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Hormone replacement therapy can safely ease middle-aged women’s symptoms during early menopause, data from a major women’s health study show. Women younger than 60 can use hormone replacement to treat symptoms like hot flashes and night sweats without significantly increasing their risk of breast cancer or other health problems, according to long-term results from the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI). “The WHI findings should never be used as a reason to deny hormone therapy to women in early menopause with bothersome menopausal symptoms,” said lead researcher Dr. JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “Many women are good candidates for treatment and, in shared decision-making with their clinicians, should be able to receive appropriate and personalized healthcare for their needs,” Manson added in a hospital news release. The WHI involved more than 160,000 postmenopausal women ages 50 to 79. The study tracked their rates of heart disease, cancer and hip fractures, and also included randomized clinical trials of more than 68,000 women to test potential aging treatments like hormone therapy or calcium and vitamin D supplementation. Prior to the WHI, studies had reported that older women who took hormone therapy had lower risks of heart disease, stroke, dementia, chronic disease and death, researchers said in background notes. A WHI clinical trial slammed the brakes on hormone replacement therapy in 2002,… read on > read on >

In yet another sign that bird flu is spreading widely among mammals, a new report finds more than half of cats at the first Texas dairy farm to have cows test positive for bird flu this spring died after drinking raw milk. Published Tuesday in the Emerging Infectious Diseases journal, the report details the early stages of the investigation into the spread of bird flu among the country’s dairy farms. Cats at the Texas farm had been fed raw milk from cows that turned out to be infected with avian influenza, also known as H5N1. A day after the farm noticed cows were getting sick, the cats started getting sick. In the end, more than half of the cats perished. “The cats were found dead with no apparent signs of injury and were from a resident population of [approximately] 24 domestic cats that had been fed milk from sick cows,” the scientists wrote in their report. Tests of the samples collected from the brains and lungs of dead cats yielded results suggesting “high amounts of virus,” and autopsies revealed “microscopic lesions consistent with severe systemic virus infection,” in the eyes and brain, they said “Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has indicated the commercial milk supply remains safe, the detection of influenza virus in unpasteurized bovine milk is a concern because of potential cross-species transmission,” they added.… read on > read on >

Women approaching menopause appear to be at higher risk of depression, a new review indicates. Women in the transition period prior to menopause are 40% more likely to experience depression than premenopausal women, according to pooled data from seven studies involving more than 9,100 women around the world. The results show that women heading into menopause “are significantly more likely to experience depression than either before or after this stage,” said senior researcher Dr. Roopal Desai, a clinical fellow in psychology with University College London. “Our findings emphasize the importance of acknowledging that women in this life stage are more vulnerable to experiencing depression,” Desai added in a university news release. “It also underlines the need to provide support and screening for women to help address their mental health needs effectively.” This transition period, called perimenopause, usually occurs three to five years before the onset of menopause, researchers said in background notes. During this transition, the ovaries begin producing fewer female hormones, and fluctuating hormone levels can cause mood changes along with irregular menstrual cycles and other symptoms, researchers said. This stage of menopause continues until a year after a woman’s last period, and can often last between four and eight years overall, researchers said. The analysis included studies involving women from the United States, Australia, China, the Netherlands and Switzerland, researchers said. Menopause symptoms… read on > read on >

Having a child with food allergies isn’t easy to manage, and now new research shows that most of these parents turn to social media for medical advice. When they do, some of the advice is good and some is not, researchers report. In the study, published recently in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI), 93% of surveyed parents of children with food allergies reported using online search engines. In general, online searches were conducted daily or multiple times a day. Facebook was the most used social media platform. The most common reasons for using social media were to access allergy tips for school/travel, signs and symptoms of allergic reactions, and how to find food allergy support groups. “We know that patients increasingly use online resources for information, but unfortunately they cannot always evaluate whether the information is outdated, incorrect or simply out of context,” said lead study author Dr. Aikaterini Anagnostou, director of the Food Immunotherapy Program at Texas Children’s Hospital and vice chair of the ACAAI Food Allergy Committee. “The goal of our study was to characterize use of online resources by parents of children with food allergies regarding information and/or support for their child’s food allergy.” The researchers surveyed 145 parents of children with a diagnosis of food allergy.… read on > read on >

At what age does loneliness strike adults the hardest? A new review maps it out, finding that people are more lonely as young adults, grow less lonely as they approach middle age, and then fall back into loneliness in old age, researchers reported April 30 in the journal Psychological Science. “What was striking was how consistent the uptick in loneliness is in older adulthood,” said researcher Eileen Graham, an associate professor of medical social sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. “There’s a wealth of evidence that loneliness is related to poorer health, so we wanted to better understand who is lonely and why people are becoming lonelier as they age out of midlife, so we can hopefully start finding ways to mitigate it,” Graham said. Social isolation can increase the risk of premature death to levels comparable to daily smoking, according to the U.S. Surgeon General. For the review, researchers evaluated data from nine long-term studies conducted around the world. All of the studies showed a U-shaped loneliness curve, even though they tested different groups of people from the United States, the U.K., Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Australia and Israel, researchers said. “Our study is unique because it harnessed the power of all these datasets to answer the same question — ‘How does loneliness change across the lifespan, and what factors… read on > read on >

The benefits of physical fitness for kids spill over into their mental health, new research shows. Getting plenty of exercise may guard against depressive symptoms, anxiety and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a new study published April 29 in the journal JAMA Pediatrics found. And the more exercise, the better: Higher performance in cardiovascular activities, strength and muscular endurance were each associated with even greater protection against mental health issues. The findings arrive as America continues to grapple with a surge in mental health diagnoses among children and adolescents. The new study, conducted by researchers in Taiwan, compared data from the Taiwan National Student Fitness Tests and the National Insurance Research Database, which records medical claims, diagnoses, prescriptions and other medical information. The researchers used the anonymous data to compare students’ physical fitness against their mental health. The risk of mental health disorder was weighted against cardio fitness, as measured by a student’s time in an 800-meter run; muscle endurance, indicated by the number of sit-ups performed; and muscle power, measured by the standing broad jump. What did they discover? Higher performance in each activity was linked with a lower risk of a mental health disorder. For instance, a 30-second decrease in the 800-meter time was associated with a lower risk of anxiety, depression and ADHD in girls. In boys, it was associated with lower anxiety and… read on > read on >

Doctors argue that genetics aren’t destiny when it comes to a person’s health, and a study appears to support that notion. A healthy lifestyle can offset the effects of life-shortening genes by more than 60%, researchers found. People at high genetic risk of a curtailed lifespan could extend their life expectancy by nearly 5.5 years if they’ve adopted a healthy lifestyle by age 40, results show. On the other hand, an unhealthy lifestyle is associated with a 78% increased risk of an early death, regardless of a person’s genetic predisposition. The study highlights “the pivotal role of a healthy lifestyle in mitigating the impact of genetic factors on lifespan reduction,” concluded the research team led by Dr. Xue Li with the Center of Clinical Big Data and Analytics of The Second Affiliated Hospital at Zhejiang University School of Medicine in Hangzhou, China. “Public health policies for improving healthy lifestyles would serve as potent complements to conventional healthcare and mitigate the influence of genetic factors on human lifespan,” the researchers said. For the study, researchers analyzed data drawn from nearly 354,000 people participating in the UK Biobank genetics and health study. More than 24,000 died over an average follow-up of nearly 13 years. Each person was scored based on their genetic health risks, and they also received a score regarding the healthiness of their lifestyle. A… read on > read on >

Teens who vape frequently are exposing themselves to harmful metals like lead and uranium, a new study finds. Lead levels in urine are 40% higher among intermittent vapers and 30% higher among frequent vapers, compared to occasional vapers, results show. And urinary levels of uranium were twice as high among frequent vapers as occasional vapers, researchers reported April 29 in the journal Tobacco Control. Exposure to these sort of heavy metals could harm the developing brains of teenagers, resulting in thinking problems and behavioral disorders, researchers said. These metals also increase the risk of breathing problems, cancer and heart disease. “E-cigarette use during adolescence may increase the likelihood of metal exposure, which could adversely affect brain and organ development,” concluded the research team led by Dr. Hongying Dai, associate dean of research with the University of Nebraska Medical Center, in Omaha. “These findings call for further research, vaping regulation and targeted public health interventions to mitigate the potential harms of e-cigarette use, particularly among adolescents,” the researchers added in a journal news release. An estimated 14% of high school students, more than 2 million, used an e-cigarette in 2022, along with more than 3% of middle school students, around 380,000, researchers said in background notes. Heavy metals like nickel, tin and lead have been found in e-cigarette vapor previously, along with many other potentially harmful… read on > read on >

A middle-aged Seattle man collapsed in his Portland, Ore.-area hotel room, where he was staying during a business trip. He’d just tried fentanyl for the first time, and it very nearly killed him by literally destroying his brain. Inhaling fentanyl caused terrible inflammation throughout large sections of white matter in the patient’s brain, his doctors at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) deduced. White matter serves as the network of neural highways that connect various parts of the brain to each other and to the spinal cord. As a result, he lost consciousness and came perilously close to irreversible loss of brain function — either killing him or leaving him a vegetable. The patient is the first documented case of this phenomenon involving fentanyl, although previous cases have been noted involving heroin, researchers noted. “This is a case of a middle-class man, in his late 40s, with kids, who used fentanyl for the first time,” said lead researcher Dr. Chris Eden, a second-year internal medicine resident at the OHSU School of Medicine. “It demonstrates that fentanyl can affect everyone in our society.” Fentanyl is cheap, readily available and 50 times more potent than heroin, Eden noted. Illicit drug manufacturers frequently cut fentanyl into other substances like heroin, often without the knowledge of the user. “We know very well the classic opiate side effects: respiratory depression,… read on > read on >

Live bird flu virus has not been found in any of the first batch of retail milk samples tested, federal health officials said Friday. Amid an ongoing outbreak of bird flu in U.S. dairy cows, the early findings should reassure the public that the milk sold in stores remains safe, officials added. In the online update, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said the initial test findings likely mean the pasteurization process is killing the virus. “These results reaffirm our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe,” the agency wrote, but testing efforts are continuing. “The FDA is further assessing retail samples from its study of 297 samples of retail dairy products from 38 states,” the agency added. “All samples with a PCR-positive result are going through egg inoculation tests, a gold standard for determining if infectious virus is present.” “These important efforts are ongoing, and we are committed to sharing additional testing results as soon as possible,” the FDA added. FDA officials also tested infant and toddler formulas, which used powdered milk, and did not find any evidence of the virus, the agency noted. The story is different when it comes to viral fragments of bird flu: genetic bits of the virus have been discovered in roughly 20% of retail milk samples tested in a national survey, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration… read on > read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

Major Women’s Health Study Supports Hormone Replacement Therapy in Early Menopause

More Than Half of Cats on Farm Where Bird Flu Infected Cows Died After Drinking Milk

Years Prior to Menopause Are Danger Zone for Depression

For Parents of Kids with Food Allergies, Social Media Can Bring Support — and Stress

When in Life Are Folks Most Lonely?

Staying Fit Boosts Kids’ Mental Health

Living Healthy Counters Effects of ‘Life-Shortening’ Genes

Another Teen Vaping Danger: Toxic Lead, Uranium

Man Nearly Died From Fentanyl-Linked Brain Disease

FDA Says First Round of Tests Show No Live Virus in Pasteurized Milk