RENÉE BACHER
Journalism and Content Marketing
Renée Bacher covers health, medicine, pharma, Higher Education, business, travel, parenting, & pets. A journalist, ghostwriter and content marketing writer, she also creates brand narratives.
PROJECTS
heart.org
Vegetables may help protect elderly women from hardening of neck arteries, Journal of the American Heart Association Report
Study Highlight:
Eating more cabbage, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and broccoli was associated with less carotid artery wall thickness among elderly women.
ENTtoday
Help Your Patients Stop Smoking
From a simple sore throat or laryngitis to cancers of the head and neck, including oropharyngeal, laryngeal, esophageal, and pharyngeal, smoking tobacco causes many problems for patients, and their otolaryngologists are in a good position to help them quit.
February 2016
Tobacco smoking is an important risk factor for head and neck cancers, and smoking cigarettes increases the risk of head and neck cancer 15-fold, according to the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. Even...
The Rheumatologist
Phase 3 Trial Results: Blisibimod for Lupus Shows Possible Efficacy
A phase 3 clinical trial in which researchers treated lupus patients with blisibimod, a biologic treatment that inhibits B cell activating factor (BAFF), did not meet its primary endpoint, but did demonstrate evidence of possible efficacy.
Researcher Joan T. Merrill, MD, a member of the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) and OMRF professor of medicine at the University of Oklahoma, says that in a previous phase 2 clinical trial of this treatment, it appeared the sickest subset of pat...
The Rheumatologist
Looking for Links Between Rheumatoid Arthritis & Gut Bacteria, Mutations
Patients with a specific genetic predisposition for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) may want to take precautions when consuming certain types of meat, dairy and produce grown with cow manure, according to a new study out of the University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando.
The study, which assessed 100 RA patients, published in the journal Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology in January, linked the presence of the bacteria Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) with tri...
stayingsharp.aarp.org
Boosting Working Memory With Simple Games May Help Your Problem Solving
Playing games is good for brain health, and it can be the inexpensive, old-fashioned kind of games, not just those requiring a computer and a subscription to activities created by neuroscientists.
Multiple studies have shown associations between different forms of cognitive mental stimulation and better brain health, whether it's playing cards, reading books, engaging in stimulating conversations or learning. And all of these seem to be associated with a lower risk for Alzheimer's disease.
Wo...
stayingsharp.aarp.org
There's the Rub: A Good Massage May Boost Feel-Good Brain Chemicals
You probably know massage is good for aching muscles, arthritis pain and to relieve tension in the body, but did you know it might also boost your brain health?
A good massage should bring on what's called the relaxation response, slowing the breath and causing a dip in blood pressure, heart rate and the hormones that can cause stress. It can also increase your brain's production of serotonin, a chemical that, when out of balance, is implicated in anxiety and depression.
A 2012 study using MR...
stayingsharp.aarp.org
Declutter Your Home to Calm Your Mind
Excessive clutter in your home got you down? You’re not imagining it, and you’re not alone.
According to a recent study in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, “When clutter becomes excessive, it can threaten to physically and psychologically entrap a person in dysfunctional home environments which contribute to personal distress and feelings of displacement and alienation."
The study looked at 1,394 people, most of whom were American women in their mid-50s who had previously come to the ...
stayingsharp.aarp.org
To Think More Creatively, Try Clearing Your Mind
New research finds stray thoughts can undermine creative thinking.
Meditation may help clear the mind for new, innovative ideas.
Need to think outside the box more often? Your best bet is to learn how to think less, according to a study published recently in Psychological Science.
In a series of three experiments, researchers found that stray thoughts, ruminations and other kinds of “mental load” undermined creative thinking.
In the study, conducted at Bar-Ilan University’s Leslie and Susan G...
stayingsharp.aarp.org
Brainstorming Can Be a Way to Let Creative Ideas Flourish
Even as we age, we need fresh ideas to inform our important decisions, whether it's making a career change, where to retire or what to do with the family business if the kids aren't interested. Brainstorming, a popular technique that can suppress the inner critic and welcome new possibilities, can fire up creativity and address challenges of all kinds.
Curious what's going on inside our heads while brainstorming? According to Gary Small, M.D., UCLA professor of psychiatry and aging and author...
stayingsharp.aarp.org
Sleep Deprivation Can Make It Hard to Hold On to New Memories
You know you don't feel great when you haven't slept well - maybe you're groggy or crabby, and you might have a headache. But what's going on in your brain when you're sleep deprived and how might it affect your waking life?
For starters, your hippocampus, which is active while you sleep, replaying new information you learned during the day to solidify the knowledge, isn't happy with you, and these new memories can be lost.
On the flip side, sleep also filters out the useless little things yo...
stayingsharp.aarp.org
If the Ubiquitous 'To-Do' List Helps You Stay Organized, Keep Using It
Think you can function these days without some version of a "to-do" list? Good luck with that, especially given the demands of a job and running a household.
Besides, it can be satisfying to cross things off that list as you hit the post office, the dry cleaner and the grocery store on your way home from the gym. But is list-making a crutch that indicates a cognitive problem? Or is it a tool that not only keeps us functioning well, but also helps keep our minds sharp?
The answer is, it's not ...
stayingsharp.aarp.org
Phobias, Fears, and the Brain
Afraid of spiders, or are you a full-blown arachnophobe? The answer may lie in your amygdalae, structures deep within the brain that process emotions, including fear.
The two almond-shaped amygdalae are like the body’s alarm system, and you cannot experience fear, which may be essential to survival, without these parts of the brain. In fact, you can’t even perceive fear on the faces of others if your amygdalae aren’t working properly.
When researchers showed subjects pictures of spiders and l...
stayingsharp.aarp.org
Eating When You Should Be Sleeping Can Affect Your Brain
If you enjoy a midnight snack, even if you’re a healthy weight, you may want to think twice about it: A new study has found that mice that ate when they should have been sleeping did not perform as well on memory tests as their counterparts did.
Scientists at UCLA found that when mice, which are nocturnal, were fed during the day—known as misaligned feeding—they slept for the same total amount as a control group, but in shorter sleep sessions. The disrupted sleep patterns not only caused the ...
stayingsharp.aarp.org
Multivitamin Formula May Make Memory More Efficient, Research Shows
Headed to the fridge for an important ingredient, but by the time you open the door you've forgotten what it is? New research says taking a multivitamin a day may actually help.
In a randomized 2012 study published in the journal Physiology & Behavior, researchers gave participants with subjective memory complaints a task requiring the use of working memory while simultaneously measuring the electrical activity in their brains. (Working memory is the system that helps us retain information fo...
stayingsharp.aarp.org
Setting the Right Kind of Goals Can Be Good for Your Brain and Longevity
Making life goals and staying on top of them as we age can not only give us the anticipatory pleasure of having things to look forward to, it can engage us in social experiences and new educational activities that have been shown to boost both brain health and longevity.
Whether for athletes on the playing field, or dieters hoping to lose weight, studies have shown that setting goals can hold you accountable and increase your chances of success.
"Certainly if you have a goal, the chances of f...