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Obesity is a more powerful driver of breast cancer than previously thought, a new study suggests. About 40% of hormone-positive breast cancers in postmenopausal women might be linked to excess body fat, researchers reported Oct. 15 in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. That’s significantly more than previous estimates that linked excess weight to 1 in 10 breast cancer cases, based on measures of women’s body-mass index (BMI), researchers said. The real-world impact of obesity on breast cancer risk likely has been underestimated because BMI isn’t a very accurate measure of body fat, the researchers argued. “The findings of this study highlight the importance of considering more accurate measures of body fat than BMI to estimate the cancer burden attributable to obesity in postmenopausal breast cancer,” concluded the research team led by Veronica Davila-Batista, an associate professor of epidemiology with the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in Spain. For this study, researchers compared BMI with a different measure of body fat called the CUN-BAE, an equation which accounts for gender and age in BMI measurements. The two measures were used to weigh 1,022 older Spanish women with breast cancer and another 1,143 matched women who didn’t have cancer. About 23% of breast cancer cases were linked to excess body weight as measured by BMI, researchers found. However, about 38% of breast cancers… read on > read on >

Folks with peanut allergies don’t have to worry that someone might be munching on the nuts during an airline flight, researchers report. It turns out there’s no evidence to the commonly held belief that nut allergens can be spread through aircraft ventilation systems, a new review concluded. “In fact, food-induced allergic reactions are around 10–100 times less common during flights than ’on the ground’, perhaps because of the multiple precautions food-allergic passengers take when flying,” wrote the research team led by Paul Turner, a clinical professor of allergy and immunology with the Imperial College London’s National Heart & Lung Institute. For the review, published Oct. 15 in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, researchers compiled all published evidence on the subject dating back to 1980. Overall, any allergic reactions to food caused by airborne particles are rare, researchers found. Notable exceptions include vapors from fish or seafood and exposure to wheat flour at work. Peanut allergens can be detected at very low levels in the air while shelling nuts, researchers said, but the dust settles quickly and can only be detected close to the nuts. That means very little peanut dust circulates in the air. What’s more, air is completely exchanged every three to four minutes during a flight by the cabin’s ventilation system. Half of the cabin’s air intake is recirculated air that has… read on > read on >

Pharmacists may continue making compounded versions of the weight-loss medication tirzepatide while the U.S. Food and Drug Administration revisits its Oct. 2 decision to remove the medicine from a national drug shortage list. What prompted the FDA to reconsider its decision? On Oct. 7, a compounding trade group filed a lawsuit challenging the agency’s action, saying there was still a shortage of the wildly popular drug. On Friday, the FDA responded in a court filing that compounding pharmacies could continue making the drug while the agency re-evaluates its finding, NBC News reported. Shortages of tirzepatide, sold as a diabetes drug (Mounjaro) and a weight-loss medication (Zepbound), have fueled demand for compounding pharmacies to make their own versions of the medicine, which patients say are cheaper and easier to get. During FDA-declared drug shortages, compounding pharmacies can make versions that are copies of the brand-name drugs in shortage. But the agency’s Oct. 2 announcement said pharmacies that produce large batches of medications would no longer be able to accept new orders of tirzepatide and had 60 days to fill their existing orders. The agency’s Friday filing said its latest move was “effectively the relief that Plaintiffs sought in their motion.” In the filing, the agency said it wouldn’t “take action” against the plaintiffs and their members making compounded versions of the drugs as it re-evaluates its decision, NBC News reported. … read on > read on >

People sense millisecond shifts in odor as quickly as they might spot a change in color, new research shows. The study discounts the notion that smell is a “slower” sense than sight or hearing, scientists say. “A sniff of odors is not a long exposure shot of the chemical environment that averages out” over time, explained study lead author Dr. Zhou Wen, at the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Instead, smell can spot fluctuations in odors with a “sensitivity on par with that for color perception” in vision, she said in an academy news release. Zhou’s team published its findings Oct. 14 in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. Human’s sense of smell is nowhere near that of many animals, such as dogs. But it may not be as sluggish as most people think, the new study found. In their experiments, the Chinese team constructed a special sniff-triggered device that organized the emissions of odors with a precision of 18 milliseconds. Using the device, they had it produce two odors one after the other, separated by milliseconds, switching which odor came first. They then had 229 people sniff the odors to see if they could sense any differences. According to the academy news release, “participants could tell the difference when the delay between the compounds was just 60 milliseconds — about a… read on > read on >

It’s natural for a parent to bundle an injured child into a car and rush their kid to the emergency room. But that decision could actually delay their child’s emergency care, a new study shows. Severely injured children brought to an ER by their parents aren’t treated as quickly as those who arrive via ambulance, the researchers discovered. On average, a child brought to an emergency room by a parent will wait nearly an hour before they’re seen by an ER doctor, researchers found. That’s because paramedics call ahead to alert an ER prior to arrival, explained researcher Dr. Robert Hirst, an emergency medicine registrar with the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children in the United Kingdom. “This leads to early trauma team activation, resulting in specialist services and resources being ready and prepared to see these patients as soon as they arrive,” Hirst said. “This has been shown to be associated with better outcomes for children with significant injuries.” Parents bringing a badly injured child in themselves “can lead to delays in the appropriate level of care being provided,” Hirst added. For the study, researchers analyzed data on 24 children brought to the Bristol Royal Hospital by their parents following a severe injury. Three out of four of the patients were boys. A little more than half (54%) had head injuries, 33% had limb injuries… read on > read on >

As with any new drug, parents and doctors may worry that the use of GLP-1 weight-loss meds by children and teens might raise psychiatric risks, including the risk for suicide and suicidal thoughts. But a new study involving more than 54,000 U.S. adolescents found no such link. In fact, obese kids who used the drugs had a 33% decline in their risk for thoughts of suicide and suicide attempts compared to adolescents who didn’t, Israeli researchers reported. There could be many reasons driving the boost in mental outlook that comes with the use of drugs like Wegovy (semaglutide), said a team led by Dr. Liya Kerem, of Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem. One is pretty straightforward: “Obesity during adolescence, by itself, is associated with diminished quality of life and increased risk for psychiatric disorders,” the researchers noted. So, as GLP-1 medications help teens shed pounds, their risk for thoughts of suicide may recede. The findings were published Oct. 14 in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. Sales of GLP-1 weight-loss medications like Wegovy and Zepbound (tirzepatide) have boomed among adults, and with 1 in every 5 U.S. children now obese, the drugs’ uptake by adolescents is also surging. However, Kerem’s team said the data on whether or not GLP-1 meds might trigger depression and other psychiatric issues has been mixed. “Suicide is the second most prevalent… read on > read on >

Alison Burke wanted to be there for her daughter following the girl’s diagnosis with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Then she noticed that a lot of what she was learning about ADHD sounded awfully familiar. “As I took her through that process and learned more about it, it was definitely like a light bulb moment,” Burke recalled. “I thought, I think a lot of this sounds familiar.” Burke is one of a growing number of adults who suspect they might have undiagnosed ADHD. About 25% of adults think they have ADHD that hasn’t been detected by a doctor, according to a new national survey by Ohio State University. However, only 13% have shared their suspicions with a doctor, the survey found. Doctors are concerned that these folks are diagnosing themselves and seeking out ineffective or quack treatments for ADHD. “Anxiety, depression and ADHD — all these things can look a lot alike, but the wrong treatment can make things worse instead of helping that person feel better and improving their functioning,” said psychologist Justin Barterian, a clinical assistant professor in Ohio State’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health. Burke believes that undiagnosed ADHD severely affected her self-worth. “I really struggled with feeling like I could be good at anything because it just felt like it took so much energy to get it accomplished,” Burke said in an… read on > read on >

Results from a very small study suggest that a combination of the diabetes drug Ozempic and an innovative new intestinal procedure could help erase the need for insulin in folks with type 2 diabetes. The new trial hasn’t yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal and it included only 14 patients. However, Dutch researchers report that after six months of the combo therapy, 12 of the 14 participants with type 2 diabetes no longer needed supplemental insulin. The findings were presented Sunday at the United European Gastroenterology annual meeting in Vienna. The intestinal procedure used in the new trial was pioneered by researchers at the Mayo Clinic in the United States. It’s called Endoscopic re-cellularization via electroporation therapy (ReCET). The procedure focuses on the duodenum, the first part of the small intestine. The duodenum is responsible for further digestion of food coming from the stomach and nutrient absorption by the body. As explained by the Mayo Clinic’s director of endoscopy, Dr. Andrew Storm, duodenum function goes awry in type 2 diabetes and ReCET seeks to repair the dysfunction. “ReCET is non-thermal procedure that involves delivering [via an endoscope] a pulsed electric field (PEF) to facilitate the re-cellularization of the duodenum with regenerated metabolically active cells,” he explained in a Mayo blog. “The goal of this procedure is to help individuals achieve better control of blood glucose… read on > read on >

A child’s risk of asthma can be cut by nearly half if their mother regularly works out while expecting, a new study says. Exercising three or more times a week while pregnant reduces a child’s risk of asthma by about 46%, researchers reported Oct. 9 in the journal Med. This level of protection is akin to an expecting mother or father quitting smoking while she’s pregnant, thus reducing her exposure to cigarette smoke, researchers noted. The results jibe with earlier studies that showed newborns have stronger lung function if their mothers regularly exercised during pregnancy, researchers noted. “This is the first time we are observing an association between maternal exercise and the development of asthma in the child,” said lead investigator Emma-Reetta Musakka, a doctoral student with the University of Eastern Finland. For the study, researchers analyzed data on nearly 1,000 mother-child pairs in Finland. The mothers were asked whether they’d exercised during pregnancy, and how often they worked out. The most common exercises were walking (34%), jogging (32%), strength training (29%) and group exercise classes or working out at home (22%). Mothers whose kids developed asthma tended to work out fewer than three times a week, results showed. The lower asthma risk associated with regular exercise held even after researchers accounted for other factors like a mom’s weight, stress or illness; family exercise habits… read on > read on >

Bilingual people have more active and flexible brains, a new study has discovered. Brain scans revealed that folks who speak two languages have increased connectivity between their brain regions, researchers reported Oct. 10 in the journal Communications Biology. This connectivity is strongest in people who learned their second language at a young age, researchers noted. “Our work suggests learning a second language during childhood helps build a more efficient brain organization in terms of functional connectivity,” said lead investigator Zeus Gracia Tabuenca, a postdoctoral researcher with McGill University in Toronto. For the study, researchers recruited 151 people who either spoke French, English or both languages. Study participants were given MRI scans that tracked connectivity throughout their brains. Learning a second language appeared to increase the brain’s neuroplasticity — its ability to build new connections within itself. This effect was most powerful when someone had learned their second language at a young age, results showed. “The results indicate that the earlier the second language experience, the broader extent of brain areas involved in neuroplasticity,” Tabuenca said in a McGill news release. “That’s why we are observing higher connectivity of the cerebellum with the cortex in earlier exposures to a second language.” These results mirror previous studies that show how brain regions work together to understand and produce language, researchers said. Such additional brain connectivity can increase… read on > read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

Obesity Could Cause 40% of Hormone-Positive Breast Cancers in Older Women

Planes’ Air Ventilation Can’t Spread Nut Allergens to Passengers: Study

FDA Says Compounding Pharmacies Can Keep Making Weight-Loss Med Tirzepatide, for Now

Your Sense of Smell May Be Quicker Than You Think

Parents or Ambulance: How a Child Reaches an ER Could Matter

GLP-1 Weight-Loss Meds Won’t Raise Teens’ Suicide Risk, May Even Lower It

1 in 4 U.S. Adults Suspect They Have Undiagnosed ADHD

Ozempic Plus Intestinal ‘Zap’ Therapy May Eliminate Need for Insulin in Type 2 Diabetics

Exercise in Pregnancy Might Lower Baby’s Odds for Asthma Later

Learn Another Language to Boost Your Brain’s ‘Efficiency’