Health/Fitness « Weekly Gravy

Getting toys for some of the tots in your life this holiday season? Experts at Penn State Health offer tips on making safe choices. Each year, about 200,000 U.S. children end up in the emergency room with a toy-related injury, ranging from poisoning to choking hazards, according to Jen Lau, program manager of Pediatric Trauma and Injury Prevention at Penn State Health Children’s Hospital in Hershey, Pa. “Not all toys are safe,” said Dr. Mary Catherine Santos, a pediatric surgeon at the hospital. “We see problems with children requiring surgery or having traumatic injuries from toys where the child isn’t supervised or the toy is given to a child of the wrong age.” Among the biggest concerns are button batteries or magnets. If ingested, magnets may be attracted to each other internally, causing perforation, twisting or blocking of the intestines and infection. Surgery may be required. “Toddlers instinctively explore by putting things in their mouth,” Lau said. “It’s developmentally what they do. And button batteries are literally life-threatening.” Danger also lurks in holiday cards that play music and have moving parts. They can be easily taken apart, exposing dangerous batteries. “We’ve seen death because of it,” Lau said in a Penn State news release. Here are more ways to keep your child safe: Inspect all new toys. Pay attention to labels ― including age guidelines,… read on > read on >

A simulator may make driving safer for teens with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder by training them to take shorter glances away from the roadway. Focused Concentration and Attention Learning (FOCAL) is a computer-based program that teaches teens to keep their eyes on the road. For this study, funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, a driving simulator was added to give students immediate feedback. The researchers, led by Jeffery Epstein of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, called the combined training FOCAL+. The 76 teens who participated in FOCAL+ had a nearly 40% lower risk for a crash or near crash compared to those in a control group who did not do the training, the study found. For the training, those in the FOCAL+ group were shown a split screen. The top half of the screen displayed a driver’s perspective of a roadway. The bottom half displayed a map. Participants were shown a street name and told to touch the space bar to identify the street on the map, causing the roadway to disappear. Pressing the key a second time restored the map. Toggling between the two represented multitasking while driving. When the map-only screen was displayed for more than three seconds, an alarm sounded. In a subsequent trial, the alarm sounded after two seconds. In the simulator training that followed, participants sat at a… read on > read on >

Corticosteroid injections to relieve pain in patients with knee osteoarthritis could actually be setting them back. Two new studies have discovered that, despite the temporary relief of symptoms, the injections were associated with continued progression of the disease. On the other hand, patients injected with another symptom reliever, hyaluronic acid, saw decreased progression of their knee osteoarthritis. The findings were presented Tuesday at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), in Chicago. Research presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal. “While both corticosteroid and hyaluronic acid injections are reported to help with symptomatic pain relief for knee osteoarthritis, our results conclusively show that corticosteroids are associated with significant progression of knee osteoarthritis up to two years post-injection and must be administered with caution,” said Dr. Upasana Upadhyay Bharadwaj, a research fellow in the department of radiology at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). “Hyaluronic acid, on the other hand, may slow down progression of knee osteoarthritis and alleviate long-term effects while offering symptomatic relief,” she added in an RSNA news release. The UCSF study included 210 people enrolled in the Osteoarthritis Initiative, a study that has been observing 5,000 participants with knee osteoarthritis for 14 years. Among those included in the UCSF study, 140 received no injections, 44 were injected with corticosteroids and 26… read on > read on >

People with long COVID deal with months or years of punishing fatigue, mind-numbing brain fog or a frightening fight to take each and every breath. But they can also face the skepticism of others, a new study finds — employers and doctors questioning whether they’re really sick, friends avoiding them, family losing patience. About 95% of people living with long COVID say they’ve experienced at least one type of stigma, and three out of four say they are stigmatized “often” or “always” by their condition, researchers report. “Our findings suggest that long COVD is currently more stigmatized than many other long-term conditions, such as HIV and depression,” said lead researcher Marija Pantelic, a lecturer in public health at Brighton and Sussex Medical School in the United Kingdom. “Nearly all of the people living with long COVID who took part in this study experienced some form of stigma related to this illness.” Long COVID affects more than 30% of patients who are hospitalized with COVID, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The symptoms of long COVID can be demoralizing but also confoundingly vague, which can promote some skepticism, said Dr. Aaron Glatt, chair of medicine and chief of infectious diseases at Mount Sinai South Nassau. “People might say, ‘Well, I had COVID and I’m not sick. So how come you had COVID… read on > read on >

Eating more berries and drinking tea may help slow mental decline as you age, new research suggests. In a study of more than 900 adults, researchers found that foods like these — containing antioxidant flavonols — delivered brain benefits to older adults. Flavonols are found in fruits like berries, green leafy vegetables, tea and wine. For example, people who ate a serving of leafy green vegetables a day slowed their rate of cognitive decline by about 32%, compared with people who didn’t eat any foods with flavonols, said lead researcher Dr. Thomas Holland, an instructor of internal medicine at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. “Flavonols are both anti-inflammatories and antioxidants,” he said. “These foods that contain flavonols destroy free radicals and prevent cell damage. They prevent cell damage in the brain as well as in other organs, such as the heart and vascular system, kidneys, liver, etc.” Holland isn’t keen on getting flavonols from supplements. He believes the best way to stock up on flavonols is through diet. “You’re going to get a higher diversity of nutrients from foodstuffs,” he said. “I like to maintain supplements as exactly that, supplements. They should supplement a healthy diet.” For the study, Holland’s team collected data on 961 adults, average age 81, who did not have dementia. Over an average of seven years, participants completed yearly questionnaires… read on > read on >

Bottled vitamins might seem a convenient way to get all the important nutrients, but the best delivery method is still just eating actual healthy food. “We have plenty of studies showing that when we look at food as the bioavailable source of certain nutrients of vitamins and minerals, they tend to be one of the best options,” said Kristin Kirkpatrick, a registered dietitian with Cleveland Clinic, in Ohio. For example, you can take a capsule of fish oil, but eating wild fatty fish makes it easier to control what you’re getting. The supplement industry isn’t regulated in the same way as food. Kirkpatrick suggested that the best way to get a mix of vitamins and minerals is eating more colorful foods. Aim for getting six different colorful foods in your diet daily. A bowl of oatmeal can help get one color. Adding blueberries is a second one. Even coffee counts. The beverage is loaded with antioxidants. Check with your doctor about whether you might be deficient in certain vitamins, Kirkpatrick advised. Vitamin D, in particular, is one that may require taking a supplement to get enough of it. “Vitamin D is typically poorly absorbed through food,” Kirkpatrick explained in a clinic news release. “A D3 supplement is more mimicking the UV rays of the sun, that’s where we get the best vitamin D.” More information… read on > read on >

An exercise program, even if it’s not as intense as national guidelines suggest, could help breast cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy reduce fatigue and have a better quality of life, new research suggests. Researchers from Edith Cowan University in Australia included 89 women in this study — 43 participated in the exercise portion; the control group did not. Exercisers did a 12-week home-based program. It included weekly resistance training sessions and 30 to 40 minutes of aerobic exercise. Researchers found that patients who exercised recovered from cancer-related fatigue more quickly during and after radiation therapy compared to the control group. Exercisers also saw a significant increase in health-related quality of life, which could include measures of emotional, physical and social well-being. “The amount of exercise was aimed to increase progressively, with the ultimate target of participants meeting the national guideline for recommended exercise levels,” said study leader Georgios Mavropalias, a postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Medical and Health Sciences. “However, the exercise programs were relative to the participants’ fitness capacity, and we found even much smaller dosages of exercise than those recommended in the [Australian] national guidelines can have significant effects on cancer-related fatigue and health-related quality of living during and after radiotherapy,” Mavropalias said in a university news release. The Australian national guidelines for cancer patients call for 30 minutes of moderate… read on > read on >

Many women experience back pain during pregnancy and a new study review suggests an ancient treatment can help. Acupuncture provided significant relief of lower back and pelvic pain, according to an analysis of 10 trials from various parts of the world. The findings were published Nov. 21 in BMJ Open. “Acupuncture significantly improved pain, functional status, and quality of life in women with [lower back/pelvic pain] during the pregnancy,” wrote the researchers, who included Dr. Wei Dong, from the Department of Orthopaedics at the Kunming Municipal Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine in China. “Additionally, acupuncture had no observable severe adverse influences on the newborns,” they said in a journal news release. The 10 trials were conducted between 2000 and 2020 in the United States, Sweden, United Kingdom, Spain and Brazil. In all, the trials included 1,040 healthy women. On average, they were in their 17th to 30th week of pregnancy. Each had lower back and/or pelvic pain and were treated by trained acupuncturists, physiotherapists or midwives. Seven of the 10 trials described body acupuncture. The other three described ear lobe acupuncture. The findings varied but trial results for nine studies suggested that acupuncture significantly relieved pain during pregnancy. Four studies reported on the potential of acupuncture to restore physical function, showing significant improvements. In the five studies that recorded impact on quality of life, findings… read on > read on >

Shoveling snow is a strenuous workout that poses risks for people with heart conditions. “We have to think of shoveling snow as a pretty significant exertion, like an exercise,” said Dr. Donald Ford, chair of family medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, in Ohio. “So if you’re going out to exercise, people who have heart conditions or people who have risk for heart conditions, may need to talk to their doctor before they engage in that.” That includes folks with risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes, Ford said. The doctor can advise whether shoveling is safe, and if so, how much. If you do get the go-ahead, taking frequent rest breaks is a good idea, Ford said in a clinic news release. Even if you’re in shape, warm up before your first scoop. Stretch out the muscles of the back, arms, shoulders and legs. Do a brief aerobic warmup to get the blood flowing, such as walking in place, hopping up and down, or even spending a few minutes on the treadmill, he suggested. Once you’re outside, lift with your legs — not your back. “Make sure you’re lifting from the center. Keeping your body upright, not reaching over,” Ford said. Using an ergonomic shovel, which has a longer, bent handle, will help prevent back pain, he noted. It enables a… read on > read on >

Stress affects gut health and intensifies pain, which — for people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) — can make traveling to see family during the holiday season excruciating. “People living with IBS often say the holidays are especially stressful, above and beyond the typical holiday stress most people report having,” said Tiffany Taft, medical social scientist and clinical psychologist at Northwestern Medicine, in Chicago. For the 15% of Americans who live with IBS, Taft offered some tips as they gather for the season. “Stress directly affects IBS through the gut-brain axis, which includes parts of the brain that are part of the body’s fight-flight-freeze response,” she said. “Stress can amplify pain, alter the motility of the gut — either speed up or slow down, depending on the person — and change the composition of the gut microbiome.” That can make symptoms more severe. For some, that may mean more frequent trips to the bathroom. For others, it may mean fewer than usual. Symptoms can include increased stomach pain and cramping, bloating and increased urgency to go to the bathroom. Taft said the holidays can create stress because some people have family members who aren’t understanding or supportive about IBS. They may worry or be anxious about asking for changes to the holiday menu because of dietary needs. Rather than have an unpleasant conversation, the person… read on > read on >