Kaitlynn's Place

As fans, Americans have long been lovers of sports of all sorts. However, with the growing attention on reducing obesity and its consequences and improving systemic health, more and more Americans are becoming participants in sports, not just idle fans.

The Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association released a sport-by-sport comparison on the growth of various sports. Running saw an almost 60% participation increase over the last decade. Yoga participation increased over 20% between last year and 2008. Amazingly, lacrosse participation increased by over 200% in the last decade.

While it's great news that more people are being active and improving their overall health through participating in sports, this participation is often accompanied by overuse and traumatic injuries. Muscles, tendons, ligaments, bursa, cartilage, and other soft tissues are much easier to injure than one might imagine. Simply doing too much, too fast in your chosen sport can place a stress on these structures that they simply weren’t designed to withstand. Of course, not adhering to the rules of the sport, not having the proper equipment, and not wearing the appropriate safety gear will substantially increase the risk of suffering a sport-related injury.

Sinew Therapeutics offers a great breakdown of the most common injuries for various sports like football, basketball, baseball, running, lacrosse, hiking, walking, weightlifting, wrestling, polo, and so forth. Participating in sports can combine fun with work for the body and make fitness an exciting prospect, but it’s still vital that you understand what injuries you may be at risk for and what you can do if you should suffer an overuse or traumatic injury.

With the cost of healthcare at an all time high, it’s also important to know what your options are for treatment of a sport-related injury. Do you know the difference between Western sports medicine and Eastern sports medicine? If not, Sinew Therapeutics can help you determine the difference, dispel some common myths, and give you expert advice on a variety of treatment options.

Clinical trials are essentially human biomedical or health-related research studies that follow a pre-defined protocol. These trials can be interventional (addresses whether experimental treatments or new ways of using known therapies are safe and effective under controlled environment) and observational studies (address health issues in large groups of people or populations in natural settings.)

By becoming part of a clinical trial, you not only proactively participate in your own health care and gain early access to cutting edge treatment, you also contribute to the treatment and research of the disease you are afflicted with.

I get questions all the time about clinical trials. Many parents of special needs children are overwhelmed when it comes to finding a clinical trial that is disease, age, and location appropriate. I watch the clinical trial scene religiously for an idiopathic/mitochondrial disease clinical trial that fits my daughter. The two websites that I find easiest to use, reliable, and always current are:

CenterWatch


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This site has a little of everything. It is an excellent source to find news, directories, analysis, and listings of clinical research. If you are unfamiliar with clinical trials, the site breaks down the process in an easy to understand manner. You can search clinical trials and find out the who, what, when, where, and how of each trial; search for drug information; review already completed trials; and sign up for e-mail alerts about specific clinical trials. Start your search at CenterWatch.

ClinicalTrials.gov 

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This site includes current information on federally and privately supported clinical trials for a wide range of diseases and conditions. Search by topic, keyword, disease, location, etc.. Studies are updated daily. At the moment, there are 91,384 trials listed on the site. ClinicalTrials.gov was developed by The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and The Food and Drug Administration (FDA…so users can rest assured that the listings are all legit. Start your search at ClinicalTrials.gov. 



If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comment section:)

16-year-old Brooke Greenberg is only 2 ½ feet tall and weighs only 16 pounds. Looking at Brooke, you would think that she has been frozen in time as a 4 or 5-year-old.

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Like her peers, Brooke enjoys music and shopping. However, unlike her peers that are getting their drivers license, excited over their first date, eating pizza, and enjoying high school….Brooke travels in a toddler stroller, is excited about her swing, is so fragile that it takes her 10 hours a day just to eat, and still wears diapers.  She spent 65% of the first five years of her life in the hospital.


 
Brooke is a medial mystery. She has essentially just stopped aging. Doctors aren’t sure how or why Brooke developed this mutation of the gene that controls aging and development. Her bones are the size of a 10-year-old child. Her teeth are like a 6-year-old child’s. Her brain is the equivalent of a 1-year-old child’s. However, her hair and nails grow normally.

Some people may find it ironic, but aging and development are actually controlled by the same genes. When we are children, these genes initiate structure and function and coordinate change. These genes are not suppose to turn off, they are supposed to cause the body to “erode” over time. Brooke’s aging and develop genes have apparently been turned off.

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Brooke’s three siblings- Catlin, 19, Emily, 22, and Carly, 13 do not share her mutation. They are all normal in development and size.

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Dr. Richard Walker, a biomedical researcher and editor-in-chief of Clinical Interventions in Aging, began following Brooke’s case in 2006. He has been able to determine that Brooke’s aging and development genes have been “turned off,” but he doesn’t know the why’s or how’s of it. Dr. Walker says, “There’s no hope for her {Brooke}, but what she brings to science is information on how we may be able to delay aging.” They hope to find the mutation,  manipulate it in animal experiments, and possibly find a way to extend the lifespan of the animal.

While I agree that Brookes’ genes could hold the key to possibly expanding the life of a human, and there is no doubt that would be one of the largest medical breakthroughs of history, I am very uneasy about the lack of concern  or “hope” for helping Brooke.


For more information about Brooke Greenberg:

Wikipedia
TLC
People.com
Discovery News
Fox News Video