Health/Fitness « Weekly Gravy

Fasting every other day can prompt more weight loss than simply cutting calories, a new clinical trial shows. People who undertook 4:3 intermittent fasting lost just under 8% of their body weight within a year, compared to a 5% loss among people who cut their daily calories by about a third, researchers reported March 31 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. In 4:3 intermittent fasting, people restrict their calorie intake by 80% three days a week, alternating between days with no dietary restrictions at all. “Long-term adherence to daily calorie restriction is challenging for many people,” wrote the research team co-led by Danielle Ostendorf, an assistant professor of kinesiology, recreation and sport studies at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. “Our results suggest that 4:3 [intermittent] is an alternative dietary weight loss strategy that may produce modestly superior weight loss compared with [daily calorie restriction] at 12 months, when provided in the context of a high-intensity, comprehensive behavioral weight loss program,” the team concluded. For this trial, researchers assigned 84 overweight and obese people to this type of fasting, and another 81 folks to cut their calories by 34%. Both groups were asked to get in 300 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise a week, double the amount recommended by U.S. physical activity guidelines. They also received support from a weight-loss program led by a registered dietitian. After… read on > read on >

As a measles outbreak spreads across the United States, doctors are now seeing a new and unexpected danger: Children getting sick from taking too much vitamin A. At Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, Texas, several unvaccinated children showed signs of liver problems after taking large amounts of vitamin A, according to Dr. Lara Johnson, the hospital’s chief medical officer. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has promoted vitamin A during the outbreak, even suggesting it might help prevent measles. But doctors say this isn’t true. “If people have the mistaken impression that you have an either-or choice of MMR vaccine or vitamin A, you’re going to get a lot of kids unnecessarily infected with measles. That’s a problem, especially during an epidemic,” Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told CNN. “And second, you have this unregulated medicine in terms of doses being given and potential toxicities.” The measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is the only proven way to prevent measles. It is 97% effective after two doses. Kennedy has said he encourages vaccines, but considers vaccination a personal choice. Vitamin A can be helpful for people with measles when given in the right dose by a doctor.… read on > read on >

Splenda doesn’t directly add calories to your diet, but the sweetener still might lead people to pack on pounds, a new study says. The sugar substitute might spur on a person’s appetite and feelings of hunger, potentially leading them to overeat, according to results published March 26 in the journal Nature Metabolism. Splenda’s main ingredient, sucralose, appears to confuse the brain by providing a sweet taste without also delivering the calories one would expect, senior investigator Dr. Kathleen Page, director of the University of Southern California Diabetes and Obesity Research Center, said in a news release. “If your body is expecting a calorie because of the sweetness, but doesn’t get the calorie it’s expecting, that could change the way the brain is primed to crave those substances over time,” she said. About 40% of Americans regularly consume sugar substitutes, usually as a way to reduce their sugar intake, researchers said in background notes. “But are these substances actually helpful for regulating body weight?” Page asked. “What happens in the body and brain when we consume them, and do the effects differ from one person to the next?” To explore this further, researchers tested how 75 people responded after consuming water, a drink sweetened with sucralose or a drink sweetened with regular sugar. The team collected MRI brain scans, blood samples and hunger ratings from participants… read on > read on >

Tobacco control measures like anti-smoking campaigns and cigarette taxes have prevented nearly 4 million lung cancer deaths during the past five decades, a new American Cancer Society study estimates. More than 3.8 million lung cancer deaths were averted due to substantial reductions in smoking, gaining a little more than 76 million years of extra life among Americans, researchers say in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. “The substantial estimated numbers of averted lung cancer deaths and person-years of life gained highlight the remarkable effect of progress against smoking on reducing premature mortality from lung cancer,” lead investigator Dr. Farhad Islami, the ACS’ senior scientific director for cancer disparity research, said in a news release. In fact, the number of averted lung cancer deaths accounts for roughly one-half of all cancer deaths that were prevented in recent decades, researchers said. “However,” Islami added, “Despite these findings, lung cancer is still the leading cause of cancer death in the United States, and smoking-attributable morbidity and mortality from other cancers or diseases remain high.” For the study, researchers analyzed federal health data from 1970 through 2022, estimating the expected number of cancer deaths for each year and comparing them to the deaths that actually occurred. In all, more than 2.2 million expected lung cancer deaths in men and 1.6 million in women were averted during the five-decade period.… read on > read on >

Novo Nordisk, a Danish pharmaceutical company, has signed a major deal worth up to $2 billion for the rights to a new obesity and diabetes drug, the company announced March 24. The drug, called UBT251, is being developed by United Bio-Technology (Hengqin) Co., a Chinese pharmaceutical company. Novo Nordisk will pay $200 million up front, with up to $1.8 billion in additional payments down the line, The Wall Street Journal reported. The company also agreed to pay royalties based on future sales. Novo Nordisk now holds the exclusive rights to develop, manufacture and sell the drug worldwide, except in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. UBT251 is different from Novo Nordisk’s current drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. The drug combines GLP-1 and GIP, which lower appetite and blood sugar, with glucagon, which helps prevent dangerously low blood sugar levels. “The addition of a candidate targeting glucagon, as well as GLP-1 and GIP, will add important optionality to our clinical pipeline, as we look to develop a broad portfolio of differentiated treatment options that cater to the diverse needs of people living with these highly prevalent diseases,” Martin Holst Lange, executive vice president for development at Novo Nordisk, told The Wall Street Journal. UBT251 is already approved for early clinical trials in China for adults with type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, chronic kidney disease… read on > read on >

Doctors should prescribe triptans for migraine patients who aren’t receiving relief from over-the-counter (OTC) pain relievers, according to a new clinical guideline from the American College of Physicians. The recommendation is based on an evidence review showing that adding a triptan to either a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) or acetaminophen worked better to quell migraine pain and headache than OTC products alone, researchers reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine. This combination therapy “resulted in a higher likelihood of sustained pain relief up to 48 hours after initial treatment and lower likelihood of using rescue medication at 24 hours,” compared with using a triptan alone, said the research team led by Dr. Carolyn Crandall, an internist with the UCLA School of Medicine. “In addition, combination therapy of a triptan and an NSAID probably results in a higher likelihood of achieving pain relief at 2 hours and sustained pain freedom at 48 hours,” researchers added. Triptan drugs treat migraines by changing the way blood circulates in the brain, and the way the brain processes pain signals, according to the Cleveland Clinic. “Using a triptan alone has historically been the first-line treatment of episodic migraine,” reads a summary for patients provided by the ACP. Episodic migraine occurs when a person has less than 15 headache days a month. By contrast, chronic migraine occurs when an individual has… read on > read on >

Removing the tonsils and adenoids can improve the sleep of kids with mild breathing problems that disturb their slumber, a new clinical trial reports. Children with sleep problems needed to see a doctor 32% less often and had a 48% reduction in medication use after surgical removal of their tonsils and adenoids (adenotonsillectomy), researchers reported in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. The results mean that “for every 100 children, 125 encounters and 253 prescriptions can be avoided in the first year following surgery,” senior researcher Dr. Susan Redline, a professor of sleep medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said in a news release. As many as 17% of kids in the U.S. experience sleep-disordered breathing, in which snoring or full-blown sleep apnea causes them to wake repeatedly in the night, according to information cited in the news release. Taking out enlarged tonsils is standard treatment for moderate to severe cases, but the practice hadn’t been tested in kids with mild sleep-disturbed breathing. For this study, researchers analyzed data from a clinical trial involving 459 children with mild sleep-disordered breathing who were followed for a year. The kids were 3 to 12 and being treated at seven academic sleep centers across the U.S. During the trial, half the children had their tonsils and adenoids removed while the other half received supportive care without surgery that included education… read on > read on >

TikTok’s most popular videos on ADHD are as likely to misinform viewers as they are to provide helpful hints, a new study says. More than half the claims made in the 100 most-viewed TikTok videos about attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are not accurate, researchers reported in the journal PLOS One. Unfortunately, college students are more likely to rate videos containing bad information as accurate and recommend them to others, results show. “TikTok can be an incredible tool for raising awareness and reducing stigma, but it also has a downside,” lead researcher Vasileia Karasavva, a doctoral student in clinical psychology at the University of British Columbia, said in a news release. “Anecdotes and personal experiences are powerful, but when they lack context, they can lead to misunderstandings about ADHD and mental health in general,” Karasavva added. For the study, researchers identified the 100 most popular TikTok videos with the #ADHD hashtag, and had two clinical psychologists who are ADHD experts review the video’s claims. “The creators of the top 100 #ADHD TikTok videos regularly contributed such content; almost 80% had posted multiple videos discussing ADHD,” researchers wrote in their paper. The psychologists judged that only about 49% of the claims made in the TikTok videos were accurate based on diagnostic guidelines for ADHD, the study says. In their next step, researchers surveyed nearly 850 college undergrads about… read on > read on >

Where a person lives can influence their recovery from a traumatic brain injury, a new study says. Based on their neighborhood’s characteristics, people are less likely to receive home rehab visits or go to a rehab clinic following a concussion or other traumatic brain injury (TBI), researchers report in the March/April issue of the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation. The results indicate a “need to improve access to rehabilitation services for persons with TBI living in communities with greater social needs,” concluded the research team led by Monique Pappadis, vice chair of population health and health disparities with the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. For the study, researchers analyzed data on more than 19,000 Medicare patients in Texas treated for a traumatic brain injury between 2014 and 2018. About 48% of the patients received home health rehabilitation services, and another 14% attended rehab at a clinic. The rest received no rehab at all. Results showed that: Patients in higher-income areas or areas with higher unemployment rates were less likely to receive home health visits. Rural patients and those in areas with lower insurance coverage were less likely to receive rehab at a clinic. Patients who lived near grocery stores were more likely to have home health visits. People in areas with severe housing problems were more likely to have outpatient visits. Overall, some… read on > read on >

Lower doses of a common antibiotic can curb hair loss caused by a rare skin condition, a new study says. The antibiotic doxycycline is commonly used to treat lymphocytic scarring alopecia, a condition in which the body’s immune cells target hair follicles, researchers said. But the relatively high doses of doxycycline used to prevent hair loss and scarring aren’t necessary, according to findings published March 18 in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. That means these patients can receive effective treatment without the nausea, vomiting and rashes that can accompany high doses of doxycycline, researchers said. “Our findings suggest that physicians can prescribe lower doses of doxycycline to patients struggling with lymphocytic scarring alopecia without compromising the efficacy and anti-inflammatory benefit of the therapy,” co-lead researcher Carli Needle, a medical student at NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City, said in a news release. For the study, researchers analyzed medical data for more than 240 men and women treated for lymphocytic scarring alopecia between 2009 and 2023. About 27% of patients had been prescribed low doses of doxycycline, and 73% the traditional high doses, researchers said. Results showed that lower doxycycline doses of around 20 milligrams twice daily were equally as effective as higher doses of up to 100 milligrams twice daily. Specifically, there was no significant difference in scalp inflammation,… read on > read on >