Children who are obese face double the odds of developing multiple sclerosis later in life, a new study warns. The overall odds for any one child to develop the neurodegenerative illness remains very low. However, the Swedish researchers believe the link could help explain rising rates of MS. “There are several studies showing that MS has increased over several decades and obesity is believed to be one major driver for this increase,” wrote a team led by Claude Marcus, of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. “Thanks to our prospective study design, we can confirm this theory.” The findings will be presented in May at the European Congress on Obesity in Venice. For the study, Marcus and his colleagues tracked data from 1995 through 2020, compiled by the Swedish Childhood Obesity Treatment Register. Almost 22,000 children were covered by that database, and their incidence of MS later in life was compared to that of similar, non-obese children from the general Swedish population. Rates of cases of newly diagnosed MS were tracked till 2023. The result: While 0.06% of the non-obese children went on to develop MS, the rate more than doubled, to 0.13%, among people who had been obese during childhood. Two-thirds of cases occurred in females, the study found, which mimics the general ratio of MS observed in women compared to men. MS was diagnosed…  read on >  read on >

Folks with genetically-driven stress are more likely to suffer heart attacks after nerve-wracking events or times of unrest, a new study shows. People with above-average genetic scores linked to neuroticism and stress were 34% more likely to experience a heart attack following stressful periods, researchers found. Further, these jittery individuals were more than three times as likely to have a heart attack during stressful times if they also had anxiety or depression. “We found people who are genetically predisposed to stress tend to have a strikingly higher probability of developing a heart attack after these stressful events,” said lead researcher Dr. Shady Abohashem, an instructor of cardiovascular imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston. For the study, researchers analyzed data on nearly 18,500 participants in the Mass General Brigham Biobank, a program that captures genetic data for use in medical research. Researchers compared genetic stress scores among people who had a heart attack after stressful times against those who had a heart attack during calmer times and those who’d never had a cardiac event. For the study, periods considered to be highly stressful included: The 10 days after Christmas. The five days after presidential elections. The five days after major sporting events like Super Bowls or NBA playoffs involving Boston-area teams. People with above-average genetic stress scores had a 34% higher…  read on >  read on >

Suicidal thoughts and contemplation of death haunt the minds of many rural Black men in the United States, a new study reports. One in three rural Black men said they had such dark thoughts within the past two weeks, University of Georgia researchers found. These thoughts are driven by childhood trauma, poverty and exposure to racism, all of which take a heavy toll on mental health as Black teens enter adulthood, researchers said. “We found when Black men were exposed to childhood adversity, they may develop an internal understanding of the world as somewhere they are devalued, where they could not trust others, and they could not engage the community in a supportive way,” said researcher Michael Curtis, a graduate of the University of Georgia’s College of Family and Consumer Sciences. Racial discrimination in particular predicted higher rates of suicidal thoughts, researchers found. Even Black men who reported positive childhood experiences struggled to maintain healthy relationships if they had experienced racial discrimination, results show. As a result, they were more likely to feel isolated and experience thoughts of suicide. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for Black people between the ages of 15 and 24, researchers said in background notes. Further, Black men die by suicide at a rate four times that of Black women. “We just know it’s bad, and particularly among young…  read on >  read on >

Living in a poor and unhealthy neighborhood could nearly double a person’s risk of heart disease and stroke, a new study says. The findings indicate that all the factors that make for a crummy neighborhood — air and water pollution, toxic sites, few parks, tons of traffic — play a significant role in heart health. So, too, do social and economic factors like low income, poor education, unemployment and lack of access to internet and health care. These environmental and social factors deliver a “dual hit” to the heart health of people trapped in lousy neighborhoods, said senior researcher Dr. Sarju Ganatra, director of the Cardio-Oncology Program and South Asian Cardio-Metabolic Program at Lahey Hospital and Medical Center in Burlington, Mass. “I was amazed to see the tight links and complex interplay between social and environmental factors on health outcomes,” Ganatra said. Even after adjusting for social factors like low income and poor education, “environmental factors played a crucial and independent role in determining various heart disease and other related health outcomes,” Ganatra added. For the study, researchers rated more than 71,000 U.S. census tracts using the Environmental Justice Index, a database combining demographic, environmental and health data gathered by multiple federal agencies. People living in neighborhoods beset by harmful environmental factors had about 1.6 times the rate of clogged arteries and more than double…  read on >  read on >