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Looking for a workout that will chase the blues away? Try walking, jogging, yoga or strength training, which a new study reports are the most effective exercises for easing depression. These activities can be used on their own or combined with medication and psychotherapy, according to an evidence review published Feb. 14 in the BMJ. While low-intensity activities like walking and yoga are OK, the more vigorous the activity, the bigger the benefits, the Australian-led team found. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 300 million people worldwide have depression. While exercise is often recommended, treatment guidelines and previous research differ on the best ways to prescribe it for depression. To learn more, researchers in Australia and Europe looked at 218 randomized trials that compared exercise with other depression treatments. The studies included more than 14,100 participants. They found meaningful benefits when exercise was combined with SSRI antidepressants or psychotherapy, suggesting that working out could be beneficial alongside these established treatments. Researchers reported large reductions in depression for dance and moderate reductions for walking or jogging, yoga, strength training, mixed aerobic exercises and tai chi or qigong. While walking or jogging helped both men and women, women benefited more from strength training and men from yoga or qigong, the study found. Yoga was more effective in older people, while strength training worked best among… read on > read on >

Aromatherapy might be able to improve memory and help treat depression Depressed individuals better recalled specific personal memories after exposed to scents These memories could help them rewire their thought patterns Aromatherapy might be able to help people recover from depression by helping them more clearly recall specific, often positive, memories, a new study shows. Scents are more effective than words at cueing up the memory of a specific event, researchers report Feb. 13 in the journal JAMA Network Open. That could help depressed individuals shake negative thought cycles and rewire their thinking patterns, researchers said. “If we improve memory, we can improve problem-solving, emotion regulation and other functional problems that depressed individuals often experience,” said senior researcher Kymberly Young, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. For the study, researchers asked 32 adults with major depressive disorder to recall a specific memory, no matter good or bad, as they breathed in glass vials containing potent familiar scents. The scents ranged from oranges to ground coffee to shoe polish to the distinct eucalyptus sharpness of Vicks VapoRub. Prior studies have found that people with major depression are less capable of drawing on specific memories from their lives, researchers said. This might contribute to depression because patients will repeat self-denigrating thoughts like “I am a failure” or “I fight with… read on > read on >

Acupuncture may protect people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) from stroke, new research suggests. The study indicates that a course of acupuncture treatment may lower blood levels of inflammatory proteins called cytokines that are linked to heart disease, the No. 1 cause of death in people with RA. “Inflammation is a consistent and independent predictor of cardiovascular disease in [rheumatoid arthritis],” researchers wrote in the Feb. 13 issue of BMJ Open. “Unstable blood pressure and lipid profiles are two risk factors for ischemic stroke, and acupuncture has the advantage of controlling both.” Ischemic strokes are caused by a blood clot in the brain. For this study, a team led by Dr. Hung-Rong Yen, of the School of Chinese Medicine at China Medical University in Taiwan, looked at a database of more than 23,000 RA patients in Taiwan. That included nearly 12,300 patients who were treated with acupuncture between 1997 and 2010. On average, patients began acupuncture treatment 2.9 years after getting their RA diagnosis. The vast majority (87%) were treated with manual acupuncture. Three percent were treated with electroacupuncture, in which an electrode producing a low electrical pulse is attached to the needle, and 10% received both treatments. Patients were monitored through 2011. Stroke risk rose with patients’ age and coexisting conditions. For instance, those who had high blood pressure had twice the risk as those… read on > read on >

When bullies destroy a young victim’s trust, mental health problems are likely to follow them into adulthood, a new study warns. “There are few public health topics more important than youth mental health right now,” said senior study author George Slavich, director of UCLA Health’s Laboratory for Stress Assessment and Research, who called for investments in further research to identify risk factors and develop programs to improve lifelong health and resilience. Working with the University of Glasgow, his team looked at data from 10,000 children in the U.K. who were followed for nearly 20 years. Researchers found that kids who were bullied at age 11 and then became distrustful by age 14 were roughly 3.5 times more likely to have mental health problems by age 17 than those who were more trusting. The findings were published Feb. 13 in the journal Nature Mental Health. Researchers believe the study is the first to probe the link between peer bullying, interpersonal distrust and development of mental health problems such as anxiety, depression, hyperactivity and anger. Slavich said the findings could help schools and other institutions develop programs to address mental health impacts of bullying. The mental health of young people is a growing public concern. In a sample of U.S. high school students, 44.2% said they had been depressed for at least two weeks in 2021, according… read on > read on >

As if painful migraines, hot flashes and night sweats weren’t bad enough, many women in menopause are facing a significantly bigger threat. New research suggests that women with both migraines and vasomotor symptoms (hot flashes and night sweats) are significantly more likely to develop heart disease or have a stroke. “There is a critical need to further refine existing cardiovascular disease risk-prediction models to identify women who are future risk,” said Dr. Stephanie Faubion, medical director for The Menopause Society. Published online Feb. 14 in the journal Menopause, the study found that women with a history of both symptoms were 1.5 times as likely to develop heart disease and 1.7 times as likely to have a stroke when compared to other women. The link was particularly strong among women who have migraines with aura. The study, which followed women ages 18 to 30 into their early 60s, included nearly 2,000 women. The findings are noteworthy, the society said, because migraine headaches and hot flashes are so common. Nearly 8 in 10 menopausal women experience hot flashes, while migraines affect about 17.5% of women in their late reproductive years, the society said. The study was described as the first to examine the joint influences of migraine and hot flashes/night sweats independent of estrogen use and traditional risk factors for heart disease, such as tobacco use, cholesterol… read on > read on >

Folks who get regular exercise are less likely to become infected with COVID or develop a severe case requiring a hospital stay, a new study finds. Compared to couch potatoes, adults who adhere to U.S. physical activity guidelines have 10% lower odds of COVID infection and 27% lower odds of hospitalization from it, results in JAMA Network Open show. “This large, unique study in older adults as they navigated the onset of the pandemic provides important support for physical activity in preventing COVID-19 infection and hospitalization that may extend more broadly to enhanced immune function and lessening vulnerability to infections,” senior author Howard Sesso, an associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s Division of Preventive Medicine in Boston, said in a news release. For the study, researchers tracked the health of more than 61,500 older adults involved in three ongoing clinical trials prior to the beginning of the COVID pandemic in 2020. The participants all reported on their lifestyles and exercise, including the time they spent on activities like biking, walking, running and climbing stairs. Using those self-reports, researchers categorized the participants as inactive, insufficiently active or sufficiently active, based on U.S. physical activity guidelines. The guidelines say that adults should get at least 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous-intensity exercise each week. Examples of moderate-intensity exercise… read on > read on >

A mental workout can speed teens’ recovery from a concussion, especially if it takes place in the classroom. New research shows that returning to school early after a concussion and limiting screen time help symptoms resolve sooner. “Children and teens should be encouraged to get back to their routines and take part in activities like clubs, jobs and homework after experiencing concussion,” said study co-author Dr. Thomas Pommering, director of concussion clinics at Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s Division of Sports Medicine. “But keep in mind that for some patients, prolonged screen time in non-school activities such as gaming or internet scrolling can affect recovery if it is worsening their symptoms,” he added in a hospital news release. While other studies have touted the benefits of an early return to physical activity, little has been known about how mental activity affects post-concussion outcomes. For this study, researchers at Nationwide Children’s Center for Injury Research and Policy in Ohio looked at the intensity and duration of daily mental activities in 11- to 17-year-olds and their effect on concussion recovery. The young people reported increases in activities such as reading, listening to music, watching TV and using the phone, as well as how much time they devoted to mental activities overall as their symptoms eased. Clinical guidelines have recommended young people with concussions get complete physical and mental rest… read on > read on >

TUESDAY, Feb. 13Two of the most common pregnancy complications for women, high blood pressure and gestational diabetes, could jeopardize the future heart health of their children, a new study suggests. Researchers found that the children of women who developed either or both of those conditions during pregnancy showed signs of less-than-ideal heart health before the age of 12. “Through our research, we’ve found an association between diabetes and high blood pressure during pregnancy and indicators of compromised heart health in children on the cusp of adolescence,” said study lead author Dr. Kartik Venkatesh, director of the Diabetes in Pregnancy Program at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center. “This underscores the potential for interventions aimed at averting or managing these health issues before they escalate in adulthood.” In the study, his team looked at 3,317 mothers and their children. Among the mothers, 8% developed high blood pressure during pregnancy, 12% developed diabetes and 3% developed both high blood pressure and diabetes. Researchers then looked at the heart health of their children between the ages of 10 and 14. They measured factors like body-mass index, blood pressure, total cholesterol and blood sugar levels. They found that before the age of 12, more than half of the children (55.5%) had at least one factor that put them at greater risk for heart disease and stroke. The findings were… read on > read on >

Replacing regular salt with a salt substitute can reduce high blood pressure in older adults, a new study has found. Older adults who use a salt substitute are 40% less likely to develop high blood pressure compared to those who use regular salt, according to findings published Feb. 12 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. “Adults frequently fall into the trap of consuming excess salt through easily accessible and budget-friendly processed foods,” said lead researcher Dr. Yangfeng Wu, executive director of the Peking University Clinical Research Institute in Beijing. “It’s crucial to recognize the impact of our dietary choices on heart health and increase the public’s awareness of lower-sodium options,” he added in a journal news release. High blood pressure is the leading risk factor for heart disease and heart-related death, according to the World Health Organization. It affects more than 1.4 billion adults worldwide and results in 10.8 million deaths each year. For this study, researchers evaluated how sodium reduction might help the blood pressure of seniors residing in care facilities in China. The study involved more than 600 participants, age 55 and older, from 48 care facilities. All patients had blood pressure under 104/90 mmHG, and were not on any blood pressure medications. Half of the care facilities replaced salt with a salt substitute in residents’ meals, while the other… read on > read on >

The red meat diet associated with masculinity could be the worst thing for men dealing with prostate cancer, a new study says. Prostate cancer patients who limit meat and dairy but eat lots of plant-based foods tend to suffer less erectile dysfunction, urinary incontinence and other embarrassing side effects associated with their treatment, researchers say. Men who ate the most plant-based foods scored 8% to 11% better in measures of sexual function compared to those who ate the least, according to results from more than 3,500 prostate cancer patients. The men also scored up to 14% better in urinary health, with fewer instances of incontinence, obstruction and irritation, results show. A plant-based diet also produced 13% better scores in hormonal health, which involves symptoms like low energy, depression and hot flashes. “Our findings offer hope for those looking for ways to improve their quality of life after undergoing surgery, radiation, and other common therapies for prostate cancer, which can cause significant side effects,” lead researcher Dr. Stacy Loeb, a professor of urology and population health at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City, said in a news release. “Adding more fruits and vegetables to their diet, while reducing meat and dairy, is a simple step that patients can take,” she said. Previous research by the same team found that eating a plant-based… read on > read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

Walking, Jogging, Yoga Are All Good Medicine for Depression

Could Using Scents in Therapy Help Depressed Patients Recover?

Acupuncture May Lower Stroke Risk in Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients

Being Bullied in Childhood More Than Triples Risk of Mental Health Struggles Later

Combo of Hot Flashes, Migraine Sends Heart Risks Sky High

Exercise a Lot? You May Lower Your Risk of COVID Infection, Hospitalization

Which Activities Help Kids Recover From Concussion?

Pregnancy Complications May Harm Child’s Heart Health Long-Term

Salt Substitutes Help Prevent High Blood Pressure

Avoiding Meat Can Help Men Cope With Prostate Cancer Treatments