Health/Fitness « Weekly Gravy

Research into germs that travel through the human digestive tract shows that some may promote obesity while others might help prevent it. Not only that, but those microbes may act differently in men versus women, the same study found. “Our findings reveal how an imbalance in distinct bacterial groups are likely to play an important role in the onset and development of obesity, with considerable differences between the sexes,” said study lead author Dr Paula Aranaz, from the Centre for Nutrition Research at the University of Navarra in Spain. Her team is slated to present the findings in May at the European Congress on Obesity in Venice. The researchers focused on an end product of human digestion: poop. They carefully analyzed the “metabolome” of stool samples from 251 female and 110 male adult volunteers, averaging 44 years of age. The metabolome is the variety of metabolite molecules that form as gut bacteria break down food, the researchers explained in a meeting news release. Aranaz’ team also used genetic profiling to identify the various types of bacteria in the stool samples. The participants ran the gamut in terms of weight — 65 were normal weight, 110 were overweight and 186 were deemed obese. Certain microbial patterns emerged when it came to correlations between gut microbes and weight. For example, folks who were obese tended to have… read on > read on >

When a soldier is rushed to medical care following a blast or other injury to the head, time is crucial in deciding just how extensive that injury is. Now, the U.S. Army has announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared a bedside whole blood test that can answer that question in about 15 minutes. Prior tests relied on blood plasma or serum, and that meant sending samples to a lab for analysis. The new test, made by Abbott and called the i-STAT TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) cartridge, sidesteps that issue. It could be an advance for the care of traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) on the battlefield, U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Edward Bailey said in an Army news release. “TBIs are a major concern for Warfighter health, readiness and resiliency,” said Bailey, who is commanding general of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC). “This milestone accomplishment demonstrates how Army medical developers can partner with industry to deliver solutions for frontline medical personnel caring for our injured service members.” According to background data supplied by the Army, about half a million U.S. troops have experienced some form of TBI during their training, deployment or even sporting events, between 2000 and 2023. That’s why the Army teamed up with Abbott to develop a quicker test when TBIs occur. Here’s how the i-STAT test… read on > read on >

A total eclipse of the sun is coming up next week, and many folks don’t know that watching it unprotected can cause permanent eye damage, a new survey finds. Nearly 30% of Americans don’t know that looking directly into a solar eclipse without proper eye protection can cause permanent distortions or blind spots in their vision, the researchers found. “The survey results highlight the need for more community education about the true dangers associated with a total eclipse,” said study author Dr. Nicholas Kman, a clinical professor of emergency medicine at the Ohio State University’s College of Medicine. “We can’t stress enough the importance of proper eye protection.” About 32 million Americans live in areas along the path of the total solar eclipse set to occur on April 8, researchers said. A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun and blocks people’s view of the sun. When that happens, people in the “path of totality” will only be able to see the outer atmosphere of the sun, also known as the corona. Next week’s eclipse will start in southwest Texas and pass along the United States in a northeasterly line through parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Looking at an eclipse is the same as staring directly… read on > read on >

Smacking a 100-mile-an-hour fastball or shooting down a fast-moving alien invader in a video game might involve more than fast reflexes, researchers report. Elite gamers and pro athletes may also have a hidden vision advantage over others, a new study finds. Some people can perceive rapidly changing visual cues better than others, researchers reported April 1 in the journal PLOS One. This advantage in eye tracking could explain why some people are better in settings where response time is critical, researchers said. “We don’t yet know how this variation in visual temporal resolution might affect our day-to-day lives, but we believe that individual differences in perception speed might become apparent in high-speed situations where one might need to locate or track fast-moving objects, such as in ball sports, or in situations where visual scenes change rapidly, such as in competitive gaming,” said lead researcher Clinton Haarlem, a doctoral candidate with Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. The rate at which people perceive the world is known as “temporal resolution,” researchers said. Some people effectively see more images per second than others. To quantify this, researchers asked participants to look at a flickering light source. If the light flickered faster than a person’s visual threshold, they saw the light as steady rather than blinking. Some participants saw the light as completely still when it was flashing about… read on > read on >

As their aging brains shrink, older dogs can suffer the same memory and thinking problems as many older humans do. But dogs are just like humans in another way — playtime and social activities can help preserve their brain function, a new study finds. Exercising, socializing, playing with toys and playing with other dogs helped a small group of beagles maintain their brains, researchers reported April 1 in the Journal of Neuroscience. Such social enrichment activities particularly helped maintain the size of the beagles’ hippocampus, a brain region tied to memory and emotion that is particularly sensitive to age-related decline, researchers said. Brain scans “showed that total hippocampal volume increased at an average rate of about 1.74% per year across treatment groups, contrasting with the age-related hippocampal volume decline” observed in previous studies, wrote the research team led by senior researcher Craig Stark, a professor of neurobiology at University of California, Irvine. For the study, researchers tracked the brain health of 43 middle-aged beagles, including 36 females and seven males, for three years as part of a study involving two potential drugs for Alzheimer’s disease. The dogs were all 6 years old at the start of the study. All dogs received daily exercise, play with a rotating set of toys and socialization. They also were allowed to play for a half-hour each day in male-only… read on > read on >

For folks who have battled alcohol dependency for years, any treatment that could curb or block alcohol cravings would be a huge advance. Now, research in mice is giving a glimmer of hope that just such a therapy might be possible. A compound — so far dubbed LY2444296 — appears to block a key brain cell receptor called the kappa opioid receptor (KOP), a team at the Scripps Research Institute in California reports. “Compounds designed to selectively block the KOP are very promising because this receptor is involved in a lot of mental illnesses, such as anxiety and depression,” said senior study author Rémi Martin-Fardon, an associate professor of molecular medicine at Scripps. “The KOP system is also important in alcohol use disorder, so the idea is if it’s targeted and blocked, you can stop alcohol abuse,” he explained in a Scripps news release. However, this research has so far only been conducted in mice. Experts are quick to point out that many findings seen in animals are not replicated in humans, and further study is needed. The new study was published recently in the journal Scientific Reports. Martin-Fardon’s team knew that the brain’s “KOP system” helps direct a range of brain responses including addiction, emotion, pain and reward-seeking. Alcohol intake can negatively affect KOP, as well. In the study, the Scripps team tested the… read on > read on >

Stem cells derived from a patient’s own fat can safely help improve sensation and movement after a spinal cord injury, a new, small study finds. Patients treated with these stem cells experienced increased sensation from pinpricks and light touches, increased muscle strength and better sphincter control, results show. “In spinal cord injury, even a mild improvement can make a significant difference in that patient’s quality of life,” said lead researcher Dr. Mohamad Bydon, a neurosurgeon with the Mayo Clinic. For the study, researchers collected a small amount of fat from the abdomen or thigh of 10 patients with traumatic spinal cord injuries. The patients all had been hurt in car crashes, falls and other traumatic accidents. Six had neck injuries and four had back injuries. Over the course of a month, researchers expanded stem cells derived from the fat until there were more than 100 million cells. They then injected the cells into the patient’s spine in the lower back. Seven of the 10 patients improved as a result of the injections, researchers said. These included two of three patients who started with no feeling or movement below the site of their spinal cord injury, results show. Only 5% of people with a complete spinal injury like that could expect to regain any feeling or movement, researchers noted. This improvement came with no serious side… read on > read on >

People taking weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy need to drop them in the days or weeks prior to surgery, a new study warns. Folks on one of these drugs — known as GLP-1 receptor agonists — have a 33% higher risk of developing pneumonia by breathing in their own vomit during surgery, researchers found. “Aspiration during or after endoscopy can be devastating,” said researcher Dr. Ali Rezaie, medical director of the GI Motility Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. “If significant, it can lead to respiratory failure, ICU admission and even death,” Rezaie said. “Even mild cases may require close monitoring, respiratory support and medications including antibiotics. It is important we take all possible precautions to prevent aspiration from occurring.” People are typically asked to fast prior to surgery because general anesthesia can cause nausea, and they might inhale and choke on their own vomit. Unfortunately, part of the way that GLP-1 receptor agonists help prompt weight loss is by slowing the digestion process, researchers said. That means it takes longer for food to pass through the stomach. These results jibe with guidance issued last year by the American Society of Anesthesiologists that calls for screening for weight-loss drug use before surgery, and informing patients of the risks involved. Further, another study published earlier this month in the journal JAMA Surgery found… read on > read on >

Folks suffering from dry eyes might have a problem with the naturally occurring bacteria found on the surface of their eyes, a new study suggests. There are key differences in the microbes found on dye eye patients compared to folks with normal eyes, researchers found. “Once we understand the eye microbiota properly, it will improve disease diagnosis at an early stage,” said lead researcher Alexandra Van Kley, a professor at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. Researchers found the specific bacteria species most prevalent in people with normal eyes were Streptococcus and Pedobacter. On the other hand, more Acinetobacter species were present in people with dry eye. “We think the metabolites produced by these bacteria are responsible for dry eye conditions,” researcher Pallavi Sharma, a graduate student in Van Kley’s lab, said in a university news release. “We are performing further research to understand the metabolic pathways associated with the Acinetobacter to better understand the disease.” For the study, researchers collected swab samples from the eyes of 30 volunteers, and then performed genetic analysis to determine the eye microbiome of each person. The researchers also believe that there’s a strong connection between the gut microbiome and the bacteria found in the eyes, Sharma said. “Any alteration in the gut microbiome affects other organs and can lead to disease,” Sharma said. “Therefore, we are… read on > read on >

Ever immersed yourself in a book and lost all sense of the time and place you’re currently in? That’s how reading can meld with mindfulness, one neuropsychologist explains. The experience can bring real mental health benefits, said Dr. Samantha Henry, an assistant professor of neurology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. “Reading is a quiet pursuit that can be a more adaptive coping strategy than some other hobbies we engage in,” she said in a Baylor news release. Henry said that there’s a difference between typical reading and mindful reading. Very often, folks are reading for a goal: To read through a document or book within a specific timeframe, with the conscious aim of acquiring valuable knowledge. That’s fine, but it’s different from mindful reading, which focuses only on the pleasure of reading itself, without a set goal, and remaining fully present to understand whatever it is you are reading. According to Henry, you can prepare for mindful reading by practicing mindful breathing, which is often taught in meditation classes. “We can think of mindful reading in the way we think of mindful breathing, which is just focusing on your breath,” she explained. “Normally when we breathe, we don’t think about it because it’s automatic. Traditional reading can be that way too; to get to the destination of finishing that book. Try to slow… read on > read on >