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In people with type 1 diabetes, fluctuations in blood sugar levels can affect thinking skills in various ways, new research shows. Researchers looked specifically at what’s known as cognitive processing speed (how fast people process incoming information) and attention. “Our results demonstrate that people can differ a lot from one another in how their brains are impacted by glucose,” said study co-senior author Laura Germine. “We found that minimizing glucose fluctuations in daily life is important for optimizing processing speed, and this is especially true for people who are older or have other diabetes-related health conditions,” Germine said. She directs McLean Hospital’s Laboratory for Brain and Cognitive Health Technology, in Boston. According to the researchers, it’s long been known that big dips or spikes in blood sugar levels can impair thinking in people with type 1 diabetes. But to what extent does this happen, and does it differ between people? To find out, they used wearable digital glucose sensors and smartphone-based cognitive tests to collect data on 200 people with type 1 diabetes as they went through their day. Over the course of 15 days, data on each person’s blood sugar levels was collected via the sensors every five minutes. Participants completed the cognitive tests three times per day. As expected, cognitive skills declined when blood sugar levels were either very low or very high,… read on > read on >

High school students who use tobacco and cannabis products miss more school and have lower grades than classmates who use them individually or not at all. That’s the conclusion of a study by researchers at UC Davis Health. “Substance use is a main predictor of educational outcomes, including absenteeism,” said first study author Melanie Dove, an assistant adjunct professor of public health sciences at UC Davis. “These results highlight the need for comprehensive efforts to prevent and reduce substance use from both cannabis and tobacco products among youth.” For the study, her team analyzed 2021-22 data from the California Healthy Kids Survey. It included more than 287,600 ninth- and 11th-graders. Of that group: 3.7% used tobacco and cannabis 3.7% used cannabis only 1.7% used tobacco only Those who used both products missed an average three days of school in the preceding month — twice as many as teens who didn’t use both. Their grades suffered, too. On an 8-point scale with an 8 representing A’s and a 1 representing F’s, nonusers averaged about 6.2, mostly Bs. In comparison, double users averaged about 5.1 (mostly Bs and Cs), the survey showed. Classmates who used one substance also had poorer grades than abstainers. Tobacco users averaged 5.6; cannabis users averaged about 5.5 — or mostly B’s for both groups. The findings were recently published online in The Journal… read on > read on >

After a car crash, women are more likely to go into shock than men, even when their injuries are less severe, new research shows. “Women are arriving to the trauma bay with signs of shock more often than men, regardless of injury severity,” said study leader Susan Cronn, a researcher at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. “We need to look further into how and why this is happening.” For the study, her team looked at clinical injury data from more than 56,000 car crash victims — half men, half women. Even though men had more injuries overall, women suffered more injuries to the pelvis and liver, they found. More importantly, women surpassed a shock index greater than 1.0 more often than men. This was true even for those with fewer, less severe injuries. Healthy adults have a normal shock index between 0.5 and 0.7. Higher numbers may be a warning sign of a life-threatening condition called hemorrhagic shock, in which blood pressure, heart rate and body temperature plummet. Often caused by heavy blood loss, it can be a predictor of premature death. “Our findings might mean that women’s bodies have less capacity to function when physiological changes occur, that some injuries might have more impact on female bodies, or that female bodies handle blood loss differently than male bodies,” Cronn said. “It might… read on > read on >

Over the first few years of a child’s life, foods found in a family’s fridge and cupboards tends to get less healthy, new research shows. “We found significant changes in several food categories over time,” said study lead author Jennifer Barton. “Food items such as non-whole grains, processed meats, savory snacks, candy and microwavable or quick-cook foods were more commonly available in the home at 48 months [of age] compared to 24 and 36 months.” The study, which tracked foods in the homes of 468 mother-child pairs in Illinois, was published recently in the journal Public Health Nutrition. Barton is an assistant research professor at Pennsylvania State University, but she conducted the research while at the University of Illinois’ College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, in Urbana. According to Barton, “it’s important to understand how the environments that children are in can influence their diet and nutrition. What types of foods and beverages are available in the home, and how accessible are those items for the young child? “ Tracking the availability of various foods in the homes of the study participants, Barton’s group used a standard checklist called the Home Food Inventory to see what kids could access at 2, 3 and 4 years of age. All of the participants were taking part in an ongoing UI research project tracking the nutrition of children… read on > read on >

Breathing and relaxation techniques may offer relief to some patients battling Long COVID. In a new, small study of 20 patients, biofeedback therapy relieved both the physical and psychological symptoms of Long COVID, researchers said. Many participants had been dealing with symptoms for more than a year. “Our biggest hope is that we’ve identified a way to alleviate chronic physical symptoms that are not successfully treated by standard biomedical approaches, and that we did so with a short-term, non-pharmacological model that is easily scalable,” said lead author Natacha Emerson, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Biofeedback therapy pairs breathing and relaxation techniques with visual feedback to teach people how to regulate their body temperature, heart rate and other body processes. After six weeks of treatment, patients in this study reported they were sleeping better and had significant improvements in physical, depression and anxiety symptoms. Three months later, they were still seeing the benefit, using fewer prescription medicines and having fewer doctor visits, researchers said. Worldwide, an estimated 65 million people have Long COVID — persistent symptoms that linger long past the actual infection. This constellation of symptoms include depression, anxiety, sleep issues, brain fog, dizziness and heart palpitations. “It is important to underscore that while this behavioral intervention may help symptoms, patients with Long… read on > read on >

Millions of Americans whose livers develop scar tissue due to a common disease now have the first approved drug, Rezdiffra, to treat the condition, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Thursday. The condition is called non-cirrhotic non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). NASH with liver scarring is thought to affect up to 8 million Americans. It’s often tied to high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes, the FDA explained in a statement. “Previously, patients with NASH who also have notable liver scarring did not have a medication that could directly address their liver damage,” said Dr. Nikolay Nikolov, acting director of the Office of Immunology and Inflammation in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “Today’s approval of Rezdiffra will, for the first time, provide a treatment option for these patients, in addition to diet and exercise,” Nokolov said in the FDA statement. The liver is a vital organ that cleanses the blood and helps with digestion by secreting bile. However, over time, inflammation caused by obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure can cause nonalcoholic liver disease, which triggers fat accumulation in the liver, liver scarring and dysfunction. As the FDA explained, “Rezdiffra is a partial activator of a thyroid hormone receptor; activation of this receptor by Rezdiffra in the liver reduces liver fat accumulation.” The agency said that the drug was approved under an “accelerated”… read on > read on >

Scientists have long noticed that folks who eat healthy have healthier brains as they age, including lowered odds for dementia. Now, researchers believe they know why: Regimens like the heart-healthy Mediterranean or DASH diets appear to slow biological aging, helping to protect the brain. “Our findings suggest that slower pace of aging mediates part of the relationship of healthy diet with reduced dementia risk,” said study first author Aline Thomas. She’s a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University’s Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain, in New York City. The findings were published recently in the Annals of Neurology. In the study, Thomas and her colleagues examined decades of data from the ongoing Framingham Heart Study, which began in 1971. The researchers honed in on over 1,600 people in the second generation of the study, which had people check in every four to seven years with data on (among other things) their diets and the results of neuro-cognitive tests. A total of 160 of the participants went on to develop dementia. “Much attention to nutrition in dementia research focuses on the way specific nutrients affect the brain,” said study senior author Daniel Belsky, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Columbia School of Public Health and the Columbia Aging Center. “We tested the hypothesis that healthy diet protects against dementia by slowing… read on > read on >

Astronauts who have never had headaches may develop migraines and other tension-type headaches for the first time when they go into space. A side effect of zero gravity, these headaches start with motion sickness as astronauts adapt to long-haul space flight, according to new research published March 13 in the journal Neurology. “Changes in gravity caused by space flight affect the function of many parts of the body, including the brain,” said researcher Willebrordus P.J. van Oosterhout, of Leiden University Medical Center in The Netherlands. “The vestibular system, which affects balance and posture, has to adapt to the conflict between the signals it is expecting to receive and the actual signals it receives in the absence of normal gravity.” His team studied 24 astronauts from the United States, Japan and Europe who were deployed to the International Space Station between 2011 and 2018. The astronauts spent a combined total of of 3,596 days in space. Before the study, none reported a history of recurrent headaches or had ever had a migraine, though three said they had had a headache in the previous year that interfered with their daily activities. Nine astronauts said they had never had an headache. Each completed a headache history questionnaire before their space deployment, a daily questionnaire for the first week of their mission and weekly questionnaires after that. In all,… read on > read on >

Specialized brain scans may accurately predict whether a psychotic patient will go on to develop treatment-resistant schizophrenia, Dutch researchers report. The scan — called a neuromelanin-sensitive MRI, or NM-MRI for short — zeroes in on a brain pigment called neuromelanin. This pigment can provide visual evidence of healthy dopamine function. Dopamine is a hormone that is part of the brain’s reward system. Too much dopamine may lead to the aggression and poor impulse control associated with psychosis. Led by Marieke van der Plijm, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam in The Netherlands, the study authors suggest NM-MRI could be a game-changer. “[T]here is an urgent need for markers to identify treatment non-responders in schizophrenia at an early stage and facilitate timely initiation of clozapine, the only antipsychotic with proven efficacy in non-responders,” they wrote in the March 13 issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry. Unlike patients who respond to treatment, those with treatment-resistant schizophrenia show no increase in dopamine function. Researchers said that suggests that neuromelanin levels — a benchmark of dopamine function — may be an early marker for treatment resistance. The study included 62 patients between the ages of 18 and 35 who had their first psychotic episode. All were diagnosed on the schizophrenia spectrum. These patients were compared with a control group of 20 healthy volunteers. All patients had… read on > read on >

Playing fetch or grooming Fido isn’t just good for your precious pooch — it also benefits your brain. Such interactions appear to strengthen brain waves associated with rest and relaxation, South Korean researchers report in the March 13 issue of the journal PLOS One. Their small study compared people’s mood or hormone levels before and after spending quality time with a willing canine. For the study, Onyoo Yoo, a doctoral student at Konkuk University in Seoul, asked 30 volunteers to take part in a series of activities with his well-trained 4-year-old female poodle. After getting to know her, the volunteers fed, massaged, groomed, photographed, hugged, walked and played with the pup. During each activity, EEG tests measured their brain waves for three minutes. Participants also answered questions about their emotional states after each activity. The study revealed that different activities had varying effects on participants’ brain waves. Playing with and walking the dog increased the strength of alpha waves, a general indication of stability and relaxation, CNN reported. The study noted that alpha wave activity is linked to lower mental stress and better memory. Meanwhile, grooming, playing and gently massaging the dog strengthened beta waves — evidence of heightened attention and concentration. Volunteers also reported feeling less stressed, fatigued and depressed after the poodle play. Many studies in this field have been anecdotal or subjective,… read on > read on >

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How Blood Sugar Changes Affect Thinking in Folks With Type 1 Diabetes

Weed Plus Cigarettes Takes Toll on High Schoolers’ Grades

Women More Prone to Go Into Shock After Car Crashes Than Men

Household Foods Get Less Healthy as Babies Age Into Toddlers

Could Biofeedback Help Ease Long COVID?

FDA Approves First Drug for Common, Serious Liver Disease

Eating Healthy Slows ‘Aging Clock,’ Helping to Shield Your Brain From Dementia

‘Space Headaches’ Can Hit Astronauts, Study Finds

MRI May Predict Who’ll Respond Best to Schizophrenia Treatment

Pooch Power: ‘Relax’ Brainwaves Begin When Folks Play With Dogs

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