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A cosmetic laser treatment that promises to erase wrinkles, scars, age spots and sun damage may also prevent the return of some skin cancers, a new, small study suggests. Researchers found that in patients who had basal or squamous cell skin cancers, nonablative fractional laser treatment lowered the chances of the cancer recurrence by about half. “We actually don’t know why this procedure has this result,” said senior researcher Dr. Mathew Avram, director of the Dermatology Laser and Cosmetic Center at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. “We have to go to the lab and try to figure out why this is the case. There are theories about whether or not the treatment causes your immune function and skin to change, but we have no evidence of that,” he said. “Fractional lasers treat a fraction of the skin and leave the majority of the skin untreated,” Avram said. “But even though we’re only treating a part of the skin, the entire skin benefits from it.” Basal and squamous cell skin cancers are the most common type of skin cancer and are usually curable when caught early. For the study, Avram’s team reviewed the records of patients who had basal or squamous cell cancer. These patients typically have a 35% risk of developing new cancer within three years and a 50% risk of recurrence within five years.… read on > read on >

Even short bouts of light exercise can help the millions of people with knee osteoarthritis reduce pain and improve their range of motion. Knee osteoarthritis, the wear-and-tear form of the disease, occurs when the cartilage between your bones breaks down, causing pain, stiffness and swelling. Researchers in a new study compared high-dose and low-dose exercise in 189 people with knee osteoarthritis. Everyone exercised three times a week for 12 weeks. Exercises included indoor cycling and various lower body exercises such as de-loaded squats and knee extensions. De-loaded exercises use bands or pulleys to take weight off the knee joint and minimize pain. Folks in the high-dose group performed 11 exercises in 60- to 90-minute sessions. Folks in the low-dose exercise group performed five exercises during 20- to 30-minute sessions. The result? Everyone showed improvements on a standard scale measuring knee osteoarthrosis pain and function at three, six and 12 months. People in the high-dose group did show greater improvements in knee function during sports and recreation at six months, suggesting that a high-dose program may be better for athletes and weekend warriors. The study, led by Wilhelmus Johannes Andreas Grooten, a physiotherapist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, was published Jan. 24 online in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Outside experts are quick to point out that the best exercise plan for someone with knee… read on > read on >

It’s no secret that athletic endurance and strength go hand-in-hand with a healthy heart. “Exercise strengthens the heart muscle, enabling it to pump a greater volume of blood with each heartbeat,” said Dr. Deepak Bhatt, editor of the Harvard Heart Letter, in a recent Q&A. The enlarged heart muscles that athletes may develop are also the hallmark of a condition known as athletic heart syndrome (AHS), often called “athlete’s heart,” according to the Cleveland Clinic. What is athletic heart syndrome? When a person does vigorous-intensity exercise for more than an hour a day on the majority of days, changes in the heart may occur, according to the Cleveland Clinic. One of the main changes is thickening of the left ventricle wall. Another marker of AHS is that the space in your left ventricle gets larger. A study of Olympic athletes published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging revealed that AHS shows up differently in the hearts of women and men, although electrical and muscular size changes occurred in the hearts of both. Compared to men, women in the study had relatively larger increases in the size of their right and left ventricle cavities. The absolute dimensions of these cavities in women were smaller than those of men. An electrical measurement called T-wave inversion (which can indicate the presence of heart trauma or disease) was also more common… read on > read on >

Any ‘middle-age spread’ of excess weight around your tummy could raise your risk of becoming frail decades later, a new study suggests. Obese folks who’ve packed on pounds around their waist are more likely to develop symptoms of frailty, including exhaustion, weak grip strength, slow walking speed and reduced physical activity levels, researchers say. Those symptoms can make a person more likely to hurt themselves in a fall, suffer disability, require hospitalization, have a lower quality of life and die prematurely. Frailty affects as many as 17% of older adults, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians. The new study, published Jan. 23 in BMJ Open, tracked more than 4,500 people in Norway for an average 21 years, starting at an average age of 51. Measurements of body mass index (an estimate of body fat based on height and weight) and waist circumference were taken at the start. Waistlines were categorized as “normal” if they were 37 inches or less for men and 31 inches or less for women; “moderately high” as 37-40 inches for men and 32-35 inches for women, and “high” if above 40 inches for men and 35 inches for women. People who were obese at the outset were nearly 2.5 times more likely to be frail or on the edge of frailty by the study’s end, said lead researcher Shreeshti… read on > read on >

Pregnant women hear a lot of “Do this” and “Don’t do that” advice about what is safe to eat. But one recommendation that’s particularly important involves seafood: During pregnancy, women need to eat enough seafood to gain the health benefits, but not so much to raise the risk of some significant consequences. They also need to be careful about how the fish they eat is prepared. “Fish is an important source of nutrients, and its consumption should not be avoided,” said Dr. Vaia Lida Chatzi, an associate professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC), who led a study published in the journal JAMA Network Open. “But pregnant women should stick to one to three servings of fish a week as recommended, and not eat more, because of the potential contamination of fish by mercury and other persistent organic pollutants,” Chatzi advised. Eating fish during pregnancy The benefits of omega-3 fatty acids found in certain fish are notable. These nutrients are credited with a lot of health gains — during and outside of pregnancy. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration notes that one of the nutrients found in fish, choline, supports development of the baby’s spinal cord and cognitive development. In the USC study on the health benefits of fish in pregnancy, the researchers found that… read on > read on >

Vitamin D is widely promoted for better health, but if you’re overweight, you might not reap the benefits. In a new study, researchers found a 30% to 40% reduction in cancer, cancer deaths and autoimmune diseases among people with a lower body mass index (BMI) who took vitamin D supplements, but only a small benefit among those with higher BMIs. “Patients with obesity, despite taking the same amount of supplement, had a lower response,” said lead researcher Deirdre Tobias, an assistant professor in the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston. The cutoff was a BMI of less than 25, which is considered a healthy weight, the study authors noted. It’s not known why being overweight or obese affects levels of the so-called “sunshine vitamin,” but low absorption of vitamin D could be widespread, given that more than 40% of Americans are obese, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “It’s not clear whether it’s due to their body weight, per se, or maybe some other factor related to an individual’s body weight. It may be due to adiposity itself. Having a lower body weight may lead to a higher internal dose of vitamin D,” Tobias said. Adiposity is having too much fatty tissue in the body. The next step in the research is to try and… read on >

Getting a gel manicure may be less safe than many think. Researchers say the nail polish dryers that use ultraviolet (UV) light to cure the gel polish emit possibly dangerous rays. These rays might lead to cell death and cancer-causing mutations in human cells, they noted. Maria Zhivagui, a researcher at the University of California, San Diego, has sworn off gel manicures after seeing results in the lab. When she was doing her PhD, she was intrigued by gel manicures, which last longer than normal polish. “I started using gel manicures periodically for several years,” Zhivagui said in a university news release. However, “once I saw the effect of radiation emitted by the gel polish drying device on cell death and that it actually mutates cells even after just one 20-minute session, I was surprised. I found this to be very alarming, and decided to stop using it,” Zhivagui added. “To the best of our knowledge, no one has actually studied these devices and how they affect human cells at the molecular and cellular levels until now,” study co-author Ludmil Alexandrov said in the release. He’s a professor of bioengineering as well as cellular and molecular medicine. Alexandrov decided to conduct the study after reading about a young beauty pageant contestant with a rare form of skin cancer on her finger. “We began looking into… read on > read on >

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday asked its vaccine advisory panel to weigh a proposal to turn COVID vaccines into an annual shot for most Americans. Such a move would simplify future vaccination efforts, a critical point given the fact that efforts to get people to get COVID booster shots have fallen far short of expectations. While over 80% of Americans have had at least one dose of the original COVID-19 vaccine, only 16% of those over the age of 5 have gotten the updated booster shots that were approved last August, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The committee will consider the FDA proposal at its Jan. 26 meeting. If it recommends the concept be turned into policy and the agency follows those recommendations, COVID shots would likely become much like annual flu shots. In documents filed with the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, the FDA noted that “the totality of the available evidence on prior exposure to and vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 suggests that, moving forward, most individuals may only need to receive one dose of an approved or authorized COVID-19 vaccine to restore protective immunity for a period of time.” Who might need more than one dose per year? For the very young, seniors and the immunocompromised, the agency noted that two doses may be… read on > read on >

Actor Michael J. Fox details his experiences with Parkinson’s disease, including turning to alcohol and pills in an attempt to cope, in a new documentary. Fox, 61, has had the degenerative brain disorder since 1991, but didn’t disclose it publicly until 1998. The star — best known for the “Back to the Future” movies — said he was an alcoholic in the early days and also took dopamine pills like candy while trying to hide symptoms of his condition, such as tremors. “Therapeutic value, comfort — none of these were the reason I took these pills. There was only one reason: to hide,” Fox says in the documentary “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie.” “I became a virtuoso of manipulating drug intake so that I’d peak at exactly the right time and place,” admits the actor, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s at 29. Fox says he got sober 30 years ago with the help of his wife, actress Tracy Pollan, and his children, USA Today reported. “I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t know what was coming. So what if I could just have four glasses of wine and maybe a shot?” Fox says. “I was definitely an alcoholic.” “As low as alcohol had brought me, abstinence would bring me lower. I could no longer escape myself,” Fox recalls, according to the news report.… read on > read on >

Most people think of eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia as afflictions of teenagers, but a new study finds that older women are also vulnerable to developing them, especially around menopause. The main driver of eating disorders in older women? Body dissatisfaction, the researchers found. When researchers looked at eating disorder symptoms among 36 women aged 45 to 61, they found that body dissatisfaction was a key risk factor for eating disorders across the lifespan, especially in midlife. Perimenopausal and early post-menopausal women were more likely to report a fear of gaining weight or losing control of their eating. Perimenopause is the transition before menopause that may be marked by irregular or skipped periods, among other symptoms. “Eating disorders have been stereotyped as a disease of adolescence and young adulthood, but are still present in older women,” said Dr. Stephanie Faubion, medical director of the North American Menopause Society and director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Women’s Health in Rochester, Minn. About 3.5% of women older than 40 have an eating disorder, and this may manifest differently than it does in younger people, she said. “Women in perimenopause may have more dysregulated eating behaviors such as weight control behaviors/counting calories or consumption of diet foods, and may note more body dissatisfaction and fear of gaining weight,” said Faubion. Exactly why midlife is a… read on > read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

Laser Treatment Might Help Prevent Common Forms of Skin Cancer

Even Light Exercise Can Help Arthritic Knees

Athletic Heart Syndrome: What It Is, Symptoms and Treatments

‘Spare Tire’ in Middle Age Could Mean a Frail Old Age

Seafood in Pregnancy: To Eat or Not to Eat?

Your Weight Could Alter Vitamin D’s Effect on Health

Could UV Light From Nail Polish Dryers Cause Cancer?

U.S. Proposes to Make COVID Shot Annual, Much Like Flu Shot

In New Documentary, Michael J. Fox Describes Hiding Parkinson’s, Struggles With Alcohol

Why Midlife Can Bring Risk of New Eating Disorders