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The artificial sweetener aspartame is in the hot seat once more. Two separate committees made up of health experts from around the world will soon offer advice on consuming aspartame, a popular sugar substitute that is added to sodas, cough drops, desserts and gum. The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is analyzing whether the ingredient is a carcinogen. Meanwhile, the WHO’s Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives will offer guidance on an acceptable daily intake of aspartame. Both are expected to issue their reports on July 14, according to leaked WHO documents, CNN reported. Aspartame continues to have approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a safe product. Not only that, but U.S. health officials are concerned that doing simultaneous, potentially conflicting, reviews will “seriously undermine” confidence in the scientific process and “inflame the current climate of public skepticism about the validity of science and scientific process,” according to a letter sent to the WHO last summer by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The WHO’s cancer research committee considers a broad range of items carcinogens, including mobile devices, Qi Sun, an associate professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told CNN. For aspartame to be ruled a carcinogen “boils down to what kind of evidence we have,” he added.… read on > read on >

California psychiatrist Dr. Carolyn Rodriguez once had a patient with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) who washed his hands so often that he had to wear gloves to cover his cracked and swollen skin. “People with intrusive thoughts of contamination can do this for hours on end with scalding hot water,” said Rodriguez, who is also associate dean for academic affairs at Stanford University School of Medicine. Though OCD is fairly common, with around 2 in every 100 adults in the United States affected, according to the Stanford Center for Health Education, its causes have not been well understood. Until now. Psychologists from the University of Cambridge in the U.K. report they have found widespread chemical imbalances in the regions of OCD patients’ brains responsible for decision-making, specifically involving the major neurotransmitter chemicals cortical glutamate and GABA. The findings could lead to more targeted treatments for the condition, they added. OCD is a mental health condition that “involves both obsessions and compulsions that take up a lot of time and get in the way of important activities, such as school, family life, extracurricular activities, developing friendships, and self-care,” according to the International OCD Foundation. OCD doesn’t look the same in each individual. People with the condition can have intrusive thoughts of harm toward themselves or others, intrusive thoughts of contamination, symmetry obsessions or checking compulsions. “Some people… read on > read on >

Blaming your ailing knees for feeling down? Unfortunately, even after physical pain eases, healing or fixing an injured joint often does not improve mental health, research shows. A new study found that anxiety symptoms only improved when a patient had major improvements in physical function. Depression, meanwhile, did not meaningfully improve even when the improvements to physical function were significant. “We wanted to find out if patients have fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression as physical function improves and pain lessens,” said senior study author Dr. Abby Cheng, an assistant professor of orthopedic surgery at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “The answer is that they mostly do not.” It’s reasonable that someone might feel frustrated, anxious or depressed when they’re experiencing pain. Cheng said the findings came as a surprise even though in her practice she often sees people whose physical health has improved without dramatic gains in mental health. “What was interesting to me was that patients’ anxiety lessened somewhat in cases where patients experienced notable improvements in physical health, but depression did not improve in many such instances,” she said. “As physicians, what we really care about is how patients feel. One patient might be happy because now he or she can walk a mile, and that’s good. But other patients who can walk a mile might not be happy… read on > read on >

(HealthDay News) – For the second time this month, massive plumes of smoke from hundreds of out-of-control Canadian wildfires are polluting much of America’s air. Among the major U.S. cities now experiencing poor air quality are St. Louis, Milwaukee, Cincinnati and Chicago, while entire states have also issued air quality alerts, according to the National Weather Service. These are Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, New York and Wisconsin. Parts of Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia also have alerts. In the cities of Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and Davenport, Iowa, air quality was in the “very unhealthy” range, according to airnow.gov. The air quality is cause for concern because of tiny particulate matter, also called PM2.5, which is a dangerous pollutant. It can travel deep into the lung tissue and enter the bloodstream, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. PM2.5 is associated with a variety of health issues, including asthma and heart disease. Between 80 million and 120 million people are affected by this poor air quality, according to an analysis by the National Weather Service and CNN. In some locations, residents have been asked to stay inside and run their air conditioning or to wear N95 masks if they need to go outside, CNN reported. Smoke concentration may increase over New York City on… read on > read on >

Vitamin D supplements might lower the risk of heart attack and other cardiac ills for people over 60 — especially if they’re already taking heart meds, a new study suggests. “Our results suggest that further exploration of the possible benefit of vitamin D on cardiovascular events, particularly in those at higher risk of having an event, might be warranted,” said senior researcher Rachel Neale. Evidence of benefit was strongest for folks taking cholesterol-lowering statins or other heart medications, said Neale, deputy coordinator of the population health program at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Queensland, Australia. The large trial found “some evidence of benefit for people who were taking drugs to treat cardiovascular conditions or high cholesterol at baseline, and vitamin D reduced the rate of heart attack,” she said. Other studies have not found a benefit of vitamin D for major cardiovascular events, “but the results of [our] D-Health Trial suggest that it might be beneficial,” Neale said. Still, the findings aren’t conclusive. “Overall, we found no statistically significant effect of vitamin D on major cardiovascular events, such as stroke, myocardial infarction [heart attack], or treatment of blocked vessels in the heart,” she added. While not whole-heartedly endorsing D supplementation, Neale said older adults might give it some thought. “Taking a modest dose of vitamin D is unlikely to be harmful,” she said.… read on > read on >

Pairing exercise with a 10% weight loss can make a major health improvement in people living with obesity and prediabetes, a new study says. Building in regular exercise more than doubled sensitivity to insulin compared to just weight loss alone. This has the potential to prevent or delay prediabetes from progressing into type 2 diabetes while also decreasing the risk of heart disease, researchers said. “Insulin resistance is a major factor that causes type 2 diabetes, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and abnormal blood lipids in people with obesity,” said senior investigator Dr. Samuel Klein, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “We’ve shown that combining exercise with weight loss causes a marked improvement in whole-body insulin sensitivity, thereby lowering the risk of developing diabetes and treating obesity-related metabolic diseases to a much greater degree than is possible with weight loss alone,” he said in a university news release. Obesity makes the body resistant to insulin, leading to an increase in blood sugar concentration, Klein explained. The 16 study volunteers were obese, with a body mass index ranging from 30 (the threshold for obesity) to 49. They also had prediabetes, with medical evidence of insulin resistance. Eight of the volunteers were put in a diet-only group and lost 10% of their body weight. The other eight also… read on > read on >

Enjoy that summer sun, but keep some safety tips in mind, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) advises parents. “It’s great to see children enjoying nature and reaping the benefits of outdoor activities,” Atlanta-based pediatrician Dr. Rebecca Philipsborn said in an AAP news release. “As we encounter more intense weather events, including severe heat, there are some layers of protection that families can use to help their kids stay healthy.” Among the issues to consider are air quality and pollution. Sun and heat can worsen local air pollution. You can check your local Air Quality Index, the AAP suggests. This will help you to know when air pollution, wildfires and heat raise the risk of asthma and other health issues. For sun protection, keep babies under 6 months old out of direct sunlight. Instead, they should be shaded by a tree, umbrella or stroller canopy. Dress your baby in lightweight clothing that covers the arms and legs. Use brimmed hats to prevent a sunburn on the neck. Older kids should also cover up, staying in the shade when possible and limiting sun exposure during the peak intensity hours of 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Damaging UV (ultraviolet) rays can bounce back from sand, water, snow or concrete, so be especially careful in these areas. Choose tightly woven or cotton clothing that is cool and protective.… read on > read on >

Autopsy is currently the only way to definitively diagnose chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease often seen in athletes who’ve suffered repeated blows to the head. But there may be a way to predict which athletes are likely to develop CTE, researchers report June 28 in the journal Neurology. They outline criteria for a condition called traumatic encephalopathy syndrome, where CTE is suspected based on cognitive impairment, behavior changes and other factors. “These findings suggest that this new diagnosis of traumatic encephalopathy syndrome may be useful in professional sports such as boxing and mixed martial arts and may be helpful in predicting who may experience cognitive decline,” study co-author Brooke Conway Kleven said in a journal news release. She is with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas School of Public Health. CTE was originally studied in boxers as “punch-drunk syndrome.” The progressive and fatal brain disease is linked to the development of dementia. For the new study, researchers studied 130 active and retired professional fighters in boxing, martial arts and mixed martial arts. They were a part of a brain health study run by the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. Participants had brain scans and took cognitive tests when the study began. Researchers found that those who met the criteria for traumatic encephalopathy syndrome had greater declines in brain volume. These participants also had… read on > read on >

After a focus on her own mental health and that of other athletes, U.S. gymnast Simone Biles will return to elite competition. Biles will begin with the Aug. 5 U.S. Classic outside of Chicago, the Associated Press reported. She has not competed since the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, held in 2021, where she removed herself from several events because of a mental health struggle. Biles, 26, is a seven-time Olympic medalist and the 2016 Olympic champion. She has taken most of the past two years off while advocating for athletes to be able to protect their mental health, the AP reported. In the interim, she also got married to NFL player Jonathan Owens, a defensive back for the Green Bay Packers, this spring. In Tokyo, after withdrawing from events, Biles cheered for her American teammates before returning for the balance beam final. At the time, Biles explained her withdrawal by saying she had “the twisties,” a term used in gymnastics to indicate that the athlete has lost spatial awareness in the air. The U.S. Classic typically is considered a warmup for the national championships, which will be held in late August, the AP reported. Biles previously returned to the Classic in 2018 after a two-year hiatus following her wildly successful 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. While she was the center of attention prior to Tokyo,… read on > read on >

Obesity is a known contributor to a host of health risks ranging from diabetes to cancer, but new research suggests it may also delay recovery from a mild traumatic brain injury. Why? The systemic inflammation that being obese can cause in the body may be a driving factor, according to researchers. “This is a very understudied population related to obesity impacting outcomes,” said lead study author Shawn Eagle, a research assistant professor in University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine’s Department of Neurological Surgery. “But knowing that a person with excess body fat may have a worse time can serve as a starting point for finding certain targeted treatments that may be useful to help that individual person get better.” It’s well known that severe obesity impairs thinking abilities, Eagle noted. And Eagle had observed that patients who were carrying excess body fat were having a more difficult time recovering from mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI) while he was working in a concussion specialty clinic. “The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. It’s very well known that higher inflammation after a TBI is related to worse outcomes, and obesity is essentially an inflammatory condition,” Eagle said. Though they are called “mild,” these head injuries can cause serious symptoms. Some patients even have functional limitations a full year later. Cognitive behavioral and physical… read on > read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

WHO Experts Take Another Look at Aspartame’s Safety

Science Brings New Insight Into Origins of OCD

Fixing a Painful Joint Problem Won’t Ease Mental Health Ills, Study Finds

Once Again, Smoke From Canadian Wildfires Envelops Many American Cities

Mixed Results on Vitamin D’s Benefit for Aging Hearts

Exercise + Weight Loss Perfect Combo to Fight Diabetes

Protect Your Kids in Blistering Summer Heat

New Ways to Spot Risk for CTE in Boxers, MMA Fighters

After Battling Mental Health Issues, Star Gymnast Simone Biles Plans Return to Competition

Obesity Could Slow Recovery From a Head Injury