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An international research team has achieved the first complete sequencing of the human Y chromosome, which is closely linked to male development. This is the last of the human chromosomes to be fully sequenced, an effort that may shed light on everything from fertility to disease. The work was led by the Telomere-to-Telomere (T2T) Consortium, which is a team of researchers funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) in Bethesda, Md., part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The new sequence fills in gaps across more than 50% of the Y chromosome’s length. The research, published Aug. 23 in Nature, uncovered important genomic features, including factors in sperm production. While both the X and Y chromosomes have a central role in sexual development, the factors involved are spread across the genome and very complex, according to the study. Other recent work has shown that genes on the Y chromosome contribute to other aspects of human biology, including cancer risk. Researchers completed the first human genome sequence 20 years ago, but there were gaps in the sequences of all 24 chromosomes. While some had just small gaps, more than half of the Y chromosome’s sequence was unknown. The Y chromosome is unusually repetitive, which made its sequence particularly difficult to complete. Study authors explained the challenge with an example of reading a book.… read on > read on >

Millions of Americans who experience major depression will suffer a relapse, but a new study suggests that learning to focus on the positive, rather than the negatives in everyday life, might help reduce those odds. “What we started to realize is it’s not just about how people with depression process negative information but there’s something interesting about how they process positive information that might really be important in sustaining their negative mood or depressed mood,” said study co-author Lira Yoon, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Thinking “it might be important to examine both at the same time,” Yoon’s team analyzed 44 past studies to better understand how much time those with a history of major depression spend processing negative and positive information. The meta-analysis included more than 2,000 people who had a history of major depressive disorder and more than 2,200 without it. The studies looked at participants’ responses to negative, positive and neutral information, such as photos of people or words that were happy, sad or neither. The mentally healthy participants tended to respond faster to emotional and non-emotional information, regardless of whether it was positive, negative or neutral. They also had a significant difference in how much time they spent processing positive versus negative information. Those who had major depressive disorder spent more time on the… read on > read on >

Tainted eye drops are back in the news, with federal regulators warning consumers not to use certain eye drops because of contamination concerns. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday advised people to avoid purchasing and immediately stop using Dr. Berne’s MSM Drops 5% Solution and LightEyez MSM Eye Drops—Eye Repair because the drops may be contaminated with bacteria, fungus or both. Specific microbes isolated from FDA testing include Bacillus (a bacterium) and fungal Exophiala in the Dr. Berne’s MSM Drops 5% Solution. In the LightEyez MSM Eye Drops—Eye Repair, FDA testing detected bacteria including Pseudomonas, Mycobacterium, Mycolicibacterium and Methylorubrum. The Dr. Berne’s products are distributed by Dr. Berne’s Whole Health Products. That company agreed on Monday to a voluntary recall of those particular eye drops. The LightEyez products are distributed by LightEyez Limited. LightEyez has not responded to an FDA email seeking to discuss the FDA’s concerns, the agency said. So far no one has reported adverse events from using the drops, the FDA said, but the products should be thrown out because using them could lead to minor or serious vision-threatening infections. That could even progress to a life-threatening infection, the agency warned. Patients who have signs or symptoms of an eye infection should talk to their health care professional or seek immediate medical care. The two eye drops included in the… read on > read on >

Children need to get up off the sofa and move more, according to a new study that linked childhood sitting time with heart damage in young adulthood. That was true even when the adult’s blood pressure and weight were healthy, according to researchers. “All those hours of screen time in young people add up to a heavier heart, which we know from studies in adults raises the likelihood of heart attack and stroke,” said study author Dr. Andrew Agbaje, of the University of Eastern Finland in Kuopio. “Children and teenagers need to move more to protect their long-term health,” he explained in a news release from the European Society of Cardiology. This was the first study to investigate the cumulative effect of smartwatch-assessed sedentary time in young people and cardiac damage later in life, the study authors noted. Kids who were part of the Children of the 90s study wore a smartwatch activity tracker for seven days at age 11, and then repeated this at age 15 and age 24. The researchers assessed the weight of the heart’s left ventricle by echocardiography, a type of ultrasound scan, at 17 and 24 years of age. Results were reported in grams relative to height. The researchers then analyzed the association between sedentary time between age 11 and 24 and heart measurements between age 17 and 24. The… read on > read on >

When astronauts travel to space, the experience depletes their red blood cells and bone, according to a new study. Fortunately, it appears their bodies can eventually replenish them after they’ve returned to Earth, thanks to fat stored in the bone marrow. “We found that astronauts had significantly less fat in their bone marrow about a month after returning to Earth,” said senior study author Dr. Guy Trudel, a rehabilitation physician and researcher at The Ottawa Hospital and professor at the University of Ottawa in Canada. “We think the body is using this fat to help replace red blood cells and rebuild bone that has been lost during space travel,” he said in a hospital news release. The new research builds on Trudel’s earlier work, which found that astronauts’ bodies destroyed 54% more red blood cells during space travel than they normally would on Earth. It’s known as “space anemia.” The research is part of MARROW, which is an experiment looking at bone marrow health and blood production in space, with funding from the Canadian Space Agency. “Thankfully, anemia isn’t a problem in space when your body is weightless, but when landing on Earth and potentially on other planets or moons with gravity, anemia would affect energy, endurance, and strength and could threaten mission objectives,” Trudel said. “If we can find out exactly what’s controlling this… read on > read on >

Eye tests are an important way to catch potential eye-related issues in children, but more than two-thirds of kids in the United States are not receiving them at their checkups. Those with Medicaid and other public health insurance were far less likely to receive these vision checks in the past year at their primary care doctor’s office, according to researchers at University of Michigan and Duke University. Children with private insurance had only slightly higher rates of screening, at 34%, the study found. The lowest rates of eye screening were among uninsured children, at 18%, and those with safety net insurance provided for those with low incomes, were at a 28% screening rate. “Well-child visits, and other annual checkups such as school or camp physicals, are critical opportunities for catching eye-related issues in children that can have lasting consequences for their education and lives, and these data clearly show room for improvement,” said Dr. Olivia Killeen. She is a clinical fellow in pediatric ophthalmology at Duke Health in Durham, N.C. Killeen and colleagues conducted the study while she was a National Clinician Scholar at the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation and Kellogg Eye Center, both in Ann Arbor. Children aged 3 to 5 had the highest screening rates, but these were still low, the study authors said in a Michigan Medicine… read on > read on >

One source of lead exposure in children may surprise you. It’s secondhand smoke, according to a Texas A&M University study. “Further research will likely paint a clearer picture of this exposure route, especially in younger children, but the findings here can inform current efforts to eliminate low-level lead exposure in children,” said co-author Dr. Genny Carrillo, an associate professor of public health. “For example, education of parents about secondhand smoke as a source of lead exposure could help decrease lead exposure in children and further build on the successes of past lead removal initiatives,” she said in a university news release. Lead exposure is a long-known health risk, especially for young children. Even at low levels, chronic exposure can damage the brain and other organs. It can also cause problems with thinking and motor skills. There is no safe exposure level, which is why great efforts have been made to eliminate lead-based paint and lead pipes in homes and phase out use of leaded gasoline. To study the impact of secondhand smoke, doctoral student Alexander Obeng analyzed data on blood lead levels and secondhand smoke exposure in 6- to 19-year-olds. The data included more than 2,800 children. The researchers looked at levels of lead and a metabolite of nicotine known as cotinine. Levels of cotinine are an indicator of exposure to tobacco smoke. The team… read on > read on >

When it comes to the array of different microorganisms found in the human gut, more is better: A more diverse microbiome is a healthier microbiome. Now, initial results of a small, ongoing study suggests that weight loss through either intermittent fasting or a calorie-restricted diet can improve that diversity. After tracking calorie-control dieters and intermittent fasters for three months, both had significantly improved microbiome diversity, said study author Maggie Stanislawski, an assistant professor of biomedical informatics at the University of Colorado. “The increase wasn’t greater in one group or the other,” she said. Each individual has a unique population of microorganisms including bacteria, fungi and viruses, in his or her gut. “These microorganisms are important to our health because they help to digest our food,” Stanislawski said. In fact, “many foods that you eat you cannot digest without the help of those microorganisms,” she stressed. Such organisms also help turn food into critical substances such as metabolites, which play important roles in many processes, from controlling inflammation to ensuring “how full you feel after a meal,” Stanislawski said. And the greater the variety of microorganisms colonizing the gut, the more effectively such functions are carried out. To see what impact different dietary approaches might have on the microbiome, researchers studied 47 healthy adults ranging in age from 18 to 55 who were either overweight or… read on > read on >

If you’ve had a heart attack, your doctor likely told you to take a low-dose aspirin daily to stave off a second heart attack or stroke, but most people don’t follow through with this advice over the long-term. Those folks who don’t take daily low-dose aspirin consistently are more likely to have another heart attack, stroke or die compared with their counterparts who consistently take aspirin, a new study shows. Aspirin keeps platelets from clumping together, which can help prevent or reduce the blood clots that can cause heart attacks and strokes. ”Most people should be on lifelong aspirin after a heart attack,” said Dr. Deepak Bhatt, director of Mount Sinai Heart and professor of cardiovascular medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine in New York City. “Long-term adherence to medication is a problem worldwide, including in the USA, and this is true even for inexpensive drugs such as aspirin, which can be life saving in heart attack patients,” said Bhatt, who had no role in the research. The study was led by Dr. Anna Meta Kristensen of Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg Hospital in Frederiksberg, Denmark. The researchers followed more than 40,100 people aged 40 or older who had a first-time heart attack from 2004 through 2017. The study team checked up on aspirin use two, four, six, and eight years after their heart attacks to… read on > read on >

The degenerative joint disease osteoarthritis affects 15% of the global population over age 30, so by 2050 that could be nearly 1 billion people, researchers say. Living longer and obesity are both major contributors. “With the key drivers of people living longer and a growing world population, we need to anticipate stress on health systems in most countries,” said study author Jaimie Steinmetz, lead research scientist at Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle. “There is no effective cure for osteoarthritis right now, so it’s critical that we focus on strategies of prevention, early intervention, and making expensive, effective treatments like joint replacements more affordable in low- and middle-income countries,” she said in an institute news release. The research was part of the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021, and used 30 years of osteoarthritis data, from 1990 to 2020, in more than 200 countries. The study found that cases increased rapidly over the past three decades because of aging, population growth and obesity. While around 256 million people had osteoarthritis in 1990, that number jumped to 595 million people in 2020, a 132% increase. The study found that obesity was responsible for about 20% of the disability of osteoarthritis in 2020. For people aged 70 and older, osteoarthritis ranked seventh in causes for years lived with disability. The condition is expected to… read on > read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

Scientists Decode the Y Chromosome, Key to Male Development

To Keep Depression at Bay, Fighting Negative Thoughts Is Key

Don’t Use Dr. Berne’s and LightEyez Eye Drops Due to Bacteria, Fungus, FDA Says

‘Couch Potato’ Childhoods Could Mean Heavier, Less Healthy Hearts Later

Space Travel Takes Toll on Astronauts’ Blood, Bone

Too Few Kids Are Getting Regular Eye Tests, and Insurance Is Key

Another Source of Lead Exposure for Kids: Secondhand Smoke

Low-Cal vs. Fasting Diets: How Does Each Affect the Microbiome?

Skipping Aspirin After Heart Attack Raises Odds for Recurrence

1 Billion People Worldwide Will Suffer From Arthritis by 2050