Feed your brain the foods it needs – and avoid the ones that may increase your risk.

Studies have shown that people who are obese in middle age face an increased risk of dementia in later life. The same holds true for individuals who have high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

To help reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s and other serious medical problems, adopt what the Alzheimer’s Association calls a “brain-healthy diet”:

• Cut your intake of foods that have a lot of fat and cholesterol.
• Choose dark-colored fruits and vegetables, which have the most antioxidants.
• Consume beneficial omega-3 fatty acids.
• In moderation, eat nuts – which are a great source of the antioxidant vitamin E.
• Consider vitamins. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, there is some indication that vitamin E, or vitamins E and C together, vitamin B12 and folate may help lower your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

Eating salmon or other fatty fish just once a week helped reduce men’s risk of heart failure, says a new study reported in the European Heart Journal. This study adds to growing evidence that omega-3 fatty acids are beneficial to heart health – and its findings represent one of the largest studies to investigate the association.

The researchers followed 39,367 Swedish men between the ages of 45 and 79 from 1998 to 2004. They recorded details of the men’s diet and tracked the men’s outcomes through Swedish inpatient hospital registers and cause-of-death registers. During this period, 597 men in the study (with no previous history of heart disease or diabetes) developed heart failure. Thirty-four men died.

Analysis of their numbers showed that the men who ate fatty fish – such as herring, mackerel, salmon, whitefish and char – once per week were 12 percent less likely to develop heart failure compared with men who ate no fatty fish. The researchers found the strongest link with the intake of marine omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in cod liver and other fish oils.

Incorporating fatty fish into your diet
The American Heart Association recommends eating fatty fish not once but twice per week. And while many sit-down restaurants offer fatty-fish entrees, you may be uncertain how best to prepare these dishes at home.

Positron emission tomography (PET) imaging is a radiology procedure that is used to identify certain conditions and evaluate the effectiveness of a cancer treatment. Recently, a team of researchers at Jefferson found that PET imaging of non-small cell lung cancer prior to receiving radiation therapy should not be the basis for determining areas that may benefit from higher doses of radiation to control the cancer.

"Investigators are looking to PET imaging to find ways to predict if any part of the tumor would benefit from a higher radiation dose,” said Nitin Ohri, MD, a resident in Radiation Oncology at Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals. "I wanted to see if residual activity on a scan after treatment correlates with the activity pattern on a scan done before treatment."

Some studies suggest that areas that have the highest amount of hypermetabolic activity on PET scan before treatment are the areas most likely to have increased activity after treatment, according to  Dr. Ohri.

Dr. Ohri looked at the PET scans of 43 patients, of which 15 had significant activity on the scans both before and after treatment. He set up a coordinate system that divided tumors into nine regions or 17 regions for larger tumors. He then correlated the activity in the regions both before and after treatment.

Optic nerve sheath meningiomas are rare tumors that are traditionally treated with surgery, which is typically a blinding procedure. However, researchers from Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals have found that a specialized type of radiation therapy offers the same local control, with fewer adverse effects on vision. The investigators presented their data at the 51st ASTRO Annual Meeting (Abstract #2676B-261).

Fractionated stereotactic radiotherapy is a more precise, targeted type of radiation therapy that allows an effective dose of radiation to the tumor, but helps spare other structures around it. In the case of optic nerve sheath meningiomas, the eye lens and brain cells are spared, according to Robert Den, MD, a resident in Radiation Oncology at Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals.

“Fractionated stereotactic radiotherapy is beneficial because it is a non-invasive means to achieve disease control, while allowing patients to continue with their daily lives without being hindered by a major surgical procedure,” Dr. Den said.

Dr. Den and colleagues conducted a retrospective analysis of 58 patients with optic nerve sheath meningiomas who were treated with fractionated stereotactic radiotherapy between 1996 and 2006. They reviewed patient charts for technical radiotherapy information and for treatment outcomes, which included local control, visual acuity and acute and late toxicity related to treatment. The median follow-up was 70 months.

The Department of Family and Community Medicine recently received word that its practice, Jefferson Family Medicine Associates, has achieved the highest recognition (Level 3) for Physician Practice Connections – Patient Centered Medical Home (PPC-PCMH) from the National Center for Quality Assurance (NCQA). The NCQA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of healthcare nationwide.

This NCQA recognition is widely accepted as an indicator that an organization is well-managed and delivers high quality patient care and service. Less than 50 practices nationwide have received this NCQA designation, with roughly only half of those achieving a rating equivalent to Jefferson ’s.

“This is a very significant accomplishment for our group that has required a lot of effort and dedication from staff,” says Richard Wender, MD, Chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine. “We believe that Jefferson is one of the first practices to receive a Level 3 rating that has a residency and student program embedded within it. We’re also the largest single site practice in the nation to achieve this status for its Pa tient-Centered Medical Home model.”

Stephen Silberstein, MD, head of the Jefferson Headache Center, tells 6ABC that "patients with migraine have trouble with absorption, and during a migraine attack, it gets worse. They will tell you 'food hangs in my stomach, I'm sick to my stomach.'"

Dr. Silberstein explains that up to half of all migraine sufferers get frequent nausea. Of every 10 patients who start on the triptan class of drugs, only one or two stay on them.

Gabriella Iacovetti, a patient of Dr. Silberstein's, was introduced to a new option that's now being tested. It's called the Zelrix patch.

Watch the 6ABC video to learn more about the migraine patch.