Smoking more than doubles the risk of unexplained strokes among younger adults, a new study warns. And heavy smoking is even worse, with stroke risk more than quadrupled among adults who smoke more than a pack of cigarettes every day for 20 years compared to people who don’t smoke, researchers found. “Our findings suggest that continued public health efforts around preventing smoking, especially heavy smoking, may be an important way to help reduce the number of strokes happening to young people,” lead researcher Phillip Ferdinand with Keele University in the U.K said in a news release. For the study, researchers focused on a type of stroke called cryptogenic stroke. These strokes are caused by a blockage of blood flow, but it’s not clear what caused the clog. “While smoking has long been linked to ischemic stroke, little is known about how smoking affects people under 50, especially in those with unexplained stroke,” Ferdinand said. His team compared the medical records of 546 people aged 18 to 49 who suffered an unexplained stroke, to 546 people of matched age and sex who hadn’t had a stroke. About 33% of smokers had suffered an unexplained stroke, compared to 15% of non-smokers, researchers found. Gender, age and smoking intensity all played a role in stroke risk among younger adults, results show. Male smokers had more than three times…  read on >  read on >

A radioactive gas could be contributing to asthma among schoolkids, researchers have found. Children exposed to elevated levels of radon gas tended to have more asthma symptoms, results show. “Residential radon has not previously been described as an environmental risk factor for asthma,” a team led by Dr. Wanda Phipatanakul, director of immunology research with Boston Children’s Hospital, concluded. “For the first time, we demonstrate a relationship between residential radon exposure and airway inflammation and asthma symptoms among school‐aged children with asthma,” researchers wrote recently in the journal Pediatric Pulmonology. Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that’s odorless and invisible, occurring to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It emanates from the breakdown of trace amounts of uranium found in soil. Homes can fill with radon as it seeps out of soil and up through cracks and crevices, the CDC says. It is the second-leading cause of lung cancer deaths in the U.S. after cigarette smoke. For the study, researchers tracked the health of nearly 300 children with asthma attending inner-city schools. The team compared kids’ radon exposure in their homes — estimated based on ZIP code — to their asthma symptoms. Asthmatic kids exposed to radon tended to have more days with asthma symptom flare-ups, researchers found. They also suffered from increased airway inflammation as warm weather turned cold. “It…  read on >  read on >

The societal stress and stigma of being LGBTQ+ can increase a person’s risk of mental health problems, a new study suggests. People in sexual and gender minorities are more likely than heterosexuals to suffer from problems like anxiety, depression, PTSD, bipolar disorder, ADHD, eating disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder, researchers reported recently in JAMA Network Open. But they emphasized that these mental health problems are not caused by these folks’ sexual and gender identity, but “reflect the stigma and minority stress experienced by these individuals.” Factors such as “limited legal protections, exposure to violence, lack of access to gender-affirming treatments, and weaker social support systems” affect LGBTQ+ people physically and mentally, “heightening the risk of mental health issues over time,” a team led by senior author Marvin Langston concluded. Langston is an assistant professor of epidemiology and population health at Stanford University. For the study, researchers analyzed responses from nearly 270,000 people participating in the All of Us Research Program, a national project designed to explore mental health disparities.  Of those participants, more than 22,000 self-identified as a member of a sexual or gender minority. The study compared people’s risk for 10 mental health conditions: anxiety, attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD), autism, bipolar, eating disorder, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), personality disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and schizophrenia. Results show that people in sexual or gender minorities…  read on >  read on >

People with inflammatory arthritis run a substantially increased risk for mood disorders like depression and anxiety. But these mental health concerns aren’t being adequately addressed by doctors, a new study suggests. Arthritis patients are about as likely to receive either medication or therapy for a mood disorder as people without arthritis, despite their increased risk for depression and anxiety, researchers reported recently in the journal Arthritis Research & Therapy. “As mental health often receives less attention, and it’s well-documented that mental health issues are frequently undertreated, these findings are not necessarily surprising,” senior researcher Mary De Vera, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia, told Healio, a website for health care professionals. “However, we were somewhat surprised with findings of no meaningful difference between inflammatory arthritis and inflammatory arthritis-free controls with respect to minimally adequate mental health treatment for depression and anxiety, as we had hypothesized that patients with IA may receive more mental health care, given their frequent contacts with the health care system, which may facilitate access,” De Vera added. For the study, researchers studied nearly 7,000 arthritis patients with depression and 3,700 with anxiety, comparing their mental health care to similar people who didn’t have arthritis. Results showed that about 51% of patients with inflammatory arthritis had been prescribed medication for depression, compared to 48% of people without arthritis. About…  read on >  read on >