Health/Fitness « Weekly Gravy

The makeup of bacteria that colonize a man’s penis can help predict the risk of a serious and hard-to-treat vaginal infection in his female partner, new research suggests. Bacterial vaginosis, also known as BV, can lead to problems in pregnancy and make a woman more vulnerable to several sexually transmitted diseases. More than 20% of women worldwide get BV. For this study, researchers tracked 168 couples and found that women whose partner had BV-related bacteria on their penis were more likely to develop BV within a year. “Our results show that penile bacteria can accurately predict new cases of BV in women who did not have BV to begin with, up to six to 12 months in the future,” said lead author Supriya Mehta. “This is important, because it suggests that reducing these bacteria from the penis may reduce BV cases or improve treatment outcomes in women.” Mehta is an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The study authors stressed that they are not saying that exposure to certain types of penile bacteria actually causes BV, though that’s possible. But it’s also possible that, over time, or with repeated exposure, penile bacteria may upset the natural balance of microbes in a woman’s vagina, indirectly raising her BV risk. Mehta noted that BV can be related to behaviors other than sex,… read on >

Concussion symptoms aren’t always evident, so parents of student-athletes need to know the signs and seek a diagnosis if their teen gets hurt, experts say. Only those closest to a teen may be able to identify the sometimes subtle changes in mood and emotion stemming from a concussion, said Dr. Rory Tucker, a sports medicine specialist at Penn State Bone and Joint Institute in Hershey, Penn. “Parents may notice a change in their teen’s sleep patterns,” Tucker explained. “He or she may be more withdrawn, socializing less with friends or family members, more emotional or tearful. They may have anger outbursts or be more nervous than they were before.” Since doctors may be unfamiliar with a patient’s usual mental state, parents need to advocate for their children. “Medication is rarely necessary in the long term, but while a concussion is healing, it can sometimes be beneficial to take medication to control moods,” Tucker said in a Penn State news release. “We also use medications to assist with sleep. Impairment of sleep can have a detrimental impact on emotional health and how people interact with others.” It’s also important for parents to know that concussion symptoms can be similar to those of depression and anxiety, and that a concussion can worsen existing mental health problems. Dr. Craig DiGiovanni is a postdoctoral fellow in psychiatry and behavioral… read on >

If you’re working from a home office these days, it’s important to have an environment that won’t injure you, an expert says. It’s good to have a break about every 30 minutes to protect your back, shoulders and arms, said Kermit Davis, an expert in office ergonomics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. “The body doesn’t like static postures continually,” he said. “You don’t want to do all sitting or all standing all the time. You want to alter your position and change it up throughout the day.” Davis said that while you can work at home, you can’t take home all the comforts of your office. “You can use your laptop from home, but it is designed to be a short-term option,” he said. “It should be used for a few hours while traveling. It is not meant to be used for eight or nine hours each day.” An evaluation of home workstations of university employees who began working at home during the coronavirus pandemic was revealing. Many chairs were the wrong height: 41% were too low; 2% were too high. Although 53% of workers’ chairs had armrests, 32% didn’t use them and 18% were improperly adjusted. Not using armrests can put stress on forearms and strain in the upper back. The evaluation also found that 69% were not using the chairback… read on >

A simple blood test may predict which COVID-19 patients are likely to get worse and die, a new study suggests. “When we first started treating COVID-19 patients, we watched them get better or get worse, but we didn’t know why,” said researcher Dr. Juan Reyes. He’s an assistant professor of medicine at the George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences, in Washington, D.C. “Some initial studies had come out of China showing certain biomarkers were associated with bad outcomes. There was a desire to see if that was true for our patients here in the U.S.,” Reyes said in a school news release. For the study, Reyes and his colleagues evaluated nearly 300 patients with COVID-19 admitted to George Washington Hospital between March 12 and May 9, 2020. Of these, 200 had all the biomarkers being studied, namely, IL-6, D-dimer, CRP, LDH and ferritin. Higher levels of these markers were tied with inflammation and bleeding disorders, and an increased risk of being admitted to the intensive care unit, needing ventilator support, and death, the researchers found. Study author Dr. Shant Ayanian said, “We hope these biomarkers help physicians determine how aggressively they need to treat patients, whether a patient should be discharged, and how to monitor patients who are going home, among other clinical decisions.” Ayanian is an assistant professor of medicine at George… read on >

All the parents who force their children to play an instrument because it has been touted as a way to boost overall intelligence, take note. New research now suggests that it may not help develop memory, math, reading and writing skills after all. Earlier studies trying to pinpoint the value of music training on cognitive and academic performance have been conflicting, the researchers said. So, Giovanni Sala, from Fujita Health University in Japan, and Fernand Gobet, from the London School of Economics and Political Science in the United Kingdom, analyzed data on nearly 7,000 children from 54 previously published studies. The investigators found that music training seemed to have no effect on building mental or academic skills in other areas, regardless of age or how long kids were trained. The report was published July 28 in the journal Memory and Cognition. “Our study shows that the common idea that ‘music makes children smarter’ is incorrect,” Sala said. “On the practical side, this means that teaching music with the sole intent of enhancing a child’s cognitive or academic skills may be pointless,” Sala said in a journal news release. “While the brain can be trained in such a way that if you play music, you get better at music, these benefits do not generalize in such a way that if you learn music, you also get… read on >

If you’re getting back to a fitness program or gym after spending months in lockdown, be careful not to hurt yourself, a sports medicine expert urges. “One of the most common reasons people get injured is because they overexert themselves when their level of fitness is not where they want it to be,” said Dr. Irvin Sulapas, a primary care sports medicine physician and assistant professor of family and community medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Here are some tips on how to prevent exercise injury: Warm up and cool down. Warming up and cooling down muscles can help reduce the risk of injury, Sulapas said. Use correct form. Many injuries happen because of poor form — make sure you are doing the exercise correctly. Start slowly. Ease into your workout. Reduce the distance for cardio and decrease weight for weight training until you get back to your normal pace or weight. Exercise outdoors. If you are not comfortable returning to the gym or exercise classes, stay outside with your workout. Keep hydrated, especially when temperatures are high. Work out in the early morning or evening, when temperatures are lower. Wear breathable fabric to help prevent overheating. If an injury occurs, slow down, stop and assess the injury. Depending on the injury, use an ice pack compress and elevate the limb, Sulapas advised.… read on >

For most people, wearing a face mask is a harmless inconvenience, but wearing the coverings may cause skin problems for some, one dermatologist explains. It’s been called mask-acne, or “maskne.” Dermatologist Dr. Allison Truong, from Cedars-Sinai Medical Group in Los Angeles, said that she is seeing many patients with this problem. Patients are complaining of three types of skin issues: Acne from clogged pores inside the mask area. Skin irritation from the mask. Allergic reactions to detergent used to wash a fabric mask or dyes or other substances in surgical masks. If your skin is red, burning or itchy, it may be an irritation or allergy. If there are little pustules or blackheads or whiteheads, it’s most likely maskne, Truong said. Truong advises using a gentle cleanser when you wash your face and using sunscreen to create a barrier between your skin and the mask. When you take off your mask, wash your face and use moisturizer, she suggested. It is important to wash fabric masks every day. Laundry detergents can be a common cause of allergic reactions, Truong said, so she suggests using fragrance-free detergents. Irritated, red, itchy or burning skin should be treated with an over-the-counter hydrocortisone cream once or twice a day, Truong said. She also suggests not wearing makeup under a mask, but if you do, be sure it’s noncomedogenic (specially… read on >

Some people in their 90s stay sharp whether their brain harbors amyloid protein plaques — a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease — or not, but why? That’s the question researchers sought answers for among 100 people without dementia, average age 92, who were followed for up to 14 years. Their answer? A combination of genetic luck and a healthy, fulfilling lifestyle. “The vast majority of research studies on aging and Alzheimer’s disease try to understand what factors predict disease and memory impairment. We turned these questions upside-down, asking ‘What seems to protect us from disease and impairment in our 90s?’” said lead researcher Beth Snitz, an associate professor of neurology at the University of Pittsburgh. “Understanding this kind of resilience may well help identify ways to prevent dementia,” Snitz added. The study reinforces some things scientists already knew, such as the importance of good cardiovascular health and building up a “cognitive [mental] reserve. These likely can help buffer against the effects of brain disease or injury later in life,” she said. Her team also found that people whose scores were normal on thinking and memory tests when the study began were less likely to have problems with their thinking skills, even if they had amyloid protein plaques in their brains (which have been linked to Alzheimer’s disease). The researchers also found that those with the APOE2… read on >

Hopes for robust, long-term antibody protection after a bout of COVID-19 have been dampened by a new study that finds the protection may only last a few months. Still, experts noted that the body’s immune system has more than one way to defend against viruses it has already encountered, so the findings don’t dash hopes for a vaccine. “Infection with this coronavirus does not necessarily generate lifetime immunity,” Dr. Buddy Creech, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, told the Associated Press. But antibodies are only part of the immune system’s armamentarium, added Creech, who wasn’t part of the new research. The study was published July 21 in the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers led by Dr. Otto Yang, of the University of California, Los Angeles, sought to determine the “half-life” of antibodies generated by contact with the new SARS-CoV-2 virus. Half-life means the time it takes for half of the antibodies to disappear. Yang’s group took blood samples from 34 people who had all recovered from a mild case of COVID-19. Twenty were women and 14 were men, and they averaged 43 years of age. Based on blood tests collected up to 119 days after the onset of symptoms, the researchers said the half-life of antibodies linked with SARS-CoV-2 infection was just 36 days — just over a month. At that… read on >

Most American parents know that sunscreen is important for their children, but there are gaps in their knowledge of its proper use, a new survey finds. The majority of the more than 1,100 parents of children aged 5 to 12 said they’ve at least sometimes used sunscreen on their kids, and that sunscreen is very important in preventing sunburns and skin cancer. However, the survey found that 11% of parents don’t have a specific minimum sun-protection factor (SPF) they use and 3% said they don’t use sunscreen for their child. Parents said they consider several factors in deciding whether to use sunscreen, including how long their child will be outside, what their child is wearing, their child’s complexion and skin tone, whether their child will be around water and how hot it is. Nearly half of parents take into account whether it is a sunny or cloudy day, according to the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health, from Michigan Medicine at the University of Michigan. “Parents should be aware that UV rays from the sun can reach their children on cloudy and hazy days, not just on bright and sunny days. Children need protection, regardless of the amount of sunshine,” poll co-director and pediatrician Dr. Gary Freed said in a university news release. The survey also found that parents decide whether to… read on >