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(HeathDay News) — Following decades of declines, drowning deaths are once again climbing in the United States, new government data shows. More than 4,500 people died from drowning each year in 2020 through 2022, 500 more per year than in 2019, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found. Increased access to basic swimming lessons and water safety training could save many lives, researchers said. “I’ve seen firsthand the effects of drowning: families forced to say goodbye to their loved ones too soon,” CDC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Debra Houry said in an agency news release. “Understanding the barriers people face to accessing basic swimming and water safety skills training can help us better understand how to address those barriers, decrease drowning rates and save lives,” Houry added. Drowning is the leading cause of death for toddlers ages 1 to 4 in the United States, and the new study found that drowning rates were the highest in this age group. By race and ethnicity, the highest drowning rates were found among Black people and American Indian/Alaska Native people, researchers found. Nearly 40 million adults (15%) do not know how to swim, and over half (55%) have never taken a swimming lesson, researchers noted. Black people in particular lack swimming skills. More than one in three (37%) Black adults said they don’t know how… read on > read on >

San Francisco is on the verge of passing a ban on “forever chemicals” in the protective clothing firefighters wear while battling blazes. City lawmakers are expected to pass an ordinance on Tuesday that will prohibit the use of firefighting gear made with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). PFAS have been linked to health harms, including decreased fertility, low-birth weight and developmental delays in children, a greater risk of certain cancers and higher cholesterol levels, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. While the compounds, which linger for years in the environment, have been phased out of most manufacturing, they are still used in some firefighting foams and nearly all firefighters’ uniforms because they resist flames and extreme heat, NBC News reported. If passed into law, the city’s fire department would have until June 30, 2026, to buy new protective clothing made without PFAS for its more than 1,400 firefighters. San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, who authored the legislation, said he believes the ban “is morally right and it is financially right.” “Cost is so small compared to a human life, is so small compared to the cost of health care, is so small compared to the cost of settling lawsuits,” he told NBC News. Lt. Magaly Saade, a firefighter and training instructor at the San Francisco Fire Department, has had cancer twice, forcing her to undergo… read on > read on >

Semaglutide — the active ingredient in the blockbuster weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy — can produce long-term weight and heart health benefits, a pair of new studies show. Researchers found that overweight and obese adults lost an average 10% of their body weight and nearly three inches off their waistline after taking semaglutide for four years. Further, more than half of adults taking semaglutide moved down at least one BMI category after two years, compared to 16% of those who received a placebo, results show. And 12% reached a healthy BMI of 25 or less, compared with 1% in the placebo group. Finally, the studies showed that semaglutide contributes to heart health, regardless of how much weight a person lost while on the drug. “This degree of weight loss in such a large and diverse population suggests that it may be possible to impact the public health burden of multiple obesity-related illnesses,” said lead researcher Dr. Donna Ryan, associate executive director for clinical research with the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in New Orleans. Ryan led the first clinical trial, which focused on the long-term weight effects of the drug. A second trial evaluated its heart health benefits. Both studies are based on data gathered from the largest and longest clinical trial of semaglutide, which tracked more than 17,600 overweight or obese adults without diabetes from… read on > read on >

Women who smoke during pregnancy run a higher risk of their kids becoming overweight or obese, and researchers now think they know one reason why. Children born of moms who smoked while expecting tend to have gut bacteria that is significantly different from that of kids whose moms didn’t light up, scientists reported recently in the journal Gut Microbes. It’s been known for some time that women who smoke in pregnancy tend to have babies who become overweight children, said co-senior researcher Anita Kozyrskyj, a microbiome epidemiologist and professor of pediatrics at the University of Alberta in Canada. “We just didn’t know how it happened,” Kozyrskyj said in a university news release. “There may be many ways, but in our study we showed one way is by changing the gut bacteria in the infant.” Obesity currently affects more than 18% of children and teens, up from only 4% back in 1975, researchers said in background notes. For the study, researchers used data from more than 1,500 children being tracked as part of a long-term study of child development. The kids’ weight was measured at ages 1 and 3, and stool samples were collected at 3 and 12 months of age. Researchers found that a child’s risk of excess weight was associated with higher levels of a type of gut bacteria called Firmicutes, and that smoking… read on > read on >

People with heart failure are often prescribed what are known as loop diuretic medications to help reduce the fluid buildup that’s a hallmark of the disease. Now, research suggests that taking the blockbuster weight loss drug Wegovy (semaglutide) can help patients reduce their need for diuretics. After a year taking Wegovy, “there was evidence of a significant reduction in average loop diuretic dose, a lower likelihood of diuretic treatment escalation, and a greater likelihood of diuretic treatment de-escalation with semaglutide versus placebo,” said study lead author Dr. Kavita Sharma, associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. Her team described its findings Monday in Lisbon, Portugal, at Heart Failure 2024, a meeting of the European Society of Cardiology. The type of heart failure the Hopkins’ study focused on was “heart failure with preserved ejection fraction” (HFePF). In this common form of the disease, the “heart pumps normally but is too stiff to fill properly, rendering the heart unable to support the body’s need for oxygen-rich blood,” according to a meeting news release. A total of 1,145 patients with HFePF were enrolled in the international trial. Patients were obese (body mass index, BMI, at or above 30) and averaged 70 years of age; half were men and half were women. At the start, 220 patients were not receiving diuretics, 223 were… read on > read on >

“Skinny” fat cells might actually make it harder to lose weight and easier to pack on extra pounds, a new study says. Researchers say it’s possible to predict if someone’s going to gain weight based solely on the size of their fat cells. People with large fat cells tend to lose weight over time, and those with small fat cells tend to gain weight, according to a Swedish study scheduled for presentation at the European Congress on Obesity in Venice, Italy. It concludes Wednesday. “Our results suggest that the loss of large fat cells makes more of an impact on weight than the loss of small ones,” said researcher Peter Arner, a professor emeritus of medicine at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. “It is a bit like having a room filled to the top by few large balloons or many small ones,” he said in a news release. “It is easier to make empty space in the room by letting out air from the big rather than the small balloons.” On the other hand, he added, “it is easier to fill up the room if many small balloons increase their volume a bit, as compared with having few large balloons and filling them up just a bit.” For the study, researchers measured fat cell volume in the belly fat of 260 people with an average age… read on > read on >

About a third of young children who are allergic to peanuts will outgrow the allergy by the age of 10, and an antibody test might predict who those kids might be. Fluctuations in two immune system antibodies in the blood, called sIgG4 and sIgE, could point to a probable end to peanut allergy by about age 6, said a team from the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia. “Children allergic to peanut who have decreasing antibody markers may benefit from additional visits with their allergist to determine the right time for follow-up food challenges to confirm if their peanut allergy has resolved,” noted study lead author and Murdoch graduate student Kayla Parker. Her team published the findings in the May issue of Allergy. The study involved 156 infants whose peanut allergy had been confirmed using standard peanut challenge testing. The children’s allergies were tracked at ages 4, 6 and 10 years with questionnaires, skin prick tests, blood tests and oral food challenges, Parker’s team said. In about a third of cases, the peanut allergy faded away naturally by the age of 10, with most of these cases resolving between ages 4 and 6. That seemed to coincide with steady declines in blood levels of sIgG4 and sIgE over time, the Melbourne team found. On the flip side, children “with high or increasing levels of… read on > read on >

Yoga can help improve the long-term health of people with heart failure, a new study has found. “Patients who practiced yoga on top of taking their medications felt better, were able to do more, and had stronger hearts than those who only took drugs for their heart failure,” lead researcher Dr. Ajit Singh of the Indian Council of Medical Research and Manipal Academy of Higher Education in India, said in a news release. Heart failure can have devastating effects on a person’s quality of life, leaving patients tired, breathless and unable to participate in their usual activities, researchers said. The study included 85 patients between 30 and 70 years of age in treatment for heart failure at Kasturba Hospital in Manipal, India. They all had undergone a heart procedure within the past year, and were taking heart medications. Researchers chose 40 people to participate in yoga, and 45 patients to just take their medicine as a control group. Over a week’s time, people in the yoga group were taught a yoga practice that focuses on breathing, meditation and relaxation. They then were advised to continue yoga on their own at home, in 50-minute sessions once a week. Researchers checked the heart structure and function of all participants at the beginning of the trial, six months in and at one year. The team measured the heart’s… read on > read on >

About 1 in 8 U.S. adults (12%) have tried a weight-loss drug like Wegovy, Ozempic, Zepbound or Mounjaro, a new KFF Health Tracking Poll says. About 6% are taking one right now, the poll found. Most patients say they use the drugs (61%) to treat a chronic condition like diabetes or heart disease, which can make it easier to obtain a prescription, the report says. More than 2 in 5 using the drugs are diabetics (43%), KFF found. This makes sense, given that the class of medications — GLP-1 agonists — was first developed as a treatment for type 2 diabetes. Further, about 1 in 4 people using the drugs (26%) have heart disease. In March, Wegovy became the first weight loss medication to receive approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a means of reducing risk of heart attack and stroke. Only about 22% are taking the drugs because a doctor diagnosed them as overweight or obese, but nearly 38% take the drugs solely to lose weight, the findings show. These drugs can be costly, with list prices topping $1,000 for a month’s supply before insurance coverage, rebates and discount coupons, KFF said. Insurance coverage for the drugs seems to make little difference in how patients perceive their affordability. About half of people (54%) who report having ever taken the drugs… read on > read on >

Athletes who push themselves to maximum performance don’t appear to pay a price when it comes to their longevity, a new study says. The first 200 athletes to run a mile in under four minutes actually outlived the general population by nearly five years on average, according to results published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. This counters the popular belief that extreme exercise might push the body too far and shorten life expectancy, researchers said. For centuries, some have promoted the idea of a “U-shaped” association between health and exercise, with either too little or too much physical activity doing damage to a person’s well being. “Our findings challenge the notion that extreme endurance exercise may be detrimental to longevity, reinforcing the benefits of exercise even at training levels required for elite performance,” concluded the team led by senior researcher Mark Haykowsky, research chair of aging and quality of life at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. The study marks the 70th anniversary of the first time a person ran a mile in under four minutes, researchers said. The English neurologist and athlete Roger Bannister first broke this milestone in May 1954. Bannister died in 2018, at the age of 88. For the study, researchers looked at the first 200 athletes to break the four-minute mile and compared them to the average person’s… read on > read on >

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U.S. Drowning Deaths Rising Again After Years of Decline

San Francisco Set to Ban ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Firefighter Gear

More Studies Support Wegovy’s Long-Term Weight-Loss Benefits

Smoking During Pregnancy Could Raise Baby’s Odds for Obesity Later

Wegovy Can Help Heart Failure Patients Reduce Meds: Study

Could Having ‘Skinny’ Fat Cells Encourage Weight Gain?

Test Might Predict Which Kids Will Outgrow Peanut Allergy

Yoga Can Help Heart Failure Patients Stay Strong

One in 8 U.S. Adults Have Now Used Blockbuster Meds Like Ozempic

Pushing the Body in ‘Extreme’ Sports Won’t Shorten Life Span