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If your preteen or teen skips school activities and social events, it may be more than the typically moody behavior of adolescence, new research warns. Being socially withdrawn and having physical discomforts such as headaches, nausea or stomachaches as a preteen may boost the risk of having suicidal thoughts by age 16, researchers report. Dr. John Duffy, a Chicago-based psychologist who wasn’t involved in the study, told CNN that the findings mirror what he has seen in his practice. “That is, teenagers that I’ve worked with who are socially withdrawn and experienced somatic symptoms — anxiety, in particular — early in adolescence have a far greater risk for suicidal ideation in mid and late adolescence,” added Duffy. “This is undeniably true and a really strong argument for early intervention.” Duffy noted he has found the findings to be especially prevalent among boys and young men. “I think that’s due in large part to the fact that girls are imbued early with a rich, emotional language that boys continue to lack even today,” he said. In the United States, suicide attempts and deaths by suicide among children and young adults have been increasing in recent years, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the new study, Japanese researchers studied over 2,700 adolescents involved in the Tokyo Teen Cohort study, which has examined mental and physical development… read on > read on >

It’s long been thought that it takes more time for a woman to recover from a concussion than a man. But a new national study of U.S. college athletes refutes that notion, finding that women and men recover from sports-related head injuries at about the same pace. Recovery patterns for both genders were similar on tests of brain function, concussion symptoms, mental health, and balance and reaction time, according to a report published recently in the journal Sports Medicine. There also was no significant difference in the time it took men and women to return to unrestricted participation in sports, researchers found. “I think a lot of people will be surprised in such a large sample that women and men recover along the same trajectory,” said senior researcher Jaclyn Caccese, an assistant professor with the Ohio State University School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. “For many years, we’ve thought women took longer to recover, but evidence suggests that if women get the same access to care, they do recover similarly.” For the study, researchers analyzed medical data from more than 900 athletes competing in sports at NCAA colleges. About three in five athletes in the study were female. The analysis focused on 15 sex-comparable sports that included basketball, diving, ice hockey, soccer and volleyball. The research team specifically excluded all-male sports like football and wrestling,… read on > read on >

The old saying “feed a cold, starve a fever” is baloney, doctors say. People fighting off a seasonal respiratory virus need adequate nutrition, regardless of their symptoms, according to advice from the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Fever is just one of the many defense mechanisms the human body uses to stave off any infection, said Dr. Pedro Piedra, a professor of molecular virology, microbiology and pediatrics at Baylor. All the body’s immune responses require energy gained by eating a well-balanced diet, Piedra said. That’s why sick-friendly foods like chicken noodle soup are commonly recommended. Feeling awful from an infection might put a dent in a person’s appetite, but Piedra said folks should resist that malaise and pick up a spoon or fork. Cold weather tends to increase people’s risk of catching the flu, the common cold and COVID-19, Piedra said. That’s because people tend to huddle together indoors when it’s cold outside. “Colder temperatures also allow for viruses to survive on surfaces longer, and the humidity we experience here in Houston also contributes to these viruses being able to survive outside of a host,” Piedra added in a Baylor news release. “There is also a saying that if your hair is wet and you are in a cold environment, you will get sick. That is partly true,” Piedra added. “You won’t contract a… read on > read on >

If you ever find yourself losing weight, even though you’re not dieting or upping your exercise, go see a doctor. It can be a sign of cancer, researchers report. “Unexpected weight loss can come from cancer or many other conditions,” said study senior author Dr. Brian Wolpin. He directs the Gastrointestinal Cancer Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. “Sometimes weight loss is due to more exercise or a healthier diet, and this can be beneficial to people’s health,” he said in a Dana-Farber news release. “However, when a patient experiences unintentional weight loss not due to healthier behaviors, seeing your primary care doctor is appropriate, so they can determine whether additional evaluation is necessary for other causes of weight loss, including cancer.” In the new study, Wolpin’s team tracked the health and health habits of over 157,000 participants in the ongoing Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. These studies began in the 1970s and 1980s and followed adult participants until 2016. Participants were asked a variety of questions, including their current weight and any intentional weight-loss behaviors such as dieting and exercise. “We wanted to differentiate healthy weight loss from unhealthy weight loss,” explained study first author Dr. Qiaoli Wang, a research fellow at Dana-Farber. “Healthy weight loss can come from dietary changes or increased exercise. But unhealthy weight loss… read on > read on >

THURSDAY, Jan . 25, 2024The maker of Robitussin has recalled eight lots of Robitussin Honey CF Max Day Adult and Robitussin Honey CF Max Nighttime Adult cough syrups. The products, which are made by Haleon, may be contaminated with a microbe, and “in immunocompromised individuals, the use of the affected product could potentially result in severe or life-threatening adverse events such as fungemia or disseminated fungal infection,” the recall notice said. Fungemia is a fungal infection of the blood. In people with healthy immune systems, infection is unlikely to lead to severe illness, “however, the occurrence of an infection that may necessitate medical intervention cannot be completely ruled out,” the company said. Haleon says that no illnesses in customers using the product have yet been reported. The recall only pertains to eight specific lots, which are listed in the full company announcement posted by the FDA. Customers who know they have purchased one of the recalled products should not use them, and they should reach out to Haleon at 1-800-245-1040 (Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern Time) or via email to mystory.us@haleon.com. SOURCE: Haleon, recall notice, Jan. 24, 2024 What This Means for You: The maker of Robitussin is recalling eight lots of Robitussin Honey CF products due to microbial contamination that could cause fungal disease read on >

Women are suffering more anxiety and depression in states that banned abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a new study shows. The court’s Dobbs decision in June 2022 triggered laws banning abortion in 13 states. In the six months after, symptoms of anxiety and depression increased among women living in those states, particularly those ages 18 to 45, researchers report Jan. 23 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. “These findings suggest that changes in abortion policy can impact mental health at the population level,” said senior study author Matthew Eisenberg, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Mental Health and Addiction Policy in Baltimore. “Policymakers should, of course, be aware of the first-order impacts of policies, but studies such as this suggest that they should also consider downstream policy effects on mental health, even when a policy is not specifically targeting mental health,” Eisenberg added in a Hopkins news release. For the study, researchers analyzed data drawn from the Household Pulse Survey, an online survey the U.S. Census Bureau conducts every two weeks to track health and socioeconomic conditions in the United States. The survey includes a four-question screening tool often used in primary care to assess anxiety and depression, researchers said. The study examined 13 waves of data drawn from the survey, spanning from late December 2021 to January… read on > read on >

Factors like sleep, energy levels and stress can predict the onset of a migraine headache, a new study finds. Those factors differed from the morning to the afternoon and evening, however. Poor perceived sleep quality, lower-than-usual quality of sleep and lower-than-usual energy levels are associated with a morning migraine, according to the report published online Jan. 24 in the journal Neurology. Conversely, afternoon and evening migraines are tied to increased stress levels or higher-than-usual energy levels the day before. “These different patterns of predictors of morning and later-day headaches highlight the role of the circadian rhythms in headache,” said study author Kathleen Merikangas, chief of the Genetic Epidemiology Research Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). “The findings may give us insight into the processes underlying migraine and help us improve treatment and prevention.” For the study, researchers tracked potential predictors of a migraine among 477 people ages 7 through 84. Nearly half the participants had a history of migraines, and about three out of five had at least one morning migraine during the study. The participants rated their mood, energy, stress and headaches four times a day for two weeks, using a mobile app. They also rated their sleep quality once a day, and wore activity monitors to track their sleep and physical activity. Results showed that poor perceived sleep quality came… read on > read on >

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 24, 2024 (Healthday News) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has told drugmakers to add a boxed warning to a type of cancer treatment called CAR-T therapy, saying the treatment itself may sometimes cause a secondary cancer. Still, FDA spokesperson Carly Kempler told NBC News that, despite the new warning, “the overall benefits of these products continue to outweigh their potential risks.” Twenty-five reports of rare blood cancers in patients who had gotten CAR-T therapy prompted the agency to add the boxed warning, Kempler said. CAR-T therapy uses a patient’s own immune cells to fight blood cancers such as leukemia, multiple myeloma and lymphoma. Immune cells are harvested from the patient and then genetically altered in a lab to make them target cancer cells. Once tweaked, the immune cells are infused back into the patient. It’s a powerful therapy: In 2022, doctors who had treated two leukemia patients with CAR-T a decade ago reported that the treatment had essentially cured the patients. “This has been a game changer when we think about treating lymphoma and other diseases,” Dr. Matthew Frigault, clinical director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cellular Immunotherapy Program, told NBC News. In 2017, the first CAR-T therapy, Novartis’ drug Kymriah, was approved by the FDA. Another five therapies have since been approved. The makers of five of these drugs — Bristol Myers Squibb, for Abecma… read on > read on >

The American Lung Association’s annual report on smoking blasts President Joe Biden for failing to finalize rules that would end the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars. Last month, the Biden administration announced it was delaying until March a ban on menthol cigarettes that has been in the works for years. In response, the lung association’s “State of Tobacco Control” report released Wednesday takes Biden to task for this decision. “Right now, President Biden can take action and save lives if he finalizes the rules to end the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars,” Harold Wimmer, president and CEO of the lung association, said in a news release. “Menthol cigarettes make it both easier to start and harder to quit by reducing the harshness of the smoke and cooling the throat,” Wimmer explained. “Once these rules are final, fewer people will start smoking, millions will begin their journey to quit and lives will be saved.” Menthol cigarettes pose a serious political problem for Biden, who needs the support of Black voters to win re-election. Black people are more likely to smoke menthol cigarettes than smokers of other races or ethnicities, according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention. For example, about 7 in 10 Black adults ages 18 to 34 who currently smoke cigarettes use ones flavored with menthol, compared to… read on > read on >

Could a blood pressure drug thats been around since the 1960s help ease anxiety in people with autism? That’s the main finding from a small study where 69 people between the ages of 7 and 24 who had autism were given the drug, called propranolol. “The findings show that propranolol could serve as a helpful intervention for reducing anxiety for individuals with autism,” said study lead author Dr. David Beversdorf. He’s a clinician at the University of Missouri’s Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopment. “This drug has been around since the 1960s and is very inexpensive,” he noted in a university news release. “Up until now, we haven’t had any known drugs that target psychiatric issues specifically for individuals with autism, so these results are very promising and can support future research.” The study found that people who received propranolol had significantly lower anxiety levels at their three-month checkup. Although the team also checked participants’ social communication skills, no benefits linked to use of propranolol were found. Beversdorf said he’s seen firsthand the benefits of propranolol for people with autism who battle anxiety. “As researchers, we try our best to improve the lives of our patients, and it feels rewarding to help out,” said Beversdorf, who is also a professor of radiology, neurology and psychological sciences at the university. “I went into the field of… read on > read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

Social Withdrawal in Kids, Teens May Signal Higher Suicide Risk Later: Study

Sports Concussion Recovery Time Similar for Men, Women

Feed a Cold and a Fever, Experts Say

Losing Weight for No Reason? See Your Doctor

Robitussin Honey Cough Syrup Recalled Due to Fungal Threat

Women’s Anxiety Rose in States Affected by Fall of Roe v. Wade

What Factors Really Predict Migraine Onset?

FDA Warns of Rare Secondary Cancer Risk With CAR-T Therapies

American Lung Association Blasts Biden for Inaction on Menthol Cigarette Ban

Common Heart Drug Might Lower Anxiety in Kids With Autism