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If you and your partner fall silent when vexing money issues arise, new research suggests you are not alone. A team from Cornell University found that the more stressed people were about their finances, the less likely they were to discuss those concerns with their romantic partners. The findings were published recently in the Journal of Consumer Psychology. “This is the first thing that fascinated us about this topic — that financially stressed individuals who need to have these conversations the most are the least likely to have them,” said study co-author Emily Garbinsky, an associate professor of professor of marketing and management communication at Cornell. Financial stress affects a staggering 70% of Americans, the researchers noted, and includes feelings of being overwhelmed with spending, struggling to meet financial obligations and worrying about money management. Even those who are well-off can struggle with financial anxiety, and this stress makes it tough to have constructive conversations about money with their partners. Not surprisingly, a common strategy is to avoid the sensitive subject completely, the researchers noted. Why? What they discovered was that this avoidance stems from the belief that financial conflicts with a partner are perpetual rather than solvable. In the study, scientists sifted through survey data from thousands of folks who either completed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s National Financial Well-Being Survey or a survey… read on > read on >

Millions of Americans struggle to fall or stay asleep, a new survey finds. Some struggle more mightily than others: Roughly 12% of Americans polled said they have been diagnosed with chronic insomnia, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) survey revealed. Who was the most likely to miss out on good sleep? Men (13%) were slightly more likely than women (11%) to have been diagnosed with chronic insomnia. Meanwhile, millennials reported the highest rate of chronic insomnia diagnosis (15%). How debilitating can insomnia be? Symptoms associated with insomnia include daytime fatigue or sleepiness; feeling dissatisfied with sleep; having trouble concentrating; feeling depressed, anxious or irritable; and having low motivation or low energy. “Chronic insomnia impacts not just how a person sleeps at night, but also how they feel and function during the daytime,” said AASM President Dr. Eric Olson. “Fortunately, there are effective treatment options for those who are living with chronic insomnia, and these treatments can significantly improve both health and quality of life.” Chronic insomnia can impair physical, mental and emotional health, and it can lead to increased risks for depression, anxiety, substance abuse, motor vehicle accidents, Alzheimer’s disease and type 2 diabetes, experts say. The most effective treatment for chronic insomnia is cognitive behavioral therapy, which combines behavioral strategies such as setting a consistent sleep schedule and getting out of bed when… read on > read on >

Going to the gym is good for your overall health, but if you and the gym aren’t practicing good hygiene you could still catch a nasty illness, an expert says. “Good hygiene prevents sicknesses like a cold, influenza and even salmonella, but cleanliness can also indicate that a gym is well-maintained overall, including the quality of equipment,” said Melanie McNeal, a physical and occupational therapy manager at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. “If hygiene rules are not followed you could get sick, get others sick or even have your membership cancelled.” When going to a new gym for the first time, there are a few key indicators to determine if hygiene is prioritized in the space: A lack of sanitary wipes for members or staff to wipe down equipment after use often means equipment is harboring unseen bacteria No signs posted asking members to clean equipment after using or no cleaning schedule posted suggests cleanliness is not a priority for the gym Other gym members using equipment and not cleaning it afterwards on a consistent basis can show there is not a culture of cleanliness Caked on layers of dust on equipment can indicate that equipment has not been cleaned in a while Lots of broken-down machines for extended periods of time can be due to a lack of interest from gym management in… read on > read on >

It may sound far-fetched, but new research suggests that living in dangerous neighborhoods could trigger an unintended health harm: higher smoking rates among residents. “High levels of neighborhood threat shape perceptions of powerlessness among residents, amplifying a general sense of mistrust, that can promote maladaptive coping behavior like smoking,” said researcher Michael Zvolensky, a professor of psychology at the University of Houston. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the neighborhoods people live in can determine their health and well-being. While such factors are now understood as important factors in the onset, maintenance and relapse of substance use behavior, little research has evaluated what the researchers called “neighborhood vigilance” in terms of smoking rates, the researchers noted. Zvolensky’s team examined the role of neighborhood vigilance in terms of smoking and the severity of problems smokers thought they might face if they try to quit. Living in less secure neighborhoods was tied to smokers thinking it would be tough to quit, expecting “negative mood and harmful consequences,” Zvolensky said in a university news release. These types of neighborhoods were “also associated with more severe problems when trying to quit smoking,” he added. The findings support the notion that dangerous neighborhoods exacerbate “certain negative beliefs about abstinence and challenges in quitting,” Zvolensky said. Participants in the study included 93 adult smokers who were seeking… read on > read on >

Amid an ongoing outbreak of bird flu in dairy cows, a fourth case of H5N1 avian flu has been confirmed in another dairy worker, U.S. health officials reported Wednesday. The latest case was reported in Colorado, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a news release. “As with previous cases, the person is a worker on a dairy farm where cows tested positive for A[H5N1] virus,” the CDC said. “The person reported eye symptoms only, received oseltamivir [Tamiflu] treatment, and has recovered.” The first two human bird flu cases — the first in Texas and a second in Michigan — also involved only a brief discomfort of the eyes, linked to conjunctivitis, or “pink eye.” Both patients recovered. However, a third case, also reported in Michigan, was the first to present with more typical respiratory symptoms, the CDC noted in a recent health update. That patient has been treated and has since recovered. So far, H5N1 has not been easily passed between people, and all four farm workers became infected after prolonged contact with dairy cows. Despite the fourth case of human bird flu, “this infection does not change CDC’s current H5N1 bird flu human health risk assessment for the U.S. general public, which the agency considers to be low,” the CDC said. “However, this development underscores the importance of recommended precautions… read on > read on >

Trendy weight-loss drugs appear to increase the risk of a rare and potentially blinding eye condition, a new study warns. People with diabetes prescribed semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy) were more than four times more likely to be diagnosed with NAION, researchers reported July 3 in the journal JAMA Ophthalmology. Further, those who were overweight were more than seven times more likely to be diagnosed with NAION, results showed. “The use of these drugs has exploded throughout industrialized countries and they have provided very significant benefits in many ways, but future discussions between a patient and their physician should include NAION as a potential risk,” said lead researcher Dr. Joseph Rizzo, director of the Neuro-Ophthalmology Service at Mass Eye and Ear in Boston. “It is important to appreciate, however, that the increased risk relates to a disorder that is relatively uncommon,” he added in a hospital news release. NAION typically causes sudden vision loss in one eye, without any pain, Rizzo said. It’s thought to be caused by reduced blood flow to the front of the optic nerve, where the nerve meets the eye. NAION is the most common cause of sudden blindness due to damage of the optic nerve, and is second only to glaucoma as an overall cause of optic nerve blindness, researchers said. There currently are no effective treatments for NAION, and vision loss… read on > read on >

People who are grateful for what they have tend to live longer, a new study reports. Older women who scored highest on a questionnaire measuring gratitude had a 9% lower risk of premature death from any cause, compared to those with the least gratitude, according to findings published July 3 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry. The results suggest that feelings of gratitude “may increase longevity among older adults,” lead author Ying Chen, a research scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said in a news release. For the study, researchers analyzed data gathered from the long-term Nurse’s Health Study. In 2016, more than 49,000 women in the study with an average age of 79 completed a six-question gratitude test. They had to agree or disagree with statements like “I have so much in life to be thankful for” and “If I had to list everything that I felt grateful for, it would be a very long list.” Three years later, researchers followed up to identify deaths among those women. They found that more than 4,600 participants had died, most commonly of heart disease. Those with the highest levels of gratitude had a lower risk of death from any cause, compared to those with the lowest, results show. Gratitude appeared to protect against every specific cause of death included in the study, and… read on > read on >

A regulation allowing the use of brominated vegetable oil in food was revoked Tuesday by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration after the agency concluded the additive was unsafe for human consumption. Brominated vegetable oil (BVO) contains bromine, which is found in fire retardants. Small quantities of BVO have been used legally in some citrus-flavored drinks in the United States to keep the flavor evenly distributed, the FDA explained in a news release announcing the ban, which takes effect Aug. 2. The agency first proposed the ban in November. But BVO was banned in the U.K. in 1970, followed by India in 1990, the E.U. in 2008 and Japan in 2010, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest. In 1970, the FDA concluded that its use in food was not generally recognized as safe because of toxicity concerns. Following that decision, the agency began regulating BVO as a food additive while also conducting safety studies, Reuters reported. The results of that research prompted the ban. Some experts said the ban was long overdue. “The FDA’s decision to ban brominated vegetable oil [BVO] in food is a victory for public health. But it’s disgraceful that it took decades of regulatory inaction to protect consumers from this dangerous chemical,” Scott Faber, senior vice president of government affairs at the Environmental Working Group, said in a statement. … read on > read on >

Weight gain is a common side effect of antidepressants, but some types cause people to pack on pounds more than others, a new study says. Bupropion users are 15% to 20% less likely to gain a significant amount of weight than those taking the most common antidepressant, sertraline, researchers reported July 2 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. At the same time, escitalopram and paroxetine had a 15% higher risk of gaining weight compared to sertraline, even though all are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), researchers found. “Our study found that some antidepressants, like bupropion, are associated with less weight gain than others,” said senior researcher Dr. Jason Block, a general internal medicine physician at the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute in Boston. About 14% of U.S. adults use antidepressants, researchers said in background notes. For the study, researchers analyzed data for more than 183,000 people ages 18 to 80 who were newly prescribed antidepressants. The team checked the patients’ weight at six months, one year and two years after they started taking one of eight common antidepressants. Overall, bupropion users gained the least amount of weight compared to users of other antidepressants, researchers said. A weight gain of about 5% or more was considered clinically significant. “Although there are several reasons why patients and their clinicians might choose one antidepressant over another, weight gain is… read on > read on >

Screening for chronic illnesses like diabetes or fatty liver disease could one day be as simple as checking the temperature of your nose, eyes or cheeks. The temperature of different parts of the face are associated with various chronic diseases, researchers reported July 2 in the journal Cell Metabolism. Armed with an AI-driven thermal camera, doctors could one day use this simple approach to detect diseases earlier in humans, researchers said. “Aging is a natural process,” researcher Jing-Dong Jackie Han with Peking University in Beijing, China, said in a news release. “But our tool has the potential to promote healthy aging and help people live disease-free.” The research team had previously used facial structure to estimate how slowly or quickly a person’s body is aging, relative to their actual age. For this effort, they analyzed facial temperatures of more than 2,800 Chinese people ages 21 to 88 to see if those readings could be used to judge their health. Researchers fed the people’s data into an AI program, which identified key facial regions where temperatures were significantly related to age and health. Metabolic disorders like diabetes and fatty liver disease cause higher eye area temperatures relative to healthy people, results show. Likewise, high blood pressure causes elevated cheek temperatures, researchers said. Researchers suspect this increase in temperature around the eyes and cheeks is caused by… read on > read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

When Bills Become an Issue, Couples Stop Communicating

About 1 in 8 Americans Has Been Diagnosed With Chronic Insomnia

Tips to Staying Germ-Free at the Gym

Unsafe Neighborhoods Could Drive Up Smoking Rates

Fourth Dairy Worker Infected With Bird Flu, but CDC Says Public Risk Still Low

GLP-1 Drugs Ozempic, Wegovy Linked to Rare Blinding Condition

Gratitude May Bring Longer Life

FDA Bans Food Additive Found in Sports Drinks, Sodas

When It Comes to Weight Gain, Not All Antidepressants Are the Same

Facial Temperatures Might Help Docs Diagnose Diabetes, Fatty Liver Disease