Government health officials warn that a dominant flu medicine called Tamiflu might not take care of all flu cases this year. Currently, the most  common flu sickness is extremely resistant to Tamiflu.

This cautionary notice is an early alert to doctors. According to Dr. Julie Gerberding, if present situations continue, we may need to alter how we treat patients this flu season. She is the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Fortunately, health officials say they are not excessively worried for a couple of reasons. First of all, it is still early in the flu season and we’re not sure that this certain strain will continue to take control through the season. Secondly, there are not that any people who take antiviral medicines for the flu and last of all, the flu vaccine appears to be well matched to the bugs that are currently out there.

But William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University infectious diseases expert, warns that doctors do need to carefully consider the danger of this new resistance.

The first case of the flu in N.C. was diagnosed in late December. Health officials are hoping that more people will get the flu shot. The supply is abundant this year.

All children from age 6 months to 18 years of age should be vaccinated against the flu, according to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They also recommend a vaccination for any adults who want to protect  themselves from getting the flu. Those strongly encouraged to get vaccinated are adults 50 and older, people with chronic medical conditions like asthma, people who are in contact with people with chronic illnesses, pregnant women and health care workers.

Other than getting the flu shot, other actions to stop the spread of the flu and other respiratory diseases should be taken. These include covering coughs and sneezes, using tissues and disposing of them after use, washing hands frequently, and staying home if you have flu symptoms.

In the United States the flu causes 36,000 deaths and 200,000 hospitalizations each year.,

The hula hoop isn’t just for kids anymore. Now adults are reliving part of their childhood by twirling a hula hoop.

They are not only having fun but getting health benefits by hooping, performing tricks and rolling their hips with the hula hoop. Hula hooping has been shown to improve flexibility and it works the abdominal muscles. It also works the muscles in the legs and arms for people who can spin a hoop around them.

Baltimore hooping instructor Noelle Powers says that some mental flexibility is used as well. She encourages exercisers in her hour-long classes to switch the direction of the hoop, which challenges the brain more than the muscles. This exercise can also bring on a meditative trance, according to Powers.

Her classes usually involve stretching with the hoop and performing different tricks and routines such as waling while hooping, or moving the hoop up the body from the waist.

She says that hooping isn’t that hard and hoops that are custom made and often sold by instructors are larger and heavier than the usual toy-store kind. They are more in proportion to the size of an average adult, so they revolve more slowly and don’t take as much to keep rotating. Powers says it’s even doable with a potbelly “and it doesn’t feel like exercise, it feels silly and childlike.”

Want to reverse a range of risk factors for heart disease? Start eating a handful of nuts a day for a year and include a Mediterranean diet rich in fruit, vegetables and fish . Adding nuts worked better than more olive oil in an average Mediterranean diet, according to Spanish researchers. Both activities cut the heart risks known as metabolic syndrome in more people than using a low-fat diet.

Dr. JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, says that the most surprising finding is that they found significant metabolic advantages in the lack of calorie reduction or weight loss.

In the study, which appeared Monday, December 8, 2008 in the Archives of Internal Medicine, the people who were asked to eat about three whole walnuts, seven or eight whole hazelnuts and seven or eight whole almonds showed the most improvement in their health. Although they didn’t lose weight overall, most were successful in reducing belly fat as well as their cholesterol and blood pressure.

Dr. Manson does caution that adding nuts to a typical Western diet that has too much junk food and calories, could cause weight gain and increase health risks. She adds that using nuts instead of snacks such as chips or crackers is a smart change in one’s diet.

According to the Heart Association, 50 million Americans have metabolic syndrome, which is a combination of health risks like obesity and high blood pressure.  Following a diet that is easy and satisfying could mean major health improvements for many Americans. People feel full when eating nuts and they also increase the body’s ability to burn fat, according to Dr. Jordi Salas-Salvado, the lead author of the University of Rovira i Virgili in Reus, Spain. Sals-Salvado said in an email that “nuts could have an effect on metabolic syndrome by multiple mechanisms.” Nuts have many anti-inflammatory substances such as fiber and antioxidants such as vitamin E. Also, they are high in unsaturated fat, which is a healthier fat which can lower blood  triglycerides and increase good cholesterol.

In the study, more than 1,200 Spainards, ranging from age 55 to 80, were randomly assigned one of three diets for a year. Although some of the participants had risk factors such as Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and abdominal obesity, none had no previous history of heart disease.

In the beginning, 751 people had metabolic syndrome, which is about 61 percent. These people were distributed evenly among the three study groups.

Basic advice about reducing all fat in their diets was given to the low-fat group. The second group ate a Mediterranean diet that was rich in nuts. The third group ate a Mediterranean diet and had to consume more than four tablespoons of olive oil a day.

A year later, all three groups had less people with metabolic syndrome, but the group that ate more nuts had the most improvement, with 52 percent having heart risk factors as compared with the previous 61 percent. The olive oil group had 57 percent with the syndrome after the study, and astonishingly, there was no significant difference in the syndrome of the low-fat group after a year.

The Spanish Ministry of Health and the government of Valencia, Spain founded the study. The publication disclosed that lead author Salas-Salvado and another co-author are unpaid advisers to nut industry groups. Salvado said that all their research “has been conducted under standard ethical and scientific rules” and that peer-review journal editors determined the study findings were not influenced by ties with any industry.

Pauline W. Chen, M.D. recently wrote about primary care in the New York Times  (12/11). She says that even though primary care is provided in a multitude of locations by a diverse array of professionals, including nurses and physicians’ assistants, family-practice doctors, general internists, gynecologists and pediatricians, primary care physicians are the cornerstone of the medical field.

As the nations foremost doctors, primary care physicians confront everything from chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure. They even address even more critical conditions such as pneumonia, intractable flu and prospective cancerous masses, tumors and lumps.

Unfortunately, for several months now, medical journals have been reporting on the approaching scarcity of primary care physicians. If present conditions continue to be unaddressed, more primary care physicians may diminish the amount of patients they keep or even have to stop working period.