Quitting smoking after a cancer diagnosis can deliver a big payoff for another major health concern: the risk of heart attack or stroke. Cancer patients who kept smoking had a nearly doubled risk of either of those emergencies, as well as death from cardiovascular disease, new research showed. “A cancer diagnosis is an extremely stressful life event, which often leads to significant changes in a person’s lifestyle. Smoking, in particular, is a health-related behavior that can be heavily influenced by mental distress,” said study author Dr. Hyeok-Hee Lee, of Yonsei University College of Medicine in Seoul, South Korea. For the study, published May 30 in the European Heart Journal, researchers analyzed data from a Korean national health claims database for more than 309,000 cancer survivors who had never had a heart attack or stroke. Participants had each answered questions about smoking and had health exams. The research team split participants into groups based on their change in smoking habits after receiving a cancer diagnosis. Groups were sustained nonsmokers, quitters, initiators/relapsers and continuing smokers. About 250,000 (80.9%) were sustained nonsmokers; just over 10% quit smoking; 1.5% initiated or relapsed to smoking, and 7.5% continued smoking after their cancer diagnosis. Then the researchers assessed the risk of cardiovascular events for each group during a median of 5.5 years, adjusting for other characteristics that could influence these risks.…  read on >  read on >

When the late Brown University researcher Catherine Kerr had cancer, she benefited from an ancient Chinese practice known as qigong and began looking into its impact on others. Now, her colleagues are building on Kerr’s work, studying how practicing qigong affects a person’s perception of fatigue in a small group of 24 female cancer patients just out of treatment. They found that qigong was as effective at reducing fatigue as an energy-intensive exercise and nutrition program. It might also be easier for someone tired after weeks or months of treatment to begin. Stephanie Jones, an associate professor of neuroscience who led the study for Brown University’s Cancer Institute for Brain Science, called the results remarkable. “Fatigue in cancer survivors is extremely debilitating, which Cathy knew well because she lived it and she had undergone a number of types of treatment. And exercise can be really challenging,” Jones explained. “Physical exercise we know is good for fatigue, but it can be really difficult when you’re tired,” Jones noted. “This is a very gentle, slow movement, meditation-based practice that is showing clinically relevant improvement.” Fatigue is a common experience for cancer survivors, 45% of whom experience it at a moderate to severe level, according to the study. It can be an even bigger burden than pain, nausea and depression, the authors said. Exercise can help. This is…  read on >  read on >

An anti-inflammatory drug that has been around for over 2,000 years might help delay a very modern problem: hip and knee replacements. That’s the suggestion of a new study finding that older adults who used the drug — called colchicine — were less likely to need hip or knee replacement surgery over the next two years, versus those given placebo pills. The study, published May 30 in the Annals of Internal Medicine, does come with a big caveat, researchers noted: The patients were part of a trial testing colchicine for warding off heart trouble — not joint replacements. So the findings do not prove the medication actually stalled the progression of knee or hip osteoarthritis. That’s the common, age-related form of arthritis where the cartilage cushioning the joints gradually breaks down. But the results do make a “strong argument” for studying colchicine as a treatment for osteoarthritis, said lead researcher Michelle Heijman, of Sint Maartens Clinic, in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Until then, she said, the drug cannot be recommended as a treatment for the joint disease. As it stands, medications for osteoarthritis offer pain relief, but there are none that can slow the underlying joint destruction. Colchicine is an oral drug that has long been prescribed for a different form of arthritis called gout. Doctors also sometimes use it to treat pericarditis, where the sac…  read on >  read on >

A nasal spray containing ketamine might help relieve migraine headaches when other treatments fail, a new study suggests. Ketamine is a synthetic anesthetic with hallucinogenic effects that is sometimes used intravenously for migraine headaches. It’s being tried for treatment-resistant depression, too. But it’s also a potentially addictive “party” drug so it is not for everyone. In this trial, researchers report that 49% of migraine sufferers who used the nasal spray found it very effective in relieving pain. Forty percent said it was somewhat effective and nearly 36% said it improved their quality of life. “It’s for patients who’ve tried several other treatments that haven’t been effective and for patients that are really disabled or significantly disabled by their pain,” said senior researcher Dr. Michael Marmura. He is a headache specialist at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. It’s not for patients with a history of substance abuse, he said. Ketamine is usually given intravenously, Marmura said, noting that a nasal spray is more convenient. However, this ease of use also ups the potential for misuse. The drug is not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of migraines and is not commercially available as a nasal spray, Marmura noted. “This is not something that we suspect will be widely adopted, but I think that there may be a role for this for…  read on >  read on >

Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness around the world, but surgery can restore vision. “Unlike many of the other major eye diseases, such as glaucoma or diabetes-related eye disease, cataracts can be easily and painlessly treated by surgery to remove and replace the eye’s lens, restoring sight for most patients,” said Jeff Todd, president and CEO of the nonprofit organization Prevent Blindness. “We urge patients to work with their eye doctor to understand their diagnosis and the best available treatment options,” Todd said in a news release from the organization. Here what else you should know about the common condition: More than half of all Americans will have a cataract, a clouding of the eye’s lens that blocks or changes the passage of light into the eye, by the time they reach age 80, according to the organization. Some patients have no early symptoms. The U.S. National Eye Institute says that people developing cataracts may notice cloudy or blurry vision, colors that look faded and difficulty seeing at night. They may also see a halo around lights, have frequent changes to their eyeglass prescription or find that lamps, sunlight or headlights appear too bright. Some may also see double, an issue that can go away as the cataract becomes larger. About 4 million cataract surgeries take place each year in the United States, according…  read on >  read on >

What happens when the blood supply to your bones is somehow damaged? The condition has a name, avascular necrosis, and it can trigger the death of bone cells. Other common names are osteonecrosis or bone infarction. Bone is alive and requires nourishment from the blood supply to stay healthy. If the blood supply is not restored to the bone, small cracks develop and the bone can fracture and collapse. Avascular necrosis commonly occurs in the hips, knees, shoulders, elbows and ankles. Causes and risk factors Avascular necrosis is caused by injury to the small blood vessels around joints. These injuries can include trauma to the joint, such as a dislocation of the joint or fracture of the surrounding bone. Other causes of injury to the blood supply include high-dose steroids that are commonly used to treat rheumatologic or lung conditions, excessive alcohol use, or medical conditions that impact small blood vessels. Risk factors for avascular necrosis include trauma, high-dose corticosteroids, alcohol, sickle cell disease, HIV, a history of cancer requiring radiation to the joint, chemotherapy, blood-clotting disorders, rheumatologic conditions and COVID-19. Patients of all ages may suffer from avascular necrosis, so it’s important to not ignore symptoms so that the bone can be treated before the joint collapses. Symptoms Patients may initially present without any symptoms (avascular necrosis may have been found incidentally during an…  read on >

When going on vacation, there’s a lot to remember, but it’s a good idea if you add one more item to the to-do list. Baylor College of Medicine in Houston suggests creating a family travel medical checklist, to be sure that you and your loved ones stay healthy and safe while you’re away. “Traveling can expose families to different environments, climates and potential health risks. A medical travel checklist makes families take a step back to ensure the necessary precautions to protect their health and safety,” said Dr. Mike Ren, an assistant professor of family and community medicine at Baylor. “A list should include essential items such as medications, first aid supplies and personal protective equipment,” he said in a college news release. Talk to your primary care provider before you leave to get advice about vaccinations and medications you may need, depending on where in the world you’re traveling to. Make sure any family members on medications have enough to supply them for all the days you’re gone. Check to see if you may need special documentation to bring your medications across borders. If you’ll be traveling in high heat, such as in extended car rides, determine what to do if some items may lose their potency. This might include insulin, some antibiotics, inhalers, eye drops, liquid medications and ointments. “Over-the-counter medications like pain…  read on >  read on >

A federal website intended to help people choose a nursing home not only contains inaccurate information, but those inaccuracies appear to be at least partially driven by race, a new study reports. The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) established the Nursing Home Care Compare website in the 1990s to publicly report patient safety indicators for every nursing facility in the nation. But the site appears to drastically underreport the number and severity of major injury falls and bedsores suffered by Medicare residents in specific nursing homes. The site relies on self-reported data from nursing homes to track falls and bedsores, but Medicare claims data show that nursing homes are not reporting all of these incidents, said lead researcher Prachi Sanghavi, an assistant professor of public health sciences at the University of Chicago. About 40% of major injury fall hospitalizations and 32% of severe bedsore hospitalizations found in Medicare claims data did not show up on the CMS website, the researchers found. “It’s not just slightly inaccurate. It’s actually very inaccurate,” Sanghavi said. What’s more, Sanghavi and her colleagues found that the underreporting varied based on the racial composition of the nursing homes. Nursing homes with more white residents had higher reporting rates for major injury falls and lower reporting rates for pressure ulcers, and vice versa was true for nursing homes with…  read on >  read on >