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Gun advocates often claim that mental illness is the driving force behind mass shootings in the United States. But new research argues that gun violence is more likely driven by the massive numbers of firearms available throughout the country, providing easy access to anyone with a homicidal bent. In the study, investigators compared mental illness and gun violence between three countries — the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. The United States has a rate of mental illness not much different than those of the U.K. or Australia, the researchers said. Nearly 16% of Americans had some sort of mental illness in 2019, compared with about 18% in Australia and 14% in the U.K. But in the first half of 2023, the United States had experienced about 21,000 gun homicides among a population of 335 million, compared to 225 murders among 26.4 million in Australia and about 200 killings among 67.7 million in the U.K. “The U.S. is experiencing more than 10 times higher death rates from gun violence than Australia and more than 40 times higher death rates than the U.K.,” said researcher Dr. Charles Hennekens, a professor with the Florida Atlantic University Schmidt College of Medicine in Boca Raton. What is different between the three countries is the number of firearms freely available, his team noted. There are about 393 million guns owned… read on > read on >

The diabetes and weight-loss drug Ozempic does not appear to harm a developing fetus when taken by pregnant women, a new study reports. Researchers found no elevated risk of birth defects among newborns of women who took medications to control their type 2 diabetes, compared with those who took insulin. During the decade-long study, researchers saw an increase in people trying to control their diabetes using drugs rather than relying on insulin injections. In particular, medications within the same class as Ozempic (semaglutide) – GLP-1 receptor agonists – became more popular as time went on. “As type 2 diabetes becomes a more common condition among women of reproductive age, and with the recent approval of GLP-1 receptor agonists such as semaglutide to treat obesity, the number of exposed pregnancies is likely to increase. Our findings provide initial reassurance of safety for infants prenatally exposed to these medications,” said lead researcher Carolyn Cesta, an assistant professor at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. GLP-1 receptor agonists work by mimicking the function of GLP-1, a naturally occurring hormone produced by the small intestine. Both the hormone and the drug slow stomach emptying, increase the feeling of fullness after eating, and control hormones related to blood sugar levels like insulin and glucagon. For the study, Cesta and her colleagues examined the outcomes of more than 3.5 million pregnancies in… read on > read on >

Many women and men begin new relationships never dreaming they could later be enmeshed in a cycle of intimate partner violence. Now, a new study finds there are early behavioral warning signs from a partner that suggest the risk for violence is there. And the more signs a person sees in the partner, the higher the potential risk. “These red flags could eventually be used in interventions to help people learn how to avoid abusive relationships or support loved ones who may be at risk for abuse,” said study lead author Nicolyn Charlot, of the University of Western Ontario in Canada. The study had two parts. In the first part, Charlot’s group presented 147 young couples who had been together an average of six months with a list of 200 abusive and non-abusive thoughts, feelings and behaviors based on prior research. The participants then told researchers how often any of those had occurred since they started dating their partner. In the second part, this time with 355 young couples who had been together an average of about four months, Charlot’s team identified thoughts, feelings and behaviors that appeared to predict violence in the relationship six months later. Some of the warning signs in a partner uncovered by the study were: a sense of arrogance or entitlement negative reactions when a person said no to something discounting… read on > read on >

Folks who take the blockbuster weight-loss med tirzepatide (Zepbound) may regain much of the weight they lost soon after discontinuing it, new research shows. A trial funded by Eli Lilly, the injected drug’s maker, found that “in patients with obesity or overweight, withdrawing tirzepatide led to substantial regain of weight.” On the other hand, continuing on with tirzepatide kept the weight off, over the full two years of the trial. Of course, sticking with drug could mean big bills for users. Medicare and Medicaid do not cover the drug, and if your private insurance doesn’t cover Zepbound, it can cost over $1,000 per month. Lilly says certain commercial card savings programs it offers can reduce the monthly cost to about $550, or even lower, however. Zepbound was approved for weight loss by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Nov. 8, and Lilly announced its availability to consumers on Dec. 6. To trigger weight loss, tirzepatide mimics two hormones, GLP-1 and GIP, which stimulate the release of insulin in the body. It quells appetite and slows the rate at which food moves through the stomach, helping patients feel full. It’s the first drug in its class to compete with another weight-loss blockbuster, Wegovy. Wegovy, made by Novo Nordisk, uses a similar active ingredient, semaglutide, which only focuses on GLP-1. That difference appears to translate to… read on > read on >

Chronic fatigue syndrome strikes more Americans than many might think: In a first national estimate, new government data puts that number at 3.3 million. The condition clearly “is not a rare illness,” and is being fueled in part by patients who now suffer from long COVID, report author Dr. Elizabeth Unger, chief of the chronic viral diseases branch at the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, told the Associated Press. In reality, that count could be even higher, because experts believe only a fraction of the people with chronic fatigue syndrome are ever diagnosed, said Dr. Daniel Clauw, director of the University of Michigan’s Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center. “It’s never, in the U.S., become a clinically popular diagnosis to give because there’s no drugs approved for it,” he told the AP. “There’s no treatment guidelines for it.” Further clouding the picture, the tally likely included some patients with long COVID who were suffering from prolonged exhaustion, CDC officials said. Long COVID is defined as chronic health problems that persist for weeks, months or years after a COVID infection. Symptoms can vary, but patients often complain of the same symptoms seen in people with chronic fatigue syndrome. “We think it’s the same illness,” Dr. Brayden Yellman, a specialist at the Bateman Horne Center in Salt Lake City, told the AP. But long COVID is more accepted… read on > read on >

Loss of the “happiness” brain hormone serotonin might play a role in the decline of brain function as a person ages, a new study reports. People with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) had up to 25% lower levels of serotonin than healthy people in key regions of the brain associated with memory, problem-solving and emotion, researchers reported recently in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. Those patients also had higher levels of amyloid beta, a protein that forms toxic clumps in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, the researchers added. “The correlation we observed between lower serotonin transporters and memory problems in MCI is important because we may have identified a brain chemical that we can safely target that may improve cognitive deficits and, potentially, depressive symptoms,” said researcher Gwenn Smith, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. “If we can show that serotonin loss over time is directly involved in the transition from MCI to AD [Alzheimer’s disease], recently developed antidepressant medications may be an effective way to improve memory deficits and depressive symptoms and thus, may be a powerful way forward to slow disease progression,” Smith added in a Hopkins news release. For this study, researchers recruited 49 volunteers with mild cognitive impairment and 45 healthy adults aged 55 and older to undergo brain scans. The… read on > read on >

Sore throats are commonplace during cold and flu season, but luckily there are lots of home remedies that can help ease your misery, doctors say. These remedies “aren’t quick fixes for an illness,” but they can help ease discomfort, said Dr. Heidi Hutchison, a family practice physician at Penn State Health Medical Group – East Pennsboro. . Folks with a sore throat should still get checked out by a doctor, to make sure they aren’t sick with strep throat or some other illness for which there are prescription meds, Hutchison said. But for a simple sore throat, these tried-and-true remedies can soothe just as well as cough drops or other store-bought cold treatments, Hutchison said. Honey Honey is a natural anti-inflammatory, and is used in countries like Croatia as a medicine rather than a sweetener, Hutchison noted. Most of the time, inflammation is what’s causing your throat to hurt. Your body is trying to rid itself of an infection in the back of your throat, which causes your throat to swell and feel scratchy. Honey is also safe for most people from age 1 and up, Hutchison added. Tea Certain kinds of herbal tea like chamomile also have anti-inflammatory properties, Hutchison said. Sweetening it with honey can provide a one-two punch to a sore throat. The warmth of hot tea also can be soothing to a… read on > read on >

Suicide rates for Black women and girls ages 15 to 24 have more than doubled over the past two decades, a new report finds. “Suicides are rapidly increasingly among young, Black females in the U.S.,” said study first author Victoria Joseph, an analyst in the department of epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health in New York City. Her team published their findings recently in the American Journal of Psychiatry. Suicide has been on the rise generally across the United States for many years. Data released in late November by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that almost 49,500 people lost their lives to suicide in 2022. That’s a 3% rise from the nearly 48,200 deaths recorded in 2021. Joseph’s team found that young Black females are no exception to this trend. They looked at 1999-2020 data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics database, which tracked causes of deaths for Americans. In 1999, 289 Black females aged 15 to 84 died by suicide; by 2020 that number had risen to 652. The year 2010, especially, seemed to be “an inflection point for subsequent increases in suicide deaths,” Joseph noted. There was also a “clear age effect,” the researchers said, with suicide rates rising higher among younger Black females. The overall rate of suicide among Black females rose from 2… read on > read on >

The Biden administration has again delayed enacting a ban on menthol cigarettes following intense lobbying from the tobacco industry. Along with that pressure, other critics of the ban have warned that it might anger Black smokers, who use menthol cigarettes at far higher rates than whites — just as President Biden gears up to run for re-election, administration officials told the Washington Post. The delay, which was posted Wednesday, now says officials plan to finalize rules to put the ban in place in March. Officials had originally planned to finalize the rules last August and later signaled to public health groups that they hoped to finish them by January, the Post reported. Still, the ban would not likely go into effect for several years because of the legal challenges that many expect will come. But anti-smoking advocates aren’t waiting to push passage of the ban. Karen Knudsen, chief executive of the American Cancer Society, said her organization is among a coalition of public health associations that this month will take out ads in national newspapers, send letters to lawmakers and use other measures to push the Biden administration to finalize the rule sooner rather than later. “The cost of inaction is high,” Knudsen told the Post, citing projections that a ban on menthol cigarettes would save up to 650,000 lives over the next four decades. Many of the lives… read on > read on >

Games like football, soccer and rugby come to mind when thinking about sports-related concussions. But a smashing tennis shot could cause a traumatic brain injury if the ball whacks a player’s head, a new study argues. Concussions can happen if a tennis ball traveling faster than 89 miles per hour hits someone on the head, researchers report. The average serve speed in professional tennis often exceeds 100 mph for both men and women, according to the website TennisUniverse. Amateur players can’t hit the ball nearly as hard as that, but tennis ball injuries are possible, if rare, even among amateurs, the researchers said. “Understanding and protecting against head injuries induced by tennis ball impacts is very important, given that tennis is a worldwide sport with tens of millions of participants every year,” said researcher Xin-Lin Gao, a mechanical engineering professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Head injuries from a tennis ball is also more likely if the ball strikes the side of the head or if it strikes at a direct 90-degree angle, Gao and colleagues reported recently in the Journal of Applied Mechanics. The researchers came to their conclusions using a computer model similar to that which predicts head injuries that might occur in a car accident. The computer model assessed what might happen to a man’s head if hit by a tennis… read on > read on >

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Firearm Access Drives High Rate of U.S. Gun Deaths, International Study Finds

No Sign that Ozempic, Wegovy Pose Threat to the Fetus: Study

Is Violence a Risk With Your New Romantic Partner? Watch for These Warning Signs

Pounds Return Once Zepbound Users Quit the Weight-Loss Drug: Study

Over 3 Million Americans Struggle With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Brain Serotonin Levels May Play Role in Alzheimer’s Onset

Sore Throat? Try These 5 Home Remedies for Relief

Suicide Rates Have Risen Steadily for Black Girls and Women

Biden Administration Delays Decision on Menthol Cigarette Ban Amid Pushback

Tennis Ball Impacts Can Also Cause Concussions