Caring for a grandchild might be the best way to fight the isolation of old age, new research suggests. This conclusion is based on 2014 data collected as part of an ongoing German survey of older adults. Among the nearly 3,900 grandparents in the survey, more than 1,100 said they cared for a grandchild. Those who had grandchildren to care for had lower scores on loneliness and social isolation tests, and a larger social network than those who didn’t care for grandchildren. Meanwhile, grandparents who didn’t care for a grandchild had higher loneliness scores and were in regular contact with fewer people important to them, the study authors said. The findings were unchanged even after the researchers took into account factors such as marital status, domestic arrangements, household income, self-rated health, physical activity levels and depressive symptoms. The study can’t prove that taking care of grandchildren by itself makes older people less lonely, only that there appears to be an association. It might be that grandparents who felt less lonely and isolated to start with are more likely to care for a grandchild, said study author Eleanor Quirke, of the department for health economics and health services research at Hamburg-Eppendorf University Hospital, and colleagues. The study also didn’t account for how near to their grandchildren grandparents lived or how often they provided care, all of…  read on >

If you think vaping is less likely to harm your lungs than traditional cigarettes, think again. E-cigarettes have been touted as safer than tobacco smoke, but evidence is mounting that they are both damaging to your airways, U.K. researchers report. A team from the School of Pharmacy at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland compared cigarette smoke and e-cigarette vapor on bacteria associated with smoking-related chronic lung disease. Specifically, they exposed the bacteria Haemophilus influenzae, Streptococcus pneumonia, Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa to both cigarette smoke and e-cigarette vapor. When exposed to either cigarette smoke or e-cigarette vapor, the bacteria made more biofilms. Biofilms are microbes involved in a wide variety of infections. Cigarette smoke and e-cigarette vapor may both increase the harmfulness of common lung germs and cause persistent infection, the researchers said. In another experiment, the researchers showed that human lung cells exposed to bacteria that had been exposed to cigarette smoke or e-cigarette vapor responded with increased production of Interleukin-8, a key factor tied to inflammation. “A recurring theme of this study is the similarity in the effect of exposure to cigarette smoke compared to e-cigarette vapor on how bacteria behave and how harmful they are. The findings indicate that the effects of vaping on common lung pathogens may be similar to those of smoking,” said researcher Deirdre Gilpin. The report was…  read on >

Male researchers are far more likely than female colleagues to claim that their findings are especially important, a new study says. The language used to describe discoveries can affect how much attention researchers get and also affect their career advancement. These findings may help explain why women in medicine and science tend to get paid less and have fewer career opportunities, the authors said. “The factors that underlie gender disparities in academia are many and complex, but it is important to be aware that language may also play a role — as both a driver of inequality and as a symptom of gender differences in socialization,” senior author Dr. Anupam Jena said in a Harvard University news release. He’s an associate professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School. Jena and his team analyzed more than 6 million peer-reviewed clinical and life science studies published between 2002 and 2017. That analysis revealed that papers with male lead authors were up to 21% more likely to use language that casts the findings as highly significant than papers with female lead authors. Specifically, the titles and abstracts of papers with male lead authors were more likely to use words such as “excellent,” “novel” and “unique.” Papers using this type of positive framing were cited up to 13% more often by other researchers than papers without it,…  read on >

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday gave expanded approval to a prescription form of fish oil called Vascepa, to help prevent heart trouble in people at high risk who are already taking statins. Vascepa (icosapent ethyl) was already FDA-approved for a small percentage of patients with exceptionally high blood levels of triglycerides, a type of blood fat. The new approval greatly expands the potential pool of patients, because it now includes people with simply high levels of triglycerides — at or above 150 milligrams per deciliter — and multiple risk factors for heart disease and diabetes. “Today’s approval will give patients with elevated triglycerides and other important risk factors, including heart disease, stroke and diabetes, an adjunctive treatment option that can help decrease their risk of cardiovascular events,” Dr. John Sharretts said in an FDA news release. He’s acting deputy director of the Division of Metabolism and Endocrinology Products in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. Vascepa is a drug derived from fish that contains pure EPA, a key nutrient in fish oil. A month’s supply of Vascepa costs roughly $300. Friday’s approval follows on the positive results of a study on Vascepa presented in November at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association (AHA). Early findings from the clinical trial found that the drug slowed the development of artery-clogging…  read on >