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Warnings about the dangers of vaping may be reaching American teens: A new U.S. government report shows e-cigarette use is down among high school students. In fact, use of any tobacco product over the past 30 days declined among this age group during the 2022-2023 school year, from 16.5% to 12.6%. This was driven largely by a decline in e-cigarette use, which dropped from 14.1% to 10%. “The decline in e-cigarette use among high school students shows great progress, but our work is far from over,” said Deirdre Lawrence Kittner, director of CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health. “Findings from this report underscore the threat that commercial tobacco product use poses to the health of our nation’s youth,” Kittner said in a CDC news release. “It is imperative that we prevent youth from starting to use tobacco and help those who use tobacco to quit.” Still, anti-smoking advocates welcomed the findings. “It is terrific news for our nation’s health that e-cigarette use among high school students fell sharply this year, while use of cigarettes, cigars and other smoked tobacco products are at record lows,” said Yolonda Richardson, president and CEO of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. “These results are powerful evidence that with the right policies and public education campaigns, we can drive down and even eliminate youth use of all tobacco products. They show… read on > read on >

The American Cancer Society has expanded its recommendations for who should get lung cancer screening. The updated guidance now says annual screening should start at a younger age and among those who smoke less, and it should continue regardless of how many years ago a former smoker may have quit. “If you are a person who formerly smoked, once 15 years had elapsed since your cessation you were no longer eligible for lung cancer screening on the assumption that your risk had just gotten too low over time to justify screening,” explained Robert Smith, senior vice president for Early Cancer Detection Science at the American Cancer Society (ACS). “When we look at that, actually the continuing absolute risk and people who had a significant number of years of smoking, we found that just wasn’t true,” Smith said. “In fact, your risk declined a little bit after you stopped smoking. Then it flattened out and started increasing again as your age increased, and eventually, rising pretty steeply — about 9% a year if you smoked 20 cigarettes a day.” To address that, screening should now start at age 50 and continue until age 80, the ACS said. In addition, those who have smoked at least 20 cigarettes a day for 20 years or more should be screened; the previous recommendation was 20 cigarettes a day for… read on > read on >

Money may not buy happiness, but it can help make life more satisfying, a new U.S. government survey shows. In 2021, just under 5% of U.S. adults said they were “dissatisfied” with their lives. And researchers found those feelings were more common in households making less than 200% of the federal poverty level — or about $55,000 a year for a family of four. Among those relatively lower-income Americans, 8% were dissatisfied with their lives — more than double the rate (3.6%) among people with higher incomes. That dividing line is not surprising, as past studies have found clear relationships between income and life satisfaction. But lead researcher Amanda Ng said another finding was intriguing: There were some disparities in life satisfaction, based on factors like age and race — but only among lower-income Americans. Within that group, white and Black Americans were less happy than Hispanic and Asian Americans. Meanwhile, middle-aged adults (aged 45 to 64) reported more dissatisfaction than either younger or older adults. And people born in the United States were less happy than their counterparts born elsewhere. None of those disparities existed, however, among Americans with relatively higher incomes. “It was pretty striking that we saw none of those differences,” said Ng, a researcher with the National Center for Health Statistics, which is part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control… read on > read on >

Cardinal Health, Inc. is voluntarily recalling certain LEADER brand eyedrops because they may cause eye infections. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration informed the Dublin, Ohio, company that agency investigators found unsanitary conditions in its manufacturing facility. Tests of critical drug production areas of the facility were positive for bacteria. The drops were supplied by Velocity Pharma, LLC. Potential eye infections caused by bacteria could lead to partial vision loss or blindness, Cardinal Health warned in a recall notice from the FDA. These products were meant to be sterile. Contaminated ophthalmic drug products pose a particular risk of harm because products applied to the eyes bypass some of the body’s natural defenses. Cardinal Health has received reports of three adverse events related to these listed products and have shared this information with its supplier, the recall notice said. Several products are part of the recall. They are: LEADER Eye Irritation Relief, NDC code 70000-0087-1 LEADER Dry Eye Relief, NDC code 70000-0089-1 LEADER Lubricant Eye Drops, NDC code 70000-0090-1 LEADER Lubricant Eye Drops, NDC codes 70000-0090-2 (pack of 2) and 70000-0090-1 (bottle) LEADER Dry Eye Relief, NDC code 70000-0088-1 LEADER Lubricant Eye Drops, NDC code 70000-0587-1 These eyedrops are sold over the counter for temporary relief of burning and irritation due to dryness, to protect against further irritation and to relieve redness. They were sent to… read on > read on >

More than a year after its launch, public awareness of the national 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline remains moderate, a new survey found. However, awareness is highest among people who need it most — those in serious psychological distress. Survey participants with serious distress were 45% more likely to have heard of 988 than those with no distress. Further, those in moderate psychological distress were 27% more likely to have heard of 988 than those with no distress. “When we looked across these different psychological distress categories, as you would expect to see and hope to see, the percentage of people using the lifeline was way higher among those with serious psychological distress,” said lead researcher Jonathan Purtle. He is director of policy research at New York University’s Global Center for Implementation Science. The 988 line launched in July 2022, transitioning from the 10-digit 1-800 number of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline into a simpler three-digit number with a broader focus on crisis counseling. To assess awareness of the line, researchers surveyed more than 5,000 U.S. adults in June 2023. “The key innovation of what we did here is we assessed people’s psychological distress,” Purtle said. “We were able to compare folks by their levels of distress and awareness of the lifeline.” Overall, about 42% of poll respondents had heard of the 988 lifeline, a… read on > read on >

Playing professional football, especially if you are a lineman, may shorten your life, a new study suggests. The University of Minnesota researchers thought that perhaps professional football players are unlike “American men in general” in ways that determine their future health. “When we started digging into the literature on later life health outcomes for professional American football players, we were initially surprised to find a relatively large number of studies that found football players lived longer than American men in general,” said study co-author Gina Rumore. She is program development director of the university’s Institute for Social Research and Data Innovation. “We believe a better strategy for understanding the association between playing football and mortality is to compare football players to men who are like them in every respect — except they never played professional football,” Rumore added in a university news release. So, the researchers compared men drafted to play professional football in the 1950s, some of whom played and some of whom never played in any professional league. The investigators then compared professional football players who began their careers in the late 1980s through the mid-1990s to a nationally representative group of men who were employed, not disabled, not poor and who had completed at least three years of college. The first analysis showed that linemen die earlier than otherwise similar men. In… read on > read on >

A seizure doesn’t always look like what you see in the movies, but a new survey finds most Americans don’t know what the more subtle signs of seizures are. “Anything that interrupts your brain’s circuit can cause seizures, from tumors, infections and strokes to high or low blood sugar, or glucose levels, to inherited genetic features. And different types of seizures can present with dozens of different symptoms,” said Dr. Dipali Nemade. She is a neurologist at the Orlando Health Neuroscience Institute. “But because they often look different than those ‘cinematic seizures’ we see in movies and television, they can go undiagnosed for a long time,” Nemade added. The standard mental picture of a seizure is someone falling to the ground with full body convulsions, which can be what a generalized tonic-clonic seizure looks like. A new national survey by Orlando Health found most Americans recognize these symptoms. Yet only 32% believe numbness or tingling signals a seizure, while about 35% think of blinking rapidly as a sign. Meanwhile, roughly 13% see crying out or screaming as a seizure symptom, while just 6% think of laughing as such. Pay attention to any odd behaviors and address them with your doctor, Nemade suggested. “Even seizures with these less dramatic symptoms can make everyday activities like driving and cooking dangerous,” she said in an Orlando Health news… read on > read on >

Cellphone use might be blunting a fellow’s chances of becoming a father, a major new study reports. Young men who frequently use mobile phones have lower sperm concentrations and sperm counts than guys who rarely dial on the go, Swiss researchers found using more than a decade’s worth of data. However, the data also showed that the move to improved cell technologies like 4G could have the happy side effect of protecting male fertility, the study authors noted. The association between cellphone use and lower semen quality gradually decreased between 2005 and 2018, the researchers found. “We think that this trend corresponds to the transition from 2G to 3G, and then from 3G to 4G, which has led to a reduction in the transmitting power of phones,” said lead researcher Rita Rahban. She’s a senior researcher and teaching assistant in the University of Geneva’s department of genetic medicine and development. “4G is much more efficient than 2G in data transmission, which reduces exposure time,” Rahban explained. “In general, newer generations of mobile technology, like 4G and 5G, aim to reduce radiation exposure while offering improved data speeds and capabilities.” Overall, the investigators found that men who used their cellphones more than 20 times a day were 30% more likely to have a sperm concentration lower than the value set by the World Health Organization (WHO)… read on > read on >

Despite progress in recent decades, too many Americans still have dangerously high LDL cholesterol levels, and about a quarter don’t even know it, new research finds. That puts those people at risk for a longer span of artery clogging disease and increases their risk of heart attack and stroke, a new study says. “We are not talking about mildly elevated levels in this particular study,” said co-author Dr. Salim Virani, vice provost in the Office of Research and Graduate Studies at Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan. “We are talking about levels where you need to start treatment right away.” Doctors may recommend diet and lifestyle changes for mildly elevated cholesterol levels, but someone with levels of 190 mg/dL or higher should also take cholesterol-lowering medication, experts say. A family history of heart disease further heightens the risk. “In those people, treatment needs to be started right away. If you don’t, then there’s a very high probability that a lot of these patients will end up having heart attacks and strokes at a very young age,” Virani said. Of course, you can only start treatment for high cholesterol if you know your cholesterol numbers are high. “That’s why it’s absolutely imperative that everybody should get their cholesterol checked and they should know their numbers,” Virani said. A simple blood test is all you need. Treatment… read on > read on >

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 1, 2023 (HealthDay News) — A new gene therapy for sickle cell disease was deemed safe by a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel on Tuesday, paving the way for full approval by early December. The FDA had already decided that the therapy, known as exa-cel, was effective. Developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals of Boston and CRISPR Therapeutics of Switzerland, exa-cel frees patients from the excruciating symptoms of sickle cell disease. If approved by Dec. 8, as expected, it would become the first medicine to treat a genetic disease with the CRISPR gene-editing technique, CRISPR Therapeutics said in a news release. But it won’t be the only new treatment for the inherited condition coming down the pike: By Dec. 20, the FDA will also decide on a second potential cure for a disease that typically strikes Black people, a gene therapy crafted by Bluebird Bio, of Somerville, Mass. “We are finally at a spot where we can envision broadly available cures for sickle cell disease,” said Dr. John Tisdale, director of the cellular and molecular therapeutics branch at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and a member of the advisory committee, the New York Times reported. In the case of exa-cel, the one-time treatment permanently changes DNA in a patient’s blood cells. How does it work? Stem cells are removed from a patient’s… read on > read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

Vaping’s Popularity Falls Among U.S. High School Students

Experts Widen Criteria for Those Who Should Get Lung Cancer Screening

Money Can Make Life More Satisfying, Survey Shows

More Eyedrops Recalled Due to Infection Danger

Those Most in Need of the 988 Lifeline Are Aware of It, Survey Shows

Playing Pro Football May Shorten Players’ Lives, Study Finds

Could You Recognize the More Subtle Signs of a Seizure?

Could Cellphones Be Harming Men’s Sperm?

While Fewer Americans Have High Cholesterol, Too Many Still Do

FDA Advisors Say New Gene Therapy for Sickle Cell Disease is Safe