All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

With 2023 predicted to be the hottest year on record, a new study is pointing to another potential consequence of heat waves: faster declines in older adults’ memory and thinking skills. The study, of nearly 9,500 older U.S. adults, found that those with greater exposure to heat waves over 12 years also showed a steeper decline in cognitive function — critical mental skills like memory, reasoning and judgment. The connection was specifically seen among older Black Americans and those living in poorer neighborhoods — groups who typically have fewer resources to protect themselves from scorching summer heat. Experts stressed that the findings show only an association between heat and cognitive decline, and cannot pin the blame on temperature extremes. Cognitive decline is complex and influenced by many factors, said lead researcher Eunyoung Choi, a postdoctoral associate at NYU School of Global Public Health in New York City. “Isolating the specific effect of extreme heat from this complex web is a challenging task,” she said. At the same time, there are reasons that repeated exposure to heat waves could affect older adults’ mental acuity, according to Choi. For one, there could be direct effects: Extreme heat can dull mental performance in the short term, and continued exposure over time might promote inflammation and damage brain cells. Sizzling temperatures could also act in indirect ways, Choi said.…  read on >  read on >

Living through days of smoky air from Canadian wildfires in June was unpleasant for New York City residents, but new data shows it wasn’t as immediately concerning for their lungs as feared. The research finds breathing-related hospital visits weren’t much worse in the city on these days than when pollen is especially high, though longer-term impacts aren’t so clear. “Thankfully, the respiratory effects of the wildfire smoke in June were not much worse than what had been seen on really bad pollen days back in the spring, and despite what many New Yorkers may have feared on seeing hazy, orange air,” study co-author Wuyue Yu said in an NYU news release. Yu is a doctoral student at NYU Langone Health in New York City. The researchers, from NYU Grossman School of Medicine, looked at the first six months of 2023, analyzing daily levels of PM2.5, tiny particles that can be breathed deep into the lungs. When wildfire smoke was at a peak in June, asthma-related visits to the ER rose 3% on average for every 10 microgram increase in PM 2.5 per cubic meter of air. On the smokiest day, 335 people visited emergency departments for their asthma — significantly more than the daily average of 188 earlier in the year. This peak wildfire number was only slightly higher than the 302 visits recorded on…  read on >  read on >

Young people have high levels of distress about climate change, and a new study argues that their anguish could be key to fighting it. “People of all ages are being affected by the climate crisis. Young people in particular, though, will live through more of the unfolding hazards of the climate crisis than older generations,” said researcher Emma Lawrance, mental health innovations fellow at Imperial College London’s Institute of Global Health Innovation. “Children born today will experience seven times the number of heat waves of their grandparents, for instance,” she noted. “At the same time, they are not yet in traditional positions of power to make the changes they know are urgently needed to safeguard their future.” For the research, Lawrance and her colleagues surveyed 539 people in the United Kingdom between 16 and 24 years of age. In all, 64.3% had moderate or high levels of climate distress. Those with diagnosed mental health conditions were significantly more likely to be among this group. Those who were more well-to-do had significantly higher odds for experiencing moderate as opposed to low climate distress. And guys were less likely to have high levels of climate distress. A child psychiatrist in New York hears the alarm coming from young people all the time. “If you speak to many young people today they will often say, ‘I’m worried about…  read on >  read on >

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 >