rosenfeld, who was not involved in Kaushik’s study. A home-made mix of half white vinegar, half rubbing alcohol can work just as well as store-bought ear drops, according to Rosenfeld.

SOURCE: The Cochrane Library 2010.