Wildfires raging in several states and Canada are triggering air quality alerts and evacuation orders across the western parts of the United States. Smoke and haze have filled the skies in California, Oregon, Arizona, Washington and several other western states: As of Wednesday, there were 79 large, active wildfires that have burned over 1.4 million acres across the country, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Evacuation orders are in effect for 15 fires in the Northwest, the Associated Press reported. Meanwhile, Canada is battling about 430 active wildfires in British Columbia and 177 in neighboring Alberta, including two that led to the evacuation of up to 25,000 visitors and residents of the Canadian Rockies’ largest national park, the AP reported. To deal with the pollution spewing from these wildfires, air quality alerts and advisories have been issued in many parts of the western United States: The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality issued air quality alerts for the eastern counties of Harney, Malheur, Grant, Baker and Morrow until further notice. In Idaho, air quality advisories were sent out to the central counties of Ada, Canyon, Gem, Owyhee, Payette and Washington. In north central Washington, the Colville Reservation, all of Chelan County, plus the Methow Valley down to Brewster in Okanogan County were under air quality alerts until further notice. Last but not least, Canadian authorities issued an air quality advisory for…  read on >  read on >

Finding yourself packing on the pounds around your waist and arms? If so, you might be at heightened risk for neurological illnesses like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, new research suggests. There was one other physical characteristic that lowered the odds, however: muscle strength. Stronger folk appeared to have a lower odds for neurological illnesses compared to weaker people, reported a team of Chinese researchers. “This study highlights the potential to lessen people’s risk of developing these diseases by improving their body composition,” said study lead author Dr. Huan Song, of Sichuan University in Chengdu. “Targeted interventions to reduce trunk and arm fat while promoting healthy muscle development may be more effective for protection against these diseases than general weight control,” she added. The findings were published July 24 in the journal Neurology. Over a nine-year span, the researchers tracked the health and body characteristics of almost 413,000 British people who averaged 56 years of age when they entered the study. Song’s group measured each person’s waist and hip, tested their hand-grip strength, their bone density and their fat and lean mass.   Over the nine years, 8,224 people did go on to develop neurodegenerative diseases, typically Alzheimer’s disease, other forms of dementia or Parkinson’s. After adjusting for other health risk factors that can affect the brain — things like high blood pressure, smoking, drinking and diabetes…  read on >  read on >

Obese kids infected with dengue are significantly more likely to suffer severe illness requiring hospitalization, a new study warns. A new analysis of nearly 5,000 dengue-infected Sri Lankan children found that weight plays a powerful role in how sick the mosquito-borne virus can make a kid. Kids with higher BMIs had higher hospitalization rates than those children who weighed less, researchers reported recently in the journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. The heaviest children — those who are clinically obese — were twice as likely to be hospitalized as the rest, results show. “With the increase in obesity in many countries, it would be important to create awareness and educate the public of the potential risks regarding obesity and risk of severe disease and hospitalization from dengue,” said senior researcher Dr. Neelika Malavige, a professor of immunology and molecular medicine at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura in Sri Lanka. The study comes weeks after health officials in the Florida Keys issued a dengue alert following two confirmed cases of the infectious disease there, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a nationwide advisory about an increased risk of dengue infections in the U.S. Dengue reached a historic high of more than 6.5 million cases and more than 7,300 deaths worldwide in 2023, researchers said in background notes. And the world is about…  read on >  read on >

Youngsters so sick they’ve needed treatment in an ICU appear to bear the scars of that experience years later, a new study finds. Children and teenagers treated in an intensive care unit have a significantly higher risk of developing a mental illness as they grow up, researchers reported July 20 in the Journal of Affective Disorders. “Given our study results, the development of appropriate major psychiatric disorder prevention strategies should be emphasized for child and adolescent ICU survivors,” concluded the research team led by Dr. Ping-Chung Wu, of the Taipei Veterans General Hospital in Taiwan. For the study, researchers analyzed data on more than 8,700 children admitted to an ICU between 1996 and 2013. Those who survived their illness were followed an average of nearly 10 years. Data showed the survivors had: 4.7 times the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 3.2 times the risk of schizophrenia A doubled risk of bipolar disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder 1.7 times the risk of major depression Kids who stayed in the ICU three days or more in particular had a higher risk of these disorders, researchers said. Risk of specific mental illnesses also varied depending on the condition that landed the child in the ICU, researchers found. For example, schizophrenia risk was highest among patients admitted for blood diseases, nervous system disorders and digestive illnesses, while PTSD was…  read on >  read on >

Folks with depression who got therapy via text or voice messages fared just as well as those who got weekly video-based telemedicine sessions with a therapist, a new trial has found. The findings “suggest that psychotherapy delivered via text messages may be a viable alternative to face-to-face or videoconferencing delivery and may allow for more immediate on-demand care,” in a time when it’s often tough for people to access mental health care, the study authors wrote. The trial was funded by the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health and published July 19 in the journal Psychiatric Services. The shutdown of traditional in-office services during the pandemic threw the spotlight on telemedicine as a means of delivering psychiatric care. But are face-to-face video sessions the only effective way to deliver telemedicine? In the new study, 215 adults with depression received 12 weeks of telemedicine care from a digital mental health care company called Talkspace (the company played no role in funding the study). Half of the patients received weekly standard videoconference sessions with a therapist for 30 to 45 minutes. The other half received psychotherapy delivered via voice or text messages, where patients could interact with the therapist whenever and how often they wanted.  At the halfway point (six weeks), roughly the same amount of patients —  28 patients receiving message-based therapy and 27 receiving videoconferencing…  read on >  read on >