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Type 2 diabetes increased by nearly 20% in the United States between 2012 and 2022,  with age, race, income level, obesity and lack of exercise all playing a role in the metabolic disease’s spread, a new study reports. “Diabetes is increasing day by day in the U.S., and it will increase even more in the coming years,” said lead researcher Sulakshan Neupane, a doctoral student with the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. “Diabetes costs around $412 billion, including medical costs and indirect costs like loss of productivity,” Neupane added in a university news release. “That’s a huge amount, and it’s only going to increase as more people are diagnosed.” Age is a major factor, with middle-aged people and seniors carrying a much higher risk of type 2 diabetes, researchers found. Seniors aged 65 and older were more than 10 times as likely to be diagnosed with diabetes as people ages 18 to 24, results show. Middle-aged folks 45 to 64 were more than five times as likely to get such a diagnosis. Income and education also played a role. People with high incomes were 41% less likely to develop type 2 diabetes, and the college-educated were 24% less likely. Black people were the racial and ethnic group hardest hit by diabetes, with just under 16% diagnosed with the disease, researchers said. The…  read on >  read on >

Eating red meat and processed meat can increase a person’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a new review finds. Regularly eating 50 grams of processed meat a day — the equivalent of two slices of ham — increased by 15% a person’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes within the next 10 years, results showed. Likewise, eating 100 grams of unprocessed red meat daily – for example, a small steak  — was linked to a 10% higher risk of type 2 diabetes. “Our research provides the most comprehensive evidence to date of an association between eating processed meat and unprocessed red meat and a higher future risk of type 2 diabetes,” said senior researcher Nita Forouhi, a program leader in nutritional epidemiology with the University of Cambridge in the U.K. For the study, researchers analyzed pooled data for nearly 2 million people who participated in 31 different studies in 20 countries. The study also found an 8% increased risk of diabetes among people who regularly ate poultry like chicken, turkey or duck. However, that association became weaker as more factors were taken into account, while the links between diabetes and red or unprocessed meat persisted, researchers said. The study “supports recommendations to limit the consumption of processed meat and unprocessed red meat to reduce type 2 diabetes cases in the population,” Forouhi said in a Cambridge…  read on >  read on >

It’s not a replacement for actual psychotherapy, but a newly designed app could help young adults with mental health issues lower their anxiety, researchers report. The app, dubbed Maya, “can be an accessible and impactful tool for those looking for support around anxiety. It is incredible to see our ideas come to life,” said study co-first author and app designer Dr. Avital Falk. She’s associate professor of psychology in clinical psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian, in New York City. The Weill Cornell team began developing the new app in 2019, in collaboration with members of Weill Cornell Information Technologies & Services. Maya relies on a tried-and-true form of psychotherapy called cognitive behavioral therapy. It gives folks new coping skills and shifts in thinking to better help them deal with daily mental challenges. Maya helps teach these kinds of coping strategies, and it’s targeted to young adults (18 to 25). That’s an age often rife with stress, as people transition from the family home into college and the workplace. Using a variety of videos, exercises and educational content, the app helps supply needed guidance to stressed users whenever they can’t reach a clinician for help. In a trial involving 59 young adults, most seemed attracted to using the Maya app for at least 11 of the 12 weeks of the study. They did not…  read on >  read on >

Just a daily cigarette or two before or during pregnancy endangers the health of newborns, a new study warns. Infants are 16% more likely to suffer major health issues following delivery if their mothers engaged in “light smoking” of one or two cigarettes a day prior to getting pregnant, researchers found. Those newborns also have a 13% higher risk of landing in neonatal intensive care, results showed. What’s more, these risks increase with the amount a woman smokes, and remain high even if she quits partway through her pregnancy, researchers found. These results run counter to the belief by some women that it’s okay to smoke before getting pregnant or during the first three months of pregnancy, or that light smoking is unlikely to be harmful, researchers said. “There is no safe period and no safe level of cigarette smoking shortly before or during pregnancy,” concluded the research team led by Dr. Bo Xi, a professor of epidemiology with Shangdon University in Jinan, China. Doctors “should emphasize the detrimental effects of even light smoking before and during pregnancy,” the researchers added. It’s estimated that about 1 in 10 pregnant women smokes in the United States, researchers said in background notes. Smoking during pregnancy is associated with a higher risk of preterm delivery, low birth weight and underdevelopment in the womb. However, it’s not clear how…  read on >  read on >

Obese kids are more likely to develop immune-based skin problems like eczema or psoriasis, a new study says. Analysis of more than 2.1 million Korean children between 2009 and 2020 revealed that children who became overweight had a higher risk of developing eczema. At the same time, overweight kids who shed pounds and reached a healthy weight had a lower risk of eczema, researchers reported Aug. 21 in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology. “Our findings support the importance of promoting weight maintenance among children who are already within the normal weight range because it may help reduce the risk of developing atopic dermatitis [eczema],” said researcher Dr. Seong-Joon Koh, an associate professor of internal medicine with the Seoul National University College of Medicine in South Korea. “In addition, prevention of excessive weight gain and purposeful weight loss, including adopting healthy diet strategies in children with obesity to prevent atopic dermatitis, particularly before school age, should be promoted,” Koh added. Approximately 1 in 5 U.S. children and teens (20%) are obese, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Previous studies have looked at the link between childhood obesity and skin diseases, said researcher Dr. Seong Rae Kim, with the Seoul National University College of Medicine in South Korea. However, those studies haven’t tracked children over time to see whether changes in body weight…  read on >  read on >

A meditation technique called mindful breathing can help cancer patients manage their pain and anxiety, a new study finds. Cancer patients who engaged in 20 minutes of mindful breathing experienced a greater reduction in pain than those who weren’t taught the technique. “Twenty-minute mindful breathing effectively and rapidly reduces pain intensity, pain unpleasantness and anxiety in patients with cancer,” wrote the research team led by Dr. Tan Seng Beng, a palliative medicine consultant with the Subang Jaya Medical Center in Selangor, Malaysia. “This brief and accessible intervention offers a complementary approach to traditional pharmacological strategies,” the team concluded. Mindful breathing requires that people focus their attention on their breath as they inhale and exhale, researchers noted.  However, prior research on the potential pain relief from mindful breathing has focused on short meditation sessions lasting just 5 to 10 minutes, researchers noted. For this study, researchers randomly assigned 40 cancer patients to one of two groups. In one group, the patients were taught how to do mindful breathing in a 20-minute session. In the other, doctors listened for 20 minutes as patients talked about their cancer journey. Pain assessment scales showed that all patients who performed mindful breathing experienced a reduction in their cancer pain, compared to the control group. The new study was published Aug. 20 in the journal BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care. “The…  read on >  read on >

A quality physical education program involves more than just getting kids to move for a set amount of time during the school day, experts say. PE classes can teach lessons not found in any other classroom, Erika Mundt, a PE teacher at Iowa West City High School in Iowa. “A successful PE program can literally change the way a school functions as a whole,” said Mundt, who was the Society of Health and Physical Educators (SHAPE) America High School PE Teacher of the Year in 2018. “PE involves cooperative learning, acceptance of yourself and others, learning to try new things no matter how good you are, communication, and problem-solving,” Mundt added in a news release from the National Education Association. That’s not to downplay the need for exercise. Physical activity during the school day is essential for student mental health, Mundt said, particularly following the pandemic. “I just hope that school districts and administrators take into consideration PE when they are trying to catch up with the pandemic and realizing that cutting PE and cutting activity time isn’t the way to get students to learn more,” Mundt said. “PE is an efficient way to help kids learn more.” Kids learn more and stress less when they take PE, said Cara Grant, president-elect of SHAPE America. “As young as early elementary school, students discover how physical…  read on >  read on >

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 >