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— Can’t get your teenage girl off her smartphone, iPad or laptop? This could cost her much-needed sleep and increase her risk of depression, a new Swedish study says. Teenagers who spend more time on screens tend to get worse sleep, both in terms of sleep quality and duration, researchers reported April 2 in the journal PLOS Global Public Health. Screen time also caused teens to put off sleep until later hours, affecting their wake/sleep cycles, researchers found. These sleep disturbances are linked to later depression symptoms in girls, but not in boys, results show. “We found that adolescents who reported longer screen times also developed poorer sleep habits over time,” concluded the research team led by Sebastian Hökby, a doctoral student at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. “In turn, this led to increased depression levels, especially among girls.” For the study, researchers tracked more than 4,800 Swedish students between 12 and 16 years of age, collecting data on sleep, depression symptoms and screen time at three different points during the course of a year. Depression symptoms among girls were more than twice those of boys, a gender difference that’s been found in earlier studies, researchers reported. Results also showed that 38% to 57% of girls’ depression symptoms could be explained by changes in sleep patterns driven by screen use. Boys who spent more time… read on > read on >

Life is busy, and some folks simply don’t have time until the weekend to work out. Turns out, that’s just fine for their health, a new study suggests. “Weekend warriors” who cram their week’s exercise into one or two days appear to gain as much benefit as people who are physically active throughout the week, researchers reported April 2 in the Journal of the American Heart Association. “You don’t need to exercise every day to stay healthy,” senior researcher Zhi-Hao Li, an epidemiologist with Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China, said in a news release. “As long as you get 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week — whether packed into one to two days or spread out — you can significantly reduce your risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, cancer or other causes,” he said. For this study, researchers analyzed data for more than 93,000 people participating in UK Biobank, a large health research database project. Their physical activity was tracked with wrist devices, and researchers compared that data to participants’ risk of dying from any cause, from heart disease and from cancer. Current guidelines recommend that people get at least 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity exercise or 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise. Vigorous exercise might include running, swimming laps, aerobic dance, fast bicycling, jumping rope and heavy yard work that involves… read on > read on >

Strokes caused by an artery tear are landing five times as many Americans in the hospital these days, a new study says. Cervical artery dissection involves a small tear in the inner lining of an artery in the neck that supplies blood to the brain. Blood can clot at the site of the tear. If the clot breaks loose, it can travel to the brain and cause a stroke. Hospitalizations for this sort of stroke have increased nearly fivefold during the past 15 years, according to findings published April 2 in the journal Neurology. “Cervical artery dissection is an important cause of stroke, especially in people under 50, so it is crucial to detect it right away,” senior researcher Dr. Shadi Yaghi, a vascular neurologist at Brown University in Providence, R.I., said in a news release. “Strokes that are not fatal can lead to long-term disability, poor mental health and reduced quality of life,” he said. “Our research found a dramatic increase in the number of hospitalizations for cervical artery dissection, with rates rising steadily year over year.” These sort of tears in the cervical artery are most often caused by a motor vehicle crash or other accident that causes neck strain, researchers said. However, activities as simple as heavy lifting has been known to cause a cervical artery tear in some people. For the… read on > read on >

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) top tobacco regulator, Brian King, has been placed on leave as part of a large wave of cuts across federal health agencies. King, who led the FDA’s tobacco control efforts, told his staff Tuesday that he was removed with “a heavy heart and profound disappointment.” “If you make it virtually impossible to create and draft policy, then you are eviscerating the role of the center,” Mitch Zeller, the FDA’s former tobacco chief, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “From a public health perspective it makes absolutely no sense.” King joined the FDA in 2022 and became a target of vaping industry criticism for ordering thousands of flavored e-cigarettes off the market. During his tenure, teen vaping dropped to its lowest level in 10 years. His removal follows the recent resignation of vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks, who said he could no longer support the Trump administration’s promotion of vaccine misinformation. The FDA has seen a major leadership turnover in recent months. Top officials overseeing drugs, food, vaccines and medical devices have either resigned or retired. In an online post, former FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said “history will see this as a huge mistake,” The Associated Press reported. “The FDA as we’ve known it is finished, with most of the leaders with institutional knowledge and a deep… read on > read on >

The telehealth company Hims & Hers Health is expanding its weight-loss offerings by adding new medications to its platform. The company said Tuesday it now provides access to Zepbound, a brand-name version of the drug tirzepatide, as well as to generic liraglutide. Zepbound is made by drugmaker Eli Lilly. While Hims & Hers offers it for $1,899 per month, Lilly said the price on its own LillyDirect platform starts at $349 for self-paying customers. With insurance, some patients may pay as little as $25, according to a report published by The Wall Street Journal. Other medications for weight loss on the Hims & Hers platform include Ozempic and Wegovy, priced at $1,799 and $1,999 per month, respectively. “We’ve now expanded that choice even further by adding access to generic liraglutide and branded tirzepatide through our platform,” Hims & Hers said. Lilly said it has no official connection with Hims & Hers. Hims & Hers said it plans to keep expanding its offerings to help people find the treatment that works best for them. “All of this is part of our long-term commitment to build the most comprehensive and personalized digital health platform for weight loss and beyond,” Hims & Hers noted. The company’s weight-loss business is growing fast. Hims & Hers expects at least $725 million in revenue from its weight-loss services alone in 2025. … read on > read on >

Insomnia and vertigo are health conditions so well-known that movies have been named after them. But only a quarter of Americans know about a condition that occurs even more often than vertigo or insomnia, called dysphagia, a new study says. Dysphagia is a condition in which people have trouble swallowing, due to nerve, muscle or structural problems in the mouth, throat or esophagus, according to the American College of Gastroenterology. Malnutrition and pneumonia are two common health problems caused by dysphagia, researchers said “When someone has dysphagia, food and liquid can go into the lungs and cause pneumonia — which in some cases can be fatal,” said lead researcher Sonja Molfenter, an associate professor of communicative sciences and disorders at NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development in New York City. Nearly 7% of Americans report some difficulty swallowing, with the percentage even higher among seniors older than 65, Molfenter noted in a news release. But public knowledge of dysphagia is not widespread, researchers suspected. For this study, researchers surveyed 2,000 people about their knowledge of insomnia, vertigo, dysphagia and ataxia (a lack of muscle control). Only 25% knew what dysphagia was, compared with 99% for insomnia and 87% for vertigo, results show. Only 18% knew about ataxia. Likewise, only 44% people correctly identified impairments associated with dysphagia, compared with 99% for insomnia,… read on > read on >

Lower levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol could mean a lower risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, a new study says. People with low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels lower than 70 mg/dl had a 26% lower risk of dementia and 28% lower risk of Alzheimer’s, compared to people with LDL levels above 130 mg/dl, researchers reported April 1 in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry. Statins taken to lower cholesterol also appeared to confer additional protection against dementia and Alzheimer’s. “These findings emphasize the importance of achieving specific LDL cholesterol thresholds for dementia prevention,” concluded the research team led by Dr. Yerim Kim, an assistant professor of neurology with the Hallym University College of Medicine in Seoul, South Korea. “Furthermore, it suggests a potential synergistic benefit of statin use within this optimal range,” researchers added. Current LDL cholesterol guidelines call for lower than 100 mg/dl in healthy people, and 70 mg/dl or lower in people with a history of heart attack or stroke, according to the American Heart Association (AHA). Those guidelines are based on a clear link between “bad” cholesterol levels and heart risk, but there’s been conflicting evidence regarding the association between LDL cholesterol and brain health, researchers said in background notes. Early studies suggested that lowering LDL cholesterol through statin use might cause some cognitive impairment, but later data has shown that low… read on > read on >

For nearly two decades, a stroke had left a woman unable to speak — until now. Thanks to a new brain implant, her thoughts are being turned into real-time speech, giving her a voice again for the first time in 18 years. The device was tested on a 47-year-old woman with quadriplegia who lost her ability to speak after a stroke. Doctors placed the brain-computer implant during surgery as part of a clinical trial, The Associated Press reported. It “converts her intent to speak into fluent sentences,” said Gopala Anumanchipalli, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley and a co-author of the study published Monday in the journal Nature Neuroscience. Unlike other brain-computer systems that have a delay, this new technology works in real time. Scientists say that the delay in existing systems makes conversations hard and, sometimes, frustrating. Jonathan Brumberg of the Speech and Applied Neuroscience Lab at the University of Kansas, who reviewed the findings, welcomed the advances. This is “a pretty big advance in our field,” he told The Associated Press. Here’s how it works: The team recorded the woman’s brain activity using electrodes as she silently imagined saying sentences. They also used a synthesizer using her voice before her stroke to re-create the sound she would have made. An AI model was trained to translate her… read on > read on >

Microplastics appear to be contributing to chronic diseases in shoreline areas of the United States, a new study suggests. High blood pressure, diabetes and stroke rates are higher in coastal or lakefront areas with greater concentrations of microplastics in the environment, researchers reported at a meeting of the American College of Cardiology (ACC). The results also suggested a dose relationship, where higher concentrations of microplastics pollution are associated with more chronic disease, researchers said. “This study provides initial evidence that microplastics exposure has an impact on cardiovascular health, especially chronic, noncommunicable conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes and stroke,” lead investigator Sai Rahul Ponnana, a research data scientist at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine in Cleveland, said in a news release. Microplastics are tiny plastic particles as small as 1 nanometer; by comparison, a strand of human hair is about 80,000 nanometers wide. These particles are released as larger pieces of plastic break down, and can come from food and beverage packaging, consumer products and building materials, researchers said in background notes. People can be exposed to microplastics in the water they drink, the food they eat and the air they breathe. For this study, researchers linked U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data on chronic illness rates with federal data on microplastics concentrations in the sediment along coastal and lakeshore areas… read on > read on >

Fasting every other day can prompt more weight loss than simply cutting calories, a new clinical trial shows. People who undertook 4:3 intermittent fasting lost just under 8% of their body weight within a year, compared to a 5% loss among people who cut their daily calories by about a third, researchers reported March 31 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. In 4:3 intermittent fasting, people restrict their calorie intake by 80% three days a week, alternating between days with no dietary restrictions at all. “Long-term adherence to daily calorie restriction is challenging for many people,” wrote the research team co-led by Danielle Ostendorf, an assistant professor of kinesiology, recreation and sport studies at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. “Our results suggest that 4:3 [intermittent] is an alternative dietary weight loss strategy that may produce modestly superior weight loss compared with [daily calorie restriction] at 12 months, when provided in the context of a high-intensity, comprehensive behavioral weight loss program,” the team concluded. For this trial, researchers assigned 84 overweight and obese people to this type of fasting, and another 81 folks to cut their calories by 34%. Both groups were asked to get in 300 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise a week, double the amount recommended by U.S. physical activity guidelines. They also received support from a weight-loss program led by a registered dietitian. After… read on > read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

Screen Time Linked To Poor Sleep, Depression Among Teen Girls

‘Weekend Warriors’ Reap Similar Health Benefits As Steady Exercisers

Stroke Risk From Neck Artery Tears Is Rising Fast

FDA Removes Top Expert on Vaping and Tobacco

Zepbound Now Available Through Hims & Hers

Swallowing Disorder Not Widely Known, Understood By Public

Low ‘Bad’ Cholesterol Might Protect Against Dementia, Alzheimer’s

Brain Implant Lets Woman Talk After 18 Years of Silence Due to Stroke

Microplastics Linked To High Blood Pressure, Diabetes, Stroke

Fasting Outperforms Calorie Cutting, Clinical Trial Says