Health/Fitness « Weekly Gravy

A new type of medication, JAK inhibitors, can effectively treat moderate to severe alopecia areata, a hair loss condition that has been historically hard to treat. A study of its effectiveness, by Dr. Brett King and Dr. Brittany Craiglow of Yale University, was published in August in a supplement to the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. “Because alopecia areata is an inflammatory condition, a JAK inhibitor will essentially reduce the inflammation that is fueling the disease and bring your immune system back into balance,” said dermatologist Dr. Sandra Johnson. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, in Little Rock, who was not involved with the study. “The development of JAK inhibitors has given us another treatment to improve the lives of patients with alopecia areata,” Johnson said in a news release from the American Academy of Dermatology. The condition is more common in kids but can happen at any age. It involves sudden hair loss with affected patches that grow larger. In some cases, it spreads to the entire head or body. It is also more common in those who have a close blood relative with the disease and in people who have been treated for cancer with a drug called nivolumab (Opdivo). Medical conditions such as asthma, hay fever, eczema, thyroid disease, vitiligo and Down syndrome… read on > read on >

When teens vape, their lungs pay a price, researchers report. The warning stems from a detailed analysis of smoking habit histories shared by just over 2,000 U.S. teens during a series of recent annual surveys. The upshot: When compared with teens who’ve never vaped, those who reported using electronic cigarettes in the month prior to being surveyed saw their risk for wheezing and shortness of breath shoot up by about 80%. Vapers also faced double the risk for telltale signs of bronchitis, the survey revealed. And most of the hits to respiratory health linked to vaping held up even after taking into account whether the teens also smoked cigarettes or marijuana. “While e-cigarettes likely have fewer negative health impacts than traditional cigarettes, they are not risk-free, especially for youth or young adults who have never used any other tobacco product,” said study lead author Alayna Tackett. She is a pediatric psychologist and researcher with the Center for Tobacco Research at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, in Columbus. Tackett and her colleagues explored the impact vaping has on respiratory health by analyzing four years’ worth of surveys administered by the Southern California Children’s Health Study between 2014 and 2018. On average, roughly 1,700 teens participated in the annual survey, though the final analysis focused on about 2,100 teens, equally divided between boys and girls,… read on > read on >

A more personalized approach to exercise may be necessary, claims a new study that found fat burning varied widely between individuals. Even worse, this rate often does not align with the “fat-burning zone” on commercial exercise machines, the researchers added. Clinical exercise testing, a diagnostic procedure to measure a person’s physiological response to exercise, may be a more useful tool, the study authors said. “People with a goal of weight or fat loss may be interested in exercising at the intensity which allows for the maximal rate of fat burning. Most commercial exercise machines offer a ‘fat-burning zone’ option, depending upon age, sex and heart rate,” said lead study author Hannah Kittrell. She is a PhD candidate at Icahn Mount Sinai in the Augmented Intelligence in Medicine and Science laboratory, in New York City. “However, the typically recommended fat-burning zone has not been validated, thus individuals may be exercising at intensities that are not aligned with their personalized weight-loss goals,” Kittrell said in a Mount Sinai news release. The researchers noted that the term FATmax is sometimes used to represent the exercise intensity and associated heart rate at the time when the body reaches its highest fat-burning rate during aerobic exercise. Fat is a significant fuel source at this point. For the study, the investigators compared heart rate at FATmax, as measured during a clinical… read on > read on >

Psilocybin, the active ingredient in “magic” mushrooms, is getting renewed interest as a potential treatment for various health conditions. Now, a new research review argues that migraines should be added to that list. Psilocybin mushrooms have long been used recreationally as hallucinogens — meaning they alter users’ perceptions of their surroundings. That can lead to euphoria on one end of the scale, or — if things go badly — anxiety, panic or dangerous hallucinations. Medical research into psychedelics like psilocybin and LSD began in the 1950s, and then famously ended after a surge in recreational use by the 1960s “counterculture.” But recent years have seen a new interest in the drugs as medical therapy. Researchers at institutions such as Johns Hopkins University, New York University and the University of California are studying psilocybin as a treatment for conditions like depression, addiction and eating disorders. While most of the research is focused on psychiatric conditions, psilocybin has also shown hints of promise against cluster headaches and migraines. In the new review, published recently in the journal Current Pain and Headache Reports, Dr. Emmanuelle Schindler, an assistant professor of neurology at Yale School of Medicine, describes the research done so far. That includes her own 2021 pilot trial, where Schindler and her colleagues tested the effects of psilocybin — given under medical supervision — in 10 patients… read on > read on >

As cannabis use has become legal in many U.S. states for medical or recreational use, Americans’ views on the drug may have gotten rosier. In fact, a new report finds that over 44% of adults now believe smoking weed each day is safer than inhaling tobacco smoke. That perception is counter to the science, however, and could have a serious impact on public health. “The research that has been coming out is actually suggestive that there’s a lot of overlap in terms of the toxins and carcinogens that are in [both] cannabis and tobacco smoke,” noted study author Dr. Beth Cohen, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine. “What we’ve learned in the past few years seems more concerning, not less concerning.” For this study involving more than 5,000 adults, researchers focused on public perceptions of smoking the two substances, using data from 2017 to 2021. Many of those surveyed felt daily cannabis smoking was safer than smoking tobacco every day. While about 37% thought it was safer in 2017, that grew to 44% by 2021. The researchers saw a similar pattern for secondhand smoke, with 35% considering secondhand cannabis smoke as safer than tobacco smoke in 2017, compared to 40% in 2021. The reality is that smoke of any kind isn’t good for your lungs, the study… read on > read on >

If you’re moving into a home where smokers lived, the first thing you should do to protect your lungs is rip out any old carpeting, new research suggests. Scientists found that tobacco smoke clings to carpet fibers long after smoking has stopped, and ozone generators that purify the air and surfaces can’t remove it completely. This leftover residue, also known as “thirdhand smoke,” can pollute indoor spaces for an extended period of time, according to investigators from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif. “Because it does not reach deeply into materials, ozone [purification] has a limited ability to ‘clean’ permanently,” study lead author and researcher Xiaochen Tang said in a lab news release. “In the case of carpet, the best solution may be replacing it with a new one.” This thirdhand smoke reenters the air, rather than just settling into surfaces, and can sometimes transform into a new type of contaminant, the research found. To study this, researchers gathered old smoke-contaminated carpet from homes in the San Diego area, along with new carpet exposed to fresh smoke in the lab. Ozone generators partially removed a group of compounds named polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from both types of carpet samples. However, it was relatively ineffective at removing deeply embedded nicotine. Ozone generators work by releasing ozone gas that can react with… read on > read on >

The link between pro football and the risk for a neurodegenerative disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is well known, and now a new study suggests that football may also up the risk for Parkinson’s disease, even among past high school and college players. “Parkinson’s disease has been commonly reported in boxers, but we have not explored this link in great detail in football,” said study author Michael Alosco, an associate professor of neurology at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. “This is additional evidence that shows a link between football and later-in-life neurologic problems.” The common denominator is likely blows to the head. Parkinsonism is an umbrella term for a group of neurological disorders that result in movement problems. Parkinson’s disease is the most common cause. Symptoms include tremors, stiffness, a shuffling gait and slow movement. Exactly what causes Parkinson’s disease is not fully understood, but a combination of genetic and environmental factors likely play a role, according to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. For the study, researchers evaluated 1,875 athletes, including 729 men who played football, predominantly at the amateur level, and 1,146 men who played other sports. All of the participants were enrolled in Fox Insight, an online study of people with and without Parkinson’s disease sponsored by the Michael J. Fox Foundation. Participants who did not… read on > read on >

A single hardwired brain circuit might be responsible for male sexual drive, a new mouse study reports. Researchers have singled out in lab mice a brain region that controls sexual interest, libido, mating behavior and pleasure, said senior researcher Dr. Nirao Shah, a professor of psychiatry and neurobiology at Stanford University School of Medicine, in California. This region uses sensory input from the environment to recognize the sex of another mouse — “Aha, this is a female, maybe I can mate if she’s willing,” Shah said. “That recognition is then transformed into the desire to mate and the act of mating by this circuit,” he added. “Also, the circuit enables the behavior to be pleasurable so animals will seek to do it again, which is very important, because for a species to survive, animals need to reproduce.” While this study was in mice, Shah said similar brain structures have been found in other mammals — and perhaps even humans. “There are analogous anatomical counterparts we think in the human brain, but of course their function in the human brain remains to be determined,” he noted. For their experiments, Shah’s team used adult virgin male mice that had not seen a female mouse after being weaned at about 3 weeks of age. That way, the brain activity and behavior they observed would not have been shaped… read on > read on >

FRIDAY, Aug. 11, 2023 (HealthDay News) – As demand for the wildly popular weight-loss drug Wegovy continues to climb, drug maker Novo Nordisk said Thursday that it will continue restrictions on starter doses of the medication into 2024. The new plan extends by months existing restrictions and means patients who are not already taking the medication will have to wait to start. “We are going to continue to supply the market, but it’s just going to be on a limited form so we can have that continuity of care,” Doug Langa, executive vice president of North America Operations for Novo Nordisk, told CNN. “We’re still producing all strengths and we’re still supplying all strengths to the market,” Langa said. The company had previously expected the restriction to last through September. Eli Lilly is also struggling with supply and demand issues for its type 2 diabetes medication Mounjaro. That medication does not yet have U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval as a weight-loss drug. “Supply will likely remain tight in the coming months and quarters due to significant demand,” Eli Lilly Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi told CNN. Mounjaro targets a hormone known as GLP-1 and another called GIP, while Wegovy is a GLP-1 agonist, using semaglutide as its key ingredient. Novo Nordisk’s diabetes drug Ozempic also uses semaglutide, but in a smaller dose. Prescriptions for… read on > read on >

It may not get the publicity of some better-known vitamins like D, but vitamin K — found in leafy green vegetables — may boost lung health. A new, large study — published Aug. 10 in ERJ Open Research — suggests that people who have low levels of this vitamin also have less healthy lungs. They are more likely to report having asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and wheezing. “Our results suggest that vitamin K could play a part in keeping our lungs healthy,” said researcher Dr. Torkil Jespersen of Copenhagen University Hospital and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. “On their own, our findings do not alter current recommendations for vitamin K intake, but they do suggest that we need more research on whether some people, such as those with lung disease, could benefit from vitamin K supplementation,” Jespersen said in a journal news release. In addition to leafy greens, vitamin K is found in vegetable oils and cereal grains. It has a role in blood clotting, helping the body heal wounds, but researchers know very little about its role in lung health. To study this, the Danish researchers recruited more than 4,000 Copenhagen residents, ages 24 to 77. Study participants underwent lung function testing, called spirometry, which measures the amount of air a person can breathe out in one second (forced expiratory volume… read on > read on >