Health/Fitness « Weekly Gravy

New, real-world research confirms that the blockbuster weight-loss drugs that millions of Americans have been taking to shed pounds can trigger stomach paralysis in some patients. “Although these drugs do work and should be used for the right reason, we just want to caution everyone that if you do decide to start this, be prepared that you have a 30 percent chance that you may have GI side effects, and then the drug may have to be discontinued,” Dr. Prateek Sharma, a professor of medicine at the University of Kansas School of Medicine who conducted one of the studies, told CNN. His research was one of two reports presented Saturday at the Digestive Disease Week 2024 (DDW) in Washington, D.C. Neither has been published in a peer-reviewed medical journal, so the data is considered preliminary. A third study on the complication is to be presented Monday. Known as GLP-1 agonists, drugs like Wegovy and Zepbound have helped people lose at least 10% of their starting weight. How do these medications work, and why might that sometimes prompt stomach paralysis? GLP-1 agonists curb hunger by slowing the movement of food through the stomach. They also help the body release more insulin and send signals to the brain that curb cravings. But in some people, they may also prompt bouts of vomiting that can require medical attention… read on > read on >

Blood pressure medications appear to more than double the risk of life-threatening bone fractures among nursing home residents, a new study warns. The increased risk stems from the drugs’ tendency to impair balance, particularly when patients stand up and temporarily experience low blood pressure that deprives the brain of oxygen, researchers reported recently in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. The risk is compounded by interactions with other drugs and nursing home patients’ existing problems with balance, they added. “Bone fractures often start nursing home patients on a downward spiral,” said lead researcher Chintan Dave, academic director of the Rutgers Center for Health Outcomes, Policy and Economics. “Roughly 40% of those who fracture a hip die within the next year, so it’s truly alarming to find that a class of medications used by 70% of all nursing home residents more than doubles the bone-fracture risk,” Dave added in a Rutgers news release. About 2.5 million Americans live in nursing homes or assisted living facilities, researchers said in background notes. Up to half suffer falls in any given year, and up to 25% of those falls result in serious injury. For the study, researchers analyzed Veterans Health Administration records for nearly 30,000 elderly patients in long-term care facilities between 2006 and 2019. Researchers compared the 30-day risk of hip, pelvis and arm fractures for those taking blood… read on > read on >

The smell of food is appetizing when you’re hungry. At the same time, it can be a turnoff if you’re full. That’s due to the interaction between two different parts of the brain involving sense of smell and behavior motivation, a new study finds. And it could be why some people can’t easily stop eating when they’re full, which contributes to obesity, researchers say. The weaker the connection between those two brain regions, the heavier people tend to become, results show. “The desire to eat is related to how appealing the smell of food is — food smells better when you are hungry than when you are full,” said study co-author Guangyu Zhou, a research assistant professor of neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. “But if the brain circuits that help guide this behavior are disrupted, these signals may get confused, leading to food being rewarding even when you are full.” “If this happens, a person’s BMI could increase. And that is what we found,” Zhou added in a Northwestern news release. “When the structural connection between these two brain regions is weaker, a person’s BMI is higher, on average.” Odors play an important role in guiding motivation for behaviors like eating, researchers said. At the same time, how you perceive smells can be influenced by how hungry you are. But… read on > read on >

Higher rates of blood vessel-damaging conditions like hypertension or diabetes may be driving up rates of cognitive decline and dementia among older American Indians, new research shows. The study found that 54% of American Indians ages 72 to 95 had some form of impairment in their thinking and/or memory skills, while 10% had dementia. The underlying causes: Vascular (blood vessel) damage and Alzheimer’s disease, in equal measure and sometimes overlapping. “These results underscore that cognitive impairment among elder American Indians is highly prevalent, more than previously thought,” said Dr. Amy Kelley, deputy director of the U.S. National Institute on Aging (NIA), which funded the study. “Considering how these new prevalence figures for American Indians are much higher than other groups… it is imperative that we address health disparities to help us find solutions,” she said in an NIA news release. The findings were based on data from nearly 400 participants in the ongoing Strong Heart Study, which has tracked the health of American Indian tribes in three U.S. geographic regions — the Northern Plains, Southern Plains and South — for over 30 years. The data showed that, among 216 participants now aged 72 to 95, about 35% had what’s known as mild cognitive impairment (MCI), often a precursor to dementia. That’s significantly higher than the level of MCI observed in similarly aged whites (12% to… read on > read on >

Climate change is likely to make brain conditions like stroke, migraine, Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy and multiple sclerosis even worse, a new review warns. The potential effects of a changing climate is likely to be substantial on a range of neurological conditions, researchers report May 15 in The Lancet Neurology journal. “There is clear evidence for an impact of the climate on some brain conditions, especially stroke and infections of the nervous system,” said lead researcher Sanjay Sisodiya, a professor with the University College London Queen Square Institute of Neurology. For the review, researchers analyzed data from 332 studies published between 1968 and 2023. “The climatic variation that was shown to have an effect on brain diseases included extremes of temperature [both low and high], and greater temperature variation throughout the course of day — especially when these measures were seasonally unusual,” Sisodiya said in a university news release. Strokes increased during high temperature days or heat waves, researchers found. Meanwhile, people with dementia were more susceptible to temperature-related conditions like heat stroke or hypothermia, as well as more vulnerable during weather events like flooding or wildfires. “Reduced awareness of risk is combined with a diminished capacity to seek help or to mitigate potential harm, such as by drinking more in hot weather or by adjusting clothing,” the research team wrote. “Accordingly, greater temperature variation, hotter… read on > read on >

In a small pilot study, some young women looking to lose weight on a low-calorie keto diet got an unexpected benefit: Their acne began to clear up. “These findings represent an opportunity to control a skin disease that affects most teenagers and many adults at some point in their lifetimes, causing distress, embarrassment, anxiety and low self-confidence among sufferers, robbing them of their quality of life,” said lead study author Luigi Barrea, of the Università Telematica Pegaso in Naples, Italy. His team presented its findings Tuesday at the European Congress on Obesity on Vienna, Italy. As Barrea’s group explained, acne is thought to be a chronic inflammatory illness affecting what’s known as the pilosebaceous unit: the hair follicle, hair shaft and nearby sebaceous gland. About 9% of the world’s population is affected by acne, largely in the teenage years. According to the Italian researchers, acne has long been linked with obesity, perhaps because both conditions are tied to rising inflammation and oxidative stress. Could the ketogenic diet fight that underlying inflammation and oxidative stress? “While the role of diet in acne is inconclusive, the very low-calorie ketogenic diet is known for aiding weight loss and generating anti-inflammatory ketone bodies that provide energy when dietary carbohydrates are scarce, as well as promoting resistance against inflammatory and oxidative stress,” Barrea explained in a meeting news release. “We thought… read on > read on >

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 >