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Folks who habitually add an extra sprinkle of salt to their meals are doing no favors for their kidneys, new research confirms. The finding held even after researchers accounted for other health issues, such as being overweight, not exercising or smoking and/or drinking. The bottom line: “Adding salt to foods is associated with increased risk of chronic kidney disease in the general population,” concluded a team led by Dr. Lu Qi, of Tulane University’s Obesity Research Center, in New Orleans. Qi and his colleagues recently published studies showing that adding salt to meals upped people’s odds for heart disease, type 2 diabetes and shortened life spans. However, links between table salt and the odds of kidney disease in the general population hadn’t been well-researched, Qi’s group noted. To remedy that, they analyzed data on more than 465,000 people, averaging 56 years of age, who didn’t have kidney disease when they registered for a British health database known as the UK Biobank. Participants’ health and lifestyle were tracked from 2006 to 2023. According to the researchers, over 22,000 cases of kidney disease emerged over the study period. Compared to folks who never or rarely added salt to their food, people who did so had a higher odds of developing kidney trouble. The risk rose with the frequency at which people said they used table salt. For… read on > read on >

A popular asthma inhaler is being discontinued Jan. 1, fueling concerns that patients may have trouble getting insurance coverage for alternatives. GSK, maker of the branded inhaler Flovent, will make “an authorized generic” version of the drug, but without the same branding. While doctors say it will work just as well, it doesn’t appear to be as widely covered by insurance, according to CNN. As a result, patients may be forced to get new new prescriptions and iron out insurance coverage at the peak of respiratory virus season. “This medication has been the most commonly used inhaled medication for the past 25 or 30 years,” Dr. Robyn Cohen, director of the Pediatric Pulmonary and Allergy Clinic at Boston Medical Center, told CNN. “It’s the one that, overwhelmingly, pediatricians reach for when they decide that their patient needs a daily preventive medication. … The fact that it’s being discontinued is going to be a huge shock to the system for patients, for families and for doctors.” Doctors urge patients to make sure they’ve got medicine lined up as the calendar turns to 2024. A GSK spokeswoman told CNN the company is making the change “as part of our commitment to be ambitious for patients.” She noted the company introduced the authorized generics of Flovent HFA, an inhalation aerosol, and Flovent Diskus, an inhalation powder, in 2022… read on > read on >

Seniors with vision issues are at much higher risk for dangerous falls, new research confirms. Compared to seniors with good vision, the odds for a fall rose by 38% for seniors with glaucoma, 36% for those with cataracts and 25% for seniors with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), say a team reporting Dec. 28 in the journal JAMA Ophthalmology. Worldwide, over 650,000 people lose their lives to falls each year, the research team noted, and falls can be especially deadly for the frail elderly. In the United States, medical costs for falls top more than $23 billion annually. Impaired vision is an obvious risk factor for falling, and a team at the University of Manchester in the U.K. wanted to quantify that risk. They looked at data on vision health, falls and fractures from a national British database on over 410,000 people. Participants were typically in their 70s at the time of the study. Besides the increased risk of falls associated with various vision ailments, the study also found a rise in risk for bone fractures. Compared to their peers with good vision, folks with glaucoma had a 31% higher odds for a fracture, those with cataracts had a 28% increased risk and people with AMD faced an 18% higher risk, the Manchester group found. Injuries included fractures of the hip, spine, forearm, skull or facial… read on > read on >

The Vietnam war was a traumatic event in American history, most especially for those who served. However, there’s a glimmer of good news from recent research: Suicide rates for Vietnam veterans over the past four decades were no higher than that of the general population. Still, between 1979 and 2019 — the period covered by the new study — almost 100,000 Vietnam War vets did lose their lives to suicide, the researchers noted. Those tragedies “merit the ongoing attention of health policymakers and mental health professionals,” they said. Suicide has long been a concern among U.S. veterans generally. According to background information in the study, Veterans Administration data for 2022 shows that “although veterans composed only 7.6% of the U.S. population, they accounted for almost 14% of US suicides.” In 2021, VA data showed that suicide accounted for about 32 deaths out of every 100,000 veterans — double the rate of suicide seen among civilians. Did the trauma faced by soldiers in the Vietnam conflict lead to even higher rates of suicide? To find out, Tim Bullman and colleagues at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, D.C., analyzed health data for over 9.5 million Vietnam veterans. Almost all were men, and close to 2.5 million served directly (were deployed) in Vietnam during the conflict. Tracking rates of suicide between 1979 and 2019, Pullman’s team… read on > read on >

From alcohol use to social isolation, poor hearing and heart disease, researchers have identified more than a dozen non-genetic factors that up the risk of dementia for people under 65. Though about 370,000 new cases a year of young-onset dementia are diagnosed worldwide, it hasn’t been well-researched. Now, a large study from scientists in the U.K. and the Netherlands suggests that targeting health and lifestyle factors may help lower the risk. Researchers followed more than 350,000 people under 65 who were part of the U.K. Biobank study. They found that those with less education, lower economic status, lifestyle factors such as alcohol use disorder and social isolation, and health issues including vitamin D deficiency, depression, stroke, impaired hearing and heart disease had significantly higher odds for a dementia diagnosis. While particular gene variants did play a role, the findings challenge the idea that genetics alone are to blame. “This is the largest and most robust study of its kind ever conducted,” said study co-author David Llewellyn, director of research and impact at the University of Exeter Medical School in the U.K. “Excitingly, for the first time, it reveals that we may be able to take action to reduce risk of this debilitating condition, through targeting a range of different factors.” Young-onset dementia exacts a high toll, according to study co-author Stevie Hendriks, a researcher at… read on > read on >

A new cellular therapy improved learning and memory in mice with Alzheimer’s disease, researchers report. The therapy — developed at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) — relies on both the immune system to fight key aspects of Alzheimer’s, plus modified cells that zero in on the brain protein plaques that are a hallmark of the disease. In patients with Alzheimer’s, amyloid-beta protein forms plaques that prevent nerve cells from signaling each other. One theory is that this might cause irreversible memory loss and behavior changes characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease. The new study was recently published in the journal Molecular Neurodegeneration. Researchers used genetically modified immune-controlling cells called Tregs to target amyloid-beta. When the UNMC team injected the modified Treg cells into the bloodstreams of mice, buildup of plaque and brain inflammation slowed. Thinking skills also appeared to improve in the diseased mice. While the results of animal studies often turn out differently in humans, researchers were encouraged by the findings. “The study is an important development in the field that advances the possibility of using cell-based therapies for targeting protein aggregates in neurodegenerative diseases,” said senior investigator Dr. Avindra Nath, of the National Institutes of Health, which funded the study. Researchers said the engineered immune cells could offer a targeted and more effective treatment for Alzheimer’s, a disease affecting an estimated 6.7 million… read on > read on >

New research offers yet more evidence that veggies, whole grains and low-fat dairy products are good for you in the long run. “Our study goes beyond the simple question of, ‘To carb or not to carb?’” said lead study author Binkai Liu, a research assistant in the nutrition department at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. “It dissects the low-carbohydrate diet and provides a nuanced look at how the composition of these diets can affect health over years, not just weeks or months,” Liu explained in a Harvard news release. The key takeaway: Not all low-carb diets are the same when it comes to managing weight over the long haul. In the study, researchers analyzed data from more than 123,000 healthy adults who were part of major research studies between 1986 and 2018. Participants reported on their diets and weights every four years, and they were scored based on adherence to five types of low-carb diet. They included ones based on animal proteins, plant-based proteins and ones that emphasized animal proteins, unhealthy fats and processed grains. Low-carb regimens high in proteins, fats and carbs from healthy, plant-based sources were linked to slower long-term weight gain. Participants who stuck with total low-carb or animal-based eating regimens gained more weight, on average, than those who followed a healthy low-carb eating plan over time. These… read on > read on >

Stroke patients often suffer from “spatial neglect” — an inability to see things on the side of the body opposite to where the brain injury occurred. Now, new research suggests that spatial neglect can also affect folks who’ve had a traumatic brain injury (TBI). The study makes clear that screening for spatial neglect “is warranted in TBI rehabilitation as well as in stroke rehabilitation programs,” said study lead author Peii Chen. She’s a senior research scientist at the Kessler Foundation, in East Hanover, N.J. The nonprofit focuses on rehabilitation medicine. In a Kessler news release, the researchers noted that spatial neglect affects many stroke survivors. It’s more common among folks who suffered brain damage to the right side of their brain (up to 45% of patients) compared to the left (up to 23%). Not being able to comprehend or navigate space on one side of the body can “can lead to prolonged disability after brain damage by impairing daily functions and reducing the effectiveness of rehabilitation therapies,” according to the news release. The new research tracked the symptoms of over 3,600 stroke survivors and 266 head injury patients treated at 16 rehabilitation hospitals across the United States. More than half (58%) of stroke survivors experienced spatial neglect, Chen’s team found, as did 38% of TBI patients following their injury. “We found that spatial neglect affects… read on > read on >

New research suggests the effects of high blood pressure during pregnancy may be long-lasting. Researchers found that women who developed high blood pressure during pregnancy had tell-tale signs of abnormal heart structure and function up to a decade later. “This study helps to clarify that, for some women, pregnancy is not just a ‘stress test’ that unmasks underlying cardiovascular risks,” said senior author Dr. Susan Cheng, director of the Institute for Research on Healthy Aging in the cardiology department at Cedars-Sinai’s Smidt Heart Institute in Los Angeles. “This risk may also affect the heart years after pregnancy.” Her team looked at more than 5,000 Hispanic women who had at least one pregnancy and identified those who had disorders during pregnancy such as gestational high blood pressure, preeclampsia or eclampsia. After accounting for other risk factors that might lead to early signs of heart disease, researchers reported that heart images showed persistent problems in about 14% of participants who had high blood pressure problems during pregnancy. They included thicker heart walls, abnormalities in the left ventricle and weakened pumping compared to women who had also been pregnant but had no related high blood pressure disorder. “This study confirms the results of others and demonstrates that women who experience a hypertensive disorder during their pregnancy are more likely to have lasting changes in the structure and function… read on > read on >

A class of sedatives called benzodiazepines, which include meds like Ativan, Valium and Xanax, could be linked to higher odds for miscarriage if taken during pregnancy, new research finds. The findings held even after accounting for possible confounding factors such as anxiety and insomnia, the Taiwanese research team said. Looking at data on about 3 million pregnancies, “we found that benzodiazepine use during pregnancy was associated with an approximately 70% increased risk of miscarriage,” wrote a team led by Fei-Yuan Hsiao at Taiwan University’s Graduate Institute of Clinical Pharmacy. Based on the findings, they urge that doctors “meticulously balance” the risks and benefits of benzodiazepines whenever they consider prescribing the drugs to pregnant women who are dealing with insomnia or other psychiatric issues. In the new study, miscarriage was defined as loss of pregnancy between the first prenatal visit with a doctor (typically around the 8th week of gestation) and before the 20th week. Hsiao’s group looked at data from over 3 million pregnancies among Taiwanese women, out of which 4.4% resulted in a miscarriage. Focusing on the women’s prescription drug use during pregnancy, the study found that using a benzodiazepine boosted the odds for miscarriage by 69%. That number was “consistent” regardless of confounding factors and the duration of benzodiazepine use. The study was published Dec. 27 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry. Hsiao’s group… read on > read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

Put Down That Salt Shaker to Spare Your Kidneys

Asthma Inhaler Switch in 2024 Could Leave Some Patients Scrambling

Poor Vision & Falls: A Deadly Combo for Seniors

Vietnam War Veterans at No Higher Risk for Suicide: Study

Early-Onset Dementia: Health, Lifestyle Factors May Boost Your Risk

Experimental Therapy Eases Alzheimer’s Signs, Symptoms in Mice

Going Low-Carb? Avoid Meat to Keep the Weight Off Long-Term

Head Trauma Can Spur ‘Spatial Neglect’ Similar to a Stroke

Heart Effects of High Blood Pressure in Pregnancy Could Linger

Xanax, Valium in Pregnancy May Raise Miscarriage Risk

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