Open Arms Center joins neighbors at annual community event

Earlier today, Open Arms Center was proud to take part in an annual rite of spring in Miami:  the Good Friday - Passover Breakfast, hosted by the indomitable Josie Poitier.    The Breakfast is a very special opportunity for Miamians of all backgrounds to come together in fellowship and harmony. 

The event took place at the Biscayne Marriott hotel just minutes north of downtown Miami and it was very well-attended.   A noticeable gathering of elected officals and other leaders highlighted the event's features guests:   Dade County's quiet contributors to the greater good.    Students, seniors, and servants of the community were all honored with certificates and applause.

If you did not get a chance to come out this morning, fret not:  we are posting just a few of the many delightful images from the Breakfast below and, of course, Ms. Josie and Company will host the event again next spring, too!

More Medicaid Updates: Buckeye State Edition

Ohio selects new contracts for Medicaid program
Ohio has picked managed care organizations for new state Medicaid contracts that will provide health care services for more than 1.5 million poor and disabled people.

State officials said Friday they selected Aetna Better Health of Ohio, CareSource, Meridian Health Plan, Paramount Advantage and United Healthcare Community Plan of Ohio.

Medicaid beneficiaries will be offered five managed care plan choices, up from the current two or three.
Ohio is also upping performance expectations in the contracts by linking a portion of each Medicaid managed care plan's payment to standards aimed at making people healthier.

The plans will also have to develop financial incentives for hospitals, doctors and other providers that are tied to improving quality and patients' health.

Enrollment in the plans begins in January.

*The urlink for this article can be found here.

Bad news can lead to ... more bad news

Cancer Diagnosis Raises the Risk of Suicide and Heart Attack Death
The psychological toll of a devastating cancer diagnosis may kill patients before their disease does.
By Alexandra Sifferlin

Bad news from the doctor is discouraging for both patients and their families. A diagnosis of cancer may be particularly disheartening, and a recent study finds that the risks of suicide and death from heart disease rise in the week immediately following the news.

Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, the researchers theorize that it is the psychological toll of the diagnosis that increases death risk, not the physical impact of living with and treating cancer.

Lead author Dr. Fang Fang, a researcher in the department of medical epidemiology and biostatistics at Karolinska Institutet, and her team analyzed data on more than 6 million Swedes aged 30 and older between 1991 and 2006, using the country’s health registries. The registries included more than 500,000 people who were diagnosed with cancer during that period. The researchers then looked up the cause of death of the cancer patients and found that their risk of suicide was 12 times higher during the first week after a diagnosis than that of people who were cancer free. The risk of heart-related death was six times higher during the first week and three times higher during the first month after a cancer diagnosis than for people without the disease.

The risk of suicide was greatest for those diagnosed with more severe types of cancer like esophageal, liver and pancreatic cancer. In total, there were 786 suicides among patients diagnosed with cancer, with 29 people committing suicide in the first week after their diagnosis. The highest risk for heart disease was also during the first week, with 48,991 deaths from heart attack or stroke among patients who recently found out they had cancer.

Overall the suicide risk declined over time, but people with cancer were about three times more likely to commit suicide than disease-free people during the first year following their diagnosis.

“Both suicide and cardiovascular death can be seen as manifestations of the extreme emotional stress induced by the cancer diagnosis. The results of this study indicate that the mental distress associated with being given a cancer diagnosis may bring about immediate and critical risks to mental and physical health,” said Fang in a statement.

*To read the rest of this article, please click on this urlink.

More news about potential risk for tumors and cell phones

Cell Phones and Cancer: Critics Say Kids Risk Brain Tumors
By CARRIE GANN

Scientists are calling into question a study published last year that failed to find a link between cell phone use and brain tumors in children and teens. They say the study actually shows that cell phone use more than doubles the risk of brain tumors in children and adolescents.

The concerns come from the Environmental Health Trust, a group whose stated mission is to promote awareness of environmental issues they believe are linked to cancer.

In July 2011, the Journal of the National Cancer Institute published the first study on cellphone use and risk of brain tumors in children and adolescents, which was conducted by researchers at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute. The scientists interviewed children and teens in Norway, Denmark, Switzerland and Sweden about their cell phone use and also collected cell phone records for a portion of them. Of the children studied, 350 had been diagnosed with brain cancer and 650 of them were healthy.

The July paper concluded that the data showed no link between cell phone use and brain tumors and "argues against a causal association" between the two.

In a letter published today in the journal, the Environmental Health Trust said the interpretation of the study's results was flawed and contained several statistical errors.

Lloyd Morgan, a senior research fellow at the Environmental Health Trust and one of the authors of the letter, called the study "sloppy" and said the data reported in the original study actually shows that children who used cell phones had a 115 percent increased risk of brain tumors over those who did not.

"There's every indication that this study actually found that children have a doubled risk of brain cancer," Morgan said. "For them to just state that we don't think there's a problem is, for me, quite mystifying."

Responding to the criticisms, Martin Roosli, author of the original study, said Morgan and his colleagues provided no explanation for the fact that rates of brain cancer among children and adolescents in Nordic countries have remained relatively stable for the past 20 years, despite increasing use of cellphones.

"And to be honest, since the funding of the Environmental Health Trust depends on donates, I would not call this independent," Roosli said.

In the original study, Roosli and his colleagues did note some limitations of their work, including that a relatively small number of children were studied. They also wrote that they could not "rule out the possibility that mobile phones confer a small increase in risk."

International concern over the potential health risks posed by cell phones has gone on for years. In May, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer put the devices in the same category as lead and engine exhaust, citing the possibility that long-term exposure to cell phone radiation could have long-term health effects. Roughly 30 studies so far have failed to draw a conclusive link.

In October, the Environmental Health Trust also criticized the test used by the Federal Communications Commission to measure cellphone radiation, saying the measure did not accurately reflect the radiation transmitted to children and adults while using cell phones.

Concerns over risks to children are particularly heightened, considering the rising use of cell phones among kids and teens and the fear that children's developing brains might be more susceptible to the effects of cellphone radiation.

However, only two studies so far have investigated the link between brain tumors and cell phone use specifically among young people -- one is the disputed study, and the other is a research project currently underway in 13 countries.

*To read the rest of this article as well as to find additional urlinks on the subject, please click here.

Study: Berries can stave off Parkinson's for men, not women

Eating Berries May Lower Men's Parkinson's Risk

Men who regularly consume foods rich in flavonoids, such as berries, apples, certain vegetables, tea and red wine, may significantly reduce their risk for developing Parkinson's disease, according to a study published in the journal Neurology this week that saw no such effect among women.

Flavonoids are naturally occurring, bioactive compounds present in many plant-based foods and drinks.

In this study, the main protective effect appeared to come from a subclass of flavonoids known as anthocyanins, which are present in berries such as blackcurrants and blackberries, and other fruits, and also certain vegetables, such as aubergines.

The research was led by Dr Xiang Gao, a nutrition research scientist at Harvard School of Public Health in the US, and Dr Aedin Cassidy, a professor of nutrition at University of East Anglia's Norwich Medical School in the UK.

The study adds weight to the growing body of evidence that regular consumption of certain flavonoids may lower the risk for developing a wide range of human diseases, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, dementia, and some cancers.

However, it is the first to show the compounds may protect neurons against brain diseases such as Parkinson's, as Cassidy explained in a statement:

"This is the first study in humans to look at the associations between the range of flavonoids in the diet and the risk of developing Parkinson's disease and our findings suggest that a sub-class of flavonoids called anthocyanins may have neuroprotective effects."

*To read the rest of this article, please click on this urlink.