All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

Stressed out, anxious or desperately needing to recharge? Grab some knitting needles and a pretty ball of yarn — Swedish research shows yarncraft improves mental health without medication. “Knitters have a creative leisure interest that can also help them cope with life and so improve their mental health,” said first author Joanna Nordstrand, an occupational therapist pursuing doctoral studies at the University of Gothenburg. “I’m convinced that this is part of the reason why so many people have taken up knitting these days.” Nordstrand, who is among them, explored the mental health benefits of knitting in a study recently published in the Journal of Occupational Science. For the study, she reviewed 600 posts from the online fiber arts forum Ravelry, where stitching buffs gather to discuss their hobby.  Reinforcing a picture emerging from other studies, their posts revealed three ways in which knitting boosts health. The hobby helps folks unwind, gives them an identity as a knitter in a social context with low stakes. It can also bring structure to people’s lives — which benefits mental health. In the posts, some knitters said they noticed the change in their mental health: When they were knitting, thinking was clearer and easier to manage. “The nurses were wanting to give me [an antianxiety medication] until I told them that I preferred knitting for the anxiety,” one knitter…  read on >  read on >

People with heart disease can stay healthier if they address their emotional problems as well as their physical ailments, a new study says. Treating anxiety and depression reduced ER visits and hospitalizations among patients with heart disease, researchers report in the Journal of the American Heart Association. Psychotherapy, mood-controlling medication or a combination of the two “was associated with as much as a 75% reduction in hospitalizations or emergency room visits,” said lead researcher Dr. Philip Binkley, executive vice chair of internal medicine at Ohio State University in Columbus. Anxiety and depression are common in people with heart failure, Binkley said in a news release, and mental health is known to impact a person’s risk of other health problems. “Heart disease and anxiety/depression interact such that each promotes the other,” he said. For this study, researchers looked at more than 1,500 people admitted to the hospital for blocked arteries or heart failure. About 92% of participants in the study had been diagnosed with anxiety and 56% with depression prior to their hospitalization. The patients were between 22 and 64 years old, and all were enrolled in Medicaid, researchers said. About 23% of patients received antidepressant drugs and psychotherapy, 15% received psychotherapy alone, 29% received antidepressants alone, and 33% received no mental health treatment. The study found that the combination of medication and talk therapy reduced…  read on >  read on >

Does your water bottle only get washed once or twice a week — or even less? Time to switch things up: Even a day or two without washing can encourage the growth of unhealthy germs in the average water bottle, one expert said.  And, “yes, you could get sick,” warned  Dr. Yuriko Fukuta, an infectious diseases expert at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. “If you do not clean your water bottle sufficiently, it can lead to a buildup of germs,” Fukuta, a professor of medicine, explained in a university news release. “You may have nausea, stomach upset, headaches. You may have allergy symptoms such as sneezing if mold is present.” She offered tips to keeping your water bottle as sanitary as possible. First off, choose the right type of bottle. Metal or glass beats plastic, Fukuta said, because plastic can develop tiny cracks that are a haven for germs.  Choose larger-mouthed bottles, because they’re much easier to clean, and bottles with built-in straws work best, with one study showing they contained less bacteria. Slide-top bottles were found to harbor the most germs, Fukuta said. Lots of microbial visitors can inhabit your water bottle, she added.  Bacteria in your mouth can get into your bottle if you drink directly from your bottle,” Fukuta said. “Food particles from your mouth can transfer to your bottle and…  read on >  read on >

Younger Black Americans face particularly high risks of developing high blood pressure.  However, new research finds that when your peers are coaching you to get healthy, it’s more likely you’ll see your numbers improve. The study of nearly 1,600 Black patients living in the southeastern United States found that having a peer coach help manage blood pressure worked even better than standard, doctor-centered care. A lot of the improvement was due to folks simply remembering to take their blood pressure meds. “We were not surprised to see this greater benefit in younger patients,” said first author and study lead Dr. Monika Safford. “We know this is a population that has more room for improvement, because they are less likely to take their medications regularly.”  Safford is chief of general internal medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, in New York City. The study group consisted of Black Americans averaging 58 years of age, treated at rural health centers in Alabama and North Carolina. All had uncontrolled high blood pressure at the start of the study, which ran from 2016 through 2021. Folks either received “usual care” for their hypertension (patients were educated about blood pressure and given a monitor to use at home), or they got usual care enhanced with peer coaches — non-clinicians who were trained to give participants information, support…  read on >  read on >

For the first time, the United States has fallen out of the top 20 spots on the annual world’s happiest nations list. Americans are now No. 23, far behind the top five countries — Finland (No. 1), Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and Israel.  “The United States of America (23rd) has fallen out of the top 20 for the first time since the World Happiness Report (WHP) was first published in 2012, driven by a large drop in the wellbeing of Americans under 30,” the World Happiness Report said in a news release. The U.S. placed 15th in last year’s rankings. This decline may not come as a surprise to many Americans, with U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy citing rising levels of anxiety and mental health issues among the young as a “devastating” crisis as far back as 2021. The new global happiness tally was issued to coincide with the United Nations’ International Day of Happiness. It’s based on citizens’ responses from more than 140 nations and is “powered by data from the Gallup World Poll and analysed by some of the world’s leading wellbeing scientists,” the WHP explained. Rounding out the top 10 countries on the list, beginning with No. 6, are The Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Australia. Canada placed 15th and the United Kingdom, No. 20.  At the bottom of the 143-nation list: Afghanistan. …  read on >  read on >

About 1 in every 10 U.S. children ages 5 to 17 has been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to the latest government statistics. The data from the National Health Interview Survey covers the years 2020 through 2022 and came from in-person or phone interviews involving a representative sample of American homes. It found that 11.3% of school-age children have been diagnosed with ADHD, with boys more likely to have this diagnosis (14.5%) than girls (8%), according to report authors Cynthia Reuben and Nazik Elgaddal, of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). ADHD is diagnosed more often among white children (13.4%) than Black youngsters (10.8%) or Hispanic (8.9%) kids, the survey also showed.  Family income seemed to matter, too:  As income levels rose, the rate of child ADHD diagnoses declined. Access to medical care also seemed to influence whether or not a child was diagnosed with ADHD.  For example, while 14.4% percent of school-age kids on public health insurance (such as Medicaid) had an ADHD diagnosis, that fell to 9.7% of children covered by private insurance, and 6.3% of kids from uninsured families, the report found.  The findings were published March 20 as an NCHS Data Brief. The NCHS is part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More information Find out more about diagnosing ADHD at the Cleveland Clinic.…  read on >  read on >

Exercise can help women better cope with the rigors of advanced breast cancer, a new study says. Patients had less pain and fatigue, as well as an improved quality of life, after taking part in a regular exercise program, researchers reported today at the European Breast Cancer Conference in Milan, Italy. The findings show that patients with breast cancer that’s spread should be offered exercise as part of their treatment regimen, said researcher Anouk Hiensch, an assistant professor of epidemiology and health economics at University Medical Center Utrecht in The Netherlands. “Patients with metastatic cancer often undergo continuous treatment that aims to prolong their life,” Hiensch said in a news release. “Thanks to these treatments, many patients with metastatic cancer live longer, but many also report a deteriorating quality of life over time,” he added. “We therefore need supportive care strategies, like exercise, that make the lives of these patients better.” For this study, 357 patients with advanced breast cancer were recruited at one of eight cancer centers in Germany, Poland, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands and Australia. Their average age was 55. Half were randomly assigned a nine-month exercise program alongside cancer therapy, while the other half got usual cancer care. The exercise group worked out twice a week, with a personalized training regimen that included resistance, aerobic and balance exercises. Patients in both groups…  read on >  read on >

Planting trees and bushes near busy highways helps clear the air of harmful air pollutants from motor vehicles, new research affirms. “They provide benefits that go beyond aesthetics,” Roby Greenwald, an associate professor of public health at Georgia State University in Atlanta, said in a university news release. “But,” he added, “I don’t want to give anyone the impression that we can solve all of the problems associated with motor vehicle emissions simply by planting trees.” Greenwald is the lead author of a new study that sampled air quality along five Atlanta-area highways and interstates. The findings were recently published in the journal PLoS One. When air at sites with natural or ornamental vegetation was compared with that from similar sites without vegetation, the results were clear: Soot levels were 37% lower and ultrafine particles, 7% lower.  Vegetation doesn’t, however, reduce hazardous carbon dioxide emissions or ozone pollution, Greenwald emphasized. “Trees and bushes near roadways don’t solve the problem of air pollution caused by motor vehicles, but they can help reduce the severity of the problem,” he said in the news release. Motor vehicle exhaust has been linked to asthma, chronic bronchitis, lung cancer and heart attacks, and remedies are urgently needed, researchers said.  In the U.S., 45 million people live, work or go to school within 300 feet of a major highway, they pointed…  read on >  read on >

— Boys who drink lots of sugary soda and fruit juice could be more likely to develop type 2 diabetes later in life, a new study has found. Each daily 8-ounce serving of sugary drinks during a boy’s childhood is associated with a 34% increase in insulin resistance by the time they are teens, researchers found. Sugary drinks and fruit juices also were associated with increases in blood sugar levels, results show. “While these findings are preliminary, they support the existing evidence about the potential relationship between beverages with added sugar and long-term risk of Type 2 diabetes in children,” lead researcher Soren Harnois-Leblanc, a registered dietitian and postdoctoral researcher at Harvard Medical School, said in a news release. For the study, researchers tracked the health of almost 500 Massachusetts children taking part in an ongoing long-term study of women and their children. As part of the study, dietary records were kept on the childen. Nearly two-thirds of U.S. kids and teens consume at least one sugary drink – soda, lemonade, energy drinks and the like – every day, according to the American Heart Association. Eating too many foods with added sugars raises a person’s risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and tooth decay, researchers said. For the new study, researchers estimated how much sugary drinks and fruit juices kids…  read on >  read on >

People who are double-jointed might be at increased risk of developing long COVID, a new study reports. Double-jointed folks are 30% more likely to not fully recover from COVID-19 infection, compared with those who are less flexible, researchers report in the journal BMJ Public Health. They also are more likely to experience the persistent fatigue associated with long COVID, results show. These findings demonstrate how COVID attacks different parts of the body, taking advantage of whatever it finds, researchers said. Long COVID is more likely in people with health problems also shared among the double-jointed, researchers noted – fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, migraine, allergies, anxiety, depression and back pain. The presence of what the researchers called “joint laxity” gives “an important clue to differences in connective tissue composition that can affect multiple bodily systems,” explained the research team. It was led by Dr. Jessica Eccles, a clinical neuroscientist with Brighton and Sussex Medical School in Brighton, U.K. For the study, researchers analyzed data on more than 3,000 participants in a COVID symptom study. About 1 in 3 people said they had not fully recovered from their last bout with COVID, and among them nearly 30% were double-jointed. After accounting for other risks, double-jointedness was strongly associated with a failure to fully recover from COVID infection and higher levels of fatigue. Long COVID is probably a…  read on >  read on >