Gear « Weekly Gravy

Many major maladies have been linked to disturbed slumber caused by sleep apnea, high blood pressure, heart problems and diabetes. Add car wrecks to that list, a study published Jan. 21 in the journal Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, says. People with untreated sleep apnea are more likely to wind up in a vehicle crash, researchers reported. “Our findings underscore the profound impact that inadequately managed obstructive sleep apnea can have on individual health and public safety,” lead researcher Elliott Sina, a student at the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, said in a news release. Sleep apnea occurs when a person’s breathing repeatedly stops and starts during the night, causing them to wake again and again. It’s most commonly caused by throat muscles relaxing during sleep and blocking the flow of air into the lungs. This form of sleep apnea can be treated using a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine, which maintains enough air pressure to keep upper airway passages open. Surgery to remove or shrink the tissue that’s sagging into the airways, or to reposition the jaw, can also effectively treat sleep apnea. Another surgical method involves inserting an implant to stimulate the hypoglossal nerve, which controls tongue movement. For the new study, researchers analyzed data on more than 2.8 million people with sleep apnea, including more than 700,000… read on > read on >

Watch out for tall, fast-moving cars. The height of a vehicle, not only its speed, determines its potential danger to a pedestrian, new research shows. “Multiple factors — in this case speed and vehicle height—converge to create negative outcomes on the road,” said David Harkey, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). Measurements of the vehicles involved were used to examine the moderating effect of hood height. “Our fondness for tall SUVs and pickups has intensified [the consequences of speeding],” Harkey noted in an IIHS news release. The report involved an analysis of 202 crashes involving people ages 16 and older in cities across the United States. The accidents occurred between 2015 and 2022. In general, higher vehicle front ends increased the likelihood of both moderate and serious pedestrian injuries, data showed. At 27 mph, the average speed of the crashes, a median-height car had a 60% chance of causing moderate injuries to a pedestrian and a 30% chance of causing serious injuries. Risks rose along with hood height, however: A median-height pickup — with a front end 13 inches higher than that of a median car — had an 83% chance of causing moderate injuries and a 62% chance of causing serious injuries. This tracks with earlier IIHS research that found that vehicles with taller front ends are more likely to kill… read on > read on >

Folks are more likely to drive drowsy than drive drunk, even though both raise the risk of a fatal crash, a new survey shows. About 4 in 10 adults say they’ll find alternative transportation when they haven’t gotten enough sleep, according to the poll from the National Sleep Foundation (NSF). By comparison, nearly 7 in 10 adults say they won’t drive after having a few drinks. Drowsy driving is a significant threat to road safety, just like drunk, drugged or distracted driving can be, according to the NSF. “NSF data consistently show that Americans do not think drowsy driving is as dangerous as other forms of impaired driving, like drunk driving,” said Joseph Dzierzewski, senior vice president of research and scientific affairs for the NSF. “We want the public to know that sleeping only three to four hours before driving is like having a few drinks, and encourage everyone to have a backup plan in place for when they are not alert enough to drive safely, like choosing ride share or taxi options, or calling friends and family to help you and others stay safe,” Dzierzewski said in an NSF news release. Drowsy Driving Prevention Week runs from Nov. 3-9, and the new NSF survey was fielded as part of that observance. Drowsy driving is responsible for 1 in every 5 deadly motor vehicle crashes,… read on > read on >

Folks who depend on e-bikes and powered scooters to get around know they might get hurt, but they might be surprised by just how likely that really is. Rates of injury on the trendy transportation devices skyrocketed between 2019 and 2022, Columbia University researchers report. E-bike injuries jumped 293%; those involving powered scooters were up 88%. “Our results underscore the urgent need to improve micromobility injury surveillance and to identify strategies for cities to improve user’s safety so that micromobility can be a safe, sustainable, equitable and healthy option for transportation,” said first study author Kathryn Burford. She’s a postdoctoral fellow in epidemiology at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York City. Micromobility covers any small, low-speed, human- or electric-powered transportation device. And these devices are growing in popularity: Between 2019 and 2022, e-bike sales surpassed those of electric cars and trucks — up by a whopping 269%. Drawing from a nationwide injury surveillance system, Burford’s team looked at patterns for more than 1.9 million injuries associated with e-bikes, bicycles, hoverboards and powered scooters. The sample included data from 96 U.S. hospitals. Of 48.8 million injuries that resulted in an ER visit between 2019 and 2022, 1.9 million involved micromobility devices. Bicycles were No. 1, accounting for 33.2 of every 1,000 ER injuries. Powered scooters were No. 2, with 3.4 of every… read on > read on >

Brain damage that veterans suffered from flying shrapnel has provided a major clue that could lead to better treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a new study says. Veterans who suffered shrapnel damage connected to their amygdala, the fear center of the brain, were less likely to develop PTSD, researchers reported Sept. 24 in the journal Nature Neuroscience. The results suggest that PTSD could be treated by using electrical pulses to disrupt brain networks linked to the amygdala, they added. “This is a very real brain disease, and we can localize it to certain brain circuits,” said corresponding author Dr. Shan Siddiqi, a psychiatrist in the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Center for Brain Circuit Therapeutics. “Unfortunately, people sometimes assume PTSD has to do with how mentally strong or weak a person is, but it has nothing to do with moral character.” Researchers previously have uncovered brain networks to successfully treat depression and addiction using neurostimulation, and have been trying to locate the network associated with PTSD. For this study, the research team examined 193 patients from the Vietnam Head Injury Study who’d suffered brain injuries from shrapnel penetrating their skulls. “Some of these veterans who got shrapnel in their head went on to develop PTSD, but many of them did not,” said study co-author Dr. Michael Fox, director of the Center for Brain Circuit Therapeutics.… read on > read on >

Millions of Americans are caring for veterans, putting their finances and their mental health on the line to help those who have served the country. More than 14 million Americans now provide daily care to wounded, sick or injured military service members or veterans, a new study finds. And data show that care is taking its toll. More than 40% of caregivers for younger veterans 60 or under meet criteria for probable depression, researchers found. Further, one-third thought they need mental health care but don’t receive it, mainly because they don’t have the time, results show. Caregivers also reported spending more than $8,500 out-of-pocket each year helping veterans, researchers found, and their care made them forego $4,000 a year in additional income. Those costs could be why one-third of military or veteran caregivers report incomes below 130% of the federal poverty line, researchers said. “Military and veteran caregivers are family members who do this out of love and obligation, but they are also friends and neighbors who are taking on these duties out of caring and kindness,” said lead researcher Rajeev Ramchand, a senior behavioral scientist at RAND Corp., a nonprofit research organization. “Care recipients benefit from the work these caregivers do, and caregivers benefit as well. But caregiving is not without its costs, both financial and emotional,” Ramchand added in a RAND news release.… read on > read on >

Most parents are placing their kids in harms’ way by moving them out of their car booster seat too soon, a new study warns. Four out of five parents moved their kid out of a booster seat before the child was big enough, according to the report, Booster Seat Use in the USA: Breakthroughs and Barriers, published Sept. 16 by Safe Kids Worldwide. Further, three in four parents didn’t know that children need to ride in boosters until they’re at least 4-foot-9, results show. “Booster seats save lives and prevent serious injuries, but only if we use them and make sure they are adjusted properly,” said Torine Creppy, president of Safe Kids Worldwide. “Here’s a great first step: once your child is big enough to use a booster seat, keep using it until they can safely ride in a seat belt alone. It’s the best way to keep your child safe.” For the study, researchers with Ohio State University conducted an online survey of more than 3,000 parents and caregivers with kids ages 4 to 10. Booster seats can reduce the risk of serious injury by 45% compared to using a seat belt alone, researchers said in background notes. But survey results showed that many parents aren’t making sure their kid is big enough before getting rid of the booster seat. The survey also found… read on > read on >

In news that should reassure folks glued to their cellphones all day, a new international review finds no link between cellphone use and brain cancer. Commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO), the review included 11 experts from 10 countries who sifted through decades of research — 5,000 studies published between 1994 and 2022 to be exact. The final analysis was just published in the journal Environmental International. What exactly were they looking for? They were trying to determine whether greater exposure to radio frequencies commonly used by wireless electronics, including cellphones, might up the chances of a brain cancer diagnosis. What did they find? In the 63 studies they honed in on, the risk of brain cancer did not increase, even with prolonged cellphone use (defined as 10 years or more), among those who spent a lot of time on their cellphones, or for people who made a lot of calls. They also saw no increased risks of leukemia or brain cancer in children exposed to radio or TV transmitters or cellphone towers. “These results are very reassuring,” lead study author Ken Karipidis told reporters, according to the Washington Post. While cellphone use has “skyrocketed, there has been no rise in the incidence of brain cancers,” he noted. Concerns about a potential link first emerged in 2011 when the International Agency for Research on Cancer,… read on > read on >

Your cellphone might be harming your heart, a new study warns. People who regularly use a cellphone have a higher risk of heart disease, researchers found in a large-scale study. And the more time someone spends on their phone, the greater their risk for heart problems, researchers report. Risk of heart disease was about 21% higher in people who use their phone six hours or more a week, compared with 15% higher for those on the phone four to six hours and 13% for one to three hours, results show. “We found that compared with non-regular mobile phone users, regular mobile phone users had a significantly higher risk of incident cardiovascular diseases,” said researcher Dr. Ziliang Ye, with Southern Medical University in China. For the study, researchers analyzed data from more than 444,000 participants in the long-term UK Biobank research project. The participants all reported the frequency of their cellphone use. Researchers defined regular mobile phone use as at least one call per week. The research team tracked the participants for about 12 years, looking to see if they’d been diagnosed with stroke, heart disease, heart rhythm problems or heart failure. It turned out that regular phone users did have a higher risk of heart problems, compared to non-users, and that more cellphone use increased that risk. Cellphone use can impact a person’s sleep patterns… read on > read on >

Jillian Davis was pleased to be gifted a car seat during her pregnancy, from a family member who bought it online from a major retailer. But following the delivery of her daughter in late June, a car seat tech at her Salt Lake City hospital informed her that the seat was an unsafe counterfeit. “It’s completely shocking because this is my fourth child and I’ve never heard of this being an issue,” Davis said in a hospital news release. “It’s scary to think I could have been driving around with my child in a car seat that’s dangerous.” Online retailers are selling fake kid’s car seats that are very likely to fail in a crash, child health experts warn. These seats are enticing because they cost much less than major brands, and are sold on prominent national retail websites through third-party sellers, experts said. “It’s hard to tell a car seat is counterfeit from a small picture online, and many parents think they found a great deal from a major retailer,” said Michelle Jamison, community health program manager at Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City. “Once they realize there’s a problem and try to return it, the site they got it from has already been taken down,” Jamison added in a hospital news release. Intermountain Children’s offers car seat checks to help parents… read on > read on >