People who have long COVID — lingering symptoms after a COVID-19 infection — may also have lower brain oxygen levels, cognitive problems and psychiatric troubles, such as anxiety and depression. Researchers from the University of Waterloo in Canada and Drexel University in Philadelphia combined two parallel studies to better understand what is happening in long COVID patients. One was a lab study that included tests of thinking skills and imaging of oxygen levels in the brain. The other was a national population survey of Canadians in 2021 and 2022. The lab study compared people who did not previously have symptomatic COVID-19 with those who did have the virus. Those who had experienced COVID-19 did worse on two computer tasks. One measured inhibition. The other looked at impulsive decision-making. People who had been infected did not have the expected increase in oxygen level in an area of the brain that is normally engaged during one of these tasks, the investigators found. “We are the first to show reduced oxygen uptake in the brain during a cognitive task in the months following a symptomatic COVID-19 infection,” said lead author Dr. Peter Hall, a researcher in the School of Public Health Sciences at Waterloo, in Ontario. “This is important because a lack of sufficient oxygen supply is thought to be one of the mechanisms by which COVID-19 may…  read on >  read on >

(HealthDay) — Allergic reactions to the Pfizer or Moderna COVID vaccines are very rare, and a new study questions whether many of those that do occur are even real. In a small new study of 16 people who said they’d experienced an allergic reaction to a dose of the Pfizer vaccine, those who got a follow-up placebo (fake) vaccine were more likely to complain of another round of “allergic” reactions than those who got the real thing. This phenomenon is something doctors have long known about, and it even has a name: Immunization Stress-Related Response (ISRR) syndrome. “This has been reported prior to the COVID pandemic, but I think it’s been accentuated by the COVID pandemic and these newer vaccinations,” Dr. David Khan, president of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI), said in an interview with HealthDay. According to Khan, there’s good news from the findings: “The vast majority of patients who’ve had reactions which they think are allergic can actually receive subsequent vaccinations, and do this safely, and there have been a number of studies that show that.” The study was presented recently at the AAAAI’s annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas. The new trial was led by Dr. Muhammad Khalid, a clinical fellow in the Laboratory of Allergic Diseases of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part…  read on >  read on >

THURSDAY, March 2, 2023Black women who are exposed to certain forms of racism may be more likely to develop heart disease, researchers say. Specifically, Black women who said they faced discrimination in employment, housing and in their interactions with the police were 26% more likely to develop heart disease than their counterparts who had not experienced such structural racism. Structural racism refers to the ways that a society fosters racial discrimination through housing, education, employment, health care and criminal justice systems. The new study wasn’t designed to determine how perceived racism increases heart disease risk, but researchers have their theories. “Chronic psychosocial stressors such as racism increase levels of inflammation, blood pressure and other risks for heart disease,” said study author Shanshan Sheehy. She is an assistant professor of medicine at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. For the study, the researchers tracked more than 48,000 women enrolled in the Black Women’s Health Study from 1997 to 2019. None had heart disease in 1997. During 22 years of follow-up, 1,947 women developed heart disease. Women answered five questions in 1997 about their experiences related to racism in their everyday lives and three questions about structural racism in employment, housing or in their interactions with police. Heart disease risk wasn’t tied to experiences of racism in everyday life, but women who reported experiencing racism…  read on >  read on >

Colon cancer continues to rise among younger U.S. adults, with the American Cancer Society reporting a doubling of cases in people younger than 55 in about 25 years. Also, significantly more Americans are being diagnosed with advanced stages of the disease, the cancer society says. As of 2019, 20% of colon cancer cases occurred in adults under age 55 — up from just 11% in 1995, according to the new report. Moreover, researchers found that the proportion of people diagnosed with advanced-stage cancer reached 60% in 2019, up from 52% in the mid‐2000s. The rate of advanced disease was 57% in 1995 before widespread screening was available. Cancer experts are baffled, especially since numbers are declining in the overall population. “We don’t know what is driving the increase in colorectal cancer among young people,” said senior researcher Dr. Ahmedin Jemal, senior vice president for surveillance and health equity science at the cancer society. “There is a lot of research going on. Some people say it’s probably obesity or changes in diet over the past decades that might be a reason, but really, we don’t know exactly what causes this rapid rise in colorectal cancer incidence rates,” he said. This year more than 153,000 Americans will be diagnosed with colon cancer and 52,550 will die from the disease, the researchers note. Screening is the best protection…  read on >  read on >

For decades, people turned to cigarettes in times of stress. Now, a preliminary study hints that young people are using vaping in the same way. The study, of nearly 2,000 U.S. teenagers and young adults, found that those who vaped nicotine or marijuana were more likely to report anxiety, depression or suicidal thoughts. In fact, a majority of vapers said they’d suffered anxiety or depression symptoms in the past week, while over half had contemplated suicide in the past year. The findings leave open the chicken-and-egg question. “One of the challenges is in teasing out the cause and effect,” said Loren Wold, a professor in the Colleges of Nursing and Medicine at Ohio State University. Many of the young people surveyed explicitly said they’d started vaping to deal with depression — including one-third of those who vaped marijuana. That’s worrying, Wold said, since no one would consider vaping a healthy coping strategy. Wold, who was not involved in the study, was lead author on a recent report from the American Heart Association (AHA) on the physical health consequences of vaping during adolescence. There’s still a lot to learn, as vaping is a relatively new phenomenon, Wold said. But it’s clear there are shorter-term effects, including inflammation in the airways, blood pressure spikes and increased stiffness in the arteries. So young people who vape could be…  read on >  read on >

After a heart attack, home rehab can literally be a lifesaver, a new study finds. Taking part in a home-based cardiac rehabilitation program lowered the risk of dying from heart complications by 36% within four years, compared with patients who were not in a rehab program, researchers report. “Cardiac rehabilitation programs save lives,” said lead researcher Dr. Mary Whooley, a professor of medicine, epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco. According to the American Heart Association, which stresses the benefits of cardiac rehabilitation after a heart attack in preventing rehospitalization and deaths, rehab is greatly underused — with only about 44% of patients opting for it. Cardiac rehabilitation programs stress not smoking, eating healthy, exercising, managing stress and taking medications to lower blood pressure and cholesterol. Among patients hospitalized for a heart attack between 2007 and 2011, only 16% of Medicare patients and 10% of veterans took part in cardiac rehabilitation, the researchers said. But if 70% of patients took part in cardiac rehab, 25,000 lives could be saved and 180,000 hospitalizations prevented each year, according to the Million Hearts Cardiac Rehabilitation Collaborative, sponsored by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “Behavior change is really tough,” Whooley said. People are very motivated when they’re in the hospital and they’re sitting in a…  read on >  read on >

When expectant or new moms experience depression, known as perinatal depression, loneliness may be a driving factor. “We found that loneliness was central to the experiences of expectant and new mothers with depression. We know that depression and loneliness are often interconnected — each one can lead to the other — and this may be particularly true for perinatal depression [which includes postpartum depression],” said Dr. Katherine Adlington, an academic clinical fellow at UCL Psychiatry and East London NHS Foundation Trust. “Having a baby is a period of huge transition and upheaval that can involve losing touch with people and existing networks, such as work colleagues,” Adlington added in a University College London (UCL) news release. “This research suggests that loneliness is a major risk for mental health problems during pregnancy and for new mothers.” To come to that conclusion, the researchers reviewed accounts from 537 women in 27 research papers in multiple countries. Depression affects about 1 in 6 pregnant women, and then 1 in 5 women during the first three months after a baby is born. While significantly affecting new parents’ quality of life, it can also have long-term adverse impacts on their child’s development. Researchers studying this say those working with new mothers, including health care providers, should be aware of the importance of loneliness and the value of encouraging new moms…  read on >  read on >