Gear « Weekly Gravy

For better or worse, your social media friends might be influencing your eating habits, British researchers report. They asked nearly 400 college students to estimate how much fruit, veggies, snacks and sugary drinks their Facebook friends ate each day. Those participants who believed their social media buddies ate the recommended five daily portions of fruits and vegetables in turn ate one extra serving. But they also helped themselves to an extra portion of unhealthy snacks and sugary drinks for every three portions they believed their online friends had. “This study suggests we may be influenced by our social peers more than we realize when choosing certain foods,” said study co-leader Lily Hawkins, a doctoral student in health psychology at Aston University in Birmingham, England. “We seem to be subconsciously accounting for how others behave when making our own food choices.” The findings offer evidence that online social circles influence people’s eating habits, and they suggest it might be possible to use social media to encourage healthy eating, according to the researchers. “The implication is that we can use social media as a tool to ‘nudge’ each other’s eating behavior within friendship groups, and potentially use this knowledge as a tool for public health interventions,” Hawkins said in a university news release. Researchers found no significant link between participants’ eating habits and their body mass index… read on >

Vaping has been deemed hazardous for your health by public officials across America, but you wouldn’t know it by scrolling through Instagram. Instead, researchers discovered that Instagram posts that promote use of the devices outnumber anti-vaping content by a shocking ratio of 10,000 to 1. Nearly one-third of U.S. teens use e-cigarettes. In 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration launched a campaign to discourage vaping among youth, according to authors of the study published Jan. 22 in the journal Frontiers in Communication. “U.S. public health officials have been calling vaping among youth an epidemic and have been putting a lot of effort into trying to stop this epidemic by introducing #TheRealCost anti-vaping campaign,” said researcher Julia Vassey, from the University of California, Berkeley. “But this stark imbalance in the volume of posts has caused the FDA message to be overwhelmed by marketing from the vaping brands,” she said in a journal news release. Vassey and her colleagues analyzed nearly 246,000 Instagram posts from before and after the #TheRealCost campaign launch, and interviewed five vaping influencers and eight college-age social media users. “We focused on Instagram because the vaping influencers we interviewed for this study identified Instagram as their most important social media marketing platform,” Vassey said. “Based on the results, the FDA anti-vaping campaign is not very popular and we saw Instagram user comments… read on >

(HealthDay News) — Drowsy driving was responsible for more than 72,000 vehicle crashes in 2013, according to the most recent statistics available from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Drowsiness slows your reaction time, affects your ability to make good decisions and distracts from the road. The CDC mentions these possible warning signs of drowsy driving: Yawning or blinking frequently. Difficulty remembering the past few miles driven. Missing your exit. Drifting from your lane. Going over a rumble strip on the side of the road.

From carpal tunnel to a stiff neck, too much time on the computer can cause a slew of health problems. But what if you ditch the keyboard and mouse for virtual reality? New research from Oregon State University in Corvallis showed that even stepping into virtual reality may be bad for the body. Virtual reality isn’t just for playing games. It’s also used for education and industrial training. In most cases, a headset is worn and users are expected to perform full-body movements. But common virtual reality movements can result in muscle strain and discomfort, the study found. “There are no standards and guidelines for virtual and augmented reality interactions,” said study author Jay Kim, assistant professor in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences. “We wanted to evaluate the effects of the target distances, locations and sizes so we can better design these interfaces to reduce the risk for potential musculoskeletal injuries.” For the study, the researchers placed sensors on participants’ joints and muscles during virtual reality sessions, and asked them to point to specific dots around a circle or to color in an area with their finger. The tasks were repeated at varying degrees above and below eye level. At all angles, extending the arm straight out caused shoulder discomfort in under 3 minutes, the study found. Over the long-term, virtual reality… read on >

Turning to Facebook for help is probably the wrong move for depressed college students, new research shows. In a small study of 33 students who posted on Facebook about feelings of depression, not one was advised to reach out to a mental health professional for help. Rather, friends sent supportive and encouraging messages. “It makes me concerned that none of the Facebook friends of students in this study were proactive in helping their friend get help,” said lead author Scottye Cash, an associate professor of social work at Ohio State University, in Columbus. “We need to figure out why.” Study participants reported the posts they made and how their friends reacted. They also completed a questionnaire on depression. Nearly half had symptoms of moderate or severe depression and 33% said they had had recent suicidal thoughts. “There’s no doubt that many of the students in our study needed mental health help,” Cash said. Student posts included feelings of loneliness or having a bad day or feeling things couldn’t get worse. Only one student asked for help and only three mentioned “depression” or related words, Cash said. Most indicated their depression through song lyrics, emoji or quotes that expressed sadness. “They didn’t use words like ‘depressed’ in their Facebook posts,” Cash said. “It may be because of the stigma around mental illness. Or maybe they didn’t… read on >

In another step toward using artificial intelligence in medicine, a new study shows that computers can be trained to match human experts in judging the severity of prostate tumors. Researchers found that their artificial intelligence system was “near perfect” in determining whether prostate tissue contained cancer cells. And it was on par with 23 “world-leading” pathologists in judging the severity of prostate tumors. No one is suggesting computers should replace doctors. But some researchers do think AI technology could improve the accuracy and efficiency of medical diagnoses. Typically, it works like this: Researchers develop an algorithm using “deep learning” — where a computer system mimics the brain’s neural networks. It’s exposed to a large number of images — digital mammograms, for example — and it teaches itself to recognize key features, such as signs of a tumor. Earlier this month, researchers reported on an AI system that appeared to best radiologists in interpreting screening mammograms. Other studies have found that AI can outperform doctors in distinguishing harmless moles from skin cancer, and detecting breast tumor cells in lymph node samples. The new study looked at whether it’s possible to train an AI system to detect and “grade” prostate cancer in biopsied tissue samples. Normally, that’s the work of clinical pathologists — specialists who examine tissue under the microscope to help diagnose disease and judge how… read on >

The scourge of addiction among Americans young and old made big headlines in 2019, as did one big change in heart health guidelines. Here are the top health stories of the past year, as compiled by editors at HealthDay. Vaping takes hold, and new dangers emerge Perhaps no health issue dominated headlines this past year as much as the surge in vaping rates — and new, severe illnesses related to the nicotine-driven habit. By the end of December, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that more than 2,500 people across all 50 states had been hospitalized with life-threatening respiratory dysfunction tied to recent e-cigarette use. Fifty-four of those patients died. Research strongly suggests that an additive sometimes used in pot-laced vapes, called vitamin E acetate, may be triggering these illnesses. But health experts have also raised a more general alarm about soaring rates of e-cigarette use among teens. One CDC report issued in November found about 1 in every 5 high school students said they’d vaped within the past month. Many experts are worried that hard-won gains against smoking will be lost as vaping — and its potential health hazards — gains new ground. Many states have already banned the flavored varieties of e-cigarettes thought to be most enticing to youth. The Trump administration earlier this year suggested a similar ban, but… read on >

The holidays are peak buying time, and perhaps the worst time of the year for people who simply can’t control their urge to shop. Now, research shows that the ease of online purchasing could be making things worse for people with so-called “buying-shopping disorder” (BSD). BSD is still debated as a stand-alone diagnosis, and hasn’t yet been included in the psychologists’ bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. But that’s probably only because not enough good data on the condition exists, said the author of a recent study into online shopping addiction. There’s a “relative lack of published scientific literature,” said Dr. Astrid Muller — but psychologists have long dealt with such cases. “There is well over 100 years of clinical history describing dysfunctional buying or acquisition excesses that interfere with daily life, and are associated with significant clinical distress and impairment in important areas of functioning,” said Muller. She’s head psychologist in the department of psychosomatic medicine and psychotherapy at Hannover Medical School in Germany. BSD is defined as an “extreme preoccupation with shopping and buying [and] to impulses to purchase that are experienced as irresistible,” Muller said. The condition can cause real harm, including post-purchase guilt and regret, a sense of loss of control, family conflict over excessive purchasing, and financial distress. According to Muller, BSD is thought to affect about… read on >

Smartphones, tablets and laptops are everywhere, and young children are fascinated by them. Now, new research suggests that parents might be able to harness that curiosity and use apps on the devices to boost early learning. The review found that apps could be particularly useful for teaching early math and language skills. “Screen time is here, and it’s here to stay. We should not just be paying attention to the amount of screen time, but instead to maximizing that screen time. The idea is to look for ways to leverage screen time in a positive way,” said study author Shayl Griffith, a postdoctoral associate in the department of psychology at Florida International University in Miami. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) discourages any screen time before 18 months, except for video chatting. From 18 to 24 months, for those who want to introduce their children to digital media, the AAP recommends limited use of high-quality apps that you use with your child. From 2 years on, the AAP says to limit screen time to an hour a day. But instead of looking at the potential risks of too much screen time, Griffith and her team focused on the potential benefits of letting kids use apps. These readily available products are certainly effective at capturing kids’ attention. The researchers wondered if that would be useful in… read on >

A cheap, century-old drug in most Americans’ medicine cabinets — aspirin — may come to the rescue for people suffering from migraines, a new study finds. While there are effective prescription medications, many migraine patients in the United States don’t have access to them due to limited access to doctors or good insurance, or high insurance co-pays, said researchers at Florida Atlantic University, in Boca Raton. Aspirin might often be a viable option for these patients, said the research team, who reviewed 13 studies of migraine treatment involving more than 4,200 patients. The investigators also looked at data on the prevention of recurrent migraine in tens of thousands of patients. The results suggest that giving a high dose of aspirin — 900 to 1,300 milligrams (mg) — when migraine symptoms set in is an effective and safe treatment for acute migraine. There’s also evidence that daily aspirin doses of 81 to 325 mg may be an effective and safe treatment for prevention of recurrent migraine, the team said. The standard “low-dose” aspirin pill, taken by millions of Americans to help lower heart risks, contains 81 mg. The bottom line: “Our review supports the use of high-dose aspirin to treat acute migraine as well as low-dose daily aspirin to prevent recurrent attacks,” senior author Dr. Charles Hennekens, professor and senior academic advisor at the university’s College… read on >