Health/Fitness « Weekly Gravy

New research uncovers a possible reason why teenaged girls struggled so mightily with their mental health during the pandemic: Scans showed their brains aged far faster than expected during that stressful time, even faster than the brains of their male peers. In the study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists measured cortical thinning, a process where redundant brain synapses are pruned and the outer layer of the cortex is thinned. While some experts believe this process is simply the brain rewiring itself for efficiency as it matures, it is known to accelerate in stressful conditions. That speeded thinning is also linked to depression and anxiety. How did the researchers discover that unusual thinning? After pandemic shutdowns started to lift, scans taken in 2021 showed that both boys and girls had experienced rapid cortical thinning during that period. But the thinning was far more pronounced in girls, whose thinning had accelerated, on average, by 4.2 years ahead of what was expected. Meanwhile, the thinning in boys’ brains had accelerated only 1.4 years ahead of what was expected. The greater impact on female brains could have been be due to differences in the importance of social interaction for girls versus boys, said senior study author Patricia Kuhl, director of the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences at the University of Washington. Teenaged girls rely… read on > read on >

Brain changes that signal Alzheimer’s disease even before symptoms appear are linked to an increased vulnerability to financial scams, new research shows. “Assessing financial vulnerability in older adults could help identify those who are in the early stages of mild cognitive impairment or dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease,” said study lead author Duke Han. He’s a professor of psychology and family medicine at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Unscrupulous con artists can reach out to seniors via phone or email with various scams that, in some instances, can wipe out retirement savings. In many cases, early-onset dementia has rendered these seniors more vulnerable, Han’s group said. The USC team conducted two types of tests in a group of 97 people over the age of 50. None had obvious signs of cognitive troubles when they joined the study. In one test, all participants underwent high powered MRIs to look at the thickness of a brain area called the entorhinal cortex. This region helps foster communication between the hippocampus (a center for learning and memory) and the the medial prefrontal cortex, which regulates emotion, motivation and other cognitive functions. Prior research has shown that pre-symptomatic Alzheimer’s disease often manifests as a “thinning out” of the entorhinal cortex, which progresses as the disease becomes more apparent. All of the 97 participants also took a test gauging… read on > read on >

A form of psychotherapy can help women whose libidos have suffered as they go through menopause, a new study finds. Cognitive behavioral therapy significantly improved sexual desire and satisfaction in a small group of middle-aged and older women, researchers said. “To our knowledge, this is the first study that has examined the efficacy of a cognitive behavioral therapy protocol specifically aimed to improve sexual concerns experienced during peri- and postmenopause,” said lead researcher Sheryl Green. She’s associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences with McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. Declining estrogen levels cause sexual concerns in 68% to 87% of women in the midst of menopause or postmenopause, researchers explained in background notes. Treatment options for sexual problems like a loss of desire or pain during sex are limited, researchers said. For this study, researchers asked women to participate in four sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy aimed at managing sexual issues that accompany menopause. Cognitive behavioral therapy works by helping people recognize ways of thinking or patterns of behavior that are causing them problems with their mental and physical health. The therapist helps people come up with new thoughts or behaviors to replace the ones that are causing harm, as well as methods of meditation and problem-solving. Following the therapy, study participants experienced significant improvement in multiple areas of sexual function, body image and sexual… read on > read on >

Key Takeaways A man who received the world’s first combined whole-eye and partial face transplant is doing well His body has not rejected either his new face of his new left eye However, vision has not returned in the donated eye The recipient of the world’s first combined whole-eye and partial face transplant is doing well more than a year out from his groundbreaking surgery, NYU Langone doctors report. Aaron James, a 46-year-old military veteran from Arkansas, says over the past year his new face has allowed him to enjoy things others take for granted. No more stares from strangers. The ability to taste and enjoy solid foods again. The simple pleasure of smelling. Trading in his old driver’s license, which displayed his injured face, for a new one. James is now back to daily life in Arkansas and focused on sending his daughter, Allie, off to college. “I’m pretty much back to being a normal guy, doing normal things,” James said in an NYU Langone news release. “All in all, though, this has been the most transformative year of my life. I’ve been given the gift of a second chance, and I don’t take a single moment for granted. James was maimed in June 2021 when his face touched a live wire on the job as a high-voltage lineman in Arkansas. The deadly 7,200-volt… read on > read on >

Losing weight can help a person with obesity — especially those with diabetes — fend off serious infections, new data shows. It’s an important finding, since “up to one in three hospitalizations in people with diabetes are for infections and people with diabetes are twice as likely to be hospitalized with infections than the general population. They are also at high risk of readmission,” said study co-lead author Rhian Hopkins. She’s at the University of Exeter Medical School in the U.K. Hopkins presented the research Saturday in Madrid at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD). The new study used data from the ongoing UK Biobank, a database that includes health info on almost 500,000 Britons. According to the data, about 64,000 had been hospitalized for a bacterial infection (such as a urinary tract infection or pneumonia); almost 15,000 had been hospitalized with a viral infection (such as the flu), and about 408,000 had never been hospitalized for infection. Obesity seemed linked to a higher risk for severe infection, the team found. Every 5-point increase in BMI — for example, from a BMI of 30 (the threshold for obesity) to 35 — incurred a 30% rise in the risk of a serious bacterial infection and a 32% rise for severe viral infection. These associations were for all people, regardless… read on > read on >

A slow-release form of semaglutide could allow people who use Wegovy or Ozempic to get shots once a month, instead of the weekly injections they now take, a new study demonstrates. The new formulation encases semaglutide in a hydrogel that slowly releases the drug as the gel dissolves, researchers said. “A small dollop of gel, known as a ‘depot,’ of the semaglutide-laden hydrogel is injected under the skin,” said lead researcher Dr. Claire Megret, director of clinical and preclinical development for the French biotech company ADOCIA, which developed the gel. The hydrogel successfully released a smooth, steady stream of semaglutide to six lab rats, researchers said in a presentation at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes’ annual meeting in Madrid. “Next we will be testing the hydrogel platform in pigs, whose skin and endocrine systems are most similar to those in humans,” Megret said in a meeting news release. “If that goes well, we will move forward the platform development by expecting clinical trials within the next few years.” Semaglutide promotes weight loss and helps control diabetes by mimicking the GLP-1 hormone, which is released in the gut in response to eating. The drug helps suppress appetite, slows down digestion and prompts the body to produce more insulin in response to elevated blood sugar levels. Unfortunately, semaglutide now must be given in weekly… read on > read on >

Getting older tends to go hand in hand with failing vision, but eye experts say there are things you can do to preserve your sight as you age. The risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic retinopathy increases among seniors, but vision loss and blindness aren’t a foregone conclusion, according to the American Society of Retina Specialists (ASRS). Not only is healthy vision key to staying active, but studies have shown that older adults with vision issues face a higher risk of developing dementia. What can you do to avoid that fate? Here are some tips from the ASRS: Learn the signs of common retinal conditions. AMD affects 19.8 million Americans and is the leading cause of vision loss among older Americans. Another retinal condition, diabetic retinopathy, strikes 9.6 million Americans and is the leading cause of blindness in working-age adults. Hallmark symptoms of AMD include warping of straight lines, a decrease in the brightness of colors, gradual or sudden loss of central vision and dark, blurry areas in the center of vision. Diabetic retinopathy symptoms include blurry central vision, seeing spots, floaters or a shadow across the field of vision, difficulty reading, eye pressure and difficulty with color perception. Know your family history. Ask older family members if they have had vision issues. Retinal conditions may have a genetic component that runs in families. Other common risk factors… read on > read on >

It seems like a kind of superpower, but scientists say they’ve used a common food dye to render the skin of a mouse transparent, revealing the workings of blood vessels and organs underneath. It’s not yet clear if the procedure could work on human skin, which is thicker than that of a mouse. But the prospect is tantalizing, researchers said. ″Looking forward, this technology could make veins more visible for the drawing of blood, make laser-based tattoo removal more straightforward, or assist in the early detection and treatment of cancers,″ said study co-leader Guosong Hong, a Stanford University assistant professor of materials science and engineering. ″For example, certain therapies use lasers to eliminate cancerous and precancerous cells, but are limited to areas near the skin’s surface,” he explained in a news release from the U.S. National Science Foundation. “This technique may be able to improve that light penetration.″ The Foundation helped fund the new study, which was published Sept. 5 in the journal Science. Dr. Zihao Ou, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Texas (UT) at Dallas, helped lead the research. In a UT news release, he explained that living skin can’t normally be seen through because its various components — fats, cellular fluids, proteins — scatter light waves. But when the researchers applied a mix of water and a safe,… read on > read on >

Saltwater nose drops can reduce the length of a kid’s cold by two days, a new study demonstrates. “We found that children using saltwater nose drops had cold symptoms for an average of six days, where those with usual care had symptoms for eight days,” said researcher Dr. Steve Cunningham, a professor of pediatric respiratory medicine with the University of Edinburgh in the U.K. “The children receiving salt water nose drops also needed fewer medicines during their illness,” he added. Children tend to have 10 to 12 colds a year, “which have a big impact on them and their families,” Cunningham said. Over-the-counter remedies containing drugs like acetaminophen and ibuprofen can treat symptoms, but until now no treatments have been identified that could speed up recovery from a cold, Cunningham said. For the new study, researchers recruited more than 400 kids aged 6 years or younger and randomly assigned them to take either salt-water nasal drops or usual care if they caught a cold. Saltwater solutions often are used by people in South Asia as nasal irrigation or gargling to treat a cold, researchers noted. Overall, about 300 of the kids caught a cold and half were given saltwater drops as their treatment. Parents administered three drops per nostril a minimum of four times per day, using a saltwater solution they made at home with… read on > read on >

Gene therapy may restore vision to children and adults robbed of their sight by a rare inherited condition called Leber congenital amaurosis, researchers report. The illness is caused by mutations in the GUCY2D gene, which is critical to producing proteins that enable vision. People with this form of Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA1) typically lose their vision in early childhood. Just under 100,000 people are thought to be affected worldwide. However, a team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania say that a new gene therapy injected under the retinas of children and adults with LCA1 improved vision by 100 to 10,000 times. “Even though we previously predicted a large vision improvement potential in LCA1, we did not know how receptive patients’ [eye] photoreceptors would be to treatment after decades of blindness,” noted study co-lead author Artur Cideciyan, a research professor of ophthalmology at the university. “It is very satisfying to see a successful multi-center trial that shows gene therapy can be dramatically efficacious.” The findings were published Sept. 5 in The Lancet journal. A total of 15 LCA1 patients — 12 adults and three children — participated in the new trial. All had vision that was equal to or below 20/80, meaning that objects a normally sighted person could see at 80 feet could only be clear at 20 feet away for a person with… read on > read on >