Thinking about quitting smoking? There are three top ways to help you stop, a new review finds. According to the study, folks wanting to quit should turn to: Varenicline, a prescription nicotine-blocking drug sold under the brand names Chantix and Champix Cytisine, a plant-based compound sold as an over-the-counter supplement in Canada and Europe Nicotine e-cigarettes “Quitting smoking is difficult, and some people find it harder to quit than others, but tobacco is uniquely deadly among legal consumer products, so it’s important to seek help quitting,” said lead investigator Jonathan Livingstone-Banks, a lecturer and researcher in evidence-based health care with the University of Oxford in the U.K. “There’s a range of effective forms of support for smoking cessation, and cytisine, varenicline and e-cigarettes are all evidence-based ways to greatly increase people’s chances of successfully quitting smoking,” Livingstone-Banks added. These strategies work best when combined with counseling or other behavioral support, researchers said. “For behavioral support, evidence is strongest for counseling and for programs that reward people for stopping smoking,” said senior researcher Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, an assistant professor of health policy and management with the University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences. Bupropion and nicotine replacement therapy are also effective, especially if nicotine patches are combined with fast-acting forms like gum, researchers said. The new study was published Sept. 4 in the…  read on >  read on >

A new brain imaging study has concluded that autism likely isn’t caused by faulty connections to the amygdala. A prevailing hypothesis of autism spectrum disorder has held that people with the condition have poorer neural connections in certain brain regions, including the amygdala. However, researchers found no evidence that people with autism had amygdala connections that differed substantially to those found in people without autism. The amygdala is a small, almond-shaped structure in the brain that plays a key role in processing emotions and social cues, researchers explained. For the study, researchers analyzed high-quality MRI brain scans from 488 people, including 212 with autism. The team focused on the neural connections emanating from the amygdala when the participants were not actively engaged in any tasks. Average variation in connectivity to the amygdala was similar in people with and without autism, results showed. The results were the same when researchers looked at specific subregions of the amygdala, researchers added. The new study was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry. “It is important to note that we do not conclude that amygdala [connectivity] is generally typical in autism. Instead, we conclude that the evidence for atypical [connectivity] of the amygdala in autism is weak at best, and unreliable,” concluded the researchers led by Dorit Kliemann, an assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences with the University…  read on >  read on >

Folks taking weight-loss drugs like Wegovy or Zepbound might think they’ve found a shortcut to better health. But they still need to eat a high-quality diet if they want to maintain their well-being while they shed pounds, says a doctor with the University of Texas Southwestern. “One common misconception about these medications is that they’re a magic bullet for better health, and it doesn’t necessarily matter what you eat when you’re taking them. Nothing could be further from the truth,” said Dr. Jaime Almondoz, director of UT Southwestern’s Weight Wellness Center. The typical American diet contains loads of ultra-processed, calorie-dense foods, but is often deficient in fruits, vegetables, fiber and essential nutrients, Almondoz said. People on weight-loss drugs could suffer loss of muscle mass, fatigue, malnutrition and other health consequences if they don’t eat healthy, Almondoz said. Folks preparing for bariatric surgery are required to have multiple visits with a registered dietitian to create a healthy eating plan for them going forward. “No such guidelines exist yet for anti-obesity medications, though patients now lose similar amounts of weight with these medications as they do with bariatric surgery,” Almondoz said in a UT Southwestern news release. A few basic steps can reduce the risk of GI side effects while taking weight loss drugs, Almondoz said. These include: Avoiding fried and high-fat foods Limiting intake of carbonated drinks,…  read on >  read on >

FRIDAY, Aug.30, 2024New trials are showing how the blockbuster diabetes and weight-loss meds Ozempic and Wegovy can boost health in even more ways. These two injected drugs are versions of semaglutide. In multiple new data analyses, the drugs appeared to cut people’s odds for heart failure and its complications, reduce deaths from COVID-19 and lower deaths from any cause. Semaglutide is a member of family of drugs called GLP-1 agonists, which work by mimicking the effect of a natural hormone that helps reduce appetite, hunger and food intake.  The latest findings were presented Thursday in London at the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and published simultaneously in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC). The data show that “these groundbreaking medications are poised to revolutionize cardiovascular care and could dramatically enhance cardiovascular health,” said Dr. Harlan Krumholz, JACC Editor-in-Chief and a professor of medicine at Yale University. Some of the findings derive from sub-analyses of data from a major trial called SELECT, which included more than 17,000 people who were overweight or obese and had been diagnosed with heart disease, but not diabetes. The trial was funded by semaglutide’s maker, Novo Nordisk, and in findings published in November it found that the 2.4 milligram (mg) dose of the drug cut the odds of heart-related deaths, heart attacks and strokes. In…  read on >  read on >

Fluorescent light can be used to highlight bacteria that hides in wounds, causing infections and slowing down the healing process, a new evidence review says. A handheld fluorescent device can light up bacteria in 9 out of 10 wounds that traditional clinical treatment would overlook, according to a study in the journal Advances in Wound Care. “We’re hopeful this new technology can help surgeons improve their accuracy when pinpointing and consequently removing bacteria from wounds and therefore improve patient outcomes, particularly for those with diabetic foot wounds,” said senior researcher Dr. David Armstrong, a podiatric surgeon and limb preservation specialist with the University of Southern California. “The early detection and removal of bacteria from a wound is vital to preventing avoidable amputations,” he added in a university news release. More than 6.5 million Americans experience chronic wounds that don’t heal within a few months, researchers said in background notes. Nearly all such wounds contain bacteria, and if not detected and removed, these germs can cause a severe infection that might end in amputation or death. Doctors cleaning out a wound do their best to remove as much bacteria as possible, but these bugs can’t be seen by the human eye and can be missed, researchers said. That’s why the research team decided to investigate autofluorescence imaging, in which violet light is used to illuminate bacteria.…  read on >  read on >

More than half of people around the world aren’t getting enough micronutrients essential to human health, including calcium, iron and vitamins C and E, a new study says. These deficiencies are contributing to global malnutrition, as well as health problems like blindness, increased vulnerability to infections, and pregnancy complications, researchers said in The Lancet Global Health. “These results are alarming,” researcher Ty Beal, a senior technical specialist at the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, said in a news release. “Most people — even more than previously thought, across all regions and countries of all incomes — are not consuming enough of multiple essential micronutrients,” Beal said. “These gaps compromise health outcomes and limit human potential on a global scale.” For the study, researchers combined data from several sources to compare the nutritional intake of people in 185 countries. The team specifically assessed intake of 15 vitamins and minerals — calcium, iodine, iron, riboflavin, folate, zinc, magnesium, selenium, thiamin, niacin, and vitamins A, B6, B12, C and E. Researchers found widespread inadequate intake of iodine (68% of the world’s population); vitamin E (67%); calcium (66%); and iron (65%). More than half of people consume inadequate levels of riboflavin, folate, and vitamins C and B6, researchers added. Intake of niacin was closest to sufficient, with 22% of people worldwide consuming too little, followed by thiamin (30%) and…  read on >  read on >

Breastfeeding helps women shed those extra pounds of “pregnancy weight,” a new study finds, and the effect is even more pronounced for moms who were overweight before their pregnancy. Among women who exclusively breastfed their baby during its first year, women who were normal weight prior to pregnancy lost weight, but still retained about three extra pounds of their pregnancy weight, reported a team of researchers in Singapore. However, breastfeeding new moms who were already obese or overweight before their pregnancy lost all their added pregnancy weight, plus an average of another half-pound on top of that, the same team found. Women who chose not to breastfeed or had a mix of formula plus breastfeeding retained much more pregnancy weight, with average weight gains at 12 months post-delivery of about 6 and 8 pounds, respectively. “In this year-long study, we made an interesting discovery — an additional benefit [of breastfeeding] for women with high BMI,” said study lead author Dr. Loy See Ling, of the department of reproductive medicine at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Singapore. “Due to hormonal factors, there is a re-distribution and management of their body fat to the extent that there is an opportunity for them to lose more than the postnatal weight gain,” Ling explained in a hospital news release. Her team published its findings recently in the journal Nutrients.…  read on >  read on >