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China plans to roll back some of its strict COVID-19 controls, including allowing more of its people to travel abroad. During the pandemic, the country has limited passports, allowing them only for family emergencies or some work travel, but the government announced Tuesday that it will begin taking applications for tourism passports on Jan. 8, the Associated Press reported. The National Immigration Administration of China will also take applications to extend, renew or reissue visas, the AP reported, noting that the agency hasn’t said when it might take applications for new visas. As the news hit, travel companies said they experienced a surge in website searches for visa information and international ticket bookings to places, including to the United States. Other popular sites were Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Britain and Australia. This could also lead to additional spread of the coronavirus as China is currently experiencing a COVID-19 surge, the AP reported. Reports from cities have suggested that the ongoing COVID wave in China has infected tens and possibly hundreds of millions of people, the AP reported, and could lead to between 1 million and 2 million deaths in that country through late 2023. Some countries, including Japan and India, have started requiring travelers from China to undergo COVID tests for the virus. South Korea tests travelers if they have elevated temperatures, the AP reported,…  read on >  read on >

It’s a scenario no parent would ever want to witness: Their child suffers a mental health crisis and is taken to the emergency room, only to have to wait 12 hours or more for the right medical care. Sadly, it is what 1 in 5 of these young patients now face, new research finds. “For kids with mental health conditions, long waits in the emergency department have been a compounding problem for decades,” said lead researcher Dr. Alexander Janke, a visiting research scientist at Yale University Medical School in New Haven, Conn. The long waits are a symptom of a larger problem: Between numerous bottlenecks in the mental health care system and poor access to counseling services in settings like clinics and schools, “the system we have built to take care of some of our most vulnerable children is not adequately resourced,” Janke said. For the study, Janke and his colleagues turned to data from the American College of Emergency Physicians Clinical Emergency Data Registry. The researchers looked specifically at 107 emergency departments in 29 states from January 2020 through December 2021. The investigators found that the rate of visits where a child stayed longer than 24 hours more than doubled in some months during the pandemic. According to the report, kids who remained in the emergency department for more than 24 hours accounted for…  read on >  read on >

While getting a COVID-19 vaccine provides antibodies against the coronavirus, getting a booster shot creates a longer-lasting antibody response, according to new research. “These results fit with other recent reports and indicate that booster shots enhance the durability of vaccine-elicited antibodies,” said senior researcher Dr. Jeffrey Wilson of the University of Virginia (UVA) Health division of asthma, allergy and immunology, in Charlottesville. “Although only about half of the U.S. population that is eligible for a booster has received one, it is increasingly clear that boosters enhance the protection that is conferred by the primary series mRNA vaccines alone,” Wilson said in a university news release. In the study of almost 350 volunteers, getting an mRNA booster (from drugmakers Pfizer or Moderna) made for longer-lasting antibodies for all recipients, the investigators found. That was even true for those who had recovered from a COVID-19 infection. The researchers worked with 117 UVA employee volunteers who had a booster shot and another 228 volunteers who had just a primary vaccine series of two shots. The study results revealed similar antibody levels in both groups about one week to 31 days after their shots. The boosted antibodies then lasted longer. “Our initial thought was that boosters would lead to higher antibody levels than the primary vaccine series, but that was not what we found,” said co-author Samuel Ailsworth. “Instead,…  read on >  read on >

For people with heart disease, new research suggests loneliness, social isolation and living alone can shave years off your life. This trio puts people with established cardiovascular disease at greater risk of premature death, according to the international study. Cardiovascular disease refers to heart disease and stroke. “Social health factors such as loneliness and social isolation have gained a significant amount of attention recently and are really important to think of within the context of cardiovascular health,” said lead author Róisín Long, a clinical psychologist and a doctoral candidate at University of Limerick in Ireland. “What was unclear is to what degree they impact how long people live when they have been diagnosed with cardiovascular disease,” Long said in a university news release. “Our review found that each of these factors are critically important to consider in the treatment of cardiovascular disease, as increased levels of loneliness, social isolation and living alone appears to lead to premature death,” Long added. There are likely several reasons for this, Long added, ranging from support from another person to how an individual biologically responds to stress. For the report, researchers reviewed 35 studies done in Europe, North America and Asia over many decades. The effects of living alone appeared stronger in European countries. This may be a reflection of the large number of people living alone in parts…  read on >  read on >

If you struggle with urinary incontinence and worry that diet drinks may make matters worse, new research suggests they may not have a significant effect. “This study is important in that it may guide clinicians counseling women with urinary incontinence to focus more on behavioral modifications, such as total volume intake, rather than on the type of beverage consumed,” said Dr. Stephanie Faubion, medical director for the North American Menopause Society (NAMS). “Further, given the multiple potential adverse health effects associated with consuming sugar-containing beverages, counseling should be directed away from avoidance of artificially sweetened beverages,” Faubion added in a NAMS news release. Past research on rat models had found that artificial sweeteners enhanced contraction of the detrusor muscle, which pushes urine out of the bladder, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Despite anecdotal evidence that several foods and drinks have adverse effects on the bladder and lower urinary tract, few have confirmed a link between urinary incontinence and artificial sweeteners. The new study is based on an analysis of data from the Women’s Health Initiative study and included more than 80,000 women. It aimed both to examine a potential association between artificially sweetened beverages and urinary incontinence symptoms and to identify whether stress or urge incontinence was most associated. Urinary incontinence is the loss of bladder control and the unintentional leaking of…  read on >  read on >

U.S. communities with higher Hispanic, American Indian or Black populations also have the highest concentrations of metal in public water systems, new research reveals. Researchers from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York City found significantly higher arsenic and uranium levels in public drinking water in Hispanic and American Indian/Alaska Native communities nationwide, as well as in Black communities in the West and Midwest. These areas have more arsenic and uranium. The researchers said this study could be done now only because estimates of contaminant concentrations are finally available for the majority of public water systems. “Our findings are particularly relevant to public health because there is no safe level of exposure to inorganic arsenic and uranium,” said first study author Dr. Irene Martinez-Morata, a PhD candidate in environmental health sciences. “These findings support that inequalities in public water contaminant exposures are more severe in regions with more residents from communities of color relying on public drinking water and higher concentrations of specific contaminants in source water,” she explained in a university news release. Arsenic and uranium exposure are associated with cancer, heart disease and other adverse health outcomes. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets a maximum contaminant level of 30 µg/L for uranium and 10 µg/L for arsenic. But its non-enforceable goal for both metals is 0 µg/L, because there…  read on >  read on >

The Mediterranean diet delivers plenty of health dividends, and new research now discovers it may lower complications during pregnancy. Specifically, women who stuck to the diet had a 21% overall reduced risk of preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, preterm birth, delivery of a small baby and stillbirth, researchers report. “We know adverse pregnancy outcomes are becoming more common in the United States,” said lead researcher Dr. Natalie Bello, director of hypertension research at the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. These bad outcomes can have serious consequences for mom and baby, Bello said. “While we still need more information, it seems like the adoption of a Mediterranean-type diet could be an important lifestyle approach to preventing these adverse outcomes,” she added. The Mediterranean diet is rich in vegetables, fruits, nuts, whole grains, legumes and fish, while it is low in red and processed meats and alcohol. “This diet is associated with lower blood pressure, and more favorable profiles of glucose levels, so lower sugar levels and less insulin resistance,” Bello said. Bello noted this study can’t prove that this diet caused the lower risk of complications, only that it was related to a reduced risk. “Our thoughts are that you have a healthier background going into pregnancy,” Bello said. “Pregnancy can be a stress test for the body. A lot of people who…  read on >  read on >

TUESDAY, Dec. 27, 2022Living in an area with easy access to parks and rivers appears to slow the progression of devastating neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. That’s the conclusion of a new study based on more than a decade and a half tracking disease risk among nearly 62 million Americans 65 years old and up. “Prior research showed that natural environments — such as forests, parks and rivers — can help to reduce stress and restore attention,” noted lead author Jochem Klompmaker, a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. “In addition, natural environments provide settings for physical activity and social interactions, and may reduce exposure to air pollution, extreme heat and traffic noise.” To build on such observations, his and his colleagues looked at hospital admissions for Alzheimer’s and related dementia, as well as Parkinson’s disease. By focusing on hospital admission, Klompmaker stressed that his team was not assessing the initial risk for developing either disease. Instead, researchers wanted to know if increased exposure to nature lowered the odds that either disease would progress quickly. And on that front, Klompmaker said, researchers observed significant protective links: The greener an older individual’s surrounding environment, the lower their risk of hospitalization for either neurological illness. The finding could have bearing on millions of Americans, given that Alzheimer’s…  read on >  read on >

Stress is rarely a good thing for your health, but new research warns that it significantly raises the risk of a stroke. The study found that increased stress at home or work and recent stressful life events — like getting divorced or a major family conflict — were associated both with increased risk of stroke due to a clot, known as an ischemic stroke, and a stroke due to bleeding in the brain, called a hemorrhagic stroke. What to do to lower that risk? “Optimal approaches to managing, and preventing, psychosocial stress are uncertain. Previous studies have looked at interventions such as cognitive behavioral therapy, relaxation techniques, client-led discussion, stress management, exercise regimens and anger management,” said study author Dr. Catriona Reddin, of the University of Galway College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, in Ireland. “The most effective approach may vary from person to person. It’s important that everyone has a strategy that works for them,” Reddin said. Her team studied stress around the world using data from a retrospective study known as INTERSTROKE in more than 26,000 people in 32 countries in North and South America, Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. People who had severe work stress were more than twice as likely to have an ischemic stroke as those with no work stress, the investigators found. They were more…  read on >  read on >

One of the hallmarks of a COVID-19 infection has been a lost sense of smell after the infection ends. In a new study, researchers blame an ongoing immune assault on the olfactory nerve cells — cells found at the top of the nasal cavity — and a decline in the number of those cells. The study was led by a team at Duke Health in Durham, N.C. “One of the first symptoms that has typically been associated with COVID-19 infection is loss of smell,” said senior study author Dr. Bradley Goldstein, associate professor of head and neck surgery at Duke. “Fortunately, many people who have an altered sense of smell during the acute phase of viral infection will recover smell within the next one to two weeks, but some do not,” Goldstein said in a university news release. “We need to better understand why this subset of people will go on to have persistent smell loss for months to years after being infected with SARS-CoV-2,” he added. For the study, researchers from Duke, Harvard Medical School in Boston and the University of California, San Diego, analyzed olfactory tissue samples from 24 biopsies, including nine patients with long-term loss of smell after COVID-19. This approach — paired with sophisticated single-cell analyses in collaboration with Dr. Sandeep Datta at Harvard — revealed a widespread inflammatory response in…  read on >  read on >