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Each year, an average of 174 U.S. kids under the age of 5 lose their lives over causes linked to nursery products. Many of these tragedies could be prevented, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on Thursday issued a list of products deemed most hazardous. Leading the list by far: Any soft bedding added into cribs, bassinets and playpens. These products alone were part of the cause of 126 child deaths between 2019 and 2021, the CPSC said. Also implicated: Inclined infant “sleepers” and similar products, and infant carriers. Together, soft bedding, inclined sleepers and baby carriers were tied to three-quarters (76%) of deaths, the agency said. Many of these products are unnecessary as well as dangerous, said CPSC Chair Alex Hoehn-Saric. “Babies aren’t little adults. They don’t need pillows and blankets to feel comfortable and safe when they sleep,” Hoehn-Saric said in a CPSC news release. “The safest way for your baby to sleep is without blankets, pillows, or other items surrounding them. A firm flat surface in a crib, bassinet, play yard or bedside sleeper with just a fitted sheet is all they need.” Always put infants to bed on their backs, to cut the risk for sudden unexpected infant death syndrome (SIDS/SUID) and suffocation. If your baby falls asleep while in a swing, bouncer, lounger or similar product, transfer them to… read on > read on >

Doctors sometimes turn to antidepressants as a means of easing older people’s physical pain, but a new expert review finds there’s little evidence to support the practice. Antidepressants may even come with hazards for seniors who don’t need them, said researchers from the University of Sydney in Australia. “Harms of antidepressant use in older people are well documented,” said study senior author Dr. Christina Abdel Shaheed. Her team found that, compared to older folks using other methods to ease pain, those on antidepressants had higher risks for falling, dizziness and injury. “These medicines are being prescribed to remedy patients’ pain, despite the lack of evidence to adequately inform their use,” said Abdel Shaheed, an associate professor in the university’s School of Public Health and the Institute for Musculoskeletal Health. The findings were published recently in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. According to the researchers, over the past 40 years there have been only 15 trials worldwide that focused on the use of antidepressants for physical pain in people over the age of 65. Poring over the data from these studies, the Sydney team found little evidence to support the use of the drugs to ease pain in seniors. Standard international guidelines do support the use of antidepressants for chronic pain generally, but the data those guidelines are based on did not focus on patients… read on > read on >

Would-be dads don’t have to worry that taking the epilepsy drug valproate will result in children with birth defects, a new review concludes. Valproate, an anti-seizure drug, is known to cause birth defects and developmental disorders when taken by pregnant women. But the drug does not appear to have the same impact on the fetus when taken by men hoping to become fathers, researchers report. “Our systematic review shows that evidence for any risk to the offspring resulting from paternal exposure to anti-seizure medications is scarce and inconsistent, with most studies showing no increased risk compared with unexposed controls,” wrote the research team led by co-senior author Piero Perucca, a professor of adult epilepsy with the University of Melbourne in Australia. “Therefore, the available evidence does not justify major concerns,” the team concluded. Experimental animal studies have linked anti-seizure drugs to male infertility, birth defects and developmental delays, sparking concerns that human males might run the same risks. In fact, one major government regulatory body — the U.K.’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency — has gone so far as to prohibit valproate use for anyone under the age of 55 who might become a new parent. For the new review, researchers pooled data on 10 studies evaluating the effects on pregnancy of valproate taken by men. Although the data were limited, researchers found no… read on > read on >

It’s called the MIND diet and its primary aim is to help guard against thinking and memory declines as you age. But does it work? Yes, claims new research that found following the MIND diet for 10 years produced a small but significant decrease in the risk of developing thinking, memory and concentration problems. “With the number of people with dementia increasing with the aging population, it’s critical to find changes that we can make to delay or slow down the development of cognitive problems,” lead study author Dr. Russell Sawyer, an assistant professor of clinical neurology and rehabilitation medicine at the University of Cincinnati’s Gardner Neuroscience Institute, said in a news release on the study. “We were especially interested to see whether diet affects the risk of cognitive impairment in both Black and white study participants.” How does the diet work its magic? The MIND (Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay) diet joins elements of the Mediterranean diet and the DASH diet, which focuses on reducing blood pressure. “Among the MIND diet components are 10 brain-healthy food groups — green leafy vegetables, other vegetables, nuts, berries, beans, whole grains, seafood, poultry, olive oil and wine,” Sawyer told CNN. Meanwhile, five unhealthy food groups — red meats, butter and stick margarine, cheese, fried and fast foods, and pastries and sweets — are very limited in the MIND… read on > read on >

Climate change and worsening diets are sending global rates of stroke and stroke deaths skyward, a new study warns. Almost 12 million people worldwide had a stroke in 2021, up 70% since 1990, according to a team led by Valery Feigin, of the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. It’s now the third leading cause of death in the world, killing more than 7.3 million people each year. It doesn’t have to be this way, since stroke is largely preventable, experts say. “With 84% of the stroke burden linked to 23 modifiable risk factors, there are tremendous opportunities to alter the trajectory of stroke risk for the next generation,” said study co-author Dr. Catherine Johnson. She’s lead research scientist at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, in Seattle. Some risk factors for stroke include air pollution (exacerbated by climate change), excess body weight, high blood pressure, smoking and physical inactivity. All of these hazards can be reduced or controlled, the researchers said. The study was published Sept. 18 in The Lancet Neurology journal. Besides the millions of deaths linked to stroke, these attacks often leave survivors seriously disabled. The number of years of healthy life lost globally to stroke rose by almost a third (32%) between 1990 and 2021, the report found. Why the uptick in stroke?… read on > read on >

Exercise, whether moderate- or high-intensity, can help ease Parkinson’s symptoms, including fatigue, new research shows. As study lead author Dr. Philip Millar explained, Parkinson’s patients are too often overwhelmed by shame or depression, so they stop going to the gym or exercising. That’s too bad, Millar said, because “if you stop physical activity, your body adapts and you lose physical function.” Just how beneficial can exercise be for patients? To find out, Millar’s team at the University of Guelph, in Ontario, Canada, had three groups of 10 people in various stages of Parkinson’s disease. Each group exercised three times per week at the gym, for a period of 10 weeks. The male and female participants ranged in age from 45 to 79, and they engaged in one of two modes of exercise training, moderate intensity or high intensity. Millar’s team tracked various physiological metrics — the person’s “maximal oxygen consumption,” their level of fatigue or vulnerability to fatigue, gait, balance and motor symptoms. “Prior work found that high-intensity interval training may improve how far someone with Parkinson’s can walk, but this could be due to becoming more stable or confident in their gait,” said Millar, who is an associate professor of human health and nutritional science at Guelph. “It might have had nothing to do with cardiorespiratory fitness and the impact on motor symptoms was… read on > read on >

Consumers should be aware that some chocolate labeled as “dairy-free” actually contains milk, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warns. This inaccurate labeling could put people with milk allergies in danger, the FDA noted. About 13 of 210 chocolate samples sold in Pennsylvania and Michigan in 2022 and 2023 tested positive for milk, the FDA said in an agency news release. The 13 samples came from three different food manufacturing firms, the FDA said. In response to the findings, two manufacturers removed the “dairy-free” claim from their chocolate products, the FDA said. The third manufacturer agreed to remove the “dairy-free” claim from its products if the cause of the presence of milk could not be determined and eliminated, the agency said. A preliminary investigation has implicated the supplier of dark chocolate as the likely source of milk in these products, rather than unsafe practices by the manufacturer, the FDA said. The FDA noted that it doesn’t define the terms “dairy-free” or “milk-free,” but that when these claims are made by manufacturers they must be truthful. All 13 of the chocolate products found to contain milk did have labeling with milk allergen advisory statements, like “…made in a facility that also processes milk.” People with milk allergies can contact chocolate manufacturers and inquire how specific products are made, the FDA said. They can also ask whether… read on > read on >

Hopping backward is a good test to see if someone’s ACL surgery has gone well, a new study says. That backward hop is an effective way of measuring the strength of a patient’s knee function, as well as the strength of their quadriceps, researchers reported recently in the Journal of Sport and Health Science. And all it takes is a tape measure. “The goal is to help practitioners have an easy way to measure where people are after an ACL injury and during recovery,” said lead researcher Yu Song, an assistant professor of health, sport & exercise sciences at the University of Kansas. About 120,000 anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries occur each year in the United States, researchers said in background notes. This ligament helps keep the knee stable, but it can be torn through heavy bending or twisting. About one-third of young, active people re-injure their ACL after returning to play following knee surgery, researchers noted. In fact, ACL re-injuries are 15 times more common than initial ACL tears. As a result, it’s crucial to make sure someone is fully recovered before clearing them for exercise and competition, researchers said. Hopping forward is currently a common means of measuring recovery from knee surgery, but “studies reported that the forward hopping distance masked the real knee recovery status,” Song said in a university news release.… read on > read on >

There have been 50 face transplants performed in 11 countries since the surgery was pioneered back in 2005, and long-term outcomes have been favorable, a new review finds. In total, 85% of people receiving these complex surgeries survived five years and 74% were still alive a decade after transplant completion, researchers report. When the numbers focused on deaths linked to the transplants per se, five- and ten-year survival rose to 96% and 83%, respectively. That’s significantly better than survival for other types of transplant, said the team of Finnish researchers. For example, at 10 years post-surgery, survival for liver transplants reaches 61% and for heart transplants the number is 65%, they noted. “The first 50 face transplants in the world during a period of 18 years demonstrate a promising survival rate of the grafts, exceeding several solid organ transplants,” concluded a team led by Dr. Pauliina Homsy, from the department of plastic surgery at the University of Helsinki. Her team published their report Sept. 18 in the journal JAMA Surgery. Homsy’s team collected data on all 50 face transplants conducted in 48 patients, carried out at 18 centers in 11 countries. Two of the patients required a second transplant, which in each case proved successful, the researchers noted. Nineteen patients were operated on in North America (18 in the United States), 29 in Europe, 1… read on > read on >

Cadmium, uranium, cobalt: These and other metals found in the environment can collect in the body and exacerbate heart disease, new research suggests. “Our findings highlight the importance of considering metal exposure as a significant risk factor for atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease,” said study lead author Katlyn McGraw, a postdoctoral research scientist at Columbia University in New York City. “This could lead to new prevention and treatment strategies that target metal exposure,” she added in a Columbia news release. McGraw’s team found that as levels of various metals rose in people’s urine samples, so did evidence of stiffer, calcified arteries — a key component of heart disease. The research was published Sept. 18 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The Columbia team looked specifically at a process called atherosclerosis, the gradual hardening of blood vessels caused by a buildup of fatty plaques. Atherosclerosis can also lead to the buildup of unhealthy calcium deposits in arteries. Are exposures to environmental toxic metals a contributor to all of this? To find out, McGraw’s team combed through a major database of more than 6,400 American middle-aged and older adults who were all free of heart disease when they joined the study between 2000 and 2002. Urine samples tracked each participants’ levels of six environmental metal already known to have links with heart disease: Cadmium, cobalt,… read on > read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

Parents, Know the Nursery Products Most Linked to Infant Deaths

Are Antidepressants Being Overused to Treat Seniors’ Pain?

Dad’s Epilepsy Med Use Won’t Harm His Kids: Study

Do You Know the MIND Diet? It Might Keep You Sharp With Age

Stroke Kills 7 Million Worldwide Each Year, and Deaths Are Rising

‘Exercise Is Medicine’ for People With Parkinson’s

Some Chocolate Products Labeled ‘Dairy-Free’ Contain Milk, FDA Finds

Did Your ACL Surgery Work? Try Hopping Backwards

Long-Term Outcomes Good for Face Transplant Recipients, Study Finds

Buildup of Metals in Body Can Worsen Heart Disease