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Time spent sitting, reclining or lying down during the day could increase a person’s risk of heart disease and death, a new study warns. More than 10 and a half hours of sedentary behavior is significantly linked with future heart failure and heart-related death, even among people who are getting the recommended amount of exercise, researchers report. “Our findings support cutting back on sedentary time to reduce cardiovascular risk, with 10.6 hours a day marking a potentially key threshold tied to higher heart failure and cardiovascular mortality,” said co-senior researcher Dr. Shaan Khurshid, a cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. “Too much sitting or lying down can be harmful for heart health, even for those who are active.” These results jibe with another study published recently in the journal PLOS One, which found that the aging of people’s hearts hastened as they spent more time sitting. This occurred even if people met minimum daily exercise recommendations. For the new study, researchers analyzed data on nearly 90,000 people participating in the U.K. Biobank ongoing research project. The average sedentary time per day was 9.4 hours for the participants. After an average follow-up of eight years, about 5% developed an irregular heartbeat, 2% developed heart failure, just under 2% suffered a heart attack and about 1% died of heart-related disease, researchers found. Sedentary behavior steadily increased… read on > read on >

Four out of five men and women in the United States will be overweight or obese by 2050 if current trends hold, a new study warns. About 213 million Americans aged 25 and older will be carrying around excess weight within 25 years, along with more than 45 million children and young adults between the ages of 5 and 24, researchers reported Nov. 14 in The Lancet journal. Worse, obesity is projected to increase at a more rapid rate than overweight, researchers say. By 2050, two in three adults, one in three teens and one in five children in the United States are expected to be obese, researchers estimate. All these extra pounds will create a crisis of chronic illness in the nation, said lead study author Emmanuela Gakidou, a professor with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. “Overweight and obesity can trigger serious health conditions — many of which are now occurring at younger ages, including diabetes, heart attacks, stroke, cancer, mental health disorders and even premature death,” Gakidou said in a journal news release. “The soaring health system and economic costs will be equally pervasive, with over 260 million people in the USA, including over half of all children and adolescents, expected to be living with overweight or obesity by 2050.” For the study, researchers estimated… read on > read on >

If you’re over 40 and raise your levels of exercise to that of the top 25% of your peers, you might gain an average of five more years of life, a new study calculates. For over-40 folks in the lowest level of daily activity, a similar move could bring an average 11 extra years, the same report found. The study results surprised even its Australian authors. “Our findings suggest that [physical activity] provides substantially larger health benefits than previously thought,” wrote a team led by Lennert Veerman. He’s a professor public health at Griffith University School of Medicine and Dentistry in Gold Coast, Queensland. The new study focused on U.S. data: Information on daily physical activity gleaned from “activity trackers” worn by participants aged 40 and above in 2003 to 2006 federal health surveys; and data on U.S. deaths from 2017 and 2019, also recorded in federal databanks. Veerman’s team calculated that daily levels of physical activity (in whatever form) that placed people in the top 25% in terms of fitness was equal to about 2 hours and 40 minutes of normal-paced (3 miles per hour) walking. The researchers calculated that if everyone over 40 suddenly matched this activity level, it would raise everyone’s expected life span by five years — from the 78.6 years it’s now estimated to be to nearly 84 years. Of… read on > read on >

Cases of the autoimmune skin condition eczema appear to rise in areas most plagued by air pollution, new research shows. Since data has long shown that rates of eczema — clinically known as atopic dermatitis — increase along with industrialization, dirty air might be a connecting link, according to the team from Yale University. “Showing that individuals in the United States who are exposed to particulate matter [in air] are more likely to have eczema deepens our understanding of the important health implications of ambient air pollution,” wrote researchers led by Yale School of Medicine investigator Gloria Chen. Her team published its findings Nov. 13 in the journal PLOS ONE. According to the National Eczema Association, over 31 million Americans have the skin disorder, “a group of inflammatory skin conditions that cause itchiness, dry skin, rashes, scaly patches, blisters and skin infections.” The exact causes of eczema aren’t clear, but it’s thought to originate in an an overactive immune system that responds to certain environmental triggers. Could air pollution be one of those triggers? To find out, the Yale team looked at data on almost 287,000 Americans, about 12,700 of who (4.4%) had an eczema diagnosis. They compared local eczema rates against levels of air pollution in zip codes across the United States. Chen’s team focused especially on what’s known as “fine particulate matter” — microscopic bits… read on > read on >

In a move guaranteed to alarm many, President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vocal opponent of vaccines and other tenets of mainstream health care, to head the massive U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The department encompasses numerous key agencies, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, Medicaid and Medicare. Trump’s nomination, which came Thursday, shifts the 70-year-old Kennedy from a fringe character railing against many long-accepted medical practices to one of the most powerful people in the federal government, charged with overseeing Americans’ health care and safety. In a statement, Trump, who has already said he’d let Kennedy “go wild on health,” reinforced his would-be appointee’s image as a maverick. “For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social site announcing the nomination. Kennedy, he said, would “Make America Great and Healthy Again!” It’s been a dramatic arc for Kennedy, whose namesake father was assassinated in 1968 in the midst of a campaign to become the Democratic Presidential nominee that year. Kennedy Jr. was himself a Democrat until he campaigned in this year’s presidential campaign as… read on > read on >

Using abbreviations while texting might save some typing time, but it won’t make a good impression, a new study finds. People who use texting abbreviations like IDK or GOAT are perceived as more insincere and are less likely to receive replies, researchers discovered. “Our findings are especially relevant when we want to appear more sincere and strengthen social ties, such as at the beginning of a relationship or when we need to make a good impression,” said lead researcher David Fang, a doctoral student in behavioral marketing at Stanford University. For the study, published Nov. 14 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, researchers conducted a series of eight experiments involving more than 5,300 people. The team analyzed replies to conversations in Discord group chats and dating apps and sites, spanning 37 countries. Other experiments asked participants to rate their texting conversations with people who either were or weren’t using abbreviations. In the experiments, texters who used abbreviations received shorter and fewer responses, and they were less likely to receive contact information from the other texter. Young people tend to use more texting abbreviations, but even they weren’t fans of receiving texts loaded with abbreviations, results show. “While our overall results on age were mixed, it’s clear that younger people are not particularly fond of abbreviations, though the strength of this aversion may vary by… read on > read on >

Dementia strikes all races, but new research suggests thinking declines in poor seniors are often overlooked. Among a group of more than 200 low-income patients who were treated at community health centers, 3 of 4 had undiagnosed cognitive issues, researchers reported recently in the journal JAMA Network Open. Of those, 62% had mild cognitive impairment, which is a precursor to dementia, while 12% had full-blown undiagnosed dementia, results showed. Only 25% of the patients evaluated had no evidence of any cognitive decline, researchers found. “Unrecognized cognitive impairment and dementia present a serious challenge in the U.S. and worldwide, affecting patients, families and the health care system,” said lead researcher Dr. Ambar Kulshreshtha, an associate professor of family and preventive medicine at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta. “Delayed diagnosis often means patients are identified at later stages, when symptoms are more severe and care is more complex,” Kulshreshtha added in an Emory news release. “It also leads to missed opportunities for early treatment that could slow disease progression.” For the study, researchers looked at seniors treated at federally qualified health centers, which are nonprofits serving low-income communities in the United States. About 30 million people receive care at these centers, and most have family incomes below 200% of the federal poverty level. Researchers assessed a group of 204 seniors who go to one of… read on > read on >

The blockbuster GLP-1 drug semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy) could curb drinking for people battling alcohol use disorder, helping them to avoid crises that require hospitalization, new research shows. Numerous studies had already hinted that semaglutide might act on appetite centers in the brain to suppress the urge to drink, just as it does the urge to overeat. Now, researchers in Finland say their nearly nine-year study of almost 228,000 Swedish people with alcohol use disorder who were taking semaglutide had a 36% lower odds of requiring hospitalization. Use of a second drug in the same class of GLP-1 medications, liraglutide (Victoza), was linked to a 28% reduction in hospitalizations, the team reported Nov. 13 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry. The study couldn’t prove cause and effect, only associations. However, based on these and prior findings, the researchers say that “clinical trials are urgently needed to confirm these findings.” The research was led by Dr. Markku Lähteenvuo, of the University of Eastern Finland. Besides the finding that both semaglutide and liraglutide appeared to help keep people with alcohol use disorder out of the hospital, the study also found that semaglutide, in particular, was linked to a decreased risk for suicide. The researchers also noted that the two GLP-1 drugs appeared to outperform standard anti-alcoholism medications, such as naltrexone, disulfiram and acamprostate, in lowering hospitalizations among people with… read on > read on >

People are at higher risk of schizophrenia if they indulge in psychedelic drugs, a new study warns. Patients who land in the ER following hallucinogen use have a 21-fold higher risk of developing schizophrenia compared to the general population, Canadian researchers report. Even after controlling for a person’s existing substance use and mental health disorders, there remained a 3.5-fold increased risk of schizophrenia after ER treatment for psychedelics use. Hallucinogens include drugs like psilocybin, LSD, DMT (Ayahuasca) and MDMA (Ecstasy). “Our findings underscore a concerning link between hallucinogen use that requires care in the emergency room and increased risk of schizophrenia,” said investigator Dr. Daniel Myran, research chair in social accountability at the University of Ottawa. “While there is enormous enthusiasm for psychedelic-assisted therapy as a new mental health treatment, we need to remember how early and limited the data remains for both the benefits and the risks,” Myran added in a university news release. For the study, researchers analyzed health data for more than 9.2 million people ages 14 to 65 living in Ontario between 2008 and 2021. Researchers looked at emergency room visits involving hallucinogens, and whether patients had been diagnosed with schizophrenia afterward. Overall, annual rates of ER visits involving hallucinogens increased by 86% between 2014 and 2021, after remaining stable from 2008 to 2012, results show. About 4% of people were… read on > read on >

Bottoms up: The type of alcohol you prefer may say something about your lifestyle, new research reveals. Beer drinkers are more likely to have an unhealthy lifestyle than folks who prefer wine or liquor, scientists report. Beer drinkers have lower-quality diets, are less active and are more likely to smoke than those who drink wine, liquor or a combination, researchers found. Those lifestyle factors can make a big difference in the health of people who are already drinking too much and risking getting liver disease, said lead researcher Dr. Madeline Novack. “Alcohol overuse is the leading cause of [liver] cirrhosis in the U.S., and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease [MASLD] is rapidly increasing,” said Novack, chief resident of Tulane School of Medicine’s internal medicine residency program. “Both types of liver disease often coexist, and lifestyle changes are key to managing and preventing these conditions, starting with understanding the link between alcohol use and poor nutrition,” Novack added in a Tulane news release. For the study, researchers analyzed national survey data on more than 1,900 U.S. adults who drink alcohol. The respondents answered detailed questions on their eating habits. About 39% said they only drink beer, 22% wine, 18% liquor and 21% a combination of alcohol types, researchers said. None of the drinkers came close to achieving the 80-point score that’s considered an adequately healthy diet… read on > read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

Get Off the Couch: Another Study Shows Sitting’s Health Dangers

Nearly 260 Million Americans Could Be Overweight or Obese by 2050

Over 40? Get Fitter and Live 5 Extra Years

Breathing Dirty Air Might Raise Eczema Risks

Trump Picks Vaccine Skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to Lead Health & Human Services

ICYMI, Txt Abbreviations Cn Make U Seem Insincere, Study Finds

Many Cases of Dementia Go Undiagnosed in Poorer Communities

Ozempic Could Help Curb Alcoholism

Psychedelics Like Psilocybin, MDMA Tied to Higher Odds for Schizophrenia

Liquor, Wine, Beer: Which Comes With the Worst Lifestyle?