All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

Three out of four times, your Facebook friends don’t read past the headline when they share a link to political content.  Experts say that’s somewhat surprising — and downright scary.  People who share without clicking may be unwittingly aiding hostile adversaries aiming to sow seeds of division and distrust, warned S. Shyam Sundar, a professor of media effects at Penn State University. “Superficial processing of headlines and blurbs can be dangerous if false data are being shared and not investigated,” said Sundar, corresponding author of the new study published Nov. 19 in the journal Nature Human Behavior.  “Disinformation or misinformation campaigns aim to sow the seeds of doubt or dissent in a democracy — the scope of these efforts came to light in the 2016 and 2020 elections,” he added in a Penn State news release. To learn more about content shared on social media, his team analyzed more than 35 million public posts containing links shared on Facebook between 2017 and 2020. The links included political content from both ends of the spectrum — and it was shared without clicking more often than politically neutral content. While the study was limited to Facebook, researchers said their findings likely apply to other social media platforms as well.  Data for the analysis were provided in collaboration with Facebook’s parent company, Meta.  It included user demographics and…  read on >  read on >

America’s kitchen trash bins are receiving more unwanted food as appetites falter among people taking GLP-1 weight-loss meds, a new study shows. GLP-1s like Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound all work by making food less desirable, and it’s showing up in more food wasted at dinner tables, said a team led by Brian Roe, of Ohio State University. The study surveyed 505 new GLP-1 users. It found 25% agreeing that they had wasted more food since taking the drugs, compared to 61% who disagreed.  There was some good news, however: Food wastage appears to decline as people adjust to their GLP-1 medication. “The fact that food waste appears to decrease as patients acclimate to the medication suggests there may be a fairly simple remedy — advising patients new to these medications about the possibility of discarding food as their diets change, which could reduce food waste and lower their spending,” said Roe, a professor in the department of agricultural, environmental and development economics. According to the researchers, 6% of all U.S. adults were taking a GLP-1 medications as of spring of 2024. The medicines act on a hormone in the small intestine to help lower blood sugar, slow stomach emptying and signal fullness in the brain. In this study, almost 70% of respondents were taking semaglutide (Ozempic, Rybelsus, Wegovy) and nearly a quarter were taking…  read on >  read on >

A drug used to help patients lose weight and manage diabetes may also help those with heart failure, an international clinical trial shows. The test of tirzepatide, brand named Zepbound, included 731 patients with diastolic heart failure and obesity who were followed for two years. “This class of drugs continue to show benefits far beyond weight loss,” said researcher Dr. Christopher Kramer, chief of cardiovascular medicine at UVA Health. “This drug will become an important part of the armamentarium for patients with obesity-related heart failure and preserved heart function.” In nearly half of heart failure cases, the left ventricle of the heart becomes stiff and can no longer pump blood properly. Doctors call this diastolic heart failure or heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. Obesity is a major cause of heart failure, so Kramer’s team wondered if the weight-loss drug tirzepatide could help. The new trial — published in four journals and reported Saturday at an American Heart Association meeting in Chicago — showed that tirzepatide offered big benefits for managing heart failure.  Patients saw improvements in how far they could walk in six minutes and big decreases in a biological marker used to measure inflammation and predict risk of serious heart events, the study found. During the two-year follow-up, 56 participants who received a placebo died or saw their heart failure get worse, compared to…  read on >  read on >

Think of it as collateral damage: Millions of Americans say they have been harmed by a loved one’s drug or alcohol use. One in 3 adults who responded to a new nationwide survey said they had suffered “secondhand harm” from another person’s drinking. And more than 1 in 10 said they had been harmed by a loved one’s drug use.  That’s close to 160 million victims — 113 million hurt by loved one’s drinking and 46 million by their drug use, according to the survey published recently in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.  “There are more harms than people think,” said study co-author William Kerr, of the Alcohol Research Group at the Emeryville, Calif.-based Public Health Institute. “They affect families, relationships and communities.” He said it makes sense that risky drinking and drug use have far-reaching consequences, but researchers only began looking at the secondhand harms of alcohol in recent years. Less has been known about the damage done by a loved one’s drug use. The new study is based on a survey of 7,800 U.S. adults. They were questioned between September 2019 and April 2020, before the pandemic became a factor in Americans’ substance use. People were asked if they had been harmed in any of several ways due to someone else’s substance use.  In all, 34% of respondents said they…  read on >  read on >

People whose genes put them at high risk for dementia may be able to fight Mother Nature and win, new research out of Sweden suggests. The weapon: Working out on a regular basis to improve cardiorespiratory fitness, also known as CRF.  CRF is the capacity of the body’s circulatory and respiratory systems to supply oxygen to muscles — a capacity that declines as people age and lose muscle, starting in their 20s and accelerating over time.  By the time folks reach their 70s, CRF drops off more than 20% per decade. Low CRF is a strong predictor of early death from all causes and heart-related events such as strokes and heart attacks.  “Our study shows that higher CRF is associated with better cognitive function and decreased dementia risk,” the Swedish researchers concluded. “Moreover, high CRF may buffer the impact of genetic risk of all dementia by 35%.” For the study, a team led by Weili Xu, of the Aging Research Center at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, looked at data on more than 61,200 people between the ages of 39 and 70. They were enrolled in the UK Biobank study between 2009 and 2010 and were followed for up to 12 years. At the start of the study, all were dementia-free. Each took a six-minute ride on a stationary bike to determine their CRF. They also…  read on >  read on >

A wearable patch the size of a postage stamp that can monitor blood pressure continuously could soon help people manage their hypertension. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, who developed the wearable ultrasound patch report Nov. 20 in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering that it has worked well in tests with more than 100 patients. Maintaining a normal blood pressure — 120/80 — helps prevent many illnesses, from heart disease and stroke to kidney problems, dementia and vision loss, so many patients with high blood pressure use a cuff-and-meter device to track their levels. “Traditional blood pressure measurements with a cuff, which are limited to providing one-time blood pressure values, can miss critical patterns,” said study co-author Sai Zhou, who recently received his doctorate degree from the University of California, San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering.  “Our wearable patch offers continuous stream of blood pressure waveform data, allowing it to reveal detailed trends in blood pressure fluctuations,” he added in a university news release. The soft, stretchy patch adheres to the skin and is worn on the forearm. An array of tiny transducers inside it send and receive ultrasound waves that track changes in the diameter of blood vessels. These changes are then converted into blood pressure values. Developers said the patch produces results comparable not only to those of a standard blood…  read on >  read on >

Having achy, painful joints isn’t just a physical woe: Coupled with depression, it could also degrade an older person’s brain function over time. That’s the conclusion of a study of almost 5,000 older Britons tracked for 12 years. People who had both chronic joint pain and depression tended to perform worse on cognitive tests, especially tests focused on memory skills. “Both pain and symptoms of depression act on areas of the brain [mainly the hippocampus] associated with cognitive processing,” explained Brazilian gerontology researcher and study lead author Patrícia Silva Tofani, of the Federal University of Sergipe. She has a theory as to how joint pain and depression might pose a double whammy to brain health. “There’s an overlap of information, causing the brain to become ‘congested’ and have to delegate some functions to process the pain response and the symptoms of depression,” she said in a university news release. “This would interfere with formation of memory and global cognitive performance. In the study, we saw that over the years, this overload leads to faster cognitive decline.” The findings were published recently in the journal Aging & Mental Health. The study was based on data from the English Longitudinal Study of Aging, and looked at data on 4,718 Britons aged 50 or older whose health was tracked for a dozen years. Among other things, they were queried…  read on >  read on >

A sprain on the soccer field. A tumble to the floor at home. Kids get injured, but as a parent, when’s the right time to bring them to a doctor or ER? Pediatric sports medicine and orthopedic physician Dr. Bianca Edison, of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, offers up guidance for worried moms and dads. First of all, she said, don’t assume that childhood injuries are seldom severe: Edison pointed to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics, showing that nearly half (45%) of playground injuries involve fractures, dislocations, concussions and other harms serious enough to need urgent medical attention. She broke down child injuries into four types: head injuries, mouth/tooth injuries, fractures and eye injuries. Head injuries A knock to the noggin isn’t an uncommon event for rambunctious kids. But certain symptoms may signal that more than a hug is needed to help your child. “They include severe crankiness above and beyond what the child normally displays, multiple vomiting episodes, slurred speech, different pupil sizes and a sudden change in the way the child walks,” according to Edison. “These symptoms are of significant concern and need immediate medical attention.” There are certain metrics that can also help, especially when it comes to head injuries linked to falls. If the child is less than 2 years old and falls more than 3 feet, or is…  read on >  read on >

Rates of postpartum depression have more than doubled in little over a decade among American women, a new analysis shows. While about 1 in every 10 new moms (9.4%) suffered postpartum depression in 2010, that number rose to almost 1 in every 5 (19%) by 2021, report a team from Kaiser Permanente Southern California. Why the steep rise? Better detection and reporting could be playing a big role, the researchers said. However, rising rates of obesity during pregnancy could also be a factor, since obesity has long known to be a risk factor for postpartum depression. Whatever the reasons, “the prevalence of postpartum depression is high and rising,” said a team led by Dr. Darios Getahun, a Kaiser researcher based in Pasadena, Calif. His team published its findings Nov. 20 in the journal JAMA Network Open. As defined by the researchers, postpartum depression is “a depressive disorder that occurs within 12 months following childbirth.” Like other forms of depression, symptoms include sadness, anxiety and lack of interest in activities that were once pleasurable. Mothers with postpartum depression may fail to bond with their infant, neglect breastfeeding and develop other illnesses. “In severe cases, postpartum depression can lead to suicide or infanticide,” Getahun’s team wrote in the report. In their new analysis, the researchers tracked rates of postpartum depression for more than 442,000 California pregnancies between…  read on >  read on >

Parents can’t monitor everything their kids watch online, but a set of new guidelines may help young people manage their own viewing habits. “Research consistently shows that video content, and the platforms that host it, have the potential to help or harm teens,” said Arthur Evans Jr., CEO of the American Psychological Association (APA).  “It is the shared responsibility of video platforms, content creators, parents, caregivers, educators, policymakers and the technology industry to create an environment where youth can learn and express themselves safely online,” he added in an APA news release. The association announced new recommendations to help parents, policymakers and tech companies give teens the power to manage their own viewing habits. They include steps that can be taken right away, as well as longer-range recommendations for Big Tech and policymakers. For educators: Teach teens to be choosy. Videos can help with homework, teach new skills or hobbies or provide insights into different experiences and cultures, APA points out, calling on schools to teach video literacy. The aim: “To expand [teens’] knowledge and abilities while resisting manipulative platform features designed to prolong their engagement and profit from their attention.” For creators: Modify features that can affect teens’ well-being. Platforms that recommend content to young people, switch between short videos and autoplay content to extend viewing time may lead to abnormal viewing habits and…  read on >  read on >