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Your office chair could be a killer. New research shows that folks who spent most of their workday sitting were 16% more prone to an early death, compared to folks in non-sitting jobs. The Taiwanese study did offer workers a glimmer of hope, however: Getting up & moving a bit during the workday or adding a bit of leisure-time exercise greatly reduced the risk. The researchers hope that, someday, days spent sitting for work might be looked upon as just another unwanted, unhealthy habit. “Prolonged occupational sitting is [now] considered normal,” the investigators said. But more information on just how fatal a life spent sitting can be may “denormalize this common behavior, similar to the processes of denormalizing smoking.” The study was led by Dr. Chi-Pang Wen of the National Health Research Institute in Zhunan, Taiwan. It was published Jan. 19 in the journal JAMA Network Open. Numerous studies have already found that as hours per day spent sitting rise, health declines. And sitting’s dangers may not be simply that sitting equals time not spent in activity. There could be something specific to the posture of sitting that is especially harmful, the research team said. Sitting may bring about a weakening of the legs and trunk and “increased blood flow to lower extremities,” as well as low-grade inflammation, Wen’s group explained. In turn, that could… read on > read on >

Folks who drop pounds to help control their diabetes receive other substantial heath benefits for all their efforts, a new study says. Substantial weight loss that led to even a short-lived remission in type 2 diabetes also prompted a 40% lower rate in heart disease and a 33% lower rate of kidney disease, researchers report in the Jan. 18 issue of the journal Diabetologia. “As the first intervention study to associate remission with reduction of diabetes-related complications, this is encouraging news for those who can achieve remission from type 2 diabetes,” said lead researcher Edward Gregg, head of population health at RSCI University of Medicine and Health Sciences in Dublin. For the study, researchers tracked 5,145 overweight or obese adults with type 2 diabetes for 12 years. About 18% of patients randomly assigned to an intensive diet and lifestyle plan wound up controlling their diabetes to the point they needed no medication and had normal blood sugar levels, which researchers considered remission. Those patients had lower rates of heart and kidney disease than those who didn’t achieve remission, researchers found. Further, the risk of heart or kidney disease declined most in people with longer-term remission. Those who experienced at least four years of remission had a 49% reduced risk of heart disease and a 55% reduced risk of kidney disease. Patients were more likely to… read on > read on >

Getting bored with your treadmill or exercise bike? Picking up a couple dumbbells instead of lacing up your running shoes once in a while won’t do your heart any harm, a new study reports. Splitting the recommended amount of physical activity between aerobic and resistance exercises reduces the risk of heart disease just as well as an aerobic-only workout regimen, researchers found. “If you’re bored with aerobic exercise and want variety or you have joint pain that makes running long distances difficult, our study shows you can replace half of your aerobic workout with strength training to get the same cardiovascular benefits,” said lead researcher Duck-chul Lee, a professor of kinesiology at Iowa State University. “The combined workout also offers some other unique health benefits, like improving your muscles,” Lee added in a university news release. Heart disease is the United States’ top killer, accounting for approximately one in three deaths, researchers said in background notes. Many studies have shown that aerobic exercise benefits the heart, especially for those with excess weight, but few have compared those results to resistance exercise, the researchers said. For the study, the team tracked more than 400 people ages 35 to 70 for a year. All were overweight or obese, and all had high blood pressure. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups – resistance exercise only,… read on > read on >

People coming off antidepressants often struggle with emotional and social turmoil, especially if they quit their meds cold turkey, a new study reports. Challenges reported by patients quitting antidepressants included feeling overwhelmed by their emotions, finding social situations less enjoyable, and feeling detached and less empathetic towards others. “Some symptoms were so severe, family and friends of the person coming off medication encouraged them to go back on it,” said lead researcher Raqeeb Mahmood, a doctoral student in psychology with the University of Bath. For the study, researchers conducted interviews with 20 people who had attempted within the past year to withdraw from SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) antidepressants like Prozac. Stopping antidepressant therapy is known to trigger physical symptoms like restlessness, fatigue and excessive sweating. But this study, published recently in the journal Health Expectations, supports the notion that patients will also experience emotional symptoms. “From these interviews, it became clear that the lived experience of withdrawal significantly impacts individuals’ well-being,” Mahmood said in a university news release. “The participants emphasized that withdrawal is not just about physical side effects, but it also affected their emotional, cognitive and social functioning.” Some patients found the first days or weeks of withdrawal most challenging, while other struggled several months after they started coming off antidepressants. More than half of the participants said that withdrawal negatively affected… read on > read on >

Electric scooters might seem a fun way to zip about, but they’re also a pricey hazard to riders’ health, a new study argues. Orthopedic treatment for 82 patients injured in e-scooter wrecks averaged more than $28,400 per person, as doctors labored to mend broken bones and dislocated joints. “E-scooters go up to 20 miles per hour, but people are allowed to ride them on sidewalks with no safety equipment. It’s no surprise that many riders have had high-energy traumas, and their communities often absorb the cost,” said researcher Dr. Drew Sanders, an associate professor of orthopedic surgery and residency program director at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. E-scooter injuries have increased dramatically in recent years, rising 22% between 2021 and 2022, according to a recent report from the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Dallas offers an e-scooter sharing program that was suspended in 2020 due to safety concerns but brought back in spring 2023, researchers said in background notes. For their study, researchers analyzed medical records at Parkland Memorial Hospital, a public hospital that serves Dallas County. The hospital is funded by county residents through property taxes to provide safety-net care for those without insurance. The team identified 82 patients treated between January 2017 and August 2020 for injuries linked to e-scooters. About 7 in 10 patients were male, with an average age of 34.… read on > read on >

A daily multivitamin could help people keep their brains healthy as they age, a new trial finds. Results suggest taking multivitamins could help prevent memory loss and slow cognitive aging among older adults, researchers report in the Jan. 18 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The effect was measurable: A daily multivitamin slowed brain aging by the equivalent of two years compared to placebo. Still, experts expressed some skepticism, and wondered if simply eating healthy might not bring about the same results. “Taking a multivitamin supplement is probably good for you, but we don’t know if it’s likely to have a big impact in people who have a healthy diet,” Dr. Richard Caselli, a professor emeritus of neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, told NBC News. “I still maintain a bit of skepticism as far as what magnitude of impact this makes,” he added. “I’m doubtful the difference would be really big.” The new study was led by Dr. Chirag Vyas, an instructor in investigation at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Department of Psychiatry. “Cognitive decline is among the top health concerns for most older adults, and a daily supplement of multivitamins has the potential as an appealing and accessible approach to slow cognitive aging,” he said. The Cocoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study (COSMOS) is a large-scale, randomized trial performed in collaboration by… read on > read on >

Many studies have found that getting high on weed and then getting behind the wheel is dangerous for young drivers, and now new research finds it’s no different for seniors. In a driving-simulator experiment, seniors who were long-term marijuana smokers were weaving in and out of their lanes 30 minutes after getting high, Canadian researchers report. The effect was not seen when the same drivers were tested again three hours after smoking weed. However, the seniors themselves still rated their ability to drive as “impaired.” There was one silver lining: Senior tokers tended to slow their driving speed once high, perhaps because they knew they were intoxicated, said a team led by Patricia Di Ciano, a scientist at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. Di Ciano’s team noted that the percentage of aging Boomers who regularly use marijuana continues to rise. They believe that “older adults may be particularly affected by cannabis, given age-related changes in cognition,” they added. Many seniors are also prescribed medications, and the combination of those meds with marijuana could also be problematic. While there’s been lots of study on the effect of marijuana on younger drivers, the effects of cannabis on driving among seniors “remain unknown,” according to the Toronto team. To help answer the question, they recruited 31 seniors, averaging about 69 years of age, to… read on > read on >

Expecting moms who often turn to acetaminophen for their aches and pains are more likely to wind up with kids who have behavioral issues, a new study warns. Children between the ages of 2 and 4 were more likely to have attention and behavioral problems if their mothers frequently used acetaminophen during pregnancy, researchers found. “The kinds of behaviors the caregivers reported included things like the child talking out of turn, not paying attention, not being quiet when they were supposed to be quiet, not sitting down when they were supposed to be sitting down, and being a little aggressive with other children,” said researcher Susan Schantz, a professor of comparative biosciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Acetaminophen — widely known by the brand name Tylenol — is considered the safest painkiller and fever reducer for pregnancy, but previous studies have found evidence of negative outcomes for children exposed to the medication while in the womb, researchers said in background notes. For example, a recent study co-led by Schantz linked increased acetaminophen exposure in pregnancy to language delays in children. For this latest research, investigator asked pregnant women about their acetaminophen use six times during the course of their pregnancy, to capture a more precise picture of drug exposures. The team then followed the children born of these pregnancies, asking caregivers dozens of standard questions… read on > read on >

Fetal exposure to opioids may change a baby’s immune system, triggering a rise in risks for eczema and asthma through early childhood, new research shows. Children born to women who used opioids during pregnancy had much higher rates of eczema, as well as conditions such as “diaper rash,” during infancy, Australian researchers report. These children also went on to have significantly higher odds for asthma and eczema by the age of 5. The findings echo those seen in prior animal studies and suggest that “prenatal opioid exposure may have a long-term impact on the immune system and child health,” the researchers said. The study was led by Erin Kelty of the University of Western Australia, in Crawley, and was published Jan. 17 in the journal JAMA Network Open. As Kelty’s team relate, rodent studies have already shown that fetal exposure to opioids “may result in immune priming, such that the immune system overreacts to subsequent and later immune activation.” The new study focused on data on outcomes for more than 400,000 children born in Western Australia between 2003 and 2018. Of those births, 1,656 children were diagnosed as having been exposed to opioids in the womb. Crunching the numbers, Kelty’s team found that short-term (just after delivery) risks for eczema and dermatitis (issues such as diaper rash) soared for babies exposed to opioids. The risk… read on > read on >

Do you drive with the window open? Sip coffee behind the wheel? Blast the car radio and sing along? Fidget and fuss in the driver’s seat? These sorts of driving habits could be a sign that you’re getting poor sleep because you suffer from sleep apnea, a new study suggests. Folks with sleep apnea frequently employ more than three of these strategies while driving, in an attempt to remain awake and alert, British researchers found. “Our research suggests that untreated OSA [obstructive sleep apnea] patients often use coping strategies that could be surrogate markers of sleepiness,” said researcher Dr. Akshay Dwarakanath, a consultant in respiratory medicine at the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust. People with sleep apnea have breathing that stops and starts during the night, often causing them to repeatedly wake up. They also tend to snore loudly. “Up to one fifth of collisions on the road may be caused by fatigue or sleepiness,” Dwarakanath said. “Many OSA patients drive either for personal or for professional reasons, and there is good evidence to suggest that some patients are at increased risk of collisions on the road.” For this study, researchers compared 119 people with sleep apnea with 105 people without the sleep disorder. All participants answered questions about their sleepiness in general, sleepiness while driving, strategies they use to stay alert and their history… read on > read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

All That Sitting at Work Is Shortening Your Life

When Weight Loss Cures Diabetes, Risks for Heart Disease Tumble, Too

Cardio or Resistance Workouts: Is There a Best Combo for Your Heart?

Quick Withdrawal From Antidepressants Can Take Emotional, Cognitive Toll

E-Scooter Injuries Rack Up Big Medical Bills

Daily Multivitamin Might Help Aging Brains

Seniors Who Smoke Weed & Drive Are Road Hazards: Study

Study Links Use of Acetaminophen in Pregnancy With Child Behavioral Issues

Mom’s Opioid Use in Pregnancy Raises Child’s Asthma, Eczema Risk

Are Your Driving Habits Pointing to a Sleep Disorder?