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(HealthDay News) – New research has found that people who are transgender are far more prone to suicide than their peers. The new study, using Denmark’s centralized data repository, found that transgender people had 7.7 times the rate of suicide attempts compared to others, the study found. They also had 3.5 times the rate of suicide deaths. Suicide rates in all groups did decrease over time, the study noted. Still, transgender people died at younger ages than others, whether by suicide or from other causes, researchers said. “This is beyond doubt a huge problem that needs to be looked at,” study co-author Dr. Morten Frisch, a sexual health epidemiologist at Statens Serum Institute in Copenhagen, told the New York Times. To study the issue, his team identified nearly 3,800 transgender people in Denmark through hospital records and applications for legal gender changes. The study found 92 suicide attempts and 12 suicide deaths in the transgender group between 1980 and 2021. The U.S. and Denmark have similar suicide rates, so the findings may also apply in America, the researchers noted. Yet it’s also possible the data don’t capture all suicides among transgender people or contain information on all transgender people, the Times noted. “These surveys tend to include much broader spectrums of trans individuals, and we cannot be as certain that our results are as problematic… read on > read on >

Having a couple of drinks a day won’t protect you from obesity or diabetes, a new study suggests. Everybody knows that heavy drinking isn’t good for your health, but whether moderate alcohol consumption is protective or harmful is still open for debate, researchers say. “Some research has indicated that moderate drinkers may be less likely to develop obesity or diabetes compared to non-drinkers and heavy drinkers. However, our study shows that even light-to-moderate alcohol consumption (no more than one standard drink per day) does not protect against obesity and type 2 diabetes in the general population,” said lead researcher Tianyuan Lu, of McGill University in Montreal, Canada. “We confirmed that heavy drinking could lead to increased measures of obesity (body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio, fat mass, etc.) as well as increased risk of type 2 diabetes,” Lu added in a news release from the Endocrine Society. For the study, Lu’s team collected data on alcohol use from nearly 409,000 men and women in the UK Biobank (a large-scale biomedical database and research resource). The researchers found that people who had more than 14 drinks per week had higher fat mass and a higher risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes. The links were greater among women than men, the researchers noted. They found no association between moderate drinking and better health in people consuming up… read on > read on >

Coffee kickstarts many a sleepyhead’s day, but a new study argues that it’s not the caffeine alone that provides the morning wake-up. People who took a basic caffeine pill did not experience the same sort of brain boost they did from sipping a cup of coffee, according to brain scans. Caffeine alone does activate some regions of the brain associated with readiness to tackle tasks, the researchers said. But the act of drinking coffee produced a more comprehensive response in the brain, the results showed. “Taking into account that some of the effects that we found were reproduced by caffeine, we could expect other caffeinated drinks to share some of the effects,” said lead researcher Maria Picó-Pérez, a postdoctoral researcher with Jaume I University in Spain. “However, others were specific for coffee drinking, driven by factors such as the particular smell and taste of the drink, or the psychological expectation associated with consuming that drink.” For the study, researchers recruited a group of people who typically drink at least one cup of coffee daily. They asked these folks to refrain from eating or drinking caffeinated beverages for at least three hours before going into the lab. Researchers then performed two brief functional MRI (fMRI) scans, one before and another a half-hour after the participant took either a caffeine pill or drank a cup of coffee.… read on > read on >

Growing up in poverty may harm the structural wiring of a child’s brain, a new study claims. Researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found a link between both neighborhood and household poverty and the brain’s white matter tracts. These let the brain communicate between its regions and are important for processing information. “White matter integrity is very important in brain development,” said first study author Zhaolong (Adrian) Li, a neuro-imaging research technician in the university’s department of psychiatry. “For example, weaknesses in white matter are linked to visuospatial and mental health challenges in children. If we can capture how socioeconomic status affects white matter early on in a child’s life, the hope is we can, one day, translate these findings to preventive measures.” Some of these white matter differences can be attributed to childhood obesity and lower thinking function, both of which are higher risks in children who grow up in poverty. The lower thinking function may be due partly to limited access to enriching sensory, social and cognitive (mental) stimulation. “Our finding that obesity and cognitive enrichment may be relevant mediators, if confirmed, would provide strong support for managing healthy weight and encouraging cognitively stimulating activities to support brain health in disadvantaged children,” co-corresponding author Tamara Hershey said in a university news release. She is a professor of cognitive neuroscience,… read on > read on >

Clouds of smoke continue to drift over the Eastern United States and Europe from wildfires in Canada, and experts are predicting a longer and more destructive wildfire season due to rising temperatures and drier conditions. Now, new research puts a number on just how dangerous wildfire smoke can be. Smoke particulates from wildfires could cause 4,000 to 9,200 premature deaths and may cost between $36 billion and $82 billion each year in the United States, according to the new study. Wildfires release fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, into the air, and these very tiny particles can travel deep into the lungs and bloodstream and trigger an asthma attack, heart attack or strokes, among other risks. Symptoms may include coughing, wheezing and feeling short of breath. Wildfire smoke can also make conditions like asthma and bronchitis worse, said study author Yunsoo Choi, an associate professor of atmospheric chemistry at the University of Houston. “PM2.5 from wildfires can also have effects on the heart and blood vessels, increasing the chances of heart attacks and strokes, and making existing heart conditions worse,” he said. “It can cause general inflammation in the body and trigger allergies.” Certain groups, such as children, older adults, pregnant women and individuals with existing respiratory or heart problems, are more vulnerable to PM2.5 from wildfires, Choi said. For the study the researchers, led by… read on > read on >

An experimental drug appears to outperform the trendy medications Wegovy and Ozempic for both weight loss and diabetes control, a pair of early clinical trials shows. Retatrutide helped people with obesity drop about one-quarter of their starting weight, on average, during 48 weeks taking the drug, according to phase 2 trial results published online June 26 in the New England Journal of Medicine. “What is clear is that 24% weight loss from a single drug has not been seen before,” said co-researcher Dr. Lee Kaplan, an associate professor with Harvard Medical School. “And the subjects in the trial were still losing weight at the end.” The best comparable results come from last year’s clinical trial results for the diabetes drug Mounjaro (tirzepatide), which after 72 weeks had produced an average weight loss of more than 22%, Kaplan said. Retatrutide also helped patients establish better control over their blood sugar levels, according to a second phase 2 trial published online June 26 in The Lancet. Retatrutide works by targeting three different gut hormones that are stimulated by food intake, explained Dr. Ania Jastreboff, director of the Yale Obesity Research Center, in New Haven, Conn. Jastreboff led the obesity trial and was a co-author for the diabetes management trial. The hormones include one targeted by Ozempic and two targeted by Mounjaro, Jastreboff and Kaplan said. “These are… read on > read on >

A trendy form of intermittent fasting does seem to help people lose some weight — though it may be no better than old-fashioned calorie counting, a new clinical trial suggests. Researchers found that the tactic — called time-restricted eating — helped people with obesity drop around 8 pounds, on average, over one year. That was right on par with a second study group who went the traditional route of calorie counting and portion control. Time-restricted eating is a form of intermittent fasting where people limit themselves to eating within a certain time window each day. Outside that window, they swear off everything other than calorie-free drinks. The main selling point of time-restricted eating is its simplicity: Instead of laboriously counting calories, people only have to watch the clock. And small studies have shown that limited eating windows — 6 hours being a popular one — can help people eat less and shed some pounds. The new trial adds to the story because it aimed to be as real-world as possible, said senior researcher Krista Varady, a professor of nutrition at the University of Illinois Chicago. Participants were allowed to eat across an 8-hour time span, from noon to 8 p.m., which let them have dinner with family or go out to a restaurant with friends. And they merely stuck with that time window, without having… read on > read on >

Gastric bypass surgery is a potential long-term cure for type 2 diabetes, especially if the procedure is performed before the disease progresses, a new study argues. Among a large group of obese people with type 2 diabetes, about half achieved remission for an average seven years after undergoing gastric bypass surgery — the longest follow-up ever for such a group, researchers said. “That’s a very big deal,” said senior researcher Dr. Omar Ghanem, a metabolic surgeon with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. “After a one-time treatment, you’re going to have a 51% chance that you won’t have diabetes and you won’t have to take any medications for seven years.” The chances of diabetes remission were even better if the disease wasn’t advanced, researchers reported Tuesday at the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery’s annual meeting, in Las Vegas. For instance, you stood a better chance of remission if you weren’t taking insulin or multiple diabetes medications, had better blood sugar control, or hadn’t had diabetes for long, researchers found. Also, you didn’t have to lose a lot of weight to stand a good chance of going into remission, researchers said. About 41% of patients who lost the least — less than 18% of their initial weight — following gastric bypass surgery went into remission from their diabetes, results show. By comparison, 56% of… read on > read on >

Having even a mild COVID-19 infection could trigger a months-long drop in sperm, a new study finds. Researchers found both lower sperm concentrations and fewer sperm that were able to swim when studying men an average of 100 days after COVID-19 infection, which is enough time for new sperm to be produced. “There have been previous studies that show semen quality is affected in the short term following a COVID infection but, as far as we are aware, none that have followed men for a longer period of time,” said researcher Rocio Núñez-Calonge, scientific advisor at UR International Group at the Scientific Reproduction Unit in Madrid, Spain. “We assumed that semen quality would improve once new sperm were being generated, but this was not the case. We do not know how long it might take for semen quality to be restored and it may be the case that COVID has caused permanent damage, even in men who suffered only a mild infection,” Núñez-Calonge added. Núñez-Calonge and her colleagues decided to study this after observing that in some men attending clinics in Spain for assisted reproduction treatment, semen quality was worse after COVID-19 infection than before the infection, even though they had recovered and the infection was mild. “Since it takes approximately 78 days to create new sperm, it seemed appropriate to evaluate semen quality at… read on > read on >

Athletes using ketone supplements to boost their performance may be kidding themselves, researchers say. The literature on the benefit of ketone supplements is mixed. Some studies have shown the supplements improve performance, but others say they have no effect or even worsen performance. Natural ketones fuel the brain and muscles. A ketogenic diet of very low carbs and high fat causes the body to make more ketone compounds and increase their use for energy. Ketone supplements are thought to speed up that process, without the strict diet, the researchers noted. “One of the main perceived benefits is that ketones may serve as an alternative fuel source during exercise or potentially alter the utilization of other major fuel such as carbohydrates and fats, and in turn enhance endurance capacity,” said researcher Martin Gibala, a professor in the kinesiology department at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. “But our findings suggest that isn’t the case,” he added in a university news release. For the study, Gibala and his team tested 23 well-trained endurance athletes who cycled five or more hours a week, selecting them because their athletic performance is consistent from day to day. Each participant completed two trials that differed only in the drink they were given before they completed a 20-minute cycling time trial that closely predicts 40-km race performance. The drinks contained a ketone supplement… read on > read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

Transgender People Face Much Higher Risk of Suicide, Landmark Study Shows

A Little Drinking Won’t Help Prevent Obesity, Diabetes

Is Coffee’s Morning Jolt Mostly Placebo?

Growing Up Poor May Rewire a Child’s Brain: Study

Wildfire Smoke Could Cause More Than 9,000 U.S. Deaths Each Year

New Competitor to Wegovy Shows Promise in Clinical Trials

Fasting Diets vs. Cutting Calories: Which Works Best?

Weight-Loss Surgery Can Keep Diabetes at Bay for Years: Study

COVID Could Harm Men’s Sperm Months After Infection

Taking Ketone Supplements to Boost Sports Performance Could Backfire