Whatever you think of the controversial new film The Iron Lady, it’s bound to raise awareness of a disease that threatens us all. In the film, award-winning actress Meryl Streep plays Britain’s former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who currently struggles with dementia.

Critics of the film say that it was wrong to show Thatcher at her worst. But educator Mary Schulz can see the film’s value.

“If we are able, from books or movies, to help the public understand that people with dementia are people like you and me who can live meaningful lives and contribute then we would be very pleased.”

Schulz, education director of the Alzheimer Society of Canada, says the fact that the chronic, progressive brain disorder will affect 1.1 million Canadians in the next 25 years is partly what led to the Alzheimer Society launching Let’s Face it! (alzheimerletsfaceit.ca). The new campaign helps Canadians learn about dementia’s warning signs and offers a download of a doctor’s visit preparation checklist.

The movie and campaign raise the question of whether dementia is the same as Alzheimer’s. I asked Dr. Bill Dalziel, a physician who has treated countless people with dementia, for clarification.

“Alzheimer’s is the most common type of dementia,” says the founder and chief of the Regional Geriatric Program of Eastern Ontario at Ottawa Hospital. “Dementia is a large umbrella term that boils down to when someone is cognitively changed compared to themselves a year ago and when those changes have caused functional impairment compared to a year ago.”

Alzheimer’s is the most common cause of dementia, but dementia is also caused by small or large strokes, he says.

Today, baby boomers’ parents are being hit with a double whammy of Alzheimer’s and strokes, adds Dalziel. “The most common cause of dementia over the age of 80 is a combination of both Alzheimer’s and little strokes. So we are now into an epidemic of dementia.” Other causes of dementia include Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body disease (the latter caused by abnormal deposits of protein).

In the public’s eye, awareness of dementia is where stroke was 20 years ago: A recent survey by the Alzheimer Society of Canada showed that close to 50 percent of Canadians lived a year or more with their symptoms before seeing a family doctor. The most common reason for the delay was the belief that symptoms were part of “old age” and would eventually go away.

But symptoms of dementia are not part of growing old.

“No one, except for a very few, has a perfect memory,” says Dalziel. “We all forget stuff, but they are sort of trivial non-important things.” Signs of deteriorating dementia include a progressive loss of memory and other mental abilities such as word-finding difficulty, forgetting names and appointments, trouble performing familiar tasks, and personality changes.

The difference between dementia and Alzheimer’s may be viewed like the difference between chest pain and a heart attack, explains Dalziel. Just as a heart attack is a cause of chest pain, so is Alzheimer’s one cause of dementia.

Early diagnosis and treatment can slow dementia and keep people out of nursing homes. Dalziel suggests a screening program for people of high risk (say, those with diabetes or hypertension) may be of benefit.

“We are currently diagnosing only 50 percent of people with dementia, and of those we are treating only half.”

Stigma plagues dementia

Denial and fear of dementia abound, says Mary Schulz, adding that progression of the disease can continue over a decade during which people, if properly diagnosed and treated, can live well. “Nobody wants to have this illness, but in essence they are the same people they have always been.”

Where are my keys?

Forgetting where you put your things is common to all of us, says Mary Schulz. “But forgetting how to cook a meal or balance a chequebook – these are not momentary lapses.” For personal stories, visit alzheimer.ca.

10 warning signs

1. Memory loss that affects day-to-day function

2. Difficulty performing familiar tasks

3. Problems with language

4. Disorientation of time and place

5. Poor or decreased judgment

6. Problems with abstract thinking

7. Misplacing things in inappropriate places

8. Changes in mood and behavior

9. Changes in personality

10. Loss of initiative

Did You Know: What is Alzheimer’s?

Alzheimer’s (which can only be diagnosed upon autopsy) is the result of neurodegenerative changes in the brain, says Dr. Bill Dalziel. Its amyloid plaques and tangles destroy brain connections and produce memory, function and behavioral changes. It is one cause of dementia.

Babies who are breastfed cry more than those who are formula-fed, a new study has found, but mother’s milk is still the healthiest option.

The Medical Research Council in Cambridge, U.K., studied 316 three-month-old infants, some breast-fed and others formula-fed. Mothers of the breastfeeding babies reported their children cry more and are more difficult to soothe.

“There is an overwhelming body of evidence supporting breastfeeding as the normal and most healthy form of infant nutrition and our findings do not contradict this. Bottle-fed babies may appear more content, but research suggests that these infants may be over-nourished and gain weight too quickly,” lead researcher Dr. Ken Ong said.

One theory is that babies prefer formula to breast milk in the same way many people prefer burgers to salad, even though the latter is much better for you.

“Our findings are essentially similar to other stages of life; people often find that eating is comforting,” Ong said.

Forget PJs, lingerie or sleeping in the buff.

Chady Dunmore admits that some nights she goes to bed in her workout clothes.

“So in the morning, there’s no excuse (not to exercise),” she says with a laugh in a phone interview from her home in Sacramento, Calif.

It’s just one example of how the busy 32-year-old fitness model and married mother of a 5-year-old girl commits to keeping fit.

Dunmore also typically treats her workouts — no matter what time she fits them into her hectic schedule — as appointments.

If she plans to work out at 3 p.m. one day, she’ll simply tell people she has an “appointment” at that time and nobody questions it.

“But I don’t say I have to work out at 3 because people are like, ‘Oh,’ and you feel bad and you’re like, ‘OK, I’ll just change it and we’ll have a coffee date,’” explains the two-time WBFF (World Bodybuilding and Fitness Federation) world bikini champ.

“The secret to my success is really setting your mind to it and committing. It’s like anything in life, if you don’t really want to do it, there’s no way it’s going to happen. You have to really, really want it.”

That level of commitment extends to Dunmore’s kitchen, where she prepares most meals ahead of time “so I’m eating really clean and I don’t have the urge to grab something that I shouldn’t.”

However, Dunmore, who weighs an uber-fit 135 pounds (and usually about 128 onstage) at 5-foot-8, hasn’t always been so committed to being buff.

During her pregnancy with her daughter, Dunmore ballooned to more than 200 pounds.

It was a high-risk pregnancy because Dunmore has a congenital kidney disease known as medullary sponge kidney. In layman’s terms, her kidneys don’t quite function the way they should and that can make her extremely sick.

It’s a disorder the New York native, who grew up in Miami, keeps in check by staying active and eating healthily.

But when doctors suggested that Dunmore’s baby was at risk for low birth weight, she began to eat like never before.

And when she gave birth in June 2006 to a healthy baby girl named Sofia, Dunmore found herself overweight for the first time in her life at 207 pounds.

With 70 extra pounds to lose, post-partum depression soon followed.

“My face got really round. And I had cankles,” she recalls. “I was so grossed out with myself.”

But Dunmore didn’t sit around and mope for long.

With a commitment to lose all her excess weight, the new mom cleaned up her diet and started exercising up to six days a week.

“I had a friend of mine who was a trainer who would come over to my house because I was so embarrassed to leave the house,” she says.

Within six months, Dunmore dropped 60 pounds.

But she wasn’t done yet.

She mustered up the courage to hit the gym and began sculpting her body with weights.

She loved the gym. And the gym loved her back.

Dunmore’s transformation was so amazing that friends eventually convinced her to step onstage in the bikini category of a 2008 fitness contest.

She climbed the competition ranks and earned the first of her two WBFF world bikini titles in 2010.

These days, Dunmore still pumps iron up to six days a week and takes a few weekly group fitness classes — usually spinning, Zumba or kickboxing.

And while she continues to follow a stringent eating regimen, she allows herself two “cheat meals” a week, including a weekly trip to IHOP for pancakes.

Meanwhile, her kidney disorder has never been more under control.

“I’ve been the best I’ve ever been. I take really good care of myself,” she says, noting it all comes down to commitment.

“If you want something that bad, you just make it happen.”

A 31-year-old Spanish woman is the first to become pregnant after having both ovaries removed, then receiving an ovarian tissue transplant.

The woman is currently eight to nine weeks pregnant, doctors reported in the British Medical Journal on Thursday.

The woman, from Barcelona, had both ovaries removed in 2001 because of tumours, Dr. Justo Callego of the Hospital Saint Joan de Deu said in the article. Part of one of her ovaries that was still considered viable was kept and frozen.

In July 2011, the woman told doctors she would like to have a baby, and so a graft of ovarian tissue was transplanted near her uterus.

Three months later, the woman had her first period in 10 years. Doctors then stimulated the patient’s ovarian tissue, which produced two mature eggs.

Those eggs were removed and doctors performed in vitro fertilization, where the eggs are fertilized in a lab setting, then transferred to a woman’s uterus.

“This is the first time in which (this procedure) is performed without (the patient) having any traces of ovarian tissue,” Callego wrote in the article.

The woman is due to give birth in July, Callego said.

Researchers in South Korea have developed a blood test that can determine a baby’s gender within the first trimester.

Parents usually have to wait until the second trimester for an ultrasound to tell them their baby’s sex because genitals are not fully formed before then. Other tests, such as chorionic villus sampling and amniocentesis, have a small risk of miscarriage, and also cannot be done until the eleventh week of pregnancy.

Dr. Hyun Mee Ryu of the KwanDong University School of Medicine in Seoul has discovered various ratios of two enzymes — DYS14 and GAPDH — which are found in the mother’s blood, can indicate if the baby will be a boy or a girl.

The study was published in the January edition of the Federation of the American Societies for Experimental Biology Journal.

The editor of the journal, Gerald Weissmann, said more work needs to be done, but the study is promising.

“This paper does show it is possible to predict the sex of a child as early as the first few weeks after conception,” Weissmann said. “At present, parents are sometimes given the wrong information about the sex of their unborn child; this test should prove helpful in resolving any uncertainties of today’s ultrasound observations.”

A new study suggests 56 interventions doctors can do to prevent the death of women during pregnancy and childbirth.

The three-year study reviewed 50,000 medical papers on the effectiveness of interventions and the impact on the survival of both women and children.

The World Health Organization (WHO), Aga Khan University, and The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH) released the study Thursday.

“A lot is not brand new,” an author of the study, Dr. Elizabeth Mason, said in a release.

“It has been more a question of putting together information in a different way and building consensus among physicians, scientists and professional organizations to lay out an evidenced-based path to help women before, during and after birth and their children. Everyone now agrees on the 56 essential interventions.”

Some of the interventions include managing a woman’s anemia with iron, immediate thermal care for newborns, and extra support for feeding small and preterm babies.

The report noted 358,000 women die in pregnancy and childbirth globally each year, and 7.6 million children die before the age of five. It’s a particular problem in developing nations. In Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, most maternal deaths occur during or immediately after childbirth due to bleeding, high blood pressure, prolonged or obstructed labour, and infections.

Just in time for the holiday season: Canada’s National Alcohol Strategy Advisory Committee has released new recommendations to help guide you in how much to consume ­– very much encouraging moderation. Recognizing that drinking is a personal choice, they suggest that if you do choose to drink, these guidelines can help you decide when, where, why and how much.

To reduce long-term health risks, they recommend no more than two drinks a day, five times a week or 10 drinks total a week for women and no more than three drinks a day, five times a week or 15 drinks total a week for men.

In the new guidelines, one drink means:

341 ml (12 oz.) bottle of 5% alcohol beer, cider or cooler.

142 ml (5 oz.) glass of 12% alcohol wine.

43 ml (1.5 oz.) serving of 40% distilled alcohol (rye, gin, rum, etc.)

They also recommend planning non-drinking days each week.

To reduce the risk of injury and harm, the group advise drinking no more than three drinks for women and four drinks for men on any single occasion.

If you are pregnant, planning to become pregnant, or before breastfeeding, the safest choice is to drink no alcohol at all, according to the document.

Now, we know there is some evidence that connects alcohol and good health. There have been studies showing that a drink a day could be helpful in lowering the risk of heart disease, stroke and even type 2 diabetes. However, while a drink a day can, in some instances and for some people, be beneficial this is definitely not a case of more being better. There are also many studies showing that alcohol can increase risk of certain cancers such as esophagus, throat, breast and colon as well as liver disease and other serious health issues.

The report also recommends that you drink slowly ( no more than 2 drinks in any 3 hours), that you eat before and while drinking and for every drink of alcohol, to have one non-alcoholic drink.

Now, I don’t want to be a complete scrooge and make you feel guilty about having holiday drinks, but, there are a few considerations to also think about when it comes to alcohol and the festive season.

Alcoholic drinks contain calories, plain and simple: One typical drink can have 100 to 200 calories. A 1.5 oz. (43 ml) serving of rye, gin. scotch etc has about 90 calories, a 5 oz. (142 ml) glass of wine has about 120 calories and a 12 oz. (341 ml) bottle of beer has about 150 calories.

Besides the alcohol, there are the mixers. Soda water for example has no calories but a typical can of tonic water has about 150 calories. Regular soft drinks are about 150 calories per can and diet pop has less than 10. A cup of juice also has about 100 calories. This time of year, eggnog is a popular drink. A cup of fancy eggnog can be 200 – 300 calories but now you can buy calorie reduced ones that will cut those calories by about half. Drinks that contain Irish cream, Kahlua or other cream-based liqueurs are higher as well – a 1.5 ounce serving having about 175 calories.

Besides the calories, having a few drinks can easily soften your resolve, making it easier to dive into that plate of nachos or chicken wings.

Check the sizes of your wine or drink glasses. If they are oversize goblets or tall 16-ounce glasses, you probably will drink more. Sip slowly and make whatever you’re drinking last longer.

As the guidelines suggest, alternate alcoholic drink with a non-alcoholic drink. Sip a glass of club soda with lemon, lime or a dash of juice or a “virgin” Caesar.

TORONTO – Ontarians are boozing more, exercising less, eating fewer fruits and vegetables and, not surprisingly, getting heavier.

“Unfortunately we’re going in the wrong direction,” Dr. Arlene King, the province’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, said Thursday following the release of her annual report, Health, Not Health Care — Changing the Conversation.

While tobacco use has flat-lined, and there are indications that fewer young people are lighting up, one-fifth of the province’s population still smokes, she said.

Her report says it’s time for an all-out battle against the risk factors that lead to cancer, Type 2 diabetes and other chronic illnesses that shorten life and drive up health care costs.

“This report isn’t just about the state of public health in Ontario,” she said. “It’s a call to action.”

Much of what needs to be done — including more exercise and sensible eating — is outside the traditional boundaries of the health care system, she said.

It’s important to fund doctors and hospitals and health care clinics but making sure kids get a good start in life and creating a sound economy that produces well-paying jobs can help ensure people don’t get sick in the first place, King said.

As an example, Ontario’s anti-smoking and road safety legislation is saving lives, she said.

King recommends viewing all provincial programs and policy through a “health lens,” setting goals and targets for improved health, measuring health indicators like infant mortality rates and focusing more health care system resources on prevention.

Her report notes Ontarians with diabetes account for 32% of heart attacks, 30% of strokes and 70% of amputations in the province.

Health officials say a good diet, regular exercise and eliminating tobacco would prevent up to 90% of Type 2 diabetes cases and 80% of coronary heart disease.

Feeding babies fish before they are nine months old cuts their risk of childhood wheezing in half and could even prevent asthma, a new study shows.

The study looked at responses from more than 4,100 randomly selected families who answered questions about their child’s eating habits and health at six months, 12 months and four and a half years.

By the time they were 4.5 years old, one in five kids had experienced at least one episode of childhood wheezing and one in 20 had experienced recurring wheezing. Of those, more than half were diagnosed with asthma.

But the kids who’d eaten fish before nine months — usually white fish, salmon or flat fish — were half as likely to report wheezing.

The findings, to be published in the December issue of the Acta Paediatrica journal, are the latest in a body of Swedish research lauding the protective effects of fish for children.

A 2009 study by the same authors connected an early introduction to fish with a lower likelihood of developing eczema.

Another study in 2009 out of Linkoping University found that babies whose mothers consumed fish oil during pregnancy were 16% less likely to develop eczema and a 13% less likely to develop food allergies.

There’s no consensus on why fish boosts positive effects on babies’ development, but many researchers point to the prevalence of omega-3 fatty acids, which can counteract the effects of omega-6 fatty acids that attack immune pathways.

The latest research also found that kids who were treated with antibiotics in the first week of life, as well as children whose mothers took the pain reliever paracetamol during pregnancy, were more likely to experience wheezing.

Tanya Sheerin is looking forward to sleeping once her baby is born.

During the latter stages of her pregnancy, she figures she’s averaging only about five hours of sleep a night. “I guess it trains you for when the baby comes home – or that’s my theory,” chuckles the Toronto mom and TV producer.

In these, the last few weeks of her pregnancy, she finds herself waking up at 3 a.m. and not falling back to sleep.

“Sleeping is not comfortable,” she says, adding in the last few months she’s also experienced restless leg syndrome a couple of hours before bed. “It drives me nuts,” she complains of the compulsive need to stretch her limbs.

Plus, she began to snore – sometimes so loud she wakes herself up, forcing her husband to go to another floor for a bit of shut-eye.

Sheerin is the kind of mom-to-be Dr. Robyn Stremler is looking for. The assistant professor in the faculty of nursing at the University of Toronto is conducting one of the first studies to take a comprehensive look at the effects of sleep disturbance on women during and post-pregnancy.

“I have always worked with pregnant and post-partum women in various maternal-newborn settings and I have always been struck by how the effects of lack of sleep accumulate in those stages,” says Stremler whose Sleep TYME study is supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

“When I started to look for advice that I could give to the women with whom I work, I found there wasn’t much out there. Hence, the research project.”

Sleep TYME stands for Sleep Throughout Your Motherhood Experience and the study, explains Stremler, will help sleep specialists learn how common sleep problems are and what factors make them more likely to occur in pregnancy.

“In pregnancy there are a lot of physical changes going on and those tend to interfere with sleep,” she says. “In the beginning, it may be due to having to get up to go to the bathroom that disrupts sleep. Then, as pregnancy progresses and you get more unwieldy, it’s difficult to find a comfortable position.

“Also pregnancy is an exciting time, but it’s also a life changer,” Stremler says. “Some women report they wake up more frequently and have trouble getting back to sleep. They end up reading, or making lists, and there may be increased anxiety as labour approaches – particularly a first labour.”

Stremler adds there is also a hormonal side that affects sleep: “Progesterone goes way up in pregnancy and makes you feel sleepy which is why many women feel sleepier during the day.”

Some women develop sleep apnea during late pregnancy and snoring is not uncommon. “Some women have trouble breathing, partly because of added weight which you need, plus the extra blood volume that’s created means that your circulation just has to work harder to get that extra fluid out of the way,” she says. “Some women even get nasal congestion which also interferes with sleep.”

Getting a good night’s sleep may be difficult before and after the baby comes, but sleep is critically important not only for women but for their families. Sleep, or lack of it, affects everything from how you parent to how you relate to your partner.

This study will provide needed insight into the impact of sleep disturbance on women, both during and following pregnancy; its purpose is to develop ways to find, prevent and treat sleep problems in order to improve the health of moms and babies.

The Sleep TYME study is recruiting 600 women. To be in the study you have to be having your first baby, and be less than five months pregnant. Participation in the study involves four telephone interviews, and participants receive a $25 gift card for their involvement.

More importantly, they get to contribute to important research on how sleep influences childbearing and overall health for Canadian families. For more information, visit www.stremlerresearch.com.

Are your legs restless?

Restless leg syndrome, or RLS, is a neurological condition in which symptoms include unpleasant feelings in the legs, sometimes described as creepy, tingly or achy. Common in pregnancy, RLS is thought to be related to the amount of iron in the blood which tends to decrease because of the baby’s additional needs.

Beddy-bye blues

According to the National Sleep Foundation, sleep problems during pregnancy include frequent waking due to pressure on the bladder, increased daytime sleepiness, discomfort, leg cramps, sinus congestion and heartburn.

Sleep better

Everything from extra pillows to drinking warm milk is worth a try to bring on a good night’s sleep. Also worth looking into: Relaxation techniques, deep breathing, yoga, massage and stretching. If you can’t sleep, no need to lie there to toss and turn, says sleep researcher Dr. Robyn Stremler: “Better to get up and do a bit of a reset.”