Popular GLP-1 medications for weight loss and diabetes may have unexpected benefits for reducing risks for conditions such as substance abuse, psychosis, infections and even dementia.  But these drugs also come with risks that shouldn’t be overlooked, researchers warn in a study published Jan. 20 in the journal Nature Medicine. The study is among the first to take a comprehensive look at how these meds — Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound — affect overall health. Researchers reviewed data from nearly 2 million people treated by the Veterans Health Administration, including more than 216,000 patients prescribed GLP-1 medications. The study found that people taking GLP-1 medications had a 24% lower risk of developing liver failure and a 22% reduced risk of cardiac arrest compared to those on other diabetes treatments. In all, researchers found that people taking GLP-1 medications had lower risks for 42 health outcomes, including liver failure, lung failure, cardiac arrest, aspiration pneumonia and shock.  These medications have also been associated with a potential impact on obesity rates, which declined in the U.S. for the first time in more than a decade in 2023, CNN reported. However, the drugs weren’t without drawbacks. People taking GLP-1 medications had higher risks for 19 health outcomes, mostly involving digestive issues such as heartburn, nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and gastroparesis (stomach paralysis). They were also more likely to…  read on >  read on >

Hormone replacement therapy to ease menopause symptoms doesn’t increase a woman’s risk of brain tumors. Researchers found no link between hormone therapy and gliomas, the most common brain tumors in adults, according to results of a new study published recently in the journal Menopause. “Compared with nonusers, users of hormone therapy were not significantly associated with glioma risk,” a team led by senior researcher Dr. Hui Tang, a neurosurgeon with North Sichuan Medical College in Nanchong, China, wrote. No link was found even when researchers considered how long a woman had been taking hormone therapy, and whether she was currently using it. “Although there is a known sex difference in the incidence of gliomas, with women being six times more likely to develop the disease compared with men, there does not appear to be an association between glioma and hormone therapy use in postmenopausal women,” Dr. Stephanie Faubion, medical director for The Menopause Society, said in a news release. Hormone therapy is prescribed to treat common menopause symptoms like hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings and vaginal problems, researchers mentioned in background notes. The therapy had been widely used until 2002, when early clinical trial results showed an association between hormone therapy and increased risk of breast cancer, heart disease, stroke and blood clots. Since then, further study has shown that hormone therapy is indeed…  read on >  read on >

Menthol cigarettes are under fire in the United States for promoting smoking among Black Americans, with a number of cities and states banning the smokes. In response, the tobacco industry has come up with “menthol mimics” that imitate the cooling effect of menthol, and smokers are taking note of the innovation, a new study published Jan. 14 in JAMA Network Open says. A substantial portion of U.S. adults are “aware of and had already experimented with synthetic cooling agent menthol-mimicking cigarettes,” concluded a research team led by Kelvin Choi, a senior investigator with the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. “These products may serve as a substitute for menthol cigarettes and reduce the public health benefits of a menthol cigarette ban in promoting smoking cessation,” Choi said. Menthol masks the irritation and harshness of cigarette smoke, making it easier for smokers to pick up the habit, researchers said in background notes. This reduced irritation also allows for deeper inhalation, resulting in higher nicotine exposure, researchers added. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has proposed a ban on menthol cigarettes, but that effort stalled under the Biden administration. Despite this, the states of Massachusetts and California and cities in Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Ohio and Oregon have pressed forward with their own bans on the products, researchers said. A recent evidence review found that…  read on >  read on >

Suffering from low back pain? Addressing your unhealthy lifestyle habits could help ease your pain better than traditional care, a new study says. Back pain sufferers who got lifestyle coaching functioned better and had improved quality of life compared to others who received standard care, researchers report in the study published Jan. 10 in the journal JAMA Network Open. “Resolving back pain needs to focus on more than the back,” senior investigator Chris Williams, a research fellow with the University of Sydney in Australia, said in a news release. “Our bodies are not like machines, we are more like ecosystems where lots of factors interact and determine how we work and feel,” Williams continued. “Back pain is no different.” For the study, nearly 350 people with low back pain were randomly assigned to receive either lifestyle coaching or standard care conducted under existing guidelines. Physical therapists, dietitians and telephone health coaches helped people assigned to the coaching group figure out which of their lifestyle habits might be making their back pain worse. These risk factors could include excess weight, lack of physical activity, bad diet, poor sleep, smoking or excessive alcohol use, researchers explained. For six months, the coaching group was provided support to help them address the factors potentially linked to their back pain. By the end of the study, people in the lifestyle…  read on >  read on >

Women past menopause can protect themselves from future fractures through infrequent, cheap IV infusions of a bone-strengthening drug. Women 50 to 60 who got two IV infusions of zoledronate (Reclast) within five years had a 44% lower risk of spinal fractures, compared to women who received a placebo, according to results published Jan. 15 in the New England Journal of Medicine. They also had a lower risk of major fractures related to osteoporosis and fragility fractures caused by little to no trauma, results show. “The results show that prevention of vertebral fractures in early postmenopausal women is possible with very infrequent infusions of zoledronate,” concluded the research team led by Dr. Mark Bolland, an associate professor of medicine with the University of Auckland in New Zealand. “The cost of the treatment, either to individual patients or to health systems, is likely to be low because the drug is generic and the frequency of administration low,” the team added. At menopause, women have a 50% lifetime risk of suffering from a fracture, particularly as their bones grow thin and frail through the aging process, researchers said in background notes. Zoledronate is used to treat or prevent osteoporosis caused by menopause, but it hadn’t been tested to see if early treatment could prevent bone loss in early postmenstrual women, even those with good bone density at the…  read on >  read on >

FRIDAY, Jan. 17, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Brain tissue samples are essential for scientific research, especially when it comes to brain disorders such as autism spectrum disorder. Not surprisingly, samples are hard to get. Despite the great need for brain tissue, donations remain rare and aren’t easily collected.  In an article published in Dec. 2024 in the journal Frontiers in Neurology, researchers describe the critical role that brain tissue plays in autism scientific research. The authors’ explain what many families of people with autism know. “The basis for an individual’s autism is not determined, the underlying biological mechanisms are poorly understood, and clinical care is often suboptimal,” they write. Experts rarely understand the exact factors that contribute to autism, and there is much to learn about causes, diagnosis and treatment. What’s more, autism symptoms vary greatly. Anxiety, sleep problems, epilepsy and gastrointestinal problems are some common co-occurring conditions. Noted in the study is Autism BrainNet, a program set up to educate autistic people and their families about the opportunity to donate brain tissue, the process, and the legacy for research created by individual donors.  Surprising facts about brain donation It’s a comforting process during a painful time for these families, according to David G. Amaral, Scientific Director of Autism BrainNet and Distinguished Professor at the UC Davis MIND Institute and Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.…  read on >  read on >

Smokers are better able to quit if they’re offered financial incentives for their efforts. Overall, smokers had up to a 54% better chance at kicking the habit if their quit program offered them cash or vouchers as a reward, researchers found in a new evidence review published Jan. 13 in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. These incentives made even more of an impression on pregnant smokers, who were more than twice as likely to quit long-term if provided rewards, the review says. “Smoking is the leading preventable cause of ill health and early death worldwide, and quitting smoking is vitally important to help people live in good health for longer,” lead researcher Caitlin Notley, professor of addiction sciences at University of East Anglia’s Norwich Medical School, said in a news release. “We are now very confident that incentives help people, and pregnant people too, to quit smoking better than not offering incentives,” Notley added. Up to now, the evidence regarding financial incentives for quitting smoking hasn’t been solid, researchers noted. But an evaluation of 47 previous studies, including 14 newer papers, “found high-certainty evidence this time that indeed they help people who are pregnant quit smoking and stay quit,” senior researcher Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, assistant professor of health policy and promotion with the University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences, said…  read on >  read on >