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“Hidden hunger” — low levels of essential vitamins or minerals — is common among people with type 2 diabetes, a new evidence review says Overall, as many as 45% of type 2 diabetics are suffering multiple deficiencies in vitamins, minerals and electrolytes, researchers reported Jan. 28 in the journal BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health. The review “exemplifies the double burden of malnutrition in action,” where people trying to manage their diabetes through diet wind up with nutritional deficiencies, concluded the research team led by Dr. Daya Krishan Mangal, an adjunct professor at the International Institute of Health Management Research in Jaipur, India. For the evidence review, researchers pooled results from 132 prior studies involving more than 52,500 participants between 1998 and 2023. Very low levels of vitamin D were the most common deficiency, affecting more than 60% of people with type 2 diabetes. Other common deficiencies included magnesium (42%), iron (28%) and vitamin B12 (22%). People on the diabetes drug metformin were at higher risk for B12 deficiency, with 29% having low levels of that vitamin. Women with diabetes were more likely to have vitamin deficiencies than men, 49% versus 43%, results show. And diabetics in North and South America had the highest levels of vitamin deficiencies, with 54% suffering a lack of specific nutrients. “The treatment of type 2 diabetes often tends to focus… read on > read on >

Daily low-dose aspirin can help prevent cancers from returning in about a third of colon cancer patients, a new study says. Taking 160 milligrams of aspirin a day cuts the risk of cancer recurrence in half among colon cancer patients with a mutation in their PI3K genes, researchers reported at the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium in San Francisco. These PI3K mutations are found in about 30% of all colon cancers, researchers said in background notes. They can make cancers more aggressive and harder to treat. The results of this study could immediately change treatment for those colon cancer patients, researchers said. “Aspirin has been shown to effectively reduce recurrence rates and improve disease-free survival in more than one-third of these patients,” lead researcher Dr. Anna Martling, a professor of surgery at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, said in a news release. For the study, researchers recruited more than 600 patients in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway who had moderate to advanced colon cancer or rectal cancer. The patients were randomly assigned to take either daily aspirin or a placebo for three years. Patients taking daily aspirin had a 51% lower risk of cancer recurrence if they had a mutation in their PIK3CA mutation, compared to placebo, researchers found. Recurrence was 7.7% for people taking aspirin versus 14.1% for those on… read on > read on >

People with low back pain might want to look into the ancient Chinese mind-body movement exercise known as qigong, a new study published recently suggests. Qigong is similar to tai chi, in that it uses slow-flowing exercises and still, meditative postures to ease tension and increase flexibility. The practice brought pain relief and better sleep to a small group of military veterans after eight weeks, compared to another group that didn’t use qigong. “Stretching, loosening, strengthening and balancing techniques of qigong may release back tension, ease pain and improve flexibility and alignment,” senior researcher Cheryl Krause-Parello, associate vice president for research at Florida Atlantic University, said in a news release. For the study, a group of 10 veterans with back pain were randomly assigned to take an eight-week course of qigong, researchers said. Another 12 vets were placed on a wait list and served as a control group. Between 40% to 70% of veterans suffer from chronic pain, and back pain is most commonly reported, researchers said in background notes. Painkillers aren’t the solution, researchers argue – veterans are more likely to be prescribed opioids than civilians, and are therefore at increased risk of addiction and overdose. Researchers figured qigong might be a way to help veterans manage back pain without resorting to painkillers. “This holistic approach addresses the complex challenges faced by veterans with… read on > read on >

Helping kids with obesity drop pounds can have a huge impact on their future health. When these children and teens lose weight, they are less likely to have type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol as young adults, researchers reported in a new study published Jan. 21 in JAMA Pediatrics. They also had a lower risk of dying young, their results show. “The results are very good news,” senior researcher Emilia Hagman, a docent of clinical science, intervention and technology at Karolinska Institute in Sweden, said in a news release. “Whether or not the treatment of obesity in childhood has long-term health benefits have been debated, since weight-loss is hard to maintain,” she said. “This emphasizes the importance of providing early treatment, as we know that timely intervention increases the likelihood of success and helps mitigate the long-term health risks associated with obesity.” For the study, researchers analyzed data on more than 6,700 Swedish children who registered for obesity treatment between 1996 and 2019. All received at least one year of obesity treatment prior to age 18. On average, the kids started treatment at age 12 and received around three years of treatment, researchers report. The research team then checked in with the children as they reached adulthood — between 18 to 30 years of age — to see whether losing weight had… read on > read on >

Don’t worry if someone’s checking your blood pressure in a loud public place. The reading they get is apt to be just as accurate as if the test were taking place in a quiet, less stressful environment, researchers reported in a study published Jan. 27 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. “The BP readings obtained in public spaces were minimally different from BPs obtained in a private office, suggesting that public spaces are reasonable settings to screen for hypertension,” the research team led by Dr. Tammy Brady, a professor of epidemiology with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, concluded. Current guidelines for accurate blood pressure measurement emphasize the importance of performing the test in a quiet, private setting free from distractions, researchers noted. But the new study’s results open up the possibility of more practical and convenient mass efforts to screen for high blood pressure, in locales like shopping malls, public markets, churches, sports venues, supermarkets and business offices. High blood pressure is a leading contributor to heart disease and stroke. Nearly 47% of U.S. adults have high blood pressure, according to the American Heart Association’s newly released 2025 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics report. For the study, researchers compared blood pressure readings taken at a historic public market in Baltimore, the Northeast Market, with those taken at a quiet office… read on > read on >

Major heart health risk factors like obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure remain on the rise in the United States, according to an annual report from the American Heart Association (AHA). These risks are thwarting efforts to save lives from heart disease, heart attack, stroke and other lethal heart-related diseases, says the report published Jan. 27 in the AHA journal Circulation. Overall, there was a slight increase in heart-related deaths in 2022, the most recent year for which final data is available, the 2025 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics report says. There were 941,652 heart-related deaths in 2022, an increase of more than 10,000 from the 931,578 deaths in 2021. The report indicates that heart-related deaths appear to be leveling out after a major uptick during the COVID pandemic, the report says — but heart disease remains the No. 1 killer in the U.S. Someone dies of heart disease every 34 seconds, amounting to nearly 2,500 people every day, noted Dr. Keith Churchwell, volunteer president of the American Heart Association. “Those are alarming statistics to me — and they should be alarming for all of us, because it’s likely many among those whom we lose will be our friends and loved ones,” Churchwell said in a news release. He noted that heart disease and stroke together kill more people than all cancers and accidental deaths… read on > read on >

Adderall shortages have prompted doctors to switch kids with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to other forms of stimulant medication. Adderall prescription fills for children and teens plunged after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a shortage of the drug in October 2022, researchers reported in a new study published today in the journal Pediatrics. But at the same time, prescriptions for other types of stimulant drugs used in ADHD treatment increased, according to study results. “Our findings suggest that the Adderall shortage did not cause many children to stop stimulant therapy altogether, but it did force some to switch to alternative stimulants,” lead investigator Sijia He, a researcher at the Susan B. Meister Child Health Evaluation and Research Center in the University of Michigan, said in a news release. It’s too soon to tell whether these alternative stimulants wound up being a good or bad thing for children with ADHD, He noted. “This would be potentially concerning if the switches may have resulted in worsened ADHD control,” He said. “We need more research to evaluate whether any switches led to adverse outcomes.” More than 11% of children will be diagnosed with ADHD at some point during their lives, and prescription stimulants are considered a first-line treatment when drugs are required, researchers said in background notes. Stimulants are the most widely used ADHD medication, according… read on > read on >

Maintaining tight control over blood pressure for even a short while can provide lasting benefits for seniors’ brain health, a new clinical trial says. People had lower risk of mild cognitive impairment or dementia after keeping their blood pressure around 120 systolic for three and a half years, according to results published recently in the journal Neurology. (Systolic pressure, the top number in a blood pressure reading, measures the pressure in arteries when the heart pumps blood.) What’s more, this reduced risk stayed with seniors long after they stopped such intense blood pressure treatment. “Our study shows that intensive blood pressure control is an important strategy in the prevention of cognitive impairment, a major cause of loss of independence in older adults,” said senior researcher Dr. Jeff Williamson, a professor of gerontology and geriatric medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C. “Lowering your blood pressure to more aggressive targets can improve the quality of life and extend active life for individuals with hypertension,” Williamson added in a news release. The new study is the latest from a landmark clinical trial which, in 2015, reported that intensive blood pressure management reduced risk of heart disease and death by 30% to 40% in people with high blood pressure. The trial — called the Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial, or SPRINT — compared the… read on > read on >

That busy highway could be contributing to depression, and not just because you’re snarled in a traffic jam. Air pollution from traffic appears to increase risk of depression among women, according to a new study published Jan. 21 in the journal Menopause. Further, researchers think this air pollution might be raising depression risk by affecting women’s menstrual cycles. “Traffic-related air pollution exposure was significantly related to having a longer menstrual cycle length, and having a longer menstrual cycle length was significantly related to higher depression,” wrote the research team led by Anwesha Pan, a graduate student at the University of Washington in Seattle. These effects could be more pronounced among minority and poor women, whose neighborhoods are often located nearer to high-traffic areas. Thus, air pollution could be “potentially setting the stage for a clustering of risk factors for poor psychological health in vulnerable individuals,” the researchers wrote. For the study, researchers tracked the health of nearly 700 healthy women of reproductive age living in Northern California. Their exposure to vehicle exhaust was calculated by comparing their home address to state traffic data. Results showed that the more traffic-related air pollution a woman faced, the greater her symptoms of depression. “Women with greater traffic-related air pollution exposure were significantly more likely to experience depression according to self-reports on an established questionnaire measure of depressive symptoms,”… read on > read on >

Food stamps and food banks can be key to healthy pregnancies. Food assistance programs are effective in helping hungry women avoid pregnancy complications, researchers say in a new study published Jan. 23 in JAMA Network Open. Food insecurity in pregnancy is associated with a higher risk of gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, preterm birth and newborn admission to a neonatal intensive care unit. However, risk of those complications disappears if women receive food assistance through state or federal welfare programs or local food banks, according to the findings. “Food insecurity in pregnancy was associated with a higher risk of perinatal complications, and these associations were overall attenuated to the null among individuals who received food assistance in pregnancy,” the research team led by senior investigator Yeyi Zhu, a research scientist with Kaiser Permanente Northern California, concluded. Food insecurity refers to when people don’t have enough to eat and don’t know where their next meal will come from. “Pregnancy is a critical period during which exposure to food insecurity can have magnified detrimental effects on the pregnant individual and their developing fetuses,” the researchers said in background notes. More than 8% of households in the U.S. have low food security, and another 5% have very low food security, according to 2023 data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That means about 18 million families were food insecure at… read on > read on >

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Vitamin Deficiencies Common in Type 2 Diabetes

Daily Aspirin Reduces Colon Cancer Risk: Study

Qigong Effective In Easing Low Back Pain

Weight Loss Boosts Long-Term Health of Kids With Obesity

Noisy Settings OK For Blood Pressure Testing

Heart Health Risk Factors Continue To Increase

Adderall Shortage Sparks Scramble for ADHD Alternatives

Locking Down Blood Pressure Protects Brain Health

Highway Exhaust Linked to Depression in Women

Food Assistance Ensures Healthy Pregnancies