Some Americans living with diabetes are using smartwatches and smart rings that claim to be able to track their blood sugar. However, such claims from any device that does not pierce the skin are fraudulent and potentially dangerous, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned in an advisory issued Wednesday. Don’t be fooled, the agency said. “Sellers of these smartwatches and smart rings claim their devices measure blood glucose levels without requiring people to prick their finger or pierce the skin. They claim to use noninvasive techniques. These smartwatches and smart rings do not directly test blood glucose levels,” the agency said. No such devices have ever been approved by the agency, and trusting them can be hazardous. “For people with diabetes, inaccurate blood glucose measurements can lead to errors in diabetes management,” the agency warned. Those errors include taking the wrong doses of a drug that might send blood sugar plummeting to dangerous lows. In other cases, “taking too much of these medications can quickly lead to dangerously low glucose, leading to mental confusion, coma or death within hours of the error,” the FDA warned. The agency said consumers are able to buy these unapproved devices easily online. “These smartwatches and smart rings are manufactured by dozens of companies and sold under multiple brand names,” according to the FDA. “If your medical care depends…  read on >  read on >

The common hair-loss drug in Propecia and Proscar might lower men’s risk of heart disease by lowering cholesterol levels, a new study suggests. Finasteride is used to treat male pattern baldness, and it’s also been shown effective in treating an enlarged prostate, researchers said in background notes. But men who use finasteride also have substantially lower cholesterol levels, according to data gathered by a federal health survey between 2009 and 2016. “When we looked at the men taking finasteride in the survey, their cholesterol levels averaged 30 points lower than men not taking the drug,” said lead researcher Jaume Amengual, an assistant professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “I thought we’d see the opposite pattern, so it was very interesting,” Amengual added in a university news release. Researchers then replicated this finding in lab mice. Mice getting high doses of finasteride had lower cholesterol, less hardening of the arteries, reduced liver inflammation and other related health benefits. Finasteride works by blocking a protein found in hair follicles and the prostate gland that activates testosterone, researchers said in background notes. Because heart disease is far more common in men than women, scientists have long suspected that testosterone plays an important role in clogged arteries, researchers said. “It was just my own curiosity, based on the fact that hormone levels are known to have an effect…  read on >  read on >

Mercury levels in tuna haven’t changed since 1971, despite efforts to reduce emissions of the toxic metal into the environment, researchers report. Their analysis of nearly 3,000 tuna samples caught in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans between 1971 and 2022 revealed stable mercury concentrations in tuna during those five decades. The research team specifically looked at the tropical tuna species of skipjack, bigeye and yellowfin, which account for 94% of global tuna catches. Environmental policies have helped reduce mercury pollution from human activities like burning coal and mining, researchers said. Over the same five-decade period, airborne mercury pollution decreased globally, researchers noted. The unchanging mercury levels in tuna might be caused by “legacy” mercury rising up from deeper regions of ocean water, mixing in with the shallower depths where tropical tuna swim and feed. This legacy mercury could have been emitted years or even decades earlier, so it wouldn’t reflect efforts to clear airborne mercury emissions, speculated the research team led by marine ecologist Anne Lorrain, director of research at IRD Quest in France. Methylmercury is a particularly toxic chemical that affects the nervous system, and is the primary form of mercury in tuna contamination, researchers said. Unborn babies and young children are at highest risk of harm from exposure. The mathematical models used by the researchers tested three progressively more restrictive environmental policies…  read on >  read on >

Indigenous people in seven countries, including the United States and Canada, appear to be more likely to suffer a stroke than non-natives, a new, large review finds. “Disparities are especially evident in countries where high average quality of life and long life expectancies are often not mirrored in Indigneous populations,” said study author Anna Balabanski of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.  “These disparities may reflect inequitable access to resources to prevent and manage stroke,” she added in a university news release. Besides the United States and Canada, the 24  studies reviewed were done in Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore and Sweden — countries with high standards of living, health and knowledge.  The review found stroke risk was higher in six countries for indigenous people than for non-natives. In New Zealand, native Māoris were more likely to have a stroke than non-natives, the study found, but researchers noted the finding was from a single study done in 2002 and 2003. In the United States, American Indians were 20% more likely to have a stroke than non-natives; and in Canada, Métis people were 40% more likely to have a stroke. In Australia and Singapore, the risks for indigenous peoples were even more stark.  Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders were up to 70% more likely to have a stroke than non-native people. And Malay people in Singapore…  read on >  read on >

TUESDAY, Feb. 13Two of the most common pregnancy complications for women, high blood pressure and gestational diabetes, could jeopardize the future heart health of their children, a new study suggests.  Researchers found that the children of women who developed either or both of those conditions during pregnancy showed signs of less-than-ideal heart health before the age of 12.  “Through our research, we’ve found an association between diabetes and high blood pressure during pregnancy and indicators of compromised heart health in children on the cusp of adolescence,” said study lead author Dr. Kartik Venkatesh, director of the Diabetes in Pregnancy Program at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center. “This underscores the potential for interventions aimed at averting or managing these health issues before they escalate in adulthood.” In the study, his team looked at 3,317 mothers and their children. Among the mothers, 8% developed high blood pressure during pregnancy, 12% developed diabetes and 3% developed both high blood pressure and diabetes.  Researchers then looked at the heart health of their children between the ages of 10 and 14. They measured factors like body-mass index, blood pressure, total cholesterol and blood sugar levels. They found that before the age of 12, more than half of the children (55.5%) had at least one factor that put them at greater risk for heart disease and stroke. The findings were…  read on >  read on >

Replacing regular salt with a salt substitute can reduce high blood pressure in older adults, a new study has found. Older adults who use a salt substitute are 40% less likely to develop high blood pressure compared to those who use regular salt, according to findings published Feb. 12 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. “Adults frequently fall into the trap of consuming excess salt through easily accessible and budget-friendly processed foods,” said lead researcher Dr. Yangfeng Wu, executive director of the Peking University Clinical Research Institute in Beijing. “It’s crucial to recognize the impact of our dietary choices on heart health and increase the public’s awareness of lower-sodium options,” he added in a journal news release. High blood pressure is the leading risk factor for heart disease and heart-related death, according to the World Health Organization. It affects more than 1.4 billion adults worldwide and results in 10.8 million deaths each year. For this study, researchers evaluated how sodium reduction might help the blood pressure of seniors residing in care facilities in China. The study involved more than 600 participants, age 55 and older, from 48 care facilities. All patients had blood pressure under 104/90 mmHG, and were not on any blood pressure medications. Half of the care facilities replaced salt with a salt substitute in residents’ meals, while the other…  read on >  read on >