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Too Much Fun? Fireworks Displays Quickly Harm Air Quality

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Fireworks displays can cause worse air quality than wildfire smoke, a new study reveals. About 60,000 firework shells exploded over Manhattan’s East River as part of Macy’s Fourth of July show in 2023, researchers said. The colorful bursts caused air pollution in New York City to spike dramatically, with levels many times higher in the hours after the display than was caused by smoke from a Canadian wildfire that had blanketed the region a month before. Particle pollution levels peaked at 3,000 micrograms per cubic meter of air at a sampling site near the display, and 1,000 micrograms per cubic meter at two other nearby sites, results show. For comparison, New York City’s average daily particle pollution levels are 15 micrograms per cubic meter, researchers said. Those levels reached just 460 micrograms per cubic meter when wildfire smoke choked and reddened the Manhattan skies in June 2023. In addition to air pollution, water samples collected from the East River contained more than double the usual level of metals sometimes used to make fireworks explode in brilliant colors. These include nickel, lead and antimony. “Our findings suggest that major firework displays can create a temporary spike in air pollution that may pose a health risk to both humans and the environment,” said lead researcher Terry Gordon, a professor with the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Fireworks…  read on >  read on >

How Wildfire Smoke Could Be Harming Surgical Patients

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Wildfire smoke could interfere with the safety of surgeries, a new study warns. Inhaling the smoke could complicate the effects of anesthesia on surgical patients, and it also might hamper their recovery, researchers reported Aug. 6 in the journal Anesthesiology. “Wildfire smoke poses significant health risks, particularly in people with preexisting heart and lung disease, obese patients, infants and young children, and other vulnerable groups,” said senior researcher Dr. Vijay Krishnamoorthy, chief of critical care medicine at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, N.C. “At a time of rising global exposure, anesthesiologists need to be equipped to manage the potential adverse effects of wildfire smoke exposure” on patient outcomes, Krishnamoorthy added in a journal news release. Nearly 100 wildfires are currently raging across the United States, burning more than 2 million acres, researchers noted. Wildfire smoke contains a complex mix of fine particles and chemicals that, when inhaled, enter the circulatory system. Organs like the heart and lungs can be damaged as a result, researchers said. The inhaled particles produce inflammation, damage the lining of blood vessels and cause clotting abnormalities in smaller blood vessels, they added. Exposure to such particle pollution also increases the risk of heart attack, heart rhythm problems, heart failure and stroke, they noted. All these factors lead to increased rates of complications among patients undergoing surgery, the researchers concluded.…  read on >  read on >

Study Shows How Fruits, Veggies Lower Blood Pressure, Heart Risks

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Eating more fruits and veggies can lower blood pressure and improve heart health by reducing acid levels in the body, a new clinical trial finds. People who added two to four cups of fruits and vegetables to their daily diet wound up with lower blood pressure and reduced heart disease risk, as well as improved kidney health, trial results published Aug. 6 in the American Journal of Medicine showed. “This supports our recommendation that fruits and vegetables should be ‘foundational’ treatment for patients with hypertension, because we accomplish all three goals [kidney health, lower blood pressure and reduced cardiovascular disease risk] with fruits and vegetables, and we can do so with lower medication doses,” said researcher Maninder Kahlon, an associate professor of population health with the University of Texas at Austin Medical School. In other words, doctors should first have people eat more fruits and veggies before starting them on blood pressure medications, the researchers said. “Dietary interventions for chronic disease management are often not recommended and even less often executed because of the many challenges to get patients to implement them,” explained lead researcher Dr. Donald Wesson, a professor of internal medicine with the University of Texas at Austin. “Nevertheless, they are effective, and in this instance, kidney- and cardiovascular-protective.” “We must increase our efforts to incorporate them into patient management and more broadly,…  read on >  read on >

When Your Knee Cartilage Wears Out, a ‘Biomaterial’ Might Help Replace It

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A newly developed biomaterial might be able to treat crippling arthritis by prompting the growth of new cartilage, a new animal study suggests. The bioactive material looks like rubbery goo, but it’s actually a complex biological stew designed to mimic natural cartilage in the body, researchers said. The biomaterial successfully regenerated high-quality cartilage in the knee joints of sheep within six months. If successful in humans, the new material could be used to treat osteoarthritis, which occurs when bones rub together after the cartilage separating them wears down, researchers said. That means the biomaterial could make obsolete the total knee replacement surgery now used to treat severe osteoarthritis. In the surgery, the bone ends are cut away and replaced with titanium, and the cartilage with plastic. “Cartilage is a critical component in our joints,” said lead researcher Samuel Stupp, a professor of materials science and engineering at Northwestern University. “When cartilage becomes damaged or breaks down over time, it can have a great impact on people’s overall health and mobility.” “The problem is that, in adult humans, cartilage does not have an inherent ability to heal,” Stupp added in a university news release. “Our new therapy can induce repair in a tissue that does not naturally regenerate. We think our treatment could help address a serious, unmet clinical need.” The new biomaterial combines an essential…  read on >  read on >

Head Injuries Common Among Police Officers, With Links to Mental Health Issues

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Three out of four police officers have experienced at least one concussion, increasing their risk of mental health issues, a new study suggests. About 74% of Ohio law enforcement officers had suffered one or more head injuries during their lifetimes, researchers found. Around 30% had a head injury that happened on the job. However, fewer than 1 in 4 of the head injuries were diagnosed or treated by a doctor, researchers found. “This is an area where we have to improve awareness, just like we did in the sport concussion world,” said lead researcher Jaclyn Caccese, an assistant professor in the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center’s School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. For the study, researchers surveyed 381 police in central Ohio about their lifetime head injury history. The participants also completed questionnaires assessing symptoms of PTSD and depression. Prior head injuries had occurred in 282 of the officers. These injuries occurred mostly from sports, but also were caused by falling, being hit by someone or something, car accidents or exposure to a blast, researchers said. More than 50% of participants said they had a head injury severe enough to lose consciousness, feel dazed or confused, or cause a gap in memory — all signs of a concussion. Officers with a prior head injury also were more likely to have symptoms of PTSD and…  read on >  read on >

Botanicals Like Turmeric, Green Tea Are Harming Americans’ Livers

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Botanicals like turmeric, green tea and black cohosh may seem benign, but their overuse is being increasingly linked to liver injury. New research suggests that 7% of U.S. adults are using at least one of the six leading botanicals, the equivalent of 15.6 million people. Many are ending up in hospitals for liver toxicity, researchers report. Because there’s almost no regulatory oversight over botanicals, chemical tests of products linked to liver crises “show frequent discrepancies between product labels and detected ingredients,” noted a team led by Dr. Alisa Likhitsup. She’s an assistant professor of gastroenterology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The researchers focused on the use of six of the most popular botanicals: Turmeric, green tea extract, the Garcinia cambodgia plant, black cohosh, red yeast rice and ashwagandha. Perusing 2017-2021 data on almost 9,700 adults in a federal health database, they found high rates of botanical use. For example, Likhitsup’s group estimated that more than 11 million adults regularly take turmeric supplements, often with the notion that it can ease pain or arthritis. That’s not too far below the approximately 14.8 million who take an NSAID pain reliever for much the same reasons. Unfortunately, “multiple randomized clinical trials have failed to demonstrate any efficacy of turmeric-containing products in osteoarthritis,” and overdoing it on turmeric has been linked to serious liver toxicity, the…  read on >  read on >

Thinking Hard Really Can Make Your ‘Brain Hurt’

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Folks who rub their forehead and complain that a complex problem is making their brain hurt aren’t overstating things, a new review suggests. Mental exertion appears to be associated with unpleasant feelings in many situations, researchers reported Aug. 5 in the journal Psychological Bulletin. In fact, the greater a person’s mental effort, the more they experience feelings like frustration, irritation, stress or annoyance, results showed. “Our findings show that mental effort feels unpleasant across a wide range of populations and tasks,” said senior researcher Erik Bijleveld, an associate professor of psychology with Radboud University in the Netherlands. “This is important for professionals, such as engineers and educators, to keep in mind when designing tasks, tools, interfaces, apps, materials or instructions,” Bijleveld added in a university news release. “When people are required to exert substantial mental effort, you need to make sure to support or reward them for their effort.”   For the review, researchers analyzed 170 studies published between 2019 and 2020 involving 4,670 people. The participants included people from a wide range of backgrounds, including health care workers, military employees, amateur athletes and college students. They represented 29 countries. The studies involved more than 350 different brain tasks that ranged from learning new technology and finding one’s way around an unfamiliar environment to practicing golf swings or playing a virtual reality game.  The combined results…  read on >  read on >

Brand of Kratom Tied to One Death, Many Severe Illnesses, FDA Warns

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Millions of Americans use the opioid-like herbal supplement known as kratom, but evidence of its dangers continue to mount. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued another alert for consumers to stay away from one brand of kratom in particular, OPMS Black Liquid Kratom. “The FDA recently received an adverse event report of a person who died after using OPMS Black Liquid Kratom,” the agency noted. “This is one of many reports of serious adverse events individuals have reported” after using the supplement, the FDA added. Kratom is an herbal supplement derived from the dried leaves of a tropical evergreen tree in the coffee family. A chemical called mitragynine, found in kratom, tweaks some of the same brain receptors that respond to opioids. However, overdoses of mitragynine are toxic to the liver and can prove fatal. Kratom has been used for centuries in its native Southeast Asia to produce increased energy and relaxation, according to the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse. The drug is largely unregulated: Anyone can buy kratom online, and it can be found in convenience stores, gas stations and vape shops. Some bars serving botanical drinks offer kratom tea. About 1.7 million people 12 and older used kratom in the United States in 2021, according to the National Survey on Drug Use. The new alert from the FDA noted that…  read on >  read on >

Depression May Lower Breast Cancer Survival

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Depression can lower a woman’s chances of surviving breast cancer, a new study reports. Women with breast cancer and depression are more than three times as likely to die as women without either condition, researchers found. By comparison, breast cancer patients who aren’t also suffering from depression are only 45% more likely to die than healthy women. “The combination is what makes the risk of death increase tremendously and leads to thousands of years of life lost,” said lead researcher Jagdish Khubchandani, a professor of public health sciences at New Mexico State University. “We found in our study that the co-occurrence of depression further reduces survival among women with breast cancer,” Khubchandani added in a university news release. “Unfortunately, many women with breast cancer do not get timely or quality care for mental health issues such as depression.” For the study, researchers analyzed data on more than 4,700 women aged 45 and older, about 5% of whom had breast cancer while nearly 13% had depression. They were followed for about eight years. “More than 4 million American women are living with breast cancer today, and more than a quarter-million American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year,” Khubchandani said. “Unfortunately, a large proportion of women with breast cancer suffer from depression, poor mental health and lower quality of life.” Results show that certain…  read on >  read on >