Health/Fitness « Weekly Gravy

TUESDAY, Oct. 17, 2023 (HealthDay News) – A proposed rule from federal regulators that would ban menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars has been sent to the White House Office of Management and Budget for final review. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration first announced the proposed rule in April. The agency said then that the rule had “the potential to significantly reduce disease and death,” reduce “youth experimentation and addiction” and increase the numbers of smokers who quit. “Once finalized, rules to end the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars rule will be the most significant actions that the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products has taken in its 14-year history. The American Lung Association [ALA] is eager for these lifesaving rules to be implemented and urges the White House to finalize these rules before the end of the year,” ALA President and CEO Harold Wimmer said in a statement. “The science and data are clear. Ending the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars will save lives. It will also help reduce the unjust disparities in tobacco use caused by the tobacco companies targeting certain communities with menthol cigarettes,” Wimmer added. While numbers of smokers have dropped, those who smoke menthols has increased, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The menthol flavor is appealing to new smokers, making cigarettes more… read on > read on >

A new trial demonstrates the power of the diabetes drug Mounjaro in fighting obesity, helping folks who used the medication lose about 60 pounds. “In this study, people who added tirzepatide [Mounjaro] to diet and exercise saw greater, longer-lasting weight reduction than those taking placebo,” Dr. Jeff Emmick, senior vice president of product development at drug maker Eli Lilly, said in a company news release. “While intensive lifestyle intervention is an important part of obesity management, these results underscore the difficulty some people face maintaining weight loss with diet and exercise alone.” While approved since May 2022 to treat diabetes, Mounjaro has been used “off-label” to treat obesity. Tirzepatide works by targeting two hormones that regulate appetite and a feeling of fullness. The difference between Mounjaro and other popular weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy is that Mounjaro targets two hormones while the others target one. The Mounjaro study included 800 overweight and obese people who also had a weight-related health complication but did not have diabetes. Study participants weighed about 241 pounds to start and had a body-mass index of approximately 38. More than 200 participants left trial after three months of intensive diet and exercise for varying reasons, including failure to lose weight. Meanwhile, researchers randomized the other 600 to receive tirzepatide or a placebo via weekly injections for about 16 months. Nearly… read on > read on >

New research uncovers troubling trends for lung cancer in young and middle-aged women. Cancer incidence in young women is higher than it is in men, a continuing trend, and now that extends to women over age 50, reversing historical patterns. “These findings are very concerning,” said study lead author Dr. Ahmedin Jemal, senior vice president of surveillance and health equity science at the American Cancer Society. “We don’t know why lung cancer incidence rates among younger and middle-aged individuals are now higher in women than men, reversing the historical pattern,” Jemal noted in a cancer society news release. “Cigarette smoking prevalence, the major risk factor for lung cancer in the United States, is not higher in younger women than younger men, as are other established risk factors such as occupational exposures.” For the study, the researchers analyzed population-based data on lung and bronchus cancers diagnosed from 2000 to 2019 from the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) program. This program covers nearly 50% of the U.S. population. The investigators found declines in lung cancer incidence rates between 2000-2004 and 2015-2019 were greater in men than women, leading to higher incidence in women aged 35 to 54. In people aged 50 to 54, the rate per 100,000 person-years decreased by 44% in men compared to 20% in women. (Person years is a measurement… read on > read on >

After a massive five-year effort, researchers have unveiled an “atlas” that gives an unprecedented look at the intricacies of the human brain. The atlas, which will be available to researchers everywhere, can be seen as similar to the atlases we all know: a book of maps. But this one catalogues human brain cells and their striking diversity and complexity. Going forward, the atlas will help other researchers “navigate” the brain, said Bing Ren, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, who was part of the research effort. The atlas encompasses more than 3,000 types of brain cells, and gives insight into how they vary from one person to another, how they differ from non-human primates’ brain cells, how particular brain cell types are related to specific diseases, and more. The ultimate goal, Ren and other experts said, is to better understand the workings of the human brain — and what goes wrong in the range of neurological and psychiatric conditions that plague humans, from Alzheimer’s to depression to schizophrenia. The publication of the brain cell atlas, Ren said, “is just the beginning.” The work is detailed in a collection of 21 papers being published Oct. 13 in the journals Science, Science Advances and Science Translational Medicine. In all, the project involved hundreds of scientists from different countries, brought together under the U.S. National… read on > read on >

Severe inflammation very early in childhood might hamper the development of key brain cells, perhaps setting the stage for conditions such as autism or schizophrenia, new research suggests. The origins of many neurodevelopment disorders remain mysterious. But the new study of postmortem brain tissue from children who died between the ages 1 and 5 shows how inflammation affects brain cells. In their research, the team from the University of Maryland School of Medicine targeted a portion of the brain known as the cerebellum, using a cutting-edge technology called single nucleus RNA sequencing. “We looked at the cerebellum because it is one of the first brain regions to begin developing and one of the last to reach its maturity, but it remains understudied,” said study co-leader Seth Ament, an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Maryland. The cerebellum is key to psychiatric research because it’s responsible for higher cognitive functions such as those employed in language, social interactions and the regulation of emotion. Prior studies have shown that infants with abnormalities in their cerebellum often develop neurodevelopment disorders. In animal research, exposing the brain to inflammation before birth also seems to raise the odds for those types of conditions. In their research, published Oct. 12 in Science Translational Medicine, Ament and co-lead author Margaret McCarthy noticed consistent genetic patterns in the cerebella of deceased… read on > read on >

Adult acne can significantly change how women are perceived in social settings, a new study finds. And where the acne is located on the face changes the onlooker’s perception. Researchers tracked eye movements of 245 study participants looking at pictures of women with clear skin or acne on different parts of their faces. Faces with acne were perceived as significantly less attractive, less trustworthy, less successful, less confident, less happy and less dominant. Acne that was primarily located in the U-zone, which is around the jawline, mouth and chin, received the lowest scores for attractiveness and was considered the most visually disturbing. “This study concerns simple questions: Who is more burdened by the disease? Which lesions need to go first? Whom should I treat more aggressively?” said lead author Dr. Marek Jankowski, an assistant professor of dermatology at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland. “What they’re really trying to get at is where on the face acne is going to have the most impact on how someone perceives the acne, either self-perception or another person looking at the face,” added Dr. Christopher Bunick, an associate professor of dermatology at Yale School of Medicine. “The implication they’re trying to make is that, if someone has more kind of mid-facial acne then maybe that’s a little bit closer to the healthy skin and a little less… read on > read on >

A new guideline from four leading medical organizations should help doctors determine if someone is brain dead. “Until now, there have been two separate guidelines for determining brain death, one for adults and one for children,” said author Dr. Matthew Kirschen, a critical care physician at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “This update integrates guidance for adults and children into a single guideline, providing clinicians with a comprehensive and practical way to evaluate someone who has sustained a catastrophic brain injury to determine if they meet the criteria for brain death,” Kirschen said in a news release from the American Academy of Neurology (AAN). The guidance was jointly crafted by the AAN, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the Child Neurology Society (CNS) and the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM). With brain death, there is a complete and permanent stopping of brain function after a catastrophic brain injury. “Brain death means that clinicians cannot observe or elicit any clinical signs of brain function,” said author Dr. David Greer, of Boston University School of Medicine. “Brain death is different from comatose and vegetative states. People do not recover from brain death. Brain death is legal death.” The guidelines offer professionals a standardized procedure for evaluating people for any clinical functioning of their brain and brainstem. Current policies vary among U.S. hospitals and around the world,… read on > read on >

Renting a home, rather than owning it outright, may speed up the body’s aging process, a new study suggests. Researchers found that when compared with people who owned their home outright (no mortgage), those who rented showed signs of faster “biological aging” — which meant their body cells and tissues were a bit “older.” On average, the impact was equivalent to just a small fraction of a year of aging. Even so, the study found, that was greater than the effects of being unemployed or being a former smoker. In addition, the link was specifically seen among people who rented privately — not those in public housing. While that might seem puzzling, the researchers said it makes sense: At least in the United Kingdom, where the study was conducted, “social” housing is often better maintained, more affordable and more stable than private rentals. “We believe that the typically poorer physical conditions in privately rented housing is likely one factor,” said lead researcher Amy Clair, of the University of Adelaide, in Australia, and the University of Essex in the United Kingdom. Beyond that, she said, private renters face more insecurities around their housing. And based on past research, Clair added, that kind of stress could speed biological aging. Biological aging is determined by certain physiological markers of the rate at which the body’s cells and tissues… read on > read on >

A medication already approved for excessive daytime sleepiness may help ease attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms in adults who aren’t getting relief from available treatments, according to a small pilot study. Solriamfetol is a nonstimulant drug that is approved for sleepiness caused by narcolepsy (sudden sleep attacks) and obstructive sleep apnea (marked by breathing lapses during sleep). “The pilot study is very promising, but more research is needed before this medication can be recommended or approved for adults with ADHD,” said study author Dr. Craig Surman. He is the director of the clinical and research program for adult ADHD at Massachusetts General Hospital and an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, in Boston. For the study, 60 adults with ADHD took 75 or 150 milligrams of solriamfetol or a placebo for six weeks. They were interviewed about ADHD symptoms throughout the study and filled out self-reports. By the end of the study, more folks taking solriamfetol showed improvements in ADHD symptoms than those who took the placebo. The drug’s makers, Jazz Pharmaceuticals and Axsome Therapeutics, funded the study. In the United States, as many as 10 million adults have ADHD. They may have difficulty paying attention, impulsiveness and trouble with executive functions such as analyzing, organizing and planning — problems that can hinder success at school, work or in personal relationships, according to Children… read on > read on >

As many doctors and patients hail the advent of weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy as the perfect fix for obesity, some experts are urging caution. The drugs are not well-tolerated by everyone struggling with obesity. For some folks, the weight piles back on as soon as the medication stops. There are also financial and ethical considerations, according to a commentary published online recently in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. More research is needed to better understand the medications, said endocrinologist Dr. Michael Schwartz from the University of Washington School of Medicine, in Seattle. Many experts seem to be saying “OK, we’ve fixed this problem. We’re done,” said Schwartz, co-director of the school’s Diabetes Institute and a co-author of the commentary. “We shouldn’t be complacent, and assume that these drugs are the answer to these chronic conditions,” Schwartz said in a university news release. “We are giving drugs where we don’t understand totally how they work.” Wegovy (semaglutide) is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for treatment of obesity, a problem affecting about 42% of the U.S. population. Ozempic (semaglutide) and Mounjaro (tirzepatide) are approved for type 2 diabetes, but are also prescribed for weight loss. The medications mimic the action of naturally produced hormones, including glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1). Patients feel full when eating less because of the increase in insulin, appetite suppression… read on > read on >