Health/Fitness « Weekly Gravy

Nearly 1 in 3 children live with a chronic condition that could significantly affect their health for the rest of their lives, a new study says. Chronic illnesses affected more than 30% of children ages 5 to 17 by 2018, up from around 23% in 1999, researchers report in the journal Academic Pediatrics. This adds up to about 130,000 more children each year being diagnosed with a chronic illness. This increase has been driven by diagnoses of ADHD/ADD, autism, asthma, prediabetes and mood disorders like depression or anxiety, lead researcher Lauren Wisk, an assistant professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, said in a news release. “The prevalence of childhood conditions is currently higher than previous estimates suggest,” she said. “Youth who are subject to socioeconomic vulnerability such as having less education, lower income, are on public insurance, or unemployed are all more likely to live with a chronic condition than youth with socioeconomic advantages.” For the study, researchers analyzed data on more than 236,000 people between 5 and 25 years of age who participated in the National Health Interview Survey between 1999 and 2018. The results also showed that chronic illness increased among 18- to 25-year-olds, rising from about 19% to 29% between 1999 and 2018 — an additional 80,000 young adults per year. Nearly all these conditions are… read on > read on >

Concussion damage could linger in an athlete’s brain for at least a year, long after they’ve rejoined their sport, a new study says. Concussed college athletes had brain changes that remained visible in brain scans up to a year after they’d been cleared to return to play, researchers reported in a study published March 12 in the journal Neurology. “The presence of significant, long-lasting brain changes after injury reinforces concerns about the consequences of repeated concussions, and to what extent these effects accumulate over time,” lead researcher Nathan Churchill, a postdoctoral fellow in neuroscience research with St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, Canada, said in a news release. For the study, researchers examined 187 college athletes, of whom 25 had suffered a concussion during regular season play in basketball, football, hockey, lacrosse, rugby, soccer and volleyball. The concussed athletes were also compared to 27 athletes, matched for factors like sex and sport, who hadn’t suffered a concussion. Athletes had MRI scans taken before their seasons began, as well as five days, one to three months, and a year after returning to play following a concussion. Concussed players still showed signs of brain injury in MRI scans taken an average five days after concussion, when they’d been cleared to resume play, results show. Those signs of brain injury lasted for up to one year later, researchers noted.… read on > read on >

Purposeful splishing and splashing can help you trim your waist size and drop excess pounds, a new evidence review has concluded. Water aerobics led to about 6 pounds of weight loss and more than an inch off the waists of overweight and obese people, researchers reported in the journal BMJ Open. “Specifically, water aerobics interventions lasting over 10 weeks significantly reduced body weight and waist circumference, with a more pronounced effect observed in females,” concluded the research team led by senior investigator Jong-Chul Park with Pukyong National University in Busan, South Korea. For the evidence review, researchers pooled data from 10 previous clinical trials involving 286 participants. Water aerobics is particularly good for people with excess weight, as the buoyancy of water helps reduce joint injuries that might occur during land-based exercise, researchers said in background notes. The water exercises in these trials included aerobics, Zumba dance, yoga and jogging, six to 12 weeks. People exercised mostly two to three times a week, with most sessions lasting an hour. While water aerobics did help people drop pounds and cut waist size, it wasn’t associated with a reduction in Body Mass Index (BMI) or percentage of body fat, researchers noted. (BMI is an estimate of body fat based on height and weight.) The studies included few men, making it hard to judge water aerobics’ effectiveness among… read on > read on >

Knee or hip replacement is a major surgery, and many people must lean hard on their spouses to care for them during weeks to months of recuperation. But all that hassle is absolutely worthwhile for the one providing care for their temporarily disabled partner, a new study suggests. Spouses experience significant improvements in their quality of life following their partner’s knee or hip replacement procedure, researchers reported at a meeting of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons this week in San Diego. “It is well studied that the patient’s quality of life improves following surgery, but now we know it will also improve for spouses,” lead researcher Dr. Nicolas Jozefowski, a recent graduate of Loyola University School of Medicine in Chicago, said in a news release. “Most spouses assume a caregiving role when their partner has joint replacement surgery and they are sacrificing a bit in terms of their quality of life, but we can show it will improve with these data,” Jozefowski added. “Patients can have less pain, and couples can do more things together.” Joint replacement surgery has become more common as the U.S. population grows and ages, researchers said in background notes. About 544,000 total hip replacements and 790,000 total knee replacements take place each year. In fact, the surgery has become so rote that it’s now performed mostly on an outpatient… read on > read on >

Love pickleball, but facing a knee or hip replacement? Odds are you’ll return to the court in no time, a new study suggests. More than 7 of 10 regular pickleball players pick up their paddle promptly following joint replacement surgery. What’s more, three-quarters say they’re playing as well as before — or even better. “The majority of players returned to play at a similar skill level, duration and frequency, with the majority returning to play by 6 months postoperatively,” the research team led by Dr. Adam Taylor, an assistant professor of clinical orthopedic surgery at the University of California-Davis, concluded. Racquet sports are very popular in the U.S., with pickleball alone seeing a 159% increase in participation since 2019, researchers said in background notes. But some seniors facing a knee or hip replacement have concerns that their new artificial joint might affect their play or keep them off the court altogether. For the new study, researchers surveyed nearly 1,300 patients who’d received at least one joint replacement between 2014 and 2023. The average age of study participants was 67. About 13% had played a racquet sport recently, within two years of their surgery, and another 25% had last picked up a paddle or racquet more than two years before their joint replacement. Results showed that: About 72% of recent players got back on the court… read on > read on >

An awkward fall while running, skiing or playing sports can cause knee injuries that sideline players and increase their risk of future arthritis. But most of the time, there’s nothing wrong with their noses, and that might prove the key to repairing their knees and getting them back on their feet, a new study suggests. Replacement cartilage engineered from the nasal septum — the cartilage wall that separates the left and right airways in your nose — can be used to repair even the most complex knee injuries, researchers report in the journal Science Translational Medicine. “Nasal septum cartilage cells have particular characteristics that are ideally suited to cartilage regeneration,” senior researcher Ivan Martin said in a news release. He’s head of biomedicine with the University of Basel in Switzerland. For example, it has been shown that these cells can counteract inflammation in joints, researchers said. Torn cartilage in the knee can create long-term problems for active people, because this tissue does not heal itself. Cartilage forms a buffer between bones, and a loss of cartilage will eventually lead to arthritis. The new knee repair process involves extracting cells from a tiny piece of a patient’s nasal septum, and then growing the cells in a lab on a scaffold made of soft fibers, researchers explained in background notes. The newly grown cartilage is then cut… read on > read on >

Sleep is a critical component for concussion recovery among kids, a new study reports. Limiting naps during the day and getting about seven hours of sleep each night in the first week after a concussion appears to speed up recuperation, researchers reported in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Getting seven hours of sleep each night doubled a child’s chances of recovering quickly during the first week after a concussion, researchers also found. On the other hand, every hour spent napping during the daytime decreased by 12% the likelihood their concussion symptoms would diminish within the first week, results show. “Youth who sleep more during the day or who sleep too much or too little each day may be at risk for slower concussion symptom resolution,” said lead researcher Jingzhen Ginger Yang, principal investigator with the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Center for Injury Research and Policy in Columbus, Ohio. “Good sleep hygiene, including limiting daytime sleep/naps and instead focusing on getting enough sleep at night, could help speed concussion recovery,” she added in a news release. About 2 million kids younger than 18 suffer a concussion each year in the U.S., researchers said in background notes. It’s common for kids recuperating from a concussion to have bad sleep, with up to 34% reporting excessive sleep, loss of sleep or trouble falling asleep, researchers added. For the study,… read on > read on >

A simple rule change for youth soccer dramatically reduced concussion risk among athletes, a new study says. Banning or limiting headers — plays where the head is used to pass or shoot the ball — is linked to a nearly 26% reduction in soccer-related concussions treated in emergency rooms, researchers are scheduled to report at a meeting of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons in San Diego this week. “Although not all concussions result from headers, a measurable percentage still do, and it is encouraging to observe a trend indicating a decline in concussion rates,” senior researcher Dr. Anikar Chhabra, director of sports medicine at Mayo Clinic Arizona, said in a news release. About 3.9 million children play organized soccer in the U.S. each year, making it one of the most popular youth sports in America. Headers have long been associated with concussion risk, so in 2016, the U.S. Soccer Federation banned headers in athletes younger than 10 and limited the time players aged 11 to 13 could practice headers to a half-hour per week, researchers said in background notes. “We wanted to assess the impact of this policy on our patients,” researcher Dr. Eugenia Lin, an orthopedic surgery resident at Mayo Clinic Arizona, said in a news release. “While policies are important, we don’t always have the data to determine the effectiveness.” For the… read on > read on >

Firefighters might face a higher risk of brain cancers caused by exposure to chemicals in fire extinguishers, a new small-scale study says. Veteran firefighters appear to have a higher risk of brain tumors called gliomas, which can be caused by gene mutations linked to flame retardant chemicals called haloalkanes, researchers reported in a study published March 10 in the journal Cancer. Previous studies have highlighted a mutational pattern, or “signature” in gliomas linked to haloalkane exposure, researchers said. “In these data, we confirm detection of this signature in a cohort of individuals likely highly exposed to haloalkanes, i.e., long-term firefighters,” a team led by senior researcher Dr. Elizabeth Claus, director of medical research at the Yale University School of Public Health, wrote. Gliomas are the most common type of brain cancer, researchers said in background notes. About one-third of all brain tumors are gliomas, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. For the study, researchers found 17 firefighters with gliomas participating in a University of California-San Francisco study of adults with this form of brain tumor. The firefighters had been on the job for an average of 22 years. They compared the tumors of the firefighters with 18 other participants in the brain tumor study who worked in other fields. “As firefighters have exposure to such chemical agents, we examined mutational signatures in glioma brain tumors diagnosed… read on > read on >

A mother’s diet during pregnancy can influence her child’s risk of ADHD and autism, a new study says. In particular, the unhealthy hallmarks of a typical Western diet appeared to increase a child’s risk of developmental disorders, researchers reported in the journal Nature Metabolism. “The greater a woman’s adherence to a Western diet in pregnancy – high in fat, sugar, and refined products while low in fish, vegetables, and fruit — the greater the risk appears to be for her child developing ADHD or autism,” lead researcher Dr. David Horner of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark said in a news release. Even slight moves toward a more Western diet were linked to a 66% increased risk of ADHD and a 122% increased risk of autism, researchers found. But this also means that even small dietary adjustments away from a Western pattern of eating could potentially reduce a child’s risk of developmental disorders, researchers added. For this study, researchers started by identifying more than 500 Norwegian 10-year-olds diagnosed with a developmental disorder, and then analyzed what their moms ate during pregnancy. In that group, they found significant associations between an expecting mother’s diet and later ADHD and autism diagnoses among their children. A Western dietary pattern was tied to a 53% increased risk of any developmental disorder, results showed. The team then tested those associations… read on > read on >