Antipsychotics can substantially increase dementia patients’ risk of many serious health problems, a new study warns. Dementia patients prescribed antipsychotics have increased risk of stroke, blood clots, heart attack, heart failure, bone fractures, pneumonia and kidney damage, researchers reported April 17 in the BMJ. “A move away from the overprescription of antipsychotics is overdue,” concluded the research team led by Pearl Mok, a research fellow with the University of Manchester in England. The study adds impetus to an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services into the overuse of antipsychotic drugs in nursing homes. The investigation, announced last year, was launched in response to reports that some nursing homes might be falsely labeling patients as schizophrenic so they can be given antipsychotic drugs. For the new study, researchers analyzed data on nearly 174,000 people in England diagnosed with dementia between January 1988 and May 2018, at an average age of 82. More than 35,500 of those dementia patients had been prescribed an antipsychotic, and their health profiles were compared against up to 15 randomly selected patients who hadn’t used an antipsychotic. Antipsychotic use more than doubled the risk of pneumonia among dementia patients, researchers found. About 4.5% of dementia patients on antipsychotic drugs wound up developing pneumonia within three months of starting the meds, versus 1.5%  of non-users. The drugs were also…  read on >  read on >

Zepbound, one of the wildly popular weight-loss drugs that millions of Americans now take, eased sleep apnea in obese adults in two company trials, drug maker Eli Lilly announced Wednesday. First approved to treat obesity by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last November, Zepbound’s power was significant: It reduced sleep apnea severity by nearly two-thirds in patients. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) “impacts 80 million adults in the U.S., with more than 20 million living with moderate-to-severe OSA. However, 85% of OSA cases go undiagnosed and therefore untreated,” Dr. Jeff Emmick, senior vice president of product development at Lilly, said in a company news release announcing the results. “Addressing this unmet need head-on is critical, and while there are pharmaceutical treatments for the excessive sleepiness associated with OSA, tirzepatide [Zepbound] has the potential to be the first pharmaceutical treatment for the underlying disease,” he added. Importantly, the results have not yet been published in a medical journal. In the two studies, researchers looked at whether Zepbound worked better than a placebo in reducing how many times per hour, on average, a person partly or fully stopped breathing while sleeping. In the first study, sleep apnea patients did not use CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machines, which blow air into the airway to keep it from collapsing during sleep. Patients in the second study did use the machines. After 52 weeks, Zepbound…  read on >  read on >

Want to feel happier? Live in or near a place with a rich diversity of nature, a new study says. Environments with plentiful natural features — trees, birds, plants and rivers — are associated with better mental well-being than the more spartan landscapes of suburbia, researchers found. Further, spending time in areas like this can provide benefits that last up to eight hours afterward, the study claims. “Our results highlight that by protecting and promoting natural diversity we can maximize the benefits of nature for mental well-being,” said study author Ryan Hammoud, a research assistant with King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience. For examples, cities could improve the mental well-being of residents by designing parks “which mirror the biodiversity of natural ecosystems,” rather than maintaining green spaces with mowed lawns and sparse features, Hammoud said. “By showing how natural diversity boosts our mental well-being, we provide a compelling basis for how to create greener and healthier urban spaces,” Hammoud said. For the study, researchers had nearly 2,000 people fill out three questionnaires a day for two weeks about their current environment and their mental health. The study ran between April 2018 and September 2023, and collected more than 41,000 assessments. Researchers defined natural diversity by how many out of four natural features — trees, plants, birds and water — were present in…  read on >  read on >

Most folks think of blinking as the eyes’ version of windshield wipers, clearing the eye of debris and maybe lubricating it, too. But blinking is much more than that, researchers report: It also helps the brain process what it’s seeing. That’s perhaps counterintuitive: Wouldn’t it make sense to not blink, so eyes are receiving an uninterrupted stream of information? Already, scientists have long known that people blink far more often than is needed just to moisten the eye. Investigating further, a team led by Michele Rucci, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, tracked the eye movements of folks looking at different types of stimuli. They combined that data with computer modeling and found that blinking enhances a person’s ability to track “big, gradually changing patterns” in a visual field, according to a university news release. Blinking does so by altering light patterns as they strike and stimulate the eye’s retina. It creates a different kind of ‘visual signaling’ than would occur if eyes simply remained open at all times, the researchers explained. So, “contrary to common assumption, blinks improve — rather than disrupt– visual processing, amply compensating for the loss in stimulus exposure,” said study first author Bin Yang, a graduate student working in Rucci’s lab. The findings, published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science,…  read on >  read on >

Tapping the power of the small brain region called the cerebellum could improve patients’ ability to move cutting-edge robotic limbs, a new study suggests. The cerebellum is an ancient structure located under the brain, just above where the spinal cord connects to the brain. This structure has largely been overlooked by prosthetics researchers in favor of the cerebral cortex, which is the outermost layer of tissue covering the brain, researchers noted. But lab studies with rats show that the cerebellum can play a key role in controlling the movement of objects using brain waves. “The cerebellum has a well-known role in movement but has been ignored in neuroprosthetic research,” said researcher Tanuj Gulati, an assistant professor of biomedical sciences and neurology at the Cedars-Sinai Center for Neural Science and Medicine, in Los Angeles. “We are the first to record what is happening in the cerebellum as the brain learns to manipulate these devices, and we found that its involvement is essential for device use,” Gulati added in a Cedars-Sinai news release. Currently, experimental robot devices are controlled with brain waves through electrodes permanently implanted in regions of the cerebral cortex known to help manage movement of the human body. This technique has allowed patients to control robot limbs, motorized wheelchairs and computer keyboards, researchers noted. To see how the cerebellum contributes to motor control, researchers…  read on >  read on >