Health/Fitness « Weekly Gravy

The knee develops differently in men and women, with sex-specific distinctions in the joint appearing as early as childhood, a new study finds. Taking these differences into account among girls could help prevent knee arthritis for women later in life, researchers say. Gender-based differences in knee cartilage and ligaments develop prior to puberty and can’t be explained by sex hormones, researchers reported recently in the journal Osteoarthritis and Cartilage. There also are metabolic differences that could affect the knee, particularly in the abundance of various amino acids, researchers said. These differences play key roles in the likelihood of injury early in life, which can increase the risk of knee arthritis for women, they argue. “Young female athletes have a higher risk of ACL [anterior cruciate ligament] injuries compared to young male athletes, and we know these types of injuries can likely develop into osteoarthritis later in life,” said lead researcher Paula Hernandez, an instructor of orthopedic surgery and biomedical engineering at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. These findings lay the groundwork for a better understanding of how arthritis is influenced by a person’s biological sex, researchers said. As a result, they can help develop sex-specific exercises that could reduce the risk of injury and arthritis based on biological differences in the joints. “We hope that by showing evidence that sex disparities are not limited… read on > read on >

The boom in using GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic to treat obesity has resulted in a bust regarding the drugs’ original purpose, which was to treat type 2 diabetes, a new study finds. New prescriptions for these drugs have doubled among people who have obesity but not diabetes, investigators found. As a result, drug shortages have triggered a drop in new prescriptions for type 2 diabetes, even though Ozempic and Mounjaro were initially developed as diabetes drugs, the researchers said. Both drugs were later approved for weight loss under different brand names, Wegovy and Zepbound. “Essentially, after the medication was approved for obesity… use took off so quickly that we lost control and vision of how fast people were picking up these medications,” said lead researcher Dr. Ali Rezaie, medical director of the Cedars-Sinai GI Motility Program. For the study, researchers analyzed the medical data of about 45 million Americans between 2011 and 2023. About 1 million people became new GLP-1 users during that period in time, results show. Researchers classified them based on whether they had diabetes, obesity or some other related medical condition. GLP-1 drugs work by adjusting a person’s hormone levels and suppressing appetite. Semaglutide — the drug sold as Ozempic and Wegovy — is being prescribed disproportionately to females, whites, and those with a BMI of 30 or more, indicating obesity, results… read on > read on >

How many drugs in your bathroom medicine cabinet have expired? Now imagine you have no way of refilling them, because you’re millions of miles from home. That’s the dilemma that will face astronauts on a Mars mission, a new study warns. More than half of the medicines stocked on the International Space Station would expire before a mission to Mars could make it back to Earth, results show. These include staples like pain relievers, antibiotics, allergy medicines and sleep aids. Astronauts on their way back from Mars could end up relying on drugs that have become either ineffective or even harmful over time, researchers reported July 23 in the journal Microgravity. “It doesn’t necessarily mean the medicines won’t work, but in the same way you shouldn’t take expired medications you have lying around at home, space exploration agencies will need to plan on expired medications being less effective,” said senior researcher Dr. Daniel Buckland, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, N.C. For the study, researchers reviewed the formulary of medications kept on the International Space Station (ISS), assuming NASA would stock similar drugs on a Mars mission. “Prior experience and research show astronauts do get ill on the International Space Station, but there is real-time communication with the ground and a well-stocked pharmacy that is regularly resupplied,… read on > read on >

In her youth, Shola, an English Shepherd Dog, was a member of the Edale Mountain Rescue Team, a corps of U.K. pooches charged with helping hurt and stranded hikers. But Shola was retired as part of the Rescue Team after a rare genetic disease affecting dogs, called progressive retinal atrophy (PRA), robbed her of her sight. It’s too late for Shola, but new research has led to a gene test that could prevent the disease from ever being passed down to puppies — perhaps someday eliminating PRA from dog populations for good. “Once the dog’s eyesight starts to fail, there’s no treatment – it will end up totally blind,” explained study first author Dr. Katherine Stanbury, a veterinary researcher at the University of Cambridge. Often an owner may not even realize their dog has PRA until middle-age, long after puppy breeding may have occurred. However, “now we have a DNA test, there’s no reason why another English Shepherd Dog ever needs to be born with this form of progressive retinal atrophy – it gives breeders a way of totally eliminating the disease,” Stanbury said in a Cambridge news release. The key was pinpointing which gene or genes led to the vision-robbing condition. Stanbury’s team did so by comparing DNA samples from six English Shepherds with PRA and 20 without it. The Cambridge group was already… read on > read on >

The risk of seizures within the next 24 hours can be predicted by watching for abnormal brain activity patterns in people with epilepsy, a new study finds. The storm of brain activity that characterized a seizure is presaged by abnormal communication between specific areas of the brain, researchers discovered. They say they can forecast seizure risk by analyzing just 90 seconds of these aberrant brain signals, according to their report published in the journal Nature Medicine. If validated, this discovery could help improve quality of life for the 2.9 million Americans living with epilepsy, researchers said. “Until now, the changes in brain activity and the sequence of events leading up to a seizure have been largely unknown,” said lead researcher Dr. Vikram Rao, a professor of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). “By identifying one of those events, we can offer patients information that can reduce one of the most stressful aspects of epilepsy: the unpredictability of seizures,” Rao added in a UCSF news release. Current methods used to predict seizures require data gathered over long periods of time, and accuracy varies widely based on the individual and the method being used. Some patients with epilepsy have implants that monitor brain activity and attempt to head off seizures with electrical stimulation, researchers said in background notes. Unfortunately, these devices sometimes respond too… read on > read on >

Daily supplements can slow loss of vision related to late-stage “dry” age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a new study finds. The rate of dry AMD progression into a key eye region slowed by about 55% over an average three years for late-stage patients who took a daily blend of antioxidants and minerals, researchers reported July 16 in the journal Ophthalmology. Prior results have shown that supplements slow the progression from intermediate to late AMD, said lead researcher Dr. Tiarnan Keenan, a staff clinician with the National Eye Institute. “Our analysis shows that taking … supplements can also slow disease progression in people with late dry AMD,” Keenan said in an institute news release. The supplements include the antioxidants vitamin C, E, beta-carotene, lutein and zeaxanthin, along with the minerals zinc and copper. Dry AMD is the most common form of macular degeneration, affecting nine out of 10 people with the eye condition, the Cleveland Clinic says. Dry AMD occurs when small yellow deposits of fatty proteins called drusen start to develop along the light-sensing retina at the back of a person’s eye, researchers explained in background notes. These deposits cause the loss of light-sensitive cells in the retina, a condition called “geographic atrophy” that slowly expands over time. As a result, people progressively lose their central vision. The new study focused on the fovea, a small… read on > read on >

It’s long been known that popping the antibiotic doxycycline within 72 hours of a risky sexual encounter can greatly reduce a person’s risk for a sexually transmitted infection (STI). In fact, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention formally recommended this type of “morning after” strategy last month. But what if folks at especially high risk for STIs simply took “doxy” daily — similar to how some people now take HIV meds as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to prevent that infection? Two small new studies suggest that this so-called “DoxyPrEP” strategy may indeed keep STIs at bay. Both reports are scheduled to be presented next week at the 25th International AIDS Conference in Munich. One study involved 52 gay or bisexual Canadian men living in Toronto and Vancouver. All of the men were living with HIV, and they also had a past history of contracting a common STI, syphilis. For 48 weeks, the men were randomly divided into two groups: One group took a 100-milligram pill of doxycycline daily, while the other took a “dummy” placebo pill. Overall, 41 of the 52 men completed the trial. In the group that got doxycycline daily, rates of new syphilis infections fell by 79%, reported study co-author Dr Troy Grennan, of the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control. Rates of two other common STIs also declined for the… read on > read on >

Alix Popham played in two rugby World Cups and won a Six Nations Grand Slam before retiring in 2011 as a professional in the rough-and-tumble game. By 2020, he had already been diagnosed with early onset dementia and probable chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a disabling brain disease long linked to repeated head trauma. Emboldened to activism by his experience, Popham helped found Head for Change, which advocates for better ways of preventing brain damage among rugby players. “This is more evidence that big changes need to happen to protect current rugby players. World Rugby need to get their heads out of the sand and in turn protect the game,” Popham said in a news release from Durham University. Similar to what’s been observed in other contact sports such as football and boxing, rugby can leave players with neurological damage long after they’ve retired. Now, a new study out of Durham suggests that certain blood biomarkers could predict those players at highest risk for CTE and other neurological issues. That might allow for earlier interventions that could minimize the damage, researchers said. Prior research has already demonstrated that retired professional rugby players have a much higher odds for depression, anxiety and irritability compared to amateur rugby players or athletes involved in non-contact sports. In the new study, Durham researchers add to what’s known about specific components… read on > read on >

Autopsies of deceased boxers and pro football players have long confirmed that repeat head injuries can lead to a devastating brain condition known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Now, research supports the notion that contact sports can also raise the odds for a Parkinson’s-like disease, called parkinsonism, in athletes already affected by CTE. In the new study, “subjects with parkinsonism were more likely to have more severe CTE-related brain cell death in a region of the brainstem important for controlling movement,” noted study lead author Dr. Thor Stein. He’s an associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Boston University. The study involved postmortem examination of the brains of 481 deceased athletes. It was published July 15 in the journal JAMA Neurology. As the researchers described it, parkinsonism carries some of the hallmarks of classic Parkinson’s disease — tremor, slowed movements, abnormal stiffness in the limbs. The two conditions differ, however, in how they manifest in brain tissue. People with Parkinson’s disease typically show a buildup of proteins called Lewy bodies in their brain cells, but the new research found no such buildup in the brains of about three-quarters of people with CTE and parkinsonism. “We were surprised to find that most individuals with CTE and parkinsonism did not have Lewy body pathology,” Stein noted in a university news release. So, what’s driving the parkinsonism? According… read on > read on >

Defiance, tantrums, aggression: All signs of a condition called conduct disorder, which Mental Health America says affects up to 16% of boys and 9% of girls. Now, research is revealing real differences in the brain structure of children and youths with conduct disorder, compared to those without the condition. Specifically, the study of the brains of people ages 7 through 21 found that the brain’s outer layer, the cerebral cortex, was smaller than is typical for people with conduct disorder. “Conduct disorder has among the highest burden of any mental disorder in youth,” noted study co-author Dr. Daniel Pine. “However, it remains understudied and under-treated.” “Understanding brain differences associated with the disorder takes us one step closer to developing more effective approaches to diagnosis and treatment, with the ultimate aim of improving long-term outcomes for children and their families,” said Pine. He’s chief of the Section on Development and Affective Neuroscience at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The new study was published July 16 in the journal Lancet Psychiatry. In their research, Pine and his colleagues used MRI scans to examine the brains of about 2,400 children and youth who’d enrolled in 15 different studies from around the world. About half of the participants had been diagnosed with conduct disorder while the other half had not. The scans looked specifically at the thickness… read on > read on >