People with multiple sclerosis appear to have a lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, a new study suggests. MS patients are far less likely to have elevated blood levels of toxic proteins that form amyloid plaques in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s, researchers report. “Our findings imply that some component of the biology of multiple sclerosis, or the genetics of MS patients, is protective against Alzheimer’s disease,” said lead researcher Dr. Matthew Brier, an assistant professor of neurology and radiology with Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “If we could identify what aspect is protective and apply it in a controlled way, that could inform therapeutic strategies for Alzheimer’s disease,” Brier added in a university news release. Researchers undertook the study after noticing that MS patients under their care didn’t develop Alzheimer’s as they grew older, even if they had a family history of the disease. “I noticed that I couldn’t find a single MS patient of mine who had typical Alzheimer’s disease,” said senior researcher Dr. Anne Cross, chair of neuroimmunology at the Washington University School of Medicine. “If they had cognitive problems, I would send them to the memory and aging specialists here at WashU Medicine for an Alzheimer’s assessment, and those doctors would always come back and tell me, ‘No, this is not due to Alzheimer’s disease,’” Cross said.…  read on >  read on >

Researchers now have a better idea where love resides in the human brain — and which types of love are the most powerful. MRI scans show that love mainly resides in areas of the brain associated with the processing of social cues, researchers reported Aug. 26 in the journal Cerebral Cortex. Love for one’s children generated the most intense brain activity — so intense that it actually bled over into other parts of the brain, researchers found. “In parental love, there was activation deep in the brain’s reward system in the striatum area while imagining love, and this was not seen for any other kind of love,” said researcher Parttyli Rinne, at Aalto University in Finland. Romantic love also generated lots of brain activity, but that activity confined itself to the social regions of the brain, researchers found. Love of nature and animals activated the reward system and visual areas of the brain, but not the social regions involved in love of other humans. “We now provide a more comprehensive picture of the brain activity associated with different types of love than previous research,” Rinne said in a university news release. For the study, researchers asked 55 parents involved in loving relationships to mull over brief stories related to six different types of love. “You see your newborn child for the first time. The baby…  read on >  read on >

You’ve noticed your young child complains of headaches and rubs their eyes a lot. Does that mean it’s time to get glasses? It could, says a Baylor College of Medicine expert, and noticing these signs early is critical for young children because their schoolwork could suffer or they could lose their vision completely. “There is a period — approximately the first eight years of life — when the brain and the eye are learning to work together, and the visual system is still developing,” said Dr. Christina Weng, an assistant professor of ophthalmology at Baylor. “During this time, parents should watch out for behavioral changes because they can be a sign of potential eye problems.” “When children have trouble seeing, they often act out or exhibit other signs of stress, and it can be challenging to determine the cause of their behavior,” she explained. “It is very helpful for parents to pay attention to what situations trigger their behavior.” For instance, does your child become upset when watching a movie far away from the screen? Or does he or she avoid reading or other forms of near-sight work or seem to ignore people or objects in the distance? Any of those scenarios could point to potential vision trouble, Weng said. Additional symptoms associated with vision loss include: Frequent headaches Excessive eye rubbing Holding a book, phone…  read on >  read on >

Women who suffer frequent migraines don’t have any increased risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, finds a new study that refutes earlier research. “These results are reassuring for women who have migraine, which itself causes many burdens, that they don’t have to worry about an increased risk of Parkinson’s disease in the future,” said researcher Dr. Tobias Kurth, director of the Institute of Public Health at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin in Germany. For the study, researchers tracked more than 39,000 women, of whom more than 7,300 had suffered migraines. During a follow-up of 22 years, 685 of the women were diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease — 128 with a history of migraine and 557 with no migraine. After adjusting for other factors that can affect Parkinson’s risk, researchers found that women with migraine were no more likely to develop the neurodegenerative disease than those without. It didn’t matter if a woman had frequent migraines, or if she experienced visual auras prior to a migraine headache — the result always was no association between migraine and Parkinson’s, researchers said. However, more research is needed to confirm the lack of a link between migraines and Parkinson’s, researchers said. The findings were published Aug. 21 in the journal Neurology. “Since this study involved only female health professionals who were primarily white people, more research is needed to determine whether the…  read on >  read on >

High levels of fluoride in drinking water may dim the intelligence of children, a new U.S. government report shows. Based on an analysis of published research, the potentially controversial report marks the first time a federal agency has determined there is a link between drinking twice the recommended amount of fluoride and lower IQs in kids. “Since 1945, the use of fluoride has been a successful public health initiative for reducing dental cavities and improving general oral health of adults and children,” the report stated. “There is a concern, however, that some pregnant women and children may be getting more fluoride than they need because they now get fluoride from many sources, including treated public water, water-added foods and beverages, teas, toothpaste, floss and mouthwash, and the combined total intake of fluoride may exceed safe amounts.” Importantly, “the determination about lower IQs in children was based primarily on epidemiology studies in non-U.S. countries such as Canada, China, India, Iran, Pakistan and Mexico where some pregnant women, infants and children received total fluoride exposure amounts higher than 1.5 mg fluoride/L of drinking water,” the report authors stated. “The U.S. Public Health Service currently recommends 0.7 mg/L, and the World Health Organization has set a safe limit for fluoride in drinking water of 1.5 mg/L.” One expert welcomed the findings. “I think this [report] is crucial in…  read on >  read on >

Obese kids are more likely to develop immune-based skin problems like eczema or psoriasis, a new study says. Analysis of more than 2.1 million Korean children between 2009 and 2020 revealed that children who became overweight had a higher risk of developing eczema. At the same time, overweight kids who shed pounds and reached a healthy weight had a lower risk of eczema, researchers reported Aug. 21 in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology. “Our findings support the importance of promoting weight maintenance among children who are already within the normal weight range because it may help reduce the risk of developing atopic dermatitis [eczema],” said researcher Dr. Seong-Joon Koh, an associate professor of internal medicine with the Seoul National University College of Medicine in South Korea. “In addition, prevention of excessive weight gain and purposeful weight loss, including adopting healthy diet strategies in children with obesity to prevent atopic dermatitis, particularly before school age, should be promoted,” Koh added. Approximately 1 in 5 U.S. children and teens (20%) are obese, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Previous studies have looked at the link between childhood obesity and skin diseases, said researcher Dr. Seong Rae Kim, with the Seoul National University College of Medicine in South Korea. However, those studies haven’t tracked children over time to see whether changes in body weight…  read on >  read on >

A meditation technique called mindful breathing can help cancer patients manage their pain and anxiety, a new study finds. Cancer patients who engaged in 20 minutes of mindful breathing experienced a greater reduction in pain than those who weren’t taught the technique. “Twenty-minute mindful breathing effectively and rapidly reduces pain intensity, pain unpleasantness and anxiety in patients with cancer,” wrote the research team led by Dr. Tan Seng Beng, a palliative medicine consultant with the Subang Jaya Medical Center in Selangor, Malaysia. “This brief and accessible intervention offers a complementary approach to traditional pharmacological strategies,” the team concluded. Mindful breathing requires that people focus their attention on their breath as they inhale and exhale, researchers noted.  However, prior research on the potential pain relief from mindful breathing has focused on short meditation sessions lasting just 5 to 10 minutes, researchers noted. For this study, researchers randomly assigned 40 cancer patients to one of two groups. In one group, the patients were taught how to do mindful breathing in a 20-minute session. In the other, doctors listened for 20 minutes as patients talked about their cancer journey. Pain assessment scales showed that all patients who performed mindful breathing experienced a reduction in their cancer pain, compared to the control group. The new study was published Aug. 20 in the journal BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care. “The…  read on >  read on >

Perdue Foods has recalled over 167,000 pounds of chicken nuggets and tenders after consumers complained of finding bits of metal in the products. The recall covers select lots of Perdue Breaded Chicken Tenders, Butcher Box Organic Chicken Breast Nuggets and Perdue Simply Smart Organics Breaded Chicken Breast Nuggets. No injuries or adverse reactions tied to eating these foods have been reported, according to Perdue and the U.S. Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), but the agency noted in a news release that it is concerned some of the products may still be in consumers’ freezers. The problem first came to light after consumers discovered metal wire bits in chicken they bought. Following an investigation, “we determined the material to be a very thin strand of metal wire that was inadvertently introduced into the manufacturing process,” Jeff Shaw, senior vice president of food safety and quality for Perdue, said in a company statement. “Out of an abundance of caution, we decided to voluntarily recall all of these packages of products.” The affected tenders and nuggets can be identified by product codes listed in the FSIS notice. All three products have a best if used by date of March 23, 2025, and establishment number “P-33944” on the back of the package. They were sold at retailers nationwide and online. What should consumers do? Anyone who has…  read on >  read on >

Iron deficiency isn’t being effectively treated in the United States, with low iron levels persisting for years in most patients, a new study finds. Almost 3 of 5 (58%) patients with iron deficiency still had low iron levels three years after their diagnosis, researchers found. Further, it took nearly two years to resolve iron deficiencies in most of the 42% of patients who did recover, results showed. Only 7% of patients had their iron levels return to normal within a year of diagnosis, the study added. “Two years is too long and well beyond the timeframe within which iron deficiency should be able to be sufficiently treated and resolved [with oral or IV treatments],” said lead researcher Dr. Jacob Cogan, an assistant professor of medicine with the University of Minnesota. “The numbers are pretty striking and suggest a need to put systems in place to better identify patients and treat them more efficiently.” Iron deficiency affects nearly 40% of teenagers and young women, but as many as 70% of cases go undiagnosed in these groups, researchers said. Most iron deficiency cases don’t involve full-blown anemia, researchers said. Anemia occurs when the body doesn’t have enough iron to make hemoglobin, the substance in red blood cells that allows them to transport oxygen throughout the body. Cases of non-anemic iron deficiency can cause symptoms like fatigue and…  read on >  read on >