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Tirzepatide, the blockbuster GLP-1 medicine known as Mounjaro for diabetes and Zepbound for weight loss, cut the odds that an obese, prediabetic person will develop diabetes by 94%, a new trial shows. The three-year-long trial, funded by the drugs’ maker, Eli Lilly, also found “sustained weight loss through the treatment period, with adults on the 15-milligram [mg] dose experiencing a 22.9% average decrease in body weight compared to 2.1% for placebo,” the company said in a news release issued Tuesday. “These data reinforce the potential clinical benefits of long-term therapy for people living with obesity and prediabetes,” Dr. Jeff Emmick, senior vice president of product development at Lilly, said in the release. Tirzepatide is a competitor GLP-1 drug to semaglutide, which is made by Novo Nordisk and branded as Ozempic for diabetes and Wegovy for weight loss. Sales of both tirzepatide and semaglutide have boomed in recent years as people flock to the drugs to help lose excess weight. Tirzapatide and semaglutide work by boosting insulin release, helping to increase feelings of fullness and suppressing appetite. Both injected drugs were originally designed as treatments for diabetes, however. In the new trial, 1,032 people who were deemed to be prediabetic and either obese or overweight received a “dummy” placebo injection weekly or an injection of either 5 mg, 10 mg or 15 mg of tirzepatide for… read on > read on >

Bored? Zipping through online videos isn’t going to help you, a new study shows. Watching short snippets of videos or fast-forwarding through them makes people more bored rather than less, according to the results of seven experiments involving more than 1,200 Americans and Canadians. Such “digital switching” is less edifying than sticking with one video and watching it all the way through, said lead researcher Katy Tam, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Toronto. “If people want a more enjoyable experience when watching videos, they can try to stay focused on the content and minimize digital switching,” Tam said. “Just like paying for a more immersive experience in a movie theater, more enjoyment comes from immersing oneself in online videos rather than swiping through them.” Watching short videos on social media has become a common pastime, particularly as people spend more time on their smartphone, researchers said. Study participants predicted they would feel less bored by switching videos instead of watching them in their entirety, researchers said. But people allowed to freely switch between seven different videos within 10 minutes reported themselves more bored than when they watched a single 10-minute YouTube video all the way through. The participants found the longer viewing experience to be more satisfying, engaging and meaningful than flipping through a number of videos, results showed. Participants reported similar results… read on > read on >

Perdue Foods has recalled over 167,000 pounds of chicken nuggets and tenders after consumers complained of finding bits of metal in the products. The recall covers select lots of Perdue Breaded Chicken Tenders, Butcher Box Organic Chicken Breast Nuggets and Perdue Simply Smart Organics Breaded Chicken Breast Nuggets. No injuries or adverse reactions tied to eating these foods have been reported, according to Perdue and the U.S. Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), but the agency noted in a news release that it is concerned some of the products may still be in consumers’ freezers. The problem first came to light after consumers discovered metal wire bits in chicken they bought. Following an investigation, “we determined the material to be a very thin strand of metal wire that was inadvertently introduced into the manufacturing process,” Jeff Shaw, senior vice president of food safety and quality for Perdue, said in a company statement. “Out of an abundance of caution, we decided to voluntarily recall all of these packages of products.” The affected tenders and nuggets can be identified by product codes listed in the FSIS notice. All three products have a best if used by date of March 23, 2025, and establishment number “P-33944” on the back of the package. They were sold at retailers nationwide and online. What should consumers do? Anyone who has… read on > read on >

“Stealth” foods are sneaking saturated fat and added sugars into even the strictest diets, a new study shows. Most saturated fats and added sugars come from well-known sources – soft drinks, cheese, pizza, ice cream, cakes and pies. But even supposedly healthy foods like chicken breast and seafood or condiments like salad dressings and ketchup contain hidden amounts of saturated fats and sugars, researchers reported recently in the journal Nutrients. Such popular and generally healthy sources make it difficult for people to limit fat and sugar to the recommended 10% of daily calories, researchers said. “Chicken breast is promoted as a lower saturated fat food, but it still has a little bit of saturated fat,” said lead researcher Christopher Taylor, director of medical dietetics at Ohio State University. “It is helpful to know how foods with smaller amounts also slowly add saturated fat in a stealthy way into the diet.” “Being able to meet less than 10% is to identify the big contributors, but also to be able to see where saturated fat and added sugar may still exist in other food choices,” Taylor added. “It doesn’t make them poor choices – it’s about being aware of how the morning latte may be contributing.” For the study, researchers analyzed data on more than 36,000 U.S. adults who participated in a federal nutrition survey between 2005… read on > read on >

Iron deficiency isn’t being effectively treated in the United States, with low iron levels persisting for years in most patients, a new study finds. Almost 3 of 5 (58%) patients with iron deficiency still had low iron levels three years after their diagnosis, researchers found. Further, it took nearly two years to resolve iron deficiencies in most of the 42% of patients who did recover, results showed. Only 7% of patients had their iron levels return to normal within a year of diagnosis, the study added. “Two years is too long and well beyond the timeframe within which iron deficiency should be able to be sufficiently treated and resolved [with oral or IV treatments],” said lead researcher Dr. Jacob Cogan, an assistant professor of medicine with the University of Minnesota. “The numbers are pretty striking and suggest a need to put systems in place to better identify patients and treat them more efficiently.” Iron deficiency affects nearly 40% of teenagers and young women, but as many as 70% of cases go undiagnosed in these groups, researchers said. Most iron deficiency cases don’t involve full-blown anemia, researchers said. Anemia occurs when the body doesn’t have enough iron to make hemoglobin, the substance in red blood cells that allows them to transport oxygen throughout the body. Cases of non-anemic iron deficiency can cause symptoms like fatigue and… read on > read on >

A child at the dinner table talks about trouble at school or an argument with a friend, but parents aren’t listening: They’re checking their smartphones instead. It’s a scenario that plays out millions of times per day across America, and it could be harming the mental health of children, a new study suggests. Kids ages 9 to 11 who said their parents spent way too much on their smartphones were more prone to anxiety, attention issues and hyperactivity later on compared to the youngsters of parents who weren’t phone-obsessed, Canadian researchers report. “When children’s emotional and physical needs are consistently ignored or inappropriately responded to, they are at risk of developing mental health difficulties,” explained a team led by Sheri Madigan, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Calgary in Alberta. Her team published their findings Aug. 16 in the journal JAMA Network Open. According to background data from the study, one recent study found that parents of infants now spend an average of more than five hours on their smartphones daily, including looking at a smartphone 27% of the time they are engaging with their baby. Another study found 68% of parents admitting they are often distracted by their smartphones as they interact with their kids. Research has shown that this kind of “technoference” while parenting means less attention paid to children,… read on > read on >

A good night’s sleep is crucial for helping people make new memories, a new study says. Neurons that capture new memories during the day reset while you sleep, researchers reported Aug. 15 in the journal Science. “This mechanism could allow the brain to reuse the same resources, the same neurons, for new learning the next day,” said researcher Azahara Oliva, an assistant professor of neurobiology and behavior at Cornell University, in Ithaca, N.Y. The process revolves around the hippocampus, a brain region vital to humans’ ability to create memories. Learning something or engaging in a new experience activate neurons in the hippocampus, storing those events as memories. The same neurons later repeat the same pattern of activity while you sleep, transferring the day’s memories in a larger brain region called the cortex. But what keeps the neurons of the hippocampus from filling up, thus preventing new learning, the researchers wondered. Electrodes implanted into the hippocampi of mice provided a potential explanation. It turns out that those neurons that captured the day’s memories undergo a reset after feeding the latest memories into the cortex, researchers found. Two regions of the hippocampus that capture memories, CA1 and CA3, appear to reset during sleep under the direction of a third region called CA2, researchers said. “We realized there are other hippocampal states that happen during sleep where everything… read on > read on >

There are clues that red and processed meats could be driving the increased risk of colon cancer in young adults, a new study claims. Younger colon cancer patients typically have higher levels of metabolites created by the digestion of an amino acid called arginine, researchers reported recently in the journal NPJ Precision Oncology. They also have higher metabolite levels tied to the urea cycle — the process by which ammonia produced by protein digestion is filtered out of the blood and excreted. Long-term overconsumption of red meat and processed meat could explain these elevated metabolite levels in young people with colon cancer, researchers said. “Our data clearly shows that the main driver is diet,” said researcher Naseer Sangwan, director of the Cleveland Clinic’s Microbial Sequencing & Analytics Resource Core. “We already know the main metabolites associated with young-onset risk, so we can now move our research forward in the correct direction.” For the study, researchers compared blood tests performed on 20 colon cancer patients aged 50 or younger with those of patients 60 and older. The analysis revealed that differences in diet accounted for many of the differences observed between younger and older colon cancer patients. This actually is good news, because researchers had thought that a large-scale alteration of a person’s gut microbiome might be needed to lower their risk of colon cancer. The… read on > read on >

Kids considering suicide after receiving mental health care at a hospital can be helped by automated text messages that help them feel hopeful and supported, a new study finds. Children receiving the texts as part of a program called Caring Contacts said they felt more positive after receiving the messages. “Prior research has shown that patients are around 300 times more at risk of suicide in the first week after hospital discharge, and 200 times more at risk over the first month compared to the general population,” said senior researcher John Ackerman, a child clinical psychologist and suicide prevention clinical manager for the Center for Suicide Prevention and Research at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Ohio. “Reaching patients where they are in their day-to-day lives is crucial in supporting them before, during and after a crisis,” Ackerman added in a hospital news release. “That also means ensuring messages of hope and validation are accessible with the technology they use most — their phones.” Caring Contacts include supportive text messages with accompanying images meant to promote hope, inclusivity and connection, researchers said. The messages also include contacts for crisis resources. These texts were sent to more than 1,700 kids after their discharge from Nationwide Children’s following a suicidal crisis, for a four-month period. About 83% of the children said they felt moderately to very hopeful after receiving… read on > read on >

Painting, woodworking, writing: Whatever you turn to creatively, it could equal or exceed work in terms of maintaining mental health, new research shows. “Crafting and other artistic activities showed a meaningful effect in predicting people’s sense that their life is worthwhile,” said study lead author Dr. Helen Keyes, of Anglia Ruskin University in the U.K. “Indeed, the impact of crafting was bigger than the impact of being in employment,” she added. “Not only does crafting give us a sense of achievement, it is also a meaningful route to self-expression. This is not always the case with employment.” The new study was published Aug. 16 in the journal Frontiers in Public Health. It involved almost 7,200 participants in the annual Taking Part survey, conducted by the UK’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Folks were asked about their level of participation in cultural, digital and sporting activities. People were also queried about their levels of loneliness and “sensations of happiness, anxiety and life satisfaction, and to give their impression of whether life is worthwhile,” according to a journal news release. More than a third (37.4%) of respondents said they’d been involved in some kind of arts or crafts activity over the past month. People who engaged in a creative pursuit scored higher in terms of happiness, life satisfaction and the sense that life is worthwhile, compared… read on > read on >

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Mounjaro, Zepbound Cut Odds for Diabetes by 94% in At-Risk People, Study Finds

Scrolling Through Online Videos Only Increases Boredom: Study

Metal Wire Fragments Trigger Recall of 167,000 Lbs of Perdue Chicken Products

‘Stealth’ Foods That Sneak Saturated Fat, Sugar Into Your Diet

Many Cases of Iron Deficiency Go Too Long Without Proper Treatment

Parents’ Excessive Smartphone Use Could Harm Children’s Mental Health

Your Brain Cells ‘Reset’ During Sleep, Readying for Tomorrow’s Memories

Red Meat Could Be Prime Driver of Colon Cancer in the Young

Text Message Program Helps Teens at Risk for Suicide

Creative Hobbies Can Really Benefit Your Mental Health