Health/Fitness « Weekly Gravy

A newly developed biomaterial might be able to treat crippling arthritis by prompting the growth of new cartilage, a new animal study suggests. The bioactive material looks like rubbery goo, but it’s actually a complex biological stew designed to mimic natural cartilage in the body, researchers said. The biomaterial successfully regenerated high-quality cartilage in the knee joints of sheep within six months. If successful in humans, the new material could be used to treat osteoarthritis, which occurs when bones rub together after the cartilage separating them wears down, researchers said. That means the biomaterial could make obsolete the total knee replacement surgery now used to treat severe osteoarthritis. In the surgery, the bone ends are cut away and replaced with titanium, and the cartilage with plastic. “Cartilage is a critical component in our joints,” said lead researcher Samuel Stupp, a professor of materials science and engineering at Northwestern University. “When cartilage becomes damaged or breaks down over time, it can have a great impact on people’s overall health and mobility.” “The problem is that, in adult humans, cartilage does not have an inherent ability to heal,” Stupp added in a university news release. “Our new therapy can induce repair in a tissue that does not naturally regenerate. We think our treatment could help address a serious, unmet clinical need.” The new biomaterial combines an essential… read on > read on >

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Three out of four police officers have experienced at least one concussion, increasing their risk of mental health issues, a new study suggests. About 74% of Ohio law enforcement officers had suffered one or more head injuries during their lifetimes, researchers found. Around 30% had a head injury that happened on the job. However, fewer than 1 in 4 of the head injuries were diagnosed or treated by a doctor, researchers found. “This is an area where we have to improve awareness, just like we did in the sport concussion world,” said lead researcher Jaclyn Caccese, an assistant professor in the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center’s School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. For the study, researchers surveyed 381 police in central Ohio about their lifetime head injury history. The participants also completed questionnaires assessing symptoms of PTSD and depression. Prior head injuries had occurred in 282 of the officers. These injuries occurred mostly from sports, but also were caused by falling, being hit by someone or something, car accidents or exposure to a blast, researchers said. More than 50% of participants said they had a head injury severe enough to lose consciousness, feel dazed or confused, or cause a gap in memory — all signs of a concussion. Officers with a prior head injury also were more likely to have symptoms of PTSD and… read on > read on >

Botanicals like turmeric, green tea and black cohosh may seem benign, but their overuse is being increasingly linked to liver injury. New research suggests that 7% of U.S. adults are using at least one of the six leading botanicals, the equivalent of 15.6 million people. Many are ending up in hospitals for liver toxicity, researchers report. Because there’s almost no regulatory oversight over botanicals, chemical tests of products linked to liver crises “show frequent discrepancies between product labels and detected ingredients,” noted a team led by Dr. Alisa Likhitsup. She’s an assistant professor of gastroenterology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The researchers focused on the use of six of the most popular botanicals: Turmeric, green tea extract, the Garcinia cambodgia plant, black cohosh, red yeast rice and ashwagandha. Perusing 2017-2021 data on almost 9,700 adults in a federal health database, they found high rates of botanical use. For example, Likhitsup’s group estimated that more than 11 million adults regularly take turmeric supplements, often with the notion that it can ease pain or arthritis. That’s not too far below the approximately 14.8 million who take an NSAID pain reliever for much the same reasons. Unfortunately, “multiple randomized clinical trials have failed to demonstrate any efficacy of turmeric-containing products in osteoarthritis,” and overdoing it on turmeric has been linked to serious liver toxicity, the… read on > read on >

Folks who rub their forehead and complain that a complex problem is making their brain hurt aren’t overstating things, a new review suggests. Mental exertion appears to be associated with unpleasant feelings in many situations, researchers reported Aug. 5 in the journal Psychological Bulletin. In fact, the greater a person’s mental effort, the more they experience feelings like frustration, irritation, stress or annoyance, results showed. “Our findings show that mental effort feels unpleasant across a wide range of populations and tasks,” said senior researcher Erik Bijleveld, an associate professor of psychology with Radboud University in the Netherlands. “This is important for professionals, such as engineers and educators, to keep in mind when designing tasks, tools, interfaces, apps, materials or instructions,” Bijleveld added in a university news release. “When people are required to exert substantial mental effort, you need to make sure to support or reward them for their effort.” For the review, researchers analyzed 170 studies published between 2019 and 2020 involving 4,670 people. The participants included people from a wide range of backgrounds, including health care workers, military employees, amateur athletes and college students. They represented 29 countries. The studies involved more than 350 different brain tasks that ranged from learning new technology and finding one’s way around an unfamiliar environment to practicing golf swings or playing a virtual reality game. The combined results… read on > read on >

Two new studies show how eager Americans are to obtain either safe, legitimate versions of Ozempic or counterfeit and potentially dangerous forms of the diabetes/weight-loss drug. One study found U.S. prescriptions and refills of Ozempic (semaglutide) soaring over the past three years, jumping almost five-fold (392%) between early 2021 and the end of 2023. Ozempic’s reformulated-for-weight-loss cousin, Wegovy (also semaglutide), saw sales soar soon after its launch as well. According to researchers led by Dr. Dima Qato, an associate professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of Southern California, sales of Wegovy climbed more than 14-fold between July 2021 and the end of 2023. “The number of prescriptions filled for semaglutide has increased substantially, reaching 2.6 millon prescriptions filled at retail pharmacies by December 2023,” Qatos’s team reported Aug. 2 in the journal JAMA Health Forum. It’s all led to U.S. shortages of both Ozempic and Wegovy, first announced by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in March of 2022, the researchers noted. Consumers who either can’t find semaglutide because of shortages, or who cannot afford the drugs (Wegovy is about $1,349 per month), are increasingly turning to black market vendors online, a second study found. That’s a dicey move, warned researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). They found many online counterfeit semaglutide products either contaminated with toxins or containing hazardous doses… read on > read on >

Fish oil supplements might help high-risk seniors stave off Alzheimer’s disease, a new study finds. Older people with a higher genetic risk of Alzheimer’s experienced slower breakdown of their brain’s nerve cells if they took fish oil capsules, researchers reported Aug. 1 in the journal JAMA Network Open. These people carry the APOE4 gene variant, which increases risk of Alzheimer’s and is associated with an earlier age of onset, according to the National Institute on Aging. “The fact that neuronal integrity breakdown was slowed in people randomized to omega-3 treatment who are also at high risk for Alzheimer’s disease is remarkable, and warrants a larger clinical trial in more diverse populations in the future,” said researcher Gene Bowman, a neurology instructor with the McCance Center for Brain Health at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. However, fish oil supplements did not benefit all seniors in general, researchers noted. “Our findings showed that over three years, there was not a statistically significant difference between placebo and the group that took fish oil,” said researcher Dr. Lynne Shinto, a professor of neurology with the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine. “I don’t think it would be harmful, but I wouldn’t say you need to take fish oil to prevent dementia.” For the study, researchers recruited 102 people ages 75 and older who had relatively low levels… read on > read on >

Don’t use a chemical peel to help rejuvenate your skin unless it’s done under the supervision of a trained professional, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has advised. “FDA is warning consumers not to purchase or use certain chemical peel skin products without appropriate professional supervision due to risk of serious skin injuries,” the agency said in a news release issued this week. A dermatologist or licensed and trained practitioner should always be on hand when a peel — which is designed to remove layers of skin — is being applied. The FDA reminded consumers that it has never approved a chemical peel, and some contains levels of acid so high that they can cause chemical burns. Nevertheless, many of these products “are sold in beauty product stores and online and marketed for purposes such as acne, discoloration, wrinkles and collagen production,” the agency noted. “They contain ingredients such as trichloroacetic acid (TCA), glycolic acid, salicylic acid and lactic acid in varying concentrations that are too high to be used safely at home without supervision.” Just how dangerous an unsupervised chemical peel might be depends on how concentrated an acid is used and the number of applications and length of time each is applied. “These products remove layers of skin to varying depths and may cause severe chemical burns, pain, swelling, infection, skin color changes… read on > read on >

High blood pressure might increase a woman’s odds of suffering migraines, a new study finds. Specifically, high diastolic blood pressure is linked to a slightly higher risk of women ever having a migraine, researchers reported July 31 in the journal Neurology. Diastolic pressure is the second number in a blood pressure reading, and occurs when the heart is resting between beats. The study found that no other heart health risk factors appear to increase risk of a migraine, even though migraines have been linked to higher odds of having a stroke, heart attack or heart disease. “Our study looked at well-known risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as diabetes, smoking, obesity and high cholesterol and found an increased odds of having migraine only in female participants with higher diastolic blood pressure,” said researcher Antoinette Maassen van den Brink, a professor with Erasmus MC University Medical Center in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. For the study, researchers analyzed health data for more than 7,200 people with an average age of 67. About 15% had suffered a migraine at some point in their lives. Women with higher diastolic pressure had 16% higher odds of having a migraine, and those odds further increased as their diastolic pressure ticked up, results show. The finding adds weight to the theory that migraines are linked to problems with small blood vessels rather than… read on > read on >

Skip the bacon and those holiday hot dogs: A new study finds eating processed red meats raises your odds for dementia. Overall, just two servings per week of processed red meat was linked to a 14% rise in dementia risk, compared to folks who ate less than three servings per month. The finding made sense to Heather Snyder, vice president of medical and scientific relations the Alzheimer’s Association, given what experts know about diet and the brain. “Prevention of Alzheimer’s disease and all other dementia is a major focus, and the Alzheimer’s Association has long encouraged eating a healthier diet — including foods that are less processed — because they’ve been associated with [a lowered] risk of cognitive decline,” Snyder said in an association news release. “This large, long-term study provides a specific example of one way to eat healthier.” The findings were presented Wednesday at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Philadelphia. The study was led by Yuhan Li, now a research assistant in the Channing Division of Network Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. She conducted the study while a graduate student at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Li’s team pored over 43 years’ worth of data from 130,000 people in the long-running Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. The researchers specifically looked at associations between… read on > read on >