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How long Americans can expect to live varies dramatically — and the gap continues to widen. A new report says health inequalities have, in essence, created 10 Americas. These mutually exclusive populations are divided along familiar fault lines, including race, ethnicity, income and address. While life expectancy rose in nine of 10 Americas between 2000 and 2010, only six saw gains between 2010 and 2019, according to the report. And it plummeted in all 10 in 2021, the first year of the pandemic. In 2021, Asian Americans had the longest life expectancy at birth — 84 years. That’s two decades more than the group with the lowest life expectancy: American Indians and Alaska Natives living in the West, who were expected to live 63.6 years. “The extent and magnitude of health disparities in American society are truly alarming in a country with the wealth and resources of the USA,” said Christopher Murray, director of the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. “These disparities reflect the unequal and unjust distribution of resources and opportunities that have profound consequences on well-being and longevity, especially in marginalized populations.” Murray is senior author of the report, which was published Nov. 21 in The Lancet, a British health journal. It builds on an earlier study that identified “Eight Americas” based on race, geography, ethnicity, per capital income… read on > read on >

A daily dose of vitamin B3 reduced inflammation in the lungs of patients with COPD, Danish researchers report. “This is significant, because inflammation can lead to reduced lung function in these patients,” said researcher Morten Scheibye-Knudsen, of the University of Copenhagen. Patients with COPD — the full name of which is chronic obstructive pulmonary disease — are more likely to get pneumonia, influenza and other serious respiratory infections, which can be fatal. The new study included 40 participants with COPD and a control group of 20 healthy volunteers. They received either 2 grams a day of nicotinamide riboside — a member of the vitamin B3 family — or a placebo. After six weeks, researchers saw a 53% drop in a marker of inflammation known as interleukin 8, or IL 8. After 12 more weeks of vitamin therapy, the effect increased by 63%. “In other words,” the researchers said in a university news release, “The group treated with vitamin B3 experienced reduced lung inflammation during the study.” More study will be needed to confirm the findings and determine the long-term effect of nicotinamid riboside in treating COPD, Scheibye-Knudsen said. During the study, the team also observed that COPD patients have lower blood levels of a chemical called NAD, which appears to play a role in the aging process. NAD levels rose with vitamin B3 treatment and… read on > read on >

Three out of four times, your Facebook friends don’t read past the headline when they share a link to political content. Experts say that’s somewhat surprising — and downright scary. People who share without clicking may be unwittingly aiding hostile adversaries aiming to sow seeds of division and distrust, warned S. Shyam Sundar, a professor of media effects at Penn State University. “Superficial processing of headlines and blurbs can be dangerous if false data are being shared and not investigated,” said Sundar, corresponding author of the new study published Nov. 19 in the journal Nature Human Behavior. “Disinformation or misinformation campaigns aim to sow the seeds of doubt or dissent in a democracy — the scope of these efforts came to light in the 2016 and 2020 elections,” he added in a Penn State news release. To learn more about content shared on social media, his team analyzed more than 35 million public posts containing links shared on Facebook between 2017 and 2020. The links included political content from both ends of the spectrum — and it was shared without clicking more often than politically neutral content. While the study was limited to Facebook, researchers said their findings likely apply to other social media platforms as well. Data for the analysis were provided in collaboration with Facebook’s parent company, Meta. It included user demographics and… read on > read on >

America’s kitchen trash bins are receiving more unwanted food as appetites falter among people taking GLP-1 weight-loss meds, a new study shows. GLP-1s like Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound all work by making food less desirable, and it’s showing up in more food wasted at dinner tables, said a team led by Brian Roe, of Ohio State University. The study surveyed 505 new GLP-1 users. It found 25% agreeing that they had wasted more food since taking the drugs, compared to 61% who disagreed. There was some good news, however: Food wastage appears to decline as people adjust to their GLP-1 medication. “The fact that food waste appears to decrease as patients acclimate to the medication suggests there may be a fairly simple remedy — advising patients new to these medications about the possibility of discarding food as their diets change, which could reduce food waste and lower their spending,” said Roe, a professor in the department of agricultural, environmental and development economics. According to the researchers, 6% of all U.S. adults were taking a GLP-1 medications as of spring of 2024. The medicines act on a hormone in the small intestine to help lower blood sugar, slow stomach emptying and signal fullness in the brain. In this study, almost 70% of respondents were taking semaglutide (Ozempic, Rybelsus, Wegovy) and nearly a quarter were taking… read on > read on >

A drug used to help patients lose weight and manage diabetes may also help those with heart failure, an international clinical trial shows. The test of tirzepatide, brand named Zepbound, included 731 patients with diastolic heart failure and obesity who were followed for two years. “This class of drugs continue to show benefits far beyond weight loss,” said researcher Dr. Christopher Kramer, chief of cardiovascular medicine at UVA Health. “This drug will become an important part of the armamentarium for patients with obesity-related heart failure and preserved heart function.” In nearly half of heart failure cases, the left ventricle of the heart becomes stiff and can no longer pump blood properly. Doctors call this diastolic heart failure or heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. Obesity is a major cause of heart failure, so Kramer’s team wondered if the weight-loss drug tirzepatide could help. The new trial — published in four journals and reported Saturday at an American Heart Association meeting in Chicago — showed that tirzepatide offered big benefits for managing heart failure. Patients saw improvements in how far they could walk in six minutes and big decreases in a biological marker used to measure inflammation and predict risk of serious heart events, the study found. During the two-year follow-up, 56 participants who received a placebo died or saw their heart failure get worse, compared to… read on > read on >

Think of it as collateral damage: Millions of Americans say they have been harmed by a loved one’s drug or alcohol use. One in 3 adults who responded to a new nationwide survey said they had suffered “secondhand harm” from another person’s drinking. And more than 1 in 10 said they had been harmed by a loved one’s drug use. That’s close to 160 million victims — 113 million hurt by loved one’s drinking and 46 million by their drug use, according to the survey published recently in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. “There are more harms than people think,” said study co-author William Kerr, of the Alcohol Research Group at the Emeryville, Calif.-based Public Health Institute. “They affect families, relationships and communities.” He said it makes sense that risky drinking and drug use have far-reaching consequences, but researchers only began looking at the secondhand harms of alcohol in recent years. Less has been known about the damage done by a loved one’s drug use. The new study is based on a survey of 7,800 U.S. adults. They were questioned between September 2019 and April 2020, before the pandemic became a factor in Americans’ substance use. People were asked if they had been harmed in any of several ways due to someone else’s substance use. In all, 34% of respondents said they… read on > read on >

People whose genes put them at high risk for dementia may be able to fight Mother Nature and win, new research out of Sweden suggests. The weapon: Working out on a regular basis to improve cardiorespiratory fitness, also known as CRF. CRF is the capacity of the body’s circulatory and respiratory systems to supply oxygen to muscles — a capacity that declines as people age and lose muscle, starting in their 20s and accelerating over time. By the time folks reach their 70s, CRF drops off more than 20% per decade. Low CRF is a strong predictor of early death from all causes and heart-related events such as strokes and heart attacks. “Our study shows that higher CRF is associated with better cognitive function and decreased dementia risk,” the Swedish researchers concluded. “Moreover, high CRF may buffer the impact of genetic risk of all dementia by 35%.” For the study, a team led by Weili Xu, of the Aging Research Center at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, looked at data on more than 61,200 people between the ages of 39 and 70. They were enrolled in the UK Biobank study between 2009 and 2010 and were followed for up to 12 years. At the start of the study, all were dementia-free. Each took a six-minute ride on a stationary bike to determine their CRF. They also… read on > read on >

A wearable patch the size of a postage stamp that can monitor blood pressure continuously could soon help people manage their hypertension. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, who developed the wearable ultrasound patch report Nov. 20 in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering that it has worked well in tests with more than 100 patients. Maintaining a normal blood pressure — 120/80 — helps prevent many illnesses, from heart disease and stroke to kidney problems, dementia and vision loss, so many patients with high blood pressure use a cuff-and-meter device to track their levels. “Traditional blood pressure measurements with a cuff, which are limited to providing one-time blood pressure values, can miss critical patterns,” said study co-author Sai Zhou, who recently received his doctorate degree from the University of California, San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering. “Our wearable patch offers continuous stream of blood pressure waveform data, allowing it to reveal detailed trends in blood pressure fluctuations,” he added in a university news release. The soft, stretchy patch adheres to the skin and is worn on the forearm. An array of tiny transducers inside it send and receive ultrasound waves that track changes in the diameter of blood vessels. These changes are then converted into blood pressure values. Developers said the patch produces results comparable not only to those of a standard blood… read on > read on >

Having achy, painful joints isn’t just a physical woe: Coupled with depression, it could also degrade an older person’s brain function over time. That’s the conclusion of a study of almost 5,000 older Britons tracked for 12 years. People who had both chronic joint pain and depression tended to perform worse on cognitive tests, especially tests focused on memory skills. “Both pain and symptoms of depression act on areas of the brain [mainly the hippocampus] associated with cognitive processing,” explained Brazilian gerontology researcher and study lead author Patrícia Silva Tofani, of the Federal University of Sergipe. She has a theory as to how joint pain and depression might pose a double whammy to brain health. “There’s an overlap of information, causing the brain to become ‘congested’ and have to delegate some functions to process the pain response and the symptoms of depression,” she said in a university news release. “This would interfere with formation of memory and global cognitive performance. In the study, we saw that over the years, this overload leads to faster cognitive decline.” The findings were published recently in the journal Aging & Mental Health. The study was based on data from the English Longitudinal Study of Aging, and looked at data on 4,718 Britons aged 50 or older whose health was tracked for a dozen years. Among other things, they were queried… read on > read on >

A sprain on the soccer field. A tumble to the floor at home. Kids get injured, but as a parent, when’s the right time to bring them to a doctor or ER? Pediatric sports medicine and orthopedic physician Dr. Bianca Edison, of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, offers up guidance for worried moms and dads. First of all, she said, don’t assume that childhood injuries are seldom severe: Edison pointed to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics, showing that nearly half (45%) of playground injuries involve fractures, dislocations, concussions and other harms serious enough to need urgent medical attention. She broke down child injuries into four types: head injuries, mouth/tooth injuries, fractures and eye injuries. Head injuries A knock to the noggin isn’t an uncommon event for rambunctious kids. But certain symptoms may signal that more than a hug is needed to help your child. “They include severe crankiness above and beyond what the child normally displays, multiple vomiting episodes, slurred speech, different pupil sizes and a sudden change in the way the child walks,” according to Edison. “These symptoms are of significant concern and need immediate medical attention.” There are certain metrics that can also help, especially when it comes to head injuries linked to falls. If the child is less than 2 years old and falls more than 3 feet, or is… read on > read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

’10 Americas:’ Health Disparities Mean Life Expectancy Varies Across U.S.

Could a Vitamin Be Effective Treatment for COPD?

Reading Beyond Headline Rare For Most on Social Media, Study Finds

Meds Like Ozempic Are Causing Folks to Waste More Food

Weight-Loss Drug Zepbound May Lower Heart Failure Deaths

Nearly 160 Million Americans Harmed by Another’s Drinking, Drug Use

Getting Fitter Can Really Help Keep Dementia at Bay

Skin Patch Could Monitor Your Blood Pressure

Chronic Joint Pain Plus Depression Can Take Toll on the Brain

Kids’ Injuries in Sports and at Home: When Is It Right to Seek Medical Attention?