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In yet another reminder of the psychic toll the pandemic has taken on young people, new research shows spending on mental health services for U.S. children and adolescents has risen sharply since 2020. It climbed 26% for youths aged 19 and younger between March 2020 and August 2022, the RAND Corp. study found. Among a large group whose families had employer-provided insurance, use of mental health services increased by 22%. Use of telehealth for young patients skyrocketed more than 30-fold in the early days of the pandemic and remained 23 times higher than normal by August 2022. In-person care stood at 75% of pre-pandemic levels by that time. “Our findings suggest that telehealth care for mental health filled a critical need for pediatric patients after the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to support a substantial proportion of pediatric mental health care,” said lead author Mariah Kalmin, a policy researcher at RAND, a nonprofit research organization in Santa Monica, Calif. For the study, the researchers examined claims from health benefit manager Castlight Health. The study involved 1.9 million children and teens with commercial insurance from January 2019 through August 2022. Castlight manages insurance plans for about 200 employers in all 50 U.S. states. The researchers looked for common pediatric mental health diagnoses, including anxiety disorders, adjustment disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), major depressive disorder and… read on > read on >

Some common medications — including antidepressants, sleep aids and painkillers — may dull the driving skills of seniors, a new study finds. Many different medication classes have been linked to the risk of driving impairment, as anyone who has ever read the label warning “do not operate heavy machinery” might have guessed. But the new study took a particularly rigorous approach to investigating the issue — following older adults for up to 10 years and testing their driving skills with annual road tests. And it turned out that those using certain classes of medications were at greater risk of failing the road test at some point. When older folks were taking either antidepressants, sedative/hypnotics (sleep medications) or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), they were nearly three times more likely to get a failing or “marginal” grade than non-users. The findings do not prove the medications are to blame, said lead researcher Dr. David Carr, a specialist in geriatric medicine at Washington University’s School of Medicine in St. Louis. It can be hard, he said, to draw a direct line between a particular medication and diminished driving skills: Is it that drug, or the medical condition it’s treating or another medication an older adult is taking? In this study, though, Carr and his colleagues were able to account for many factors, including participants’ medical conditions, memory and… read on > read on >

Loneliness can leave many feeling desolate, but new research now suggests it may also leave people vulnerable to Parkinson’s disease. Among more than 490,000 people listed in the UK Biobank who were followed for up to 15 years, loneliness appeared to increase the chances of a Parkinson’s diagnosis by 37%. “The association between loneliness and incident Parkinson’s disease was not due to shared genetic, clinical or behavioral risk factors,” said senior researcher Angelina Sutin, a professor in the department of behavioral sciences and social medicine at Florida State University’s College of Medicine in Tallahassee. Although this study can’t prove that loneliness causes Parkinson’s disease, there appears to be a connection, Sutin said. “We show that there is an association between loneliness and the development of Parkinson’s disease, not that loneliness causes Parkinson’s disease,” she stressed. Sutin said that loneliness has been identified as a significant public health concern by the U.S. Surgeon General, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, and the World Health Organization. “This study adds to the body of evidence for the poor outcomes associated with loneliness, particularly neurodegenerative diseases,” she said. “Loneliness has been associated with Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia. The present research indicates that it is a risk factor for Parkinson’s disease as well.” Multiple factors may be linked to why loneliness may raise the risk… read on > read on >

A popular type of off-road vehicle known as a “side-by-side” has been linked to high rates of severe hand injuries, according to a new study. Side-by-sides are utility terrain vehicles (UTVs) designed to carry more than one passenger and heavy loads. All-terrain vehicles (ATVs) are usually made for one driver going off-road. “Our study finds much higher rates of mutilating hand injuries and amputations associated with side-by-side UTVs, compared to ATVs,” said lead author Dr. Shaun Mendenhall, of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, in Philadelphia. Mendenhall worked on the study with colleagues at his former school, the University of Utah. The report was published in the October issue of the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. “We believe hand surgeons can play a key role in increasing awareness and prevention of ATV-related hand injuries,” Mendenhall said in a journal news release. Utility terrain vehicles have side-by-side passenger seating, safety belts and a rollover protection system, but the American Society of Plastic Surgeons suggests this may create a false illusion that UTVs are safer than ATVs. ATVs have straddle seating, no safety belt and no rollover protection. The study developed after University of Utah hand surgeons began seeing more hand, arm and shoulder injuries in UTV riders. Between 2010 and 2021, they treated 87 patients who were injured in ATV accidents and 67 who… read on > read on >

TUESDAY, Oct. 3, 2023 (HealthDay News) – Exposure to ubiquitous chemicals known as PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, may delay puberty in girls, new research indicates. The study is the first to consider the role hormones play in the delay, according to researchers from the University of Cincinnati. Delayed puberty can lead to negative long-term health outcomes for girls, such as a higher incidence of breast cancer, kidney disease and thyroid disease, said corresponding author Susan Pinney, a professor of environmental and public health sciences at the university’s College of Medicine. “Puberty is a window of susceptibility,” Pinney said in a university news release. “Environmental exposures during puberty, not just to PFAS, but anything, have more of a potential for a long-term health effect. What these have done is extended the window of susceptibility, and it makes them more vulnerable for a longer period of time.” Researchers examined data from more than 800 girls from the Greater Cincinnati and San Francisco Bay areas who were 6 to 8 years old when they joined the study. The girls were examined every six to 12 months to see when they experienced the first signs of breast development and pubic hair. About 85% of the girls in the two geographic groups had measurable levels of PFAS. Researchers also discovered evidence of decreased hormones that were consistent with… read on > read on >

Good news for couch potatoes — bursts of activity as short as one to three minutes in duration can prompt a steep decrease in the risk of heart attack, stroke and early death, a new study reports. Researchers tracked the activity of more than 25,000 people in the United Kingdom, all of whom had wearable devices that monitored their movement down to 10-second intervals. The investigators found that short bouts of activity lasting fewer than 10 minutes caused a significant decrease in heart attacks and strokes, as well as death from any cause. These weren’t activities where someone needed to don sportswear and athletic shoes, either, said lead researcher Matthew Ahmadi, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Sydney in Australia. “The health-enhancing benefits they received all came from activities of daily living such as playing with children, gardening and household tasks that mixed in short bursts of vigorous intensity,” Ahmadi said. “Our study found that the health benefits traditionally attributed to exercise-based activities can also be achieved through everyday activities. This was a nice finding, particularly for adults who are unable to or cannot exercise regularly,” he said. Although even short bursts of activity produced benefit, the longer the bouts, the better off participants were, the researchers found. Compared to people who only moved in bouts of one minute or less: People who… read on > read on >

What a baby eats, or how the baby eats, may have an impact on future weight and health, research has shown. A new study backs that up. It found that 9-year-olds who had been breast-fed for six months or more had a lower percentage of body fat than their peers who were never breast-fed or received breast milk. The researchers also found that kids who were not given soda before 18 months of age also had less fat at age 9. Past studies have zeroed in on links between infant feeding and obesity based on body mass index (BMI) — an estimate of body fat based on height and weight. This one relied on what researchers considered a more precise measure: percent fat mass. That’s the proportion of total weight owing to body fat. “Infancy is a vulnerable life stage characterized by significant developmental changes, and when environmental exposures may have long-lasting effects on an individual’s metabolism and physiology,” said lead researcher Catherine Cohen. She is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora. “This study provides initial data to support that the types of foods introduced during infancy may be involved in predisposing individuals to more (body fat) accrual in childhood; also, these behaviors could represent targets for interventions aiming to prevent the onset of obesity and related metabolic… read on > read on >

A diet rich in whole grains, fruits and non-starchy vegetables is the best recipe for middle-aged folks trying to keep their weight under control, new research finds. Low in added sugar, yet rich in vitamins and minerals, such foods are considered “high-quality” carbs, investigators explained. The same cannot be said of refined grains, sugary beverages or starchy vegetables. Such foods are “low-quality” carbs that are likely to fuel an expanding waistline at a time in life when weight gain is common. “The quality and source of carbohydrate is crucial for long-term weight management, especially for people already with excessive body weight,” said study lead author Yi Wan, a postdoctoral research fellow in the department of nutrition at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. The good news, said Wan, is that switching from low-quality to high-quality carbs “may support efforts to control body weight,” and could even help stave off the risk for diabetes, heart disease and cancer. The findings follow a review of data from three different ongoing studies gathered between 1986 and 2015. In sum, the studies included a pool of more than 136,000 men and women, all aged 65 or younger. All were deemed healthy at enrollment, meaning they were free of diabetes, cancer, heart disease, respiratory illnesses, kidney disease and/or gastrointestinal illness. Dietary routines were assessed by way of… read on > read on >

Grandma knew it all along: Certain places on the body are “hot spots” for unhealthy microbes. That notion — which the authors of a new study dubbed “the grandma hypothesis,” after grandma’s admonitions to clean behind the ears — was tested by students in a genomics course at George Washington (GW) University in Washington, D.C. The investigators proved what grandma knew all along: Skin behind the ears and between the toes can harbor unhealthy microbes. The collection of microbes living on and in the body is known the microbiome. It has a role in human health. The skin’s microbiome varies across dry, moist and oily areas. So students set out to test the hypothesis. Keith Crandall, director of the Computational Biology Institute at GW, recalled his own grandmother always telling the kids in his family to “scrub behind the ears, between the toes and in the belly button.” Crandall thought these hot spots were normally washed less often compared to the skin on the arms or legs and might harbor different types of bacteria. Together with Marcos Pérez-Losada, an associate professor of biostatistics and bioinformatics, he designed this genomics course. In it, 129 graduate and undergraduate students were taught to collect their own data by swabbing certain moist and oily hot spots, behind the ears, between the toes and in the naval. They swabbed calves… read on > read on >

Extensive exercise regimens are keeping astronauts healthy and protecting their hearts during extended space missions, new research finds. A study from scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas found no loss of heart mass or output, and no loss of function in the heart’s ventricles, during flights that can last up to six months. The findings could have implications for treating diseases in which gravity plays a role. They also could help in planning longer missions, such as to Mars. “Our study shows that, remarkably, what we are doing in space to preserve heart function and morphology is pretty effective,” said senior study author Dr. Benjamin Levine. He is a professor of internal medicine in the division of cardiology at UT Southwestern. It has been known that when astronauts return to Earth, they typically experience a dramatic loss in blood pressure. A key cause is remodeling that the heart experiences because of space’s microgravity conditions. While in space, astronauts’ bodies don’t have to counteract the effects of gravity. That means their bodies are working less hard. It’s similar to what someone would experience while on bed rest, the researchers explained. The heart muscle mass decreases by an average of 1% per week while in space and the volume of blood that the heart holds also drops. It was not known whether the two hours… read on > read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

Spending on Kids’ Mental Health Keeps Rising

Seniors, Here Are the Meds That Can Harm Your Driving Skills

Loneliness Could Raise Risk for Parkinson’s, Study Finds

Surgeons Seeing More ‘Mutilating’ Hand Injuries With New Utility Terrain Vehicles

PFAS Chemicals Tied to Later Puberty in Girls

Even Short Bursts of Daily Activity Lengthen Life

Breastfeeding in Infancy Tied to Healthier Weight Later for Kids

Beating ‘Middle-Age Spread’: Carbs You Should and Shouldn’t Eat

Germs Love Two Skin ‘Hot Spots’ on Your Body

Exercise Can Preserve Astronauts’ Heart Health on Long Space Flights