Health/Fitness « Weekly Gravy

If you want to slow down the aging process, it might not hurt to replace whole milk with skim, new research suggests. The study of over 5,800 U.S. adults found that those who regularly indulged in higher-fat milk had shorter telomeres in their cells — a sign of accelerated “biological aging.” The findings do not prove that milk fat, per se, hastens aging, stressed researcher Larry Tucker, a professor of exercise sciences at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. But the study does lend support to what U.S. dietary guidelines suggest for adults: If you’re going to drink cow’s milk, opt for low-fat or skim, Tucker said. Telomeres are bits of DNA that sit at the tips of your chromosomes — like the plastic caps at the ends of a shoelace. In essence, they help keep the chromosomes from fraying and sticking together. As people age, their telomeres gradually get shorter, and research has linked shorter telomere length to a higher risk of developing and dying from infections, cancer and heart disease. “A variety of lifestyle factors are also related to telomere length,” Tucker said. Obese people, for example, tend to have shorter telomeres than lean people, as do smokers versus nonsmokers. And people who eat lots of fiber, vegetables and fruit typically have longer telomeres than those who shun those foods. So for the… read on >

(HealthDay News) — One of the simplest ways to maintain healthy vision is to protect your eyes from injury, says the American Academy of Ophthalmology. About 90 percent of eye injuries involve lack of protective eyewear. Whether you’re maintaining equipment or playing sports, wearing appropriate protective eyewear is very important, the doctor’s group says.

The Harvard-associated lab that created the “CoolSculpting” process of reducing fat says it’s on the trail of the next advance in nonsurgical slimming. CoolSculpting freezes fat cells by applying an ice-cold gel pad to the skin, causing cells to die off and either be flushed away or absorbed by the body, said lead researcher Dr. Lilit Garibyan, an investigator at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Now her lab is trying to make that process even more effective by injecting an icy liquid slurry directly into fat deposits. In tests with pigs, the injectable slurry containing 20% to 40% ice caused fat deposits to melt away over several weeks, researchers reported recently in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. The procedure is headed to human clinical trials next, and researchers hope to have it approved and on the market in a few years, Garibyan said. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved CoolSculpting in 2008. Garibyan said it remains the only noninvasive technology the FDA has cleared to reduce and reshape fat deposits in the body. The process works using a principle that you observe every time you open your refrigerator — fats freeze at a lower temperature than water, she said. Butter turns to liquid at warmer temperatures, but solidifies in the fridge, Garibyan said. Water remains liquid at… read on >

More than one-third of working Americans don’t get enough sleep, and the problem is greatest among the police, the military, health care workers and truckers, researchers report. Their analysis of data from more than 150,000 employed adults between 2010 and 2018 also found that the rate of inadequate sleep (7 hours or less) rose from about 31% to nearly 36% during that time. “Inadequate sleep is associated with mild to severe physical and mental health problems, injury, loss of productivity, and premature mortality,” said study author Jagdish Khubchandani, a health science professor at Ball State University in Indiana. “This is a significant finding because the U.S. is currently witnessing high rates of chronic diseases across all ages, and many of these diseases are related to sleep problems,” Khubchandani said in a university news release. In 2018, professions with the highest levels of poor sleep included the police and military (50%), health care support occupations (45%), transport and material moving (41%), and production occupations (41%). Among men, those who reported getting 7 hours or less of sleep a night rose from 30.5% in 2010 to 35.5% in 2018. Among women, that rate rose from 31.2% to 35.8%. From 2010 to 2018, the largest increases in sleep deprivation were reported by men, multiracial adults, older adults, those living in the western United States, and widowed, divorced, or… read on >

People with sleep apnea are often told to lose weight to ease their symptoms. Now a new study suggests that shedding fat in a particular trouble spot may be key: the tongue. If you didn’t know the tongue harbors body fat, you’re probably not alone. “Most people aren’t thinking about tongue fat,” said senior researcher Dr. Richard Schwab, chief of sleep medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. When it comes to sleep apnea, however, the anatomy of the tongue may be critical. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a disorder in which the muscles of the throat fail to keep the airways open during sleep. That results in repeated interruptions in breathing — along with symptoms such as loud snoring and daytime grogginess due to poor sleep. OSA is common — affecting an estimated 25 million Americans, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. While it can affect people at any weight, obesity raises the risk. Not everyone who is obese develops OSA, though. And in a 2014 study, Schwab’s team found that when you compare obese individuals with and without sleep apnea, those with the disorder typically have larger tongues with more fat tissue. That brought up the question of whether losing tongue fat improves sleep apnea. Weight loss is known to help ease the condition, Schwab said — but the precise pathways are… read on >

(HealthDay News) — Wintry climates and cold viruses can lead to frequent nosebleeds, says the National Hemophilia Foundation. To prevent nosebleeds during winter, the foundation suggests: Use a humidifier to moisturize the air. Use a nasal saline spray or water-soluble gel for your nose. If you have a cold, wipe gently. Don’t clear your nose with hard blows. Avoid vigorous activities after a nosebleed. Don’t pick your nose.

(HealthDay News) — If you cannot stop picking at scabs or bumps, you may have a condition called skin picking disorder (SPD). The urge to pick at the skin affects at least 5 million Americans, says Harvard Medical School. To tackle the issue, the school suggests: Know your triggers. It can help a doctor decide which treatment to pursue. Make it more difficult to pick by keeping your nails short or wearing gloves. Distract your hands with silly putty, a stress ball or fidget toy. Consider therapy.

After months of delay, the Trump Administration is expected to announce this week that it will ban mint-, fruit- and dessert-flavored e-cigarette cartridges, while allowing the continued sale of menthol- and tobacco-flavored vapes. The White House originally proposed a ban on flavored e-cigarettes — thought to be especially enticing to teens — back in September. But since then, the Administration had seemed to bow to industry and political pressures and back away from such a ban. As reported Tuesday by The New York Times, the new ban would have one important exception: Flavored liquid nicotine used in “open tank systems” will not be outlawed. That’s seen as a concession to the burgeoning vape shop business. Trump also hinted that the ban might not last long. “We think we are going to get back in the market very, very quickly,” he said at a New Year’s Eve news conference, held during a party at his Mar-a-Lago resort, the Times reported. “We have a very big industry. We’re going to take care of the industry.” Health advocates supported the ban, but said the exclusion of menthol could greatly weaken its effect. “The administration policy will fall well short of what is necessary to address this growing epidemic,” said Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association. “By allowing menthol flavors and flavored liquid nicotine used in open… read on >

A new brain scanning technique is shaking up what researchers thought they knew about Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers now say they can predict with reasonable accuracy which brain regions will wither and atrophy in Alzheimer’s by identifying the places where tau protein “tangles” have built up. “You could really predict which brain regions were going to get damaged just on the basis of the tau scans we took at the beginning of the study,” said lead researcher Renaud La Joie, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco, Weill Institute for Neurosciences. “Where the tau was built up at the beginning of the study was very predictive of where the actual brain shrinkage was going to happen in the next year or two.” These findings support the growing contention that toxic tau proteins drive brain degeneration in Alzheimer’s more directly than the disease’s other hallmark, amyloid protein plaques, the study authors said. The scans also could allow doctors to predict how Alzheimer’s will affect individual patients, by tracking which brain regions have more accumulated tau tangles, La Joie said. “If you use tau scans in this group of patients with Alzheimer’s disease, it might actually help you have very precise expectations and very precise measures of what’s going to happen to the patient,” he said. For example, doctors might be able to predict which… read on >

You made your resolution — this year was finally going to be the year you lost weight. But then your neighbor stopped by with a plate of cookies, and well, your resolve didn’t even last a day. Maybe next year? But instead of looking at your resolutions as a sweeping year-long project, what if you concentrated on making healthy changes every Monday? That way, if you slip up and dive into that pile of cookies, another chance to get it right is just a few days away. It’s called the Healthy Monday Reset, and the idea is to send you into the week with a fresh mindset. “What we really want people to do is implement a mindset change. If you think about the New Year’s resolution, you pick one day a year to start changes and if you fall off the wagon, it’s another year,” explained Ron Hernandez, the managing director of The Monday Campaigns. “But with Monday, you have 52 opportunities in a year. If you fall short one week, there’s always an opportunity right around the corner, so you don’t have to wait that long to make a change,” he said. This, Hernandez added, is something you can really integrate: “‘Monday, I will make better choices.’” A study conducted with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that people often describe… read on >