Health/Fitness « Weekly Gravy

A person’s diet can influence their risk of obstructive sleep apnea, a new study says. Those who eat a healthy plant-based diet rich in vegetables, fruit, whole grains and nuts are less likely to suffer sleep apnea, according to findings published Feb. 20 in the journal ERJ Open Research. On the other hand, people who eat more meat or indulge in unhealthy vegetarian diets high in sugar, carbs and salt are more at risk for sleep apnea. “These results highlight the importance of the quality of our diet in managing the risk of OSA [obstructive sleep apnea],” said lead researcher Yohannes Melaku, from Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia. People with sleep apnea often snore loudly and their breathing starts and stops during the night, causing regular brief wakefulness, researchers explained in background notes. Sleep apnea can increase a person’s risk of high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease and type 2 diabetes, researchers said. For this study, the team analyzed responses from more than 14,000 participants in a regular U.S. survey on health and nutrition. This is the first large-scale analysis investigating the link between diet and sleep apnea, Melaku said. “There’s a gap in our knowledge of how overall dietary patterns affect OSA risk,” Melaku said in a journal news release. “With this study, we wanted to address that gap and explore the association between… read on > read on >

Postmenopausal or peri-menopausal women are often hampered by vaginal dryness, which can put the brakes on a healthy sex life. It doesn’t have to stay that way, experts advised. Numerous products are available to help maintain vaginal lubrication. “After and around the time of menopause, your body makes less estrogen,” Dr. Cynthia Abraham explained in a column from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “Estrogen is a hormone that helps maintain the vagina’s lubrication, elasticity and thickness,” said Abraham, an ob/gyn at Mount Sinai in New York City. “Low levels of estrogen can cause thinning, drying and inflammation of vaginal walls. This is called vaginal atrophy.” Dryness can also affect the external tissues of the vulva, Abraham noted. “Women with vulvar dryness often notice irritation when they’re putting on their underwear,” she said. According to Abraham, it’s also common for women to develop the condition in the years that precede menopause. “Often, my patients notice symptoms when they haven’t been sexually active for a long time,” Abraham said. “Then they are intimate with a partner and find that sex is painful.” What to do Luckily, there are numerous products to choose from to help lubricate the vagina. According to Abraham and the Mayo Clinic’s Dr. Shannon Laughlin-Tommaso, these include: Vaginal mosturizers. These include (among others) brands such as K-Y Liquibeads and Replens, Laughlin-Tommaso said… read on > read on >

Niacin is an essential B vitamin, but new research reveals that too much of it may harm your heart. Found in many foods that millions of Americans eat, excessive amounts of niacin can trigger inflammation and damage blood vessels, scientists report in the Feb. 19 issue of the journal Nature Medicine. “The average person should avoid niacin supplements now that we have reason to believe that taking too much niacin can potentially lead to an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease,” senior study author Dr. Stanley Hazen, chair of cardiovascular and metabolic sciences at the Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute, told NBC News. The recommended daily allowance of niacin for men is 16 milligrams per day, while it is 14 milligrams a day for women who are not pregnant, according to the Mayo Clinic. Ever since the 1940s, when grains and cereals began to be fortified with niacin, Americans have gotten plenty of the vitamin in their diet. The move to fortify those foods was prompted by evidence suggesting that very low levels of niacin could trigger the development of a potentially fatal condition called pellagra, said Hazen, who is also co-section head of preventive cardiology at the Heart, Vascular and Thoracic Institute. Ironically, niacin supplements were once prescribed by doctors to improve cholesterol levels. Dr. Amanda Doran, an assistant professor of medicine in the division of cardiovascular medicine… read on > read on >

Folks can lose weight even if they pack all their weekly exercise into one or two days, a new study finds. Guidelines recommend that people get at least 150 minutes a week of moderate physical activity or 75 minutes a week of vigorous exercise. “Weekend warriors” who condense all that exercise into one or two days each week can lose about the same amount of weight as people who perform shorter sessions across more days, researchers report Feb. 20 in the journal Obesity. That’s good news for people who find it hard to fit physical activity into their daily lives, researchers said. “The weekend warrior pattern is worth promoting in individuals who cannot meet the recommended frequency in current guidelines,” said study author Lihua Zhang, a health care researcher at Fuwai Hospital’s National Center for Cardiovascular Diseases in Beijing. Zhang noted that office employees, bus drivers and other workers who have to sit for most of the workday could benefit from such an approach to exercise. “Those people are struggling to catch up in their exercise plan in daily life to offset the hazard of a sedentary lifestyle but have less free time to get to the gym,” Zhang said in a journal news release. “Our study could offer them an alternative choice to keep fit.” For the study, researchers analyzed data on more than… read on > read on >

When settling into your senior years, you need to be especially careful when taking medicines, herbal remedies and supplements, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says. That’s because older adults are likely to use more prescription and over-the-counter medications, which increases the risk of harmful side effects and drug interactions, the FDA said in a news release. In addition, physical changes associated with aging can affect the way your body handles medications, and even how different medicines work in your body. For example, the liver and kidneys might not work as well as they do for younger people, which can affect how a drug breaks down and leaves the body. Even medications that worked well for a person during their youth and middle age might need to be adjusted or changed later in life, the FDA says. Keeping all that in mind, the FDA has some important safety tips: Take medication as prescribed. The best medicine in the world won’t work unless taken correctly. Take prescriptions following the directions on the label and your doctor’s instructions. For example, medicines that treat chronic conditions like high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes work only when taken regularly and as directed. Don’t skip doses or stop taking a prescribed drug without first consulting with your doctor. Not taking medicine as prescribed can lead to even worse illness,… read on > read on >

A shift in parenting early in a child’s development might help curb the symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), new research suggests. When a preschooler exhibits an “excitable or exuberant” temperament, dialing down a “controlling” style of parenting in favor of what’s known as “directive” parenting could mean milder ADHD symptoms as a child ages, Canadian researchers report. “More directive parenting, which is not controlling but guides the child with verbal and physical cues, can help develop the child’s self-regulatory skills and prevent their ADHD symptoms from increasing,” explained study co-author Dr. Heather Henderson, a professor of developmental psychology at the University of Waterloo, in Ontario. Psychologists have long understood that the interplay of a child’s temperament with their mom and dad’s parenting style can play a role in how ADHD unfolds. Both factors influence the executive function of the child’s brain, the researchers explained. One type of temperament — exuberant — has been tied to the onset of ADHD, the team added. Exuberance involves “high excitement, curiosity and positive responses to unfamiliar people and contexts,” Henderson explained in a university news release. While exuberance has some positive aspects, it is also linked to troubles with self-regulation of behaviors, as well as issues around working memory and flexible thinking. Combined with family factors, an exuberant temperament “might predispose some kids to develop ADHD symptoms,” Henderson… read on > read on >

The harms of smoking are many, but new research delivers evidence of another troubling type of damage: Lighting up alters your immune system, leaving you more vulnerable to disease and infections even years after quitting. “Stop smoking as soon as possible,” study co-author Dr. Violaine Saint-André, a specialist in computational biology at Institut Pasteur in Paris, told CNN. “The key message of our study, especially to the youth, is that there seems to be a significant interest for long-term immunity to never start smoking.” The findings, published Feb. 14 in the journal Nature, show just how smoking lowers the body’s ability to fight off infection, and that it may also raise the risk of autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. “The major discovery of our study is that smoking has short-term but also long-term effects on adaptive immunity associated with B-cells and regulatory T-cells and with epigenetic changes,” Saint-André noted. To arrive at that conclusion, the French scientists looked at blood samples gathered over time from a group of 1,000 healthy people ages 20 to 69. The researchers wanted to see how numerous variables, including lifestyle, socioeconomic status, eating habits, age, sex and genetics, affected immune response. During the study, they exposed the blood samples to common germs like E. coli bacteria and the flu virus while also measuring immune response. What did they discover? Smoking, body-mass index and a… read on > read on >

Acupuncture may protect people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) from stroke, new research suggests. The study indicates that a course of acupuncture treatment may lower blood levels of inflammatory proteins called cytokines that are linked to heart disease, the No. 1 cause of death in people with RA. “Inflammation is a consistent and independent predictor of cardiovascular disease in [rheumatoid arthritis],” researchers wrote in the Feb. 13 issue of BMJ Open. “Unstable blood pressure and lipid profiles are two risk factors for ischemic stroke, and acupuncture has the advantage of controlling both.” Ischemic strokes are caused by a blood clot in the brain. For this study, a team led by Dr. Hung-Rong Yen, of the School of Chinese Medicine at China Medical University in Taiwan, looked at a database of more than 23,000 RA patients in Taiwan. That included nearly 12,300 patients who were treated with acupuncture between 1997 and 2010. On average, patients began acupuncture treatment 2.9 years after getting their RA diagnosis. The vast majority (87%) were treated with manual acupuncture. Three percent were treated with electroacupuncture, in which an electrode producing a low electrical pulse is attached to the needle, and 10% received both treatments. Patients were monitored through 2011. Stroke risk rose with patients’ age and coexisting conditions. For instance, those who had high blood pressure had twice the risk as those… read on > read on >

As if painful migraines, hot flashes and night sweats weren’t bad enough, many women in menopause are facing a significantly bigger threat. New research suggests that women with both migraines and vasomotor symptoms (hot flashes and night sweats) are significantly more likely to develop heart disease or have a stroke. “There is a critical need to further refine existing cardiovascular disease risk-prediction models to identify women who are future risk,” said Dr. Stephanie Faubion, medical director for The Menopause Society. Published online Feb. 14 in the journal Menopause, the study found that women with a history of both symptoms were 1.5 times as likely to develop heart disease and 1.7 times as likely to have a stroke when compared to other women. The link was particularly strong among women who have migraines with aura. The study, which followed women ages 18 to 30 into their early 60s, included nearly 2,000 women. The findings are noteworthy, the society said, because migraine headaches and hot flashes are so common. Nearly 8 in 10 menopausal women experience hot flashes, while migraines affect about 17.5% of women in their late reproductive years, the society said. The study was described as the first to examine the joint influences of migraine and hot flashes/night sweats independent of estrogen use and traditional risk factors for heart disease, such as tobacco use, cholesterol… read on > read on >

A mental workout can speed teens’ recovery from a concussion, especially if it takes place in the classroom. New research shows that returning to school early after a concussion and limiting screen time help symptoms resolve sooner. “Children and teens should be encouraged to get back to their routines and take part in activities like clubs, jobs and homework after experiencing concussion,” said study co-author Dr. Thomas Pommering, director of concussion clinics at Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s Division of Sports Medicine. “But keep in mind that for some patients, prolonged screen time in non-school activities such as gaming or internet scrolling can affect recovery if it is worsening their symptoms,” he added in a hospital news release. While other studies have touted the benefits of an early return to physical activity, little has been known about how mental activity affects post-concussion outcomes. For this study, researchers at Nationwide Children’s Center for Injury Research and Policy in Ohio looked at the intensity and duration of daily mental activities in 11- to 17-year-olds and their effect on concussion recovery. The young people reported increases in activities such as reading, listening to music, watching TV and using the phone, as well as how much time they devoted to mental activities overall as their symptoms eased. Clinical guidelines have recommended young people with concussions get complete physical and mental rest… read on > read on >