Health/Fitness « Weekly Gravy

People who regularly ride bikes throughout their life are less likely to develop knee arthritis, a new study suggests. Bicyclists are 17% less likely to have knee pain and 21% less likely to have symptoms of knee arthritis, compared to people who’ve never biked, researchers discovered. It also appears that people who’ve biked all their lives have a lower risk of knee arthritis than people who’ve only pedaled at one point or another, results show. “Each increase in the number of age periods engaged in bicycling resulted in lower likelihood of reporting knee pain” and knee arthritis detected by both symptoms and X-rays, said lead researcher Dr. Grace Lo, an associate professor of medicine in allergy, immunology and rheumatology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Doctors often encourage regular physical activity to prevent knee arthritis, but some exercises tend to be more effective than others. For this study, researchers analyzed data from more than 2,600 people ages 45 to 79 participating in a study of knee arthritis. About half of the people said they had a consistent history of biking. The participants were asked about their bicycling activities during four age periods of their lives — 12 to 18, 19 to 34, 35 to 49 and 50 or older. These activities could include either outdoor biking or riding an indoor stationary cycle. The new… read on > read on >

Semaglutide — the active ingredient in the blockbuster weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy — can produce long-term weight and heart health benefits, a pair of new studies show. Researchers found that overweight and obese adults lost an average 10% of their body weight and nearly three inches off their waistline after taking semaglutide for four years. Further, more than half of adults taking semaglutide moved down at least one BMI category after two years, compared to 16% of those who received a placebo, results show. And 12% reached a healthy BMI of 25 or less, compared with 1% in the placebo group. Finally, the studies showed that semaglutide contributes to heart health, regardless of how much weight a person lost while on the drug. “This degree of weight loss in such a large and diverse population suggests that it may be possible to impact the public health burden of multiple obesity-related illnesses,” said lead researcher Dr. Donna Ryan, associate executive director for clinical research with the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in New Orleans. Ryan led the first clinical trial, which focused on the long-term weight effects of the drug. A second trial evaluated its heart health benefits. Both studies are based on data gathered from the largest and longest clinical trial of semaglutide, which tracked more than 17,600 overweight or obese adults without diabetes from… read on > read on >

People with heart failure are often prescribed what are known as loop diuretic medications to help reduce the fluid buildup that’s a hallmark of the disease. Now, research suggests that taking the blockbuster weight loss drug Wegovy (semaglutide) can help patients reduce their need for diuretics. After a year taking Wegovy, “there was evidence of a significant reduction in average loop diuretic dose, a lower likelihood of diuretic treatment escalation, and a greater likelihood of diuretic treatment de-escalation with semaglutide versus placebo,” said study lead author Dr. Kavita Sharma, associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. Her team described its findings Monday in Lisbon, Portugal, at Heart Failure 2024, a meeting of the European Society of Cardiology. The type of heart failure the Hopkins’ study focused on was “heart failure with preserved ejection fraction” (HFePF). In this common form of the disease, the “heart pumps normally but is too stiff to fill properly, rendering the heart unable to support the body’s need for oxygen-rich blood,” according to a meeting news release. A total of 1,145 patients with HFePF were enrolled in the international trial. Patients were obese (body mass index, BMI, at or above 30) and averaged 70 years of age; half were men and half were women. At the start, 220 patients were not receiving diuretics, 223 were… read on > read on >

Yoga can help improve the long-term health of people with heart failure, a new study has found. “Patients who practiced yoga on top of taking their medications felt better, were able to do more, and had stronger hearts than those who only took drugs for their heart failure,” lead researcher Dr. Ajit Singh of the Indian Council of Medical Research and Manipal Academy of Higher Education in India, said in a news release. Heart failure can have devastating effects on a person’s quality of life, leaving patients tired, breathless and unable to participate in their usual activities, researchers said. The study included 85 patients between 30 and 70 years of age in treatment for heart failure at Kasturba Hospital in Manipal, India. They all had undergone a heart procedure within the past year, and were taking heart medications. Researchers chose 40 people to participate in yoga, and 45 patients to just take their medicine as a control group. Over a week’s time, people in the yoga group were taught a yoga practice that focuses on breathing, meditation and relaxation. They then were advised to continue yoga on their own at home, in 50-minute sessions once a week. Researchers checked the heart structure and function of all participants at the beginning of the trial, six months in and at one year. The team measured the heart’s… read on > read on >

About 1 in 8 U.S. adults (12%) have tried a weight-loss drug like Wegovy, Ozempic, Zepbound or Mounjaro, a new KFF Health Tracking Poll says. About 6% are taking one right now, the poll found. Most patients say they use the drugs (61%) to treat a chronic condition like diabetes or heart disease, which can make it easier to obtain a prescription, the report says. More than 2 in 5 using the drugs are diabetics (43%), KFF found. This makes sense, given that the class of medications — GLP-1 agonists — was first developed as a treatment for type 2 diabetes. Further, about 1 in 4 people using the drugs (26%) have heart disease. In March, Wegovy became the first weight loss medication to receive approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a means of reducing risk of heart attack and stroke. Only about 22% are taking the drugs because a doctor diagnosed them as overweight or obese, but nearly 38% take the drugs solely to lose weight, the findings show. These drugs can be costly, with list prices topping $1,000 for a month’s supply before insurance coverage, rebates and discount coupons, KFF said. Insurance coverage for the drugs seems to make little difference in how patients perceive their affordability. About half of people (54%) who report having ever taken the drugs… read on > read on >

Robot-assisted total knee replacements tend to have better outcomes on average, a new study reports. Unfortunately, there’s a downside – having a surgical robot assist a human surgeon can make the procedure much more costly. Patients who had a robot-assisted knee replacement stayed in the hospital nearly a half-day less, and were significantly less likely to develop complications like infections, excessive blood loss, and fractures, dislocations or mechanical complications of their prosthetic, researchers report. However, robotic knee replacements cost an average $2,400 more than the conventional procedure, researchers found. Researchers said they hope the study will help doctors and patients make educated decisions regarding the best option for knee surgery. “As the population continues to age, there will be a greater demand for safe and effective total knee replacement surgery, also known as total knee arthroscopy (TKA),” lead researcher Dr. Senthil Sambandam, an assistant professor of orthopedic surgery at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said in a news release. In knee replacement procedures, surgeons cut away bone damaged by arthritis and replace it with metal and plastic parts. Surgeons perform most knee replacements by hand, judging how much bone to remove based on training and expertise. However, a growing number of these procedures are performed using surgical robots that rely on imaging scans or anatomical landmarks to determine where to cut. Using a robot… read on > read on >

Antibiotic-resistant meningitis or severe, long-lasting joint infections: That’s what three U.S. “medical tourists” brought home after seeking out unapproved stem cell treatments in Mexico, according to a new report. The germ involved in all three cases was Mycobacterium abscessus, explained a team led by Dr. Minh-Vu Nguyen, an infectious disease specialist at National Jewish Health in Denver. “Stem cell treatments have been linked to bacterial infections, and procedure-related infection risks associated with medical tourism are known,” Nguyen and colleagues warned in their report. All three patients contracted their infections in late 2022 or early 2023, and “as of March 28, 2024, treatment is ongoing for all three,” according to the report. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, M. abscessus “is part of a group of environmental mycobacteria and is found in water, soil, and dust. It has been known to contaminate medications and products, including medical devices.” The bacterium typically infects soft tissue under the skin, but can also trigger serious lung infections, as well. It’s very difficult to transmit M. abscessus person-to-person, but “people with open wounds or who receive injections without appropriate skin disinfection may be at risk for infection by M. abscessus,” the CDC explained. “Infection with this bacterium usually does not improve with the usual antibiotics used to treat skin infections,” it noted. The cases outlined in… read on > read on >

Every cold and flu season, folks are flooded with ads for zinc lozenges, sprays and syrups that promise to shorten their sniffles. Zinc might indeed reduce the duration of common cold symptoms by about two days, a new evidence review says. However, the evidence is not conclusive, and taking zinc can come with some unpleasant side effects, researchers said. “The evidence on zinc is far from settled,” senior researcher Susan Wieland, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said in a news release. “We need more research before we can be confident in its effects.” The theory behind zinc is that the essential mineral, which is found in many foods, might interfere with the cold virus’ ability to replicate in the nose, mouth and throat, researchers said. Lab studies have shown zinc can do this in petri dishes and mice, but human studies are needed to show if it will work in real people. For this review, researchers evaluated 19 human trials examining zinc as a cold treatment and 15 as a means of preventing colds. In particular, eight studies with nearly 1,000 participants combined investigated zinc as a treatment to reduce cold duration. The pooled results of those studies showed that it might help reduce the length of a cold by about two days, down from an average week-long duration… read on > read on >

An experimental procedure could reduce levels of a hunger-triggering hormone by burning part of a person’s stomach lining, a new study reports. In the procedure, doctors snake a tube down the patient’s throat with a tiny device that singes the lining of the upper portion of the stomach, also called the gastric fundus. That’s the part of the stomach that produces ghrelin, the primary hormone that controls appetite, researchers said. A six-month clinical trial in which 10 obese women received the procedure resulted in a nearly 8% loss of body weight and a more than 40% reduction in fasting ghrelin levels, according to researchers. They’re slated to report the findings later this month at the Digestive Disease Week medical meeting in Washington, D.C. “This relatively brief, outpatient, non-surgical procedure can facilitate weight loss and significantly curb hunger, and it could be an additional option for patients who don’t want or aren’t eligible for anti-obesity medications, such as Wegovy and Ozempic, or bariatric surgery,” lead researcher Dr. Christopher McGowan, a gastroenterologist and medical director of the True You Weight Loss clinic in Cary, N.C., said in a news release. After snaking the tube into the stomach, doctors insert fluid to protect underlying stomach tissues and then burn (ablate) the mucosal lining of the gastric fundus. This reduces the number of ghrelin-producing cells in that part of… read on > read on >

People who carry two copies of the gene mutation most strongly implicated in Alzheimer’s disease are almost certain to develop brain changes related to the degenerative disorder, a new study says. A single mutated APOE4 gene has been found to pose the strongest genetics-driven risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s, researchers said. Virtually everyone with two copies of the APOE4 gene mutation wound up with higher levels of Alzheimer’s-related brain by age 55, compared to people with another version of APOE, researchers reported May 6 in the journal Nature Medicine. By age 65, more than 95% of people with two APOE4 genes showed abnormal levels of amyloid protein in their cerebrospinal fluid and 75% had positive amyloid scans, researchers said. Amyloid beta plaques are one of the hallmark symptoms of Alzheimer’s. These findings suggest that having two copies of the APOE4 gene could represent a new genetic form of Alzheimer’s disease, said Dr. Juan Fortea, director of the Memory Unit at the Sant Pau Research Institute’s Neurology Service in Barcelona, Spain. “This gene has been known for over 30 years and it was known to be associated with a higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. But now we know that virtually all individuals with this duplicated gene develop Alzheimer’s biology,” Fortea said in a news release. “This is important because they represent between 2 and 3%… read on > read on >