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People who have long COVID — lingering symptoms after a COVID-19 infection — may also have lower brain oxygen levels, cognitive problems and psychiatric troubles, such as anxiety and depression. Researchers from the University of Waterloo in Canada and Drexel University in Philadelphia combined two parallel studies to better understand what is happening in long COVID patients. One was a lab study that included tests of thinking skills and imaging of oxygen levels in the brain. The other was a national population survey of Canadians in 2021 and 2022. The lab study compared people who did not previously have symptomatic COVID-19 with those who did have the virus. Those who had experienced COVID-19 did worse on two computer tasks. One measured inhibition. The other looked at impulsive decision-making. People who had been infected did not have the expected increase in oxygen level in an area of the brain that is normally engaged during one of these tasks, the investigators found. “We are the first to show reduced oxygen uptake in the brain during a cognitive task in the months following a symptomatic COVID-19 infection,” said lead author Dr. Peter Hall, a researcher in the School of Public Health Sciences at Waterloo, in Ontario. “This is important because a lack of sufficient oxygen supply is thought to be one of the mechanisms by which COVID-19 may… read on > read on >

(HealthDay) — Allergic reactions to the Pfizer or Moderna COVID vaccines are very rare, and a new study questions whether many of those that do occur are even real. In a small new study of 16 people who said they’d experienced an allergic reaction to a dose of the Pfizer vaccine, those who got a follow-up placebo (fake) vaccine were more likely to complain of another round of “allergic” reactions than those who got the real thing. This phenomenon is something doctors have long known about, and it even has a name: Immunization Stress-Related Response (ISRR) syndrome. “This has been reported prior to the COVID pandemic, but I think it’s been accentuated by the COVID pandemic and these newer vaccinations,” Dr. David Khan, president of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI), said in an interview with HealthDay. According to Khan, there’s good news from the findings: “The vast majority of patients who’ve had reactions which they think are allergic can actually receive subsequent vaccinations, and do this safely, and there have been a number of studies that show that.” The study was presented recently at the AAAAI’s annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas. The new trial was led by Dr. Muhammad Khalid, a clinical fellow in the Laboratory of Allergic Diseases of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part… read on > read on >

THURSDAY, March 2, 2023Black women who are exposed to certain forms of racism may be more likely to develop heart disease, researchers say. Specifically, Black women who said they faced discrimination in employment, housing and in their interactions with the police were 26% more likely to develop heart disease than their counterparts who had not experienced such structural racism. Structural racism refers to the ways that a society fosters racial discrimination through housing, education, employment, health care and criminal justice systems. The new study wasn’t designed to determine how perceived racism increases heart disease risk, but researchers have their theories. “Chronic psychosocial stressors such as racism increase levels of inflammation, blood pressure and other risks for heart disease,” said study author Shanshan Sheehy. She is an assistant professor of medicine at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. For the study, the researchers tracked more than 48,000 women enrolled in the Black Women’s Health Study from 1997 to 2019. None had heart disease in 1997. During 22 years of follow-up, 1,947 women developed heart disease. Women answered five questions in 1997 about their experiences related to racism in their everyday lives and three questions about structural racism in employment, housing or in their interactions with police. Heart disease risk wasn’t tied to experiences of racism in everyday life, but women who reported experiencing racism… read on > read on >

A Mediterranean diet may help multiple sclerosis (MS) patients ward off damage to their thinking skills. New research finds that a diet rich in veggies, fruit, fish and healthy fat reduced their risk of developing memory loss as well as losing the ability to concentrate, learn new things or make decisions. A loss of such key mental skills, or “cognitive impairment,” is a common feature of MS, a neurological disease that short circuits critical communication between the brain and body. But the new analysis of diet and mental status among 563 people with MS linked the Mediterranean diet to a 20% lower risk for cognitive difficulties. “Mediterranean diet is a broad term and there are geographical variations,” said lead author Dr. Ilana Katz Sand, an associate professor of neurology at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. “However, it refers to an overall pattern that favors fruits, vegetables, olive oil, nuts, fish, and whole grains and limits meats — particularly red meat — baked goods, and highly processed foods.” Prior research has suggested that Mediterranean diets “have broad health benefits,” Katz Sand added, including some protection against heart disease, obesity, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and overall mental health decline. “In this study,” she said, “we demonstrate a significant positive association between the level of alignment of one’s diet with a Mediterranean pattern… read on > read on >

Following hours of discussion over safety concerns, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel on Wednesday recommended approval of a second RSV vaccine, this one made by GlaxoSmithKline, for use in Americans ages 60 and older. The panel’s recommendation was based largely on the results of a trial that tested the GlaxoSmithKline vaccine in the same age group. Those findings, published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that the shot lowered the risk of symptomatic illness by 83% and of severe illness by 94% in people ages 60 and up. In a two-part vote, the panel voted 10 to 2 in favor of the vaccine’s safety and unanimously on the shot’s effectiveness, the New York Times reported. Meanwhile, the same panel on Tuesday recommended the approval of an RSV vaccine known as RENOIR from Pfizer Inc. On both days, panel members debated the benefits of the vaccines for patients who overwhelmingly avoided hospitalization against rare reports of autoimmune conditions like Guillain-Barré syndrome that emerged shortly after the shots were administered. In addition, two people who were given the GSK vaccine developed acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, a neurological disorder with symptoms that include weakness and loss of vision. One person died. The company and the FDA consider the cases “possibly related” to the vaccine, noting that both patients also received a flu vaccine… read on > read on >

One group of Americans drinks more caffeinated beverages than all others. That’s people who smoke cigarettes and also have serious mental illness, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, according to new research. While Americans overall are drinking more caffeinated beverages than ever, this group consumes the highest amount and also has the highest risk of negative health consequences, said researcher Dr. Jill Williams, director of addiction psychiatry at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey, and colleagues. “Caffeine is generally considered safe and even has some health benefits,” Williams said in a Rutgers news release. “But we just don’t understand the cognitive and psychiatric effects of high caffeine intake, especially among smokers with mental illness.” The researchers analyzed data from 248 adult smokers who were recruited during a previous study. Participants were either outpatients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder or from a control group with no psychiatric diagnoses. Each smoked a pack a day. Researchers collected blood samples from the participants to measure their serum caffeine levels. Participants also completed surveys on smoking history, caffeine use, physical health and psychological symptoms. While caffeine intake was highest in those with bipolar disorder, followed by schizophrenia, it was lowest in the control group. Williams suggested several theories that might help explain why this connection exists. First, there’s a well-established association between caffeine and smoking. People who… read on > read on >

When Dr. Yezaz Ghouri sees patients with the cramping, abdominal pain and diarrhea that are hallmark symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), he’ll typically ask how life’s going. More often than not, his patients say they are experiencing stress in their lives. Now, Ghouri’s team has established a link between IBS and anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation in patients who have been admitted to the hospital for their IBS. IBS is a chronic disorder of the gastrointestinal (GI) system that strikes up to 15 percent of the population. Ghouri, an assistant professor of clinical medicine and gastroenterology at the University of Missouri School of Medicine, thinks that stress may be expressed through both the mind and body. “I think it expresses in the form of mood disorders like depression, anxiety,” Ghouri said. “I think it expresses in a form of IBS, which is basically a manifestation of your autonomic nervous system [which controls involuntary actions like your heartbeat].” The study used data from more than 1.2 million IBS patients in 4,000 U.S. hospitals over three years. More than 38% of these patients had anxiety. More than 27% had depression. These numbers were double the levels of anxiety and depression found in patients who did not have IBS. Lead researcher Dr. Zahid Ijaz Tarar, an assistant professor of clinical medicine, pointed to what’s called the brain-gut… read on > read on >

Colon cancer continues to rise among younger U.S. adults, with the American Cancer Society reporting a doubling of cases in people younger than 55 in about 25 years. Also, significantly more Americans are being diagnosed with advanced stages of the disease, the cancer society says. As of 2019, 20% of colon cancer cases occurred in adults under age 55 — up from just 11% in 1995, according to the new report. Moreover, researchers found that the proportion of people diagnosed with advanced-stage cancer reached 60% in 2019, up from 52% in the mid‐2000s. The rate of advanced disease was 57% in 1995 before widespread screening was available. Cancer experts are baffled, especially since numbers are declining in the overall population. “We don’t know what is driving the increase in colorectal cancer among young people,” said senior researcher Dr. Ahmedin Jemal, senior vice president for surveillance and health equity science at the cancer society. “There is a lot of research going on. Some people say it’s probably obesity or changes in diet over the past decades that might be a reason, but really, we don’t know exactly what causes this rapid rise in colorectal cancer incidence rates,” he said. This year more than 153,000 Americans will be diagnosed with colon cancer and 52,550 will die from the disease, the researchers note. Screening is the best protection… read on > read on >

While adult bed rails are marketed with safety in mind, they need to be used with caution, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration advises. “Many death and injury reports related to entrapment and falls for adult portable bed rail products and hospital bed rails have been reported to the FDA and the CPSC [U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission],” the FDA said in a new webpage. Use bed rails with care, especially with older adults and people with altered mental status, physical limitations and certain medical conditions, the FDA advised. The FDA regulates bedrails that are sold for medical purposes. These might be used to help someone who is disabled, injured or recovering from surgery to transfer in and out of bed, and reduce the risk of falling or fracture. Those not marketed for medical purposes are instead considered consumer products and are under the jurisdiction of the CPSC. Sometimes these types of equipment are called side rails, bed side rails, half rails, safety rails, bed handles, bed canes, assist bars, grab bars, and adult portable bed rails. The FDA’s new webpage explains some of the risks associated with bed rails and offers some safety advice. Bed rails typically are divided into three distinct types, according to the FDA. There are portable bed rails for adults, portable bed rails used for children, and hospital bed rails… read on > read on >

For decades, people turned to cigarettes in times of stress. Now, a preliminary study hints that young people are using vaping in the same way. The study, of nearly 2,000 U.S. teenagers and young adults, found that those who vaped nicotine or marijuana were more likely to report anxiety, depression or suicidal thoughts. In fact, a majority of vapers said they’d suffered anxiety or depression symptoms in the past week, while over half had contemplated suicide in the past year. The findings leave open the chicken-and-egg question. “One of the challenges is in teasing out the cause and effect,” said Loren Wold, a professor in the Colleges of Nursing and Medicine at Ohio State University. Many of the young people surveyed explicitly said they’d started vaping to deal with depression — including one-third of those who vaped marijuana. That’s worrying, Wold said, since no one would consider vaping a healthy coping strategy. Wold, who was not involved in the study, was lead author on a recent report from the American Heart Association (AHA) on the physical health consequences of vaping during adolescence. There’s still a lot to learn, as vaping is a relatively new phenomenon, Wold said. But it’s clear there are shorter-term effects, including inflammation in the airways, blood pressure spikes and increased stiffness in the arteries. So young people who vape could be… read on > read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

Long COVID Patients Show Lower Levels of Brain Oxygen

Is an Allergy to a COVID Vaccine Always Real? Placebo Trial Casts Doubt

Racism Brings Worse Heart Health for Black Women

Could the Mediterranean Diet Help People With MS?

FDA Panel Backs Second RSV Vaccine for Older Americans

Smoking Plus Mental Illness Can Send Caffeine Intake Soaring

Irritable Bowel Syndrome Takes Big Toll on Mental Health

Colon Cancer Is Being Spotted in Younger People, and at Later Stages

Bed Rails Can Help and Harm: FDA Gives Guidance

Vaping Tobacco or Weed Appears Tied to Higher Anxiety in Teens

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