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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 >

The daily use of low-dose aspirin against heart disease may have taken another knock. New research shows that the practice may not provide black Americans with any lowering of their heart attack risk. Researchers analyzed 11 years of data from more than 65,000 people, ages 40-79, living in the American Southeast. More than two-thirds of the participants were black, and about two-thirds were at high risk for heart attack or stroke at the start of the study period. Taking low-dose aspirin was associated with a reduced risk of a fatal heart attack in whites, particularly in white women, but it did not appear to lower the risk among blacks, even among those with the highest risk of heart disease, the research found. The reasons for the “race gap” in aspirin effectiveness are unclear, but “we think the reason aspirin use did not have a beneficial effect for African Americans could involve a different genetic response to aspirin therapy and poor control of other risk factors,” said study lead author Dr. Rodrigo Fernandez-Jimenez. He’s a cardiologist and researcher at National Center for Cardiovascular Research in Madrid, Spain. The researchers stressed that the study wasn’t designed to prove cause and effect, only showing associations between aspirin use and heart health. The findings were published Dec. 11 in the Journal of the American Heart Association. While millions of… read on >

More Americans are having trouble falling and staying asleep, and smartphones and technology are probably to blame, researchers report. Their analysis of data from nearly 165,000 adults nationwide showed that the number who reported difficulty falling asleep at least once a week was up 1.4% between 2013 and 2017, and those who had trouble staying asleep rose 2.7%. Those percentages may appear small, but it means that as many as 5 million more adults have sleep problems, according to study leader Zlatan Krizan, a professor of psychology at Iowa State University (ISU), in Ames, Iowa. “How long we sleep is important, but how well we sleep and how we feel about our sleep is important in its own right,” Krizan said in a university news release. “Sleep health is a multidimensional phenomenon, so examining all the aspects of sleep is crucial for future research.” The study was published online recently in the journal Sleep Health. Krizan and his team could not say what’s contributing to the increase in sleep problems, but technology is likely a factor, according to lead author Garrett Hisler. He’s a former ISU graduate student who is now a postdoctoral associate at the University of Pittsburgh. “We know from our previous research there is a correlation between smartphone use and insufficient sleep among teens,” Hisler said in the news release. “If we’re… read on >

As Americans pay tribute to all veterans who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces Monday, new research suggests that how comrades died can affect levels of grief among soldiers who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. “Our goal was to better understand how combat veterans experience the deaths of their military comrades in battle or by suicide, and what factors predict the nature and level of their grief,” said study senior author Roxane Cohen Silver. She is a professor of psychological science, public health and medicine at the University of California, Irvine. More than 5,400 U.S. military personnel have died in combat since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began in 2001 and 2003, respectively, according to the latest casualty report from the U.S. Department of Defense. And a 2017 Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America survey found that 58% of respondents said they knew a veteran who had died by suicide, and 65% knew a veteran who had attempted suicide. The study included hundreds of veterans of the two wars and discovered that a number of factors influence grief over the loss of comrades. Suicide death is unexpected and can make acceptance of the loss more difficult, the findings showed, while combat death was described as expected and heroic, and can help make it easier to accept the loss. Bonds forged in combat intensify… read on >

(HealthDay News) — Wet leaves, fog, sun glare, frost and wildlife are some of the driving hazards that motorists encounter each Autumn, says the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. To stay safe while driving at this time of year, PennDot encourages you to: Slow down and use caution, especially where there are deer crossing signs. Be most careful during morning and evening, when wildlife is most active. Increase your following distance in severe weather. Check that your headlights, taillights, treads and wiper systems are working properly. Always wear your seatbelt. Never drive impaired.

Surprisingly, we’re still on a learning curve when it comes to the availability of electronic health records, the digital way to access what used to be paper-only files. You have a legal right to records held by doctors, hospitals and other providers. But many people don’t know how to get them — or even that they can. Others find it onerous that their doctors aren’t in the same medical network and they have to sign up for various portals that don’t “talk” to one another. That lack of coordination means you may need to be the one to communicate test results and other reports to your health care providers. Yes, it might seem that this is just another task to put on your to-do list. But gaining access to all facets of your health information can be lifesaving in an emergency and makes it easier for each of your providers to know what the others are doing for you. Being able to access your records through your computer lets you keep track of medications and lab results, and access information about preventive care. It’s also the easy way to print reports and share them with specialists using different portals. While the system isn’t perfect, almost half of all patients say electronic records have made the doctor-patient relationship better, according to a poll earlier this year… read on >