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A head-to-head trial of obese, pre-diabetic people who ate the same amount of daily calories — with one group following a fasting schedule and the other eating freely — found no difference in weight loss or other health indicators. So, despite the fact that fasting diets are all the rage, if you simply cut your daily caloric intake, weight loss will occur no matter when you eat, the study authors concluded. “Consuming most calories earlier in the day during 10-hour time-restricted eating did not decrease weight more than consuming them later in the day,” wrote a team led by Dr. Nisa Maruthur, an associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore. Her team presented its findings Friday at the annual meeting of the American College of Physicians (ACP) in Boston. The study was published simultaneously in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Intermittent fasting has become very popular among weight-conscious Americans in recent years. In an ACP news release, the researchers noted that “evidence shows that when adults with obesity limit their eating window to 4 to 10 hours, they naturally reduce caloric intake by approximately 200-550 calories per day and lose weight over 2-12 months.” But what if people simply cut their daily calories by the same amount, without shifting their eating schedules? The new trial involved 41 people with obesity and pre-diabetes,… read on > read on >

The right diet may be the best medicine for easing the painful symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), new research shows. In the study, two different eating plans beat standard medications in treating the debilitating symptoms of the gastrointestinal disease. One diet was low in “FODMAPs,” a group of sugars and carbohydrates found in dairy, wheat and certain fruits and vegetables, while the second was a low-carb regimen high in fiber but low in all other carbohydrates. Published April 19 in the journal Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the findings suggest that patients should first try dietary changes before moving to drugs for relief. IBS is one of the most common and stubborn conditions gastroenterologists treat. It affects roughly 6 percent of Americans, with women diagnosed more often than men. Its symptoms are hard to ignore and life-limiting: abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea and constipation. Treatments often include dietary changes or taking medications that can include laxatives and antidiarrheals; certain antidepressants; and other prescription medications such as linaclotide and lubiprostone — both of which increase fluid in your gut and the movements of your intestines. Research has found that a low-FODMAP diet — which involves avoiding foods like wheat products, legumes, some nuts, certain sweeteners, most dairy products and many fruits and vegetables — can reduce IBS symptoms in most people, Dr. William Chey, a gastroenterologist at Michigan Medicine, told the… read on > read on >

Women who smoke and become pregnant may worry that the weight gain that comes with quitting might bring its own harms to themselves or their baby. However, a new study confirms the health benefits of quitting smoking still far exceed any weight-linked concerns. Weight gain can occur once women decide to forgo cigarettes, but even that can be minimized, said a team led by Morgan Dunn. She’s a final year obstetrics and gynecology resident at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey. “We recommend that doctors advise patients to quit while offering nutrition counseling that might minimize the weight gain,” she said in a Rutgers news release. The study was published recently in the journal Hypertension. In the study, Dunn’s group looked at data on health outcomes in over 22 million pregnancies. They found that rates of dangerous hypertension in pregnancy did rise among women who quit smoking. It occurred in 6.8% of pregnancies to nonsmoking women, compared to 8.6% of pregnancies for women who quit smoking when they learned they were pregnant. The percentage rose even higher — to 17% — among women who quit smoking at the outset of a pregnancy and then gained weight that exceeded recommended levels, Dunn’s team found. However, any risk linked to a rise in blood pressure during pregnancy for former smokers were easily eclipsed by… read on > read on >

An early marker of multiple sclerosis could help doctors figure out who will eventually fall prey to the degenerative nerve disease, a new study says. In one in 10 cases of MS, the body begins producing a distinctive set of antibodies in the blood years before symptoms start appearing, researchers reported April 19 in the journal Nature Medicine. This antibody pattern was 100% predictive of an MS diagnosis, researchers found. Every patient who carried this set of antibodies went on to develop MS. Researchers hope these antibodies will someday form the basis of a simple blood test to screen for MS. “Over the last few decades, there’s been a move in the field to treat MS earlier and more aggressively with newer, more potent therapies,” said senior researcher Dr. Michael Wilson, a neurologist with the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). “A diagnostic result like this makes such early intervention more likely, giving patients hope for a better life,” Wilson added in a news release. MS occurs when the body’s own immune system attacks the central nervous system, damaging the protective sheath around nerve fibers called myelin. This disrupts signals to and from the brain, causing a variety of symptoms that impede the senses and impact the ability to move. An autoimmune disease like MS is believed to result in part from rare immune reactions… read on > read on >

Teenagers are frequently bullied about their weight on social media, and the bullying increases with each hour they spend on these sites, a new study reveals. Nearly one in five teens (17%) said they’d experienced weight-related bullying online, according to results published April 17 in the journal PLOS One. “This experience can have adverse effects, including poor body image, disordered eating behaviors and anxiety and depression symptoms,” said the research team led by David Hammond. He’s a professor with the University of Waterloo School of Public Health Sciences in Ontario, Canada. Further, each additional hour of social media use brought with it a 13% increase in weight-related bullying, researchers calculated. “Notably, greater time spent on screens [was] associated with a greater prevalence of experiencing weight-related bullying,” the researchers reported. Twitter, now known as X, was the most toxic site, with teens there 69% more likely to be bullied regarding their weight. However, Twitter was also the least-used social media platform among teens, with only 22% saying they used it. But more popular social media sites also had an increased risk of bullying over weight, researchers found: Instagram, used by 55% of teens, had a 35% increased risk of weight bullying Facebook, used by 50% of teens, had a 39% increased risk TikTok, used by 49% of teens, had a 26% increased risk Snapchat, used by… read on > read on >

Jobs that challenge your mind could help your brain age more gracefully, a new study suggests. The harder your brain works on the job, the less likely you are to have memory and thinking problems later in life, researchers reported April 17 in the journal Neurology. “We examined the demands of various jobs and found that cognitive stimulation at work during different stages in life — during your 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s — was linked to a reduced risk of mild cognitive impairment after the age of 70,” said researcher Dr. Trine Holt Edwin, of Oslo University Hospital in Norway. For the study, researchers analyzed data on 7,000 people in 305 occupations across Norway. Researchers measured the degree to which each job taxed the brain and the body, based on the different skill sets required for the work. They then divided the study subjects into four groups, based on their work routine and whether the job required more manual skill or brain power. Teaching wound up being the most common job with the highest demands on a person’s brain, while mail carriers and janitors had the most common jobs with the least demands on brain skills. After age 70, participants completed memory and thinking tests to judge how well their brain was aging. About 42% of people with jobs involving little brain work had… read on > read on >

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 >

Two-thirds of homeless people are experiencing some form of mental health disorder, a large, new review of data on the subject. The analysis found that men who are homeless are more likely to be battling mental illness than women, although rates were high for both genders compared to the general population. There are signs that rates of mental illness may be on the rise among homeless populations, especially in the United States and Canada, said researchers led by Rebecca Barry, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Calgary in Canada. “The most common mental disorders included substance use disorders, antisocial personality disorders, major depression and general mood disorders,” Barry and colleagues reported April 17 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry. Her team looked at thousands of published studies worldwide on homelessness and mental illness. They settled on 85 of the most rigorous studies. Overall, more than 48,000 homeless individuals were included in those studies, which were largely based in affluent countries such as the United States, Canada and Germany. The mental health of participants in the studies was assessed using standard psychiatric tests. Barry’s team found that, overall, 67% of homeless people currently have some form of mental illness, while 77% were found to have experienced mental illness at least sometime during their lives. Rates of current mental illness were significantly higher among men (67%) than… read on > read on >

Two implanted heart devices used by patients in end-stage heart failure are now under a strict U.S. Food and Drug Administration recall, after being tied to 273 known injuries and 14 deaths, the agency said Tuesday. The HeartMate II and HeartMate 3 are manufactured by Thoratec Corp., a subsidiary of Abbott Laboratories. About 14,000 of the devices are thought to be under recall, but as of now the two devices not being removed from the market. “The HeartMate II and 3 are used for both short- and long-term support in adult patients with severe left ventricular heart failure,” the FDA explained in a statement. “It can be used while waiting for a heart transplant, to help the heart recover, or as a permanent solution when a transplant isn’t an option.” The devices replace the blood-pumping action of the heart’s main pumping chamber, the left ventricle. They divert blood flow from that weakened chamber and propel it into the aorta, where it flows to the rest of the body. However, in rare cases a type of clot can form from “biological material” that builds up in a particular area of the devices. “This buildup can obstruct the device, making it less effective in helping the heart pump blood,” the FDA explained. “It can trigger alarms indicating low blood flow and affect the device’s ability to help… read on > read on >

There’s no evidence that a COVID infection increases the risk of asthma in children, the first study to date on the subject finds. “We knew from a number of really nice studies over the last decade or more that respiratory viral infections are a risk factor for the development of asthma in children,” said senior study author Dr. David Hill, an attending physician with the division of allergy and immunology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “So there was good rationale to think that potentially SARS-COV-2 infection could also increase the risk of asthma. That’s what we thought we were going to find,” he said. “And what we actually found was that there was no association. It did not increase the risk of children developing asthma, and it did not decrease the risk of children developing asthma.” In the study, the team analyzed data from more than 27,000 children who underwent polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing for SARS-COV-2 between March 1, 2020, and Feb. 28, 2021. They were followed over an 18-month period. Over 3,100 of the children tested positive, and more than 24,000 tested negative for SARS-COV-2. The researchers found that testing positive for SARS-COV-2 had no significant effect on the likelihood of a new asthma diagnosis. The study did confirm that children with known risk factors for asthma, such as race, food allergies,… read on > read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

Calories, Not Meal Timing, Key to Weight Loss: Study

Dietary Changes May Beat Meds in Treating IBS

Even With Weight Gain, Quitting Smoking in Pregnancy Still Best for Health

Blood Test Might Someday Diagnose Early MS

Teens Often Bullied Online About Their Weight: Study

Work That Challenges Your Brain Helps You Stay Sharp With Age

Antipsychotics May Do Great Harm to People With Dementia: Report

Most Homeless Americans Are Battling Mental Illness

FDA Recalls Heart Failure Devices Linked to Injuries and Deaths

COVID Does Not Spur Asthma in Kids, Study Finds