Pesticides and herbicides used in farming appear to increase people’s risk of Parkinson’s disease, a new, preliminary study finds. People exposed to pesticides and herbicides are 25% to 36% more likely to develop Parkinson’s, according to a study to be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s upcoming annual meeting in April. The Parkinson’s risk was specifically higher in the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains region of the country, researchers said. “Our methods enabled us to identify parts of the nation where there was a relationship between most pesticides and Parkinson’s disease and subsequently pinpoint where the relationship was strongest, so we could explore specific pesticides in that region,” said researcher Brittany Krzyzanowski of the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix. The region where farm chemicals are most strongly linked to Parkinson’s includes parts of Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Wyoming. Parkinson’s disease is a progressive degenerative disease of the nervous system. Patients become less and less able to control their body, suffering from tremors, leg stiffness and gait and balance problems. For the study, researchers reviewed records of 21.5 million people enrolled in Medicare in 2009 to determine the rate of Parkinson’s disease in various parts of the country. The team then looked for a possible relationship between those rates of Parkinson’s and the…  read on >  read on >

Tattoos are a trendy way to decorate your body, but a new study reveals that the inks used in the process often contain unlisted substances that could cause health problems. An analysis of tattoo inks from nine manufacturers in the United States found the contents rarely matched the label of the product. Of 54 inks analyzed, nine out of 10 (90%) had major discrepancies with the labeled contents, such as different pigments or unlisted additives, researchers report. The study comes as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration prepares to regulate tattoo inks as part of new powers granted by Congress in 2022’s Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act (MoCRA), the researchers noted. “The FDA is still figuring out what that is going to look like, and we think this study will influence the discussions around MoCRA,” said senior researcher John Swierk, an assistant professor of chemistry at Binghamton University-SUNY. “This is also the first study to explicitly look at inks sold in the United States and is probably the most comprehensive because it looks at the pigments, which nominally stay in the skin, and the carrier package, which is what the pigment is suspended in,” Swierk added in a university news release. Health experts typically are focused on skin cancer or the pigments in tattoo ink when it comes to the potential risks of tattoos, the…  read on >  read on >

After states legalize the sale of weed for recreational use, on-the-job injuries rise among younger workers, new research shows. U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics for 2006 through 2020 show that legal “recreational marijuana sales were associated with a 10% increase in workplace injuries among individuals aged 20 to 34 years,” the study authors concluded. They note that prior research involving older workers did not show this effect. In fact, older workers’ injury rates typically decline after recreational weed is made legal in their state, perhaps because older folk are only using their marijuana to ease pain. In contrast, the rise in injury among younger workers may be because “marijuana use diminishes workers’ cognitive functioning or acts as a gateway to harder drugs,” the researchers theorized. The study was published Feb. 23 in the journal JAMA Health Forum and co-led by Dr. Joseph Sabia, chair of the economics department at San Diego State University. As the researchers noted, “since 2012, 24 states and Washington, D.C., have legalized the possession and sale of small quantities of marijuana for recreational purposes.” Would such moves encourage young workers to get high on the job, putting their performance at risk? To find out, Sabia’s group used Bureau of Labor statistics to track changes in the rate of workplace injuries among young employees, before and after laws allowing recreational marijuana sales…  read on >  read on >

FRIDAY, Feb. 23, 2024 (HealthDay news) — Artificial intelligence can match and even outperform human eye doctors in diagnosing and treating glaucoma, a new study finds. The GPT-4 system from OpenAI did as well or better than ophthalmologists in assessing 20 different patients for glaucoma and retinal disease, researchers report Feb. 22 in the journal JAMA Ophthalmology. “AI was particularly surprising in its proficiency in handling both glaucoma and retina patient cases, matching the accuracy and completeness of diagnoses and treatment suggestions made by human doctors in a clinical note format,” said senior study author Dr. Louis Pasquale, deputy chair for ophthalmology research at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai. The results suggest that AI could play an important support role for ophthalmologists as they try to manage patients’ glaucoma. “Just as the AI application Grammarly can teach us how to be better writers, GPT-4 can give us valuable guidance on how to be better clinicians, especially in terms of how we document findings of patient exams,” Pasquale said in an infirmary news release. Glaucoma is notoriously difficult to diagnose. About half of the 3 million Americans with glaucoma don’t know they have it, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO). Glaucoma occurs when fluid pressure builds up inside the eye, damaging the optic nerve and creating blind spots in…  read on >  read on >

Infection with the COVID-19 virus triggers the production of an immune system protein that’s long been associated with fatigue, muscle ache and depression. Trouble is, for folks suffering from Long COVID this protein overproduction does not stop, researchers at the University of Cambridge report. “We have found a potential mechanism underlying Long COVID which could represent a biomarker — that is, a tell-tale signature of the condition. We hope that this could help to pave the way to develop therapies and give some patients a firm diagnosis,” said study co-author Dr. Benjamin Krishna. There was another silver lining from the research: Vaccination against SARS-Cov-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, appears to lower production of the culprit protein, called interferon gamma (IFN-γ). “If SARS-CoV-2 continues to persist in people with Long COVID, triggering an IFN-γ response, then vaccination may be helping to clear this,” said Krishna, who works at the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology & Infectious Disease. According to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost 7% of Americans say they have experienced Long COVID. Most cite persistent fatigue as the major symptom, but Long COVID can also bring brain fog, chronic cough and other issues. The exact causes of the illness have remained unclear. In the latest study, Krishna’s team tracked outcomes for 111 COVID patients admitted to…  read on >  read on >

A ban on menthol cigarettes would likely lead to a meaningful reduction in smoking rates, a new review argues. Almost a quarter of menthol smokers quit smoking altogether after menthol cigarettes were banned in their country or community, researchers report Feb. 21 in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research. “This review provides compelling evidence for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s proposed ban on menthol cigarettes,” said lead researcher Sarah Mills, an assistant professor of health behavior at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. In December, the White House in December announced that it would postpone until March a ban on menthol cigarettes that has been in the works for years. “Our review of the evidence suggests this delay is causing harm to the health of the public, especially among Black communities,” Mills said in a journal news release.  Menthol cigarettes have been targeted by public health officials because studies show the cooling effects of menthol masks the harshness of tobacco, making it easier for young people to start smoking. For this study, researchers conducted an evidence review, pooling data from studies that have examined the effects of menthol cigarette bans. More than 170 U.S. cities, two U.S. states, the European Union and several other countries have already banned the sale of menthol cigarettes, researchers said. About 50% of menthol smokers switched to non-menthol cigarettes…  read on >  read on >