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Escaping from a cold, wintery place to a warm climate can be fun for so-called “snowbirds” who migrate south for the winter. Still, experts say it’s a good idea for older adults to prepare by having a “medical checklist” to ensure both regular care and help in case of an emerging issue while away from home. “Snowbirds should have their medical checklists completed a month before they leave for their long-term destination,” said Isabel Valdez, an assistant professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. “The No. 1 thing I recommend is to establish care with an additional primary care doctor at their long-term destination in the fall and winter who can coordinate with their home doctor,” she said in a college news release. Check with insurance providers or with friends and family who live at the destination to find a reputable primary care physician. Ensure that doctor will be able to communicate with the doctor back at home, Valdez suggested. If you’re going to need to have a checkup with a specialist during the time you’re gone, work with insurance providers to find one that’s covered. “Some medical conditions that require the care of a specialist may only require an appointment once or twice a year,” Valdez said. “You might only need to visit the specialist in your home state, but checking… read on > read on >

A large new study of U.S. veterans suggests that when prostate cancer screening rates go down, the number of men diagnosed with advanced cancer then rises. Researchers found that across 128 U.S. veterans health centers, the rate of PSA screening for prostate cancer declined between 2008 and 2019 — a period where guidelines came out recommending against routine screening. But patterns varied among the individual centers, with some maintaining high screening rates. And in subsequent years, the study found, a trend emerged: VA centers with higher PSA screening rates had fewer cases of metastatic prostate cancer, while more cases were diagnosed at centers with lower screening rates. Metastatic refers to prostate cancers that have spread to distant sites in the body and cannot be cured. Experts said the findings do not mean that all men at average risk of prostate cancer should be routinely screened for the disease. But the results do add to a longstanding debate over the issue. Prostate cancer is very common: About 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with the disease in their lifetime, according to the American Cancer Society. But the cancer is often slow-growing, and may never progress to the point of threatening a man’s life: About 1 in every 41 men actually die of the disease. That’s why routine screening — with blood tests that measure a… read on > read on >

That intense feeling of fear as you watch Jason Voorhees chase his next victim while wearing a hockey mask in “Friday the 13th” might actually be good for you. It also might not be. Researchers report that horror’s impact is really in the eye of the beholder, a little different for everyone but not all bad. “It’s called ‘the paradox of horror,’” explained researcher Dr. Ramnarine Boodoo, a child psychiatrist at Penn State Health’s Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, “because people generally try to avoid things that make them uncomfortable. So why do people enjoy things like really grotesque horror movies?” Boodoo says one theory is it helps with coping. Humans are equipped with deeply ingrained, unconscious mechanisms that help them respond to stress, wired in from the times when danger might be right outside. For someone watching “The Exorcist,” “you have an activation of what’s called the sympathetic nervous system, which can cause things like an increased heart rate and breathing rate,” Boodoo said in a center news release. “Sometimes it can cause pretty bad feelings of nausea. Sweating. It can often be sort of like a panic attack.” That might be good because for some people it’s pleasurable to have those fight-or-flight mechanisms fire up without any actual danger, similar to riding a roller coaster. It may even help with a person’s ability… read on > read on >

A woman’s body appears to go on high alert after she loses her virginity, a new study reports. Specifically, her immune system ramps up activity in her vagina following her first sexual intercourse, researchers found. However, researchers can’t yet say whether these immune changes reduce or elevate a female’s risk of acquiring a sexually transmitted infection. For the study, published recently in the journal eLife, the research team compared vaginal samples collected from 95 young women in Kenya before or after they began having sexual intercourse. They found a sharp increase in proteins that control the body’s immune response within the first year after the women became sexually active. They also found that the changes weren’t due to either a sexually transmitted infection (STI) or pregnancy. Data from two other studies involving 93 young women in Belgium and 19 in the United States confirmed this observation, with those participants also experiencing an immune system spike following their first time having sexual intercourse. But because this was an observational study, the researchers noted that they can’t draw a cause-and-effect link between losing virginity and the increase in immune activity. “The initiation of sexual activity was associated with higher levels of immune mediators, but we don’t know for sure if the start of sexual activity caused the changes,” said co-senior researcher Dr. Florian Hladik, a professor in… read on > read on >

People plagued by frequent nightmares may find relief from hearing a specific sound as they sleep, a new, small study suggests. It’s estimated that about 4% of adults have nightmares that are frequent and distressing enough to impair their sleep and daily functioning. In some cases, the nightmares are related to an underlying condition, like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), while others are considered “idiopathic,” or having no known cause. Many nightmare sufferers simply live with them. “Most people either think it’s normal to have so many nightmares, or they don’t know there’s treatment available,” said Jennifer Mundt, a behavioral sleep medicine specialist at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago. When it comes to nightmare disorder, as it’s officially known, the treatment with the best evidence is imagery rehearsal therapy (IRT), Mundt said. With that technique, people work with a therapist to recall their nightmares, change the negative storyline to one with a positive ending, and then rehearse the new script during the day. Research shows that IRT can start to banish people’s nightmares within two to three weeks. However, around 30% of patients do not respond, according to the new study’s researchers, from the University of Geneva in Switzerland. So, they tried to boost the effectiveness of IRT by adding an approach known as targeted memory reactivation — where people learn to associate a cue, like a… read on > read on >

A particular brain wave may help diagnose concussions in high school football players and predict when it’s safe for them to return to play, new research suggests. Delta waves are markers of brain injury and perhaps healing. They tend to decrease with age, but researchers found increased levels of these low-frequency waves in the brains of high school football players after a concussion. Levels declined only after symptoms eased, the researchers observed. “There’s debate right now in the science literature over whether that indicates damage or if it’s a healing response to the damage,” said lead researcher Elizabeth Davenport, an assistant professor of radiology at University of Texas Southwestern O’Donnell Brain Institute in Dallas. “The jury’s out on whether or not it’s healing or just a kind of distress signal.” Concussions are a form of brain injury caused by a blow to the head or violent shaking of the head and body. Davenport suspects delta waves might be a sign of the brain cleaning and repairing itself after such an injury. They might also be a sign of the brain’s connecting cells, axons, being torn apart, she said. These two activities might not, however, be mutually exclusive. As the brain heals, delta waves disappear, Davenport noted. “What we’re really hoping for with this is that it becomes a part of the toolkit that doctors have… read on > read on >

People at risk for developing diabetes could help themselves now by eating fewer carbs, according to new research. While low-carb diets are a common next step for someone diagnosed with the disease, people who are prediabetic or with diabetes not treated with medication don’t need to wait to cut back and see benefits to their blood sugar levels. “The key message is that a low-carbohydrate diet, if maintained, might be a useful approach for preventing and treating type 2 diabetes, though more research is needed,” said lead author Kirsten Dorans. She’s an assistant professor of epidemiology at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans. For the study, the researchers studied two groups of 75 people each. In one, participants were assigned to a low-carb diet. The other ate as usual. Six months later, the low-carb diet group had greater drops in hemoglobin A1C, which is a marker for blood sugar levels. That group also lost weight and had lower fasting blood sugar levels. While the study doesn’t prove that a low-carb diet prevents diabetes, it opens the door to further research on how to work through health risks of those with prediabetes and diabetes not treated by medication, Dorans said. “We already know that a low-carbohydrate diet is one dietary approach used among people who have type 2 diabetes, but… read on > read on >

The best way to get back to feeling more normal after breast cancer surgery is to get moving, experts say. One surgeon offers some post-surgery suggestions for arm stretches and light aerobic exercise. “People who return to everyday activity sooner after surgery tend to heal better and have fewer complications,” said Dr. Alastair Thompson, section chief of breast surgery at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. “If you have had surgery to the chest wall, the breast or the armpit, exercising the arm gently is a good way to improve shoulder mobility and reduce swelling,” he said in a college news release. Thompson recommends gentle stretches. Start by touching the top of your head. Reach behind your back. Reach toward the ceiling. Yoga may also provide helpful stretching, but Thompson said it’s important to remember that the area around the surgery site may be less flexible. Aerobic exercise can stimulate the muscles, bones, heart and lungs. “Walking is a good light exercise, and you don’t need anything other than a pair of comfortable shoes to do it,” Thompson noted. “It can be on the treadmill or around your neighborhood, as long as the area is well-lit, and the path is safe under foot.” If you’re a runner, take some time to work back to your usual pace. Give yourself at least five to seven days… read on > read on >

Universities sometimes offer “Pet Your Stress Away” events offering a chance to relax while gently patting the head and stroking the back of a calm dog. But some people are more interested in interacting with cats than dogs, according to a new study that linked preference to personality type. “Our study shows that we may be able to reach a larger audience by offering interventions that include dogs and cats,” said co-author Patricia Pendry, a professor of human development at Washington State University. Folks with strong and highly reactive emotions would benefit from having cats on campus, the study showed. “Emotionality is a pretty stable trait; it doesn’t fluctuate and is a quite consistent feature of our personalities,” Pendry said in a university news release. “We found that people on the higher end of that scale were significantly more interested in interacting with cats on campus,” she noted. “Given that prior research has shown that such individuals may be more open to forming strong attachments to animals, it makes sense they would want cats to be included in these programs.” For the study, the researchers surveyed more than 1,400 students and staff at more than 20 universities. They found that the link between personality and openness to interacting with cats mattered even after accounting for openness to dog visits, owning a cat and identifying as… read on > read on >

Perhaps to no one’s surprise, new research has determined that men do, in fact, have a much stronger sex drive than women. After reviewing more than 200 studies, investigators “found that men consistently report a higher sex drive,” said study author Julius Frankenbach, a doctoral student of psychology at Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany. En masse, the research showed that men say they spend considerably more time thinking about sex, fantasizing about sex, feeling sexual desire and masturbating, compared to women. “What did surprise us,” said Frankenbach, “was that the finding was consistent across countries, age groups, ethnicities or sexual orientations. Men having a higher sex drive than women seems to be a quite universal psychological pattern.” But there’s a hitch. When discussing one’s own sexual proclivities, are people always honest? “Sexuality is a sensitive topic,” Frankenbach acknowledged. “So we also considered the possibility that people’s self-reports are not fully accurate. There was some evidence for such inaccurate responses in our data.” “For example,” he noted, “men reported having had more sexual partners than women, which, by simple logic, is almost impossible. However, we concluded that this response bias was relatively small, and could not explain all of the gender difference in sex drive we observed. In other words, we think that the gender difference is real.” The 211 studies reviewed were published after 1996,… read on > read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

Heading South for the Winter? Check This Medical Checklist

Did the Decline in PSA Testing Lead to More Cases of Advanced Prostate Cancer?

How Healthy Is Horror?

First Sex Activates Boost in Vaginal Immune Response, Study Finds

Scientists Use Sound to Ease Patients’ Chronic Nightmares

Brain Waves Could Help Guide Concussion Diagnosis, Treatment

Cutting Carbs Could Cut Your Risk for Diabetes

Exercise Is Key to Recovery After Breast Cancer Surgery

Stress-Relief Programs Often Rely on Dogs. What About Cats?

Who’s Got the Strongest Sex Drive, Men or Women?