Lifestyle « Weekly Gravy

People should test for the naturally occurring radioactive gas radon in their homes to help prevent ill health, the American Lung Association urges. In some areas, like the state of Connecticut, radon was found to be present at high levels in a quarter (26%) of all homes. Radon is emitted from the ground and can enter a house through floor cracks, basement walls and foundations. Exposure to radon is the second-leading cause of lung cancer in the United States and it is the leading cause in people who’ve never smoked. It’s responsible for an estimated 21,000 U.S. lung cancer deaths each year, the ALA said. “Since radon is odorless, tasteless and colorless, the only way to detect radon in your home is to test the air,” said Ruth Canovi, director of advocacy for the lung association. “Radon Action Month is the perfect time to learn more about this dangerous gas and take action to protect yourself and your loved ones,” Canovi said in an association news release. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets an action level of 4 picoCuries per liter or pCi/L for radon. Anyone with a radon level that high should have a professional install a mitigation system in their home, according to the EPA. Both the EPA and the lung association recommend doing so if levels are greater than 2 pCi/L.… read on > read on >

Air pollution may trigger more asthma attacks in urban children and teens, a new study reports. Even moderate levels of ozone and fine airborne particulates — two ingredients of smog — appear to increase kids’ risk of asthma attacks, according to findings published online Jan. 4 in The Lancet Planetary Health journal. “The strong association this study demonstrates between specific air pollutants among children in impoverished urban communities and non-viral asthma attacks further augments the evidence that reducing air pollution would improve human health,” said Dr. Hugh Auchincloss, acting director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). The U.S. National Institutes of Health, of which NIAID is a part, funded the new study. The study also tied the two pollutants to distinct changes in children’s airways that could trigger an asthma attack, according to study leader Dr. Matthew Altman, an associate professor in the department of medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine, in Seattle, and colleagues. It’s one of the first times elevated levels of distinctive air pollutants in specific urban locations have been tied to the risk of asthma attacks. During an asthma attack, inflammation causes the lining of airways to swell as muscles around the airways contract and mucus floods the passages — all substantially narrowing the space through which air passes in and out of… read on > read on >

A short but intensive approach to “talk therapy” can help many combat veterans overcome post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a new clinical trial has found. The study tested “compressed” formats of a standard PTSD treatment called prolonged exposure therapy, in which patients learn to gradually face the trauma-related memories they normally avoid. Traditionally, that has meant therapy once a week, over the course of a few months. But while prolonged exposure therapy is often effective for PTSD, there is room for improvement, according to Alan Peterson, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. In general, he said, prolonged exposure (PE) therapy does not work as well for combat veterans as it does for civilians with PTSD. In an earlier trial, Peterson and his colleagues found that about 60% of combat vets still met the criteria for PTSD six months after therapy. So for the new trial, his team tested the effects of two compressed PE formats, where vets attended therapy every weekday for three weeks. It’s a concept that some PTSD programs have been offering in recent years. The general idea, Peterson explained, is that the short time window will help more patients stick with therapy. And the intensity of daily sessions, with patients devoting their time and energy toward getting better, might also boost effectiveness, he suggested.… read on > read on >

Generous parental leave policies at work can do wonders for a new mom’s mental health. This is among the key messages from a new review of 45 studies examining how parental leave policies affect mom and dad’s mental health and well-being. Mothers working for companies with generous parental leave policies were less likely to experience symptoms of depression, poor mental health, psychological distress, burnout, or to require mental health care. The more generous the policy, the greater and more long-lasting the benefits, the new Swedish study showed. “Parental leave was protective against poorer maternal mental health including depressive symptoms, general mental health, psychological distress and burnout; however, improved mental health among mothers was associated with more generous parental leave policies [such as] those with longer length of leave or paid leave,” said study author Amy Heshmati. She is a doctoral student in the department of global public health at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. The findings on dads were less conclusive, but there haven’t been as many studies done on the benefits of father’s paid leave and mental health yet, she noted. Almost all countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) — except the United States — provide new mothers with at least 14 weeks of paid leave around childbirth. New mothers can take up to nine months of paid maternity leave in… read on > read on >

Cigars are linked with victory, new babies and Winston Churchill, not nicotine addiction, but are they any better for your health than cigarettes? No, say experts who point out the many dangers of cigar smoking. Over the past few decades, through clever marketing, cigar smoking has taken on a rarified aura, with cigar bars and magazines like Cigar Aficionado devoted to a cigar-smoking lifestyle that appeals to male fantasies of power and class. It’s also a way to relax because it is a more leisurely smoke than the frenetic rush of a cigarette. What are cigars made of? Unlike cigarettes, they are all tobacco from the inside to the tobacco leaf wrapper. Do cigars have nicotine? Like cigarettes, they contain nicotine and the same cancer-causing compounds found in cigarettes and are not a safe alternative for smokers. Do you inhale cigars? Some people may think that cigar smoking is less harmful than cigarettes because you don’t inhale. But even if you don’t inhale, large amounts of nicotine can be absorbed through the lining of your mouth. Cigars can be as addictive as cigarettes because it’s the nicotine in tobacco that the body craves. ”While the production, look and consumption of cigars and cigarettes are different, they both pose serious health risks,” Dr. Edwin Lin, a hematology oncology physician at PIH Health Whittier Hospital in California,… read on > read on >

Herbal cigarettes: They carry a certain “coolness factor” and sound like they might be a healthier alternative to tobacco, but are they really safer to smoke? Not really, experts say. “Even herbal cigarettes with no tobacco give off tar, particulates and carbon monoxide, and are dangerous to your health,” according to the American Cancer Society (ACS). The ACS outlines the dangers of a few of these herbal alternatives — from clove cigarettes known as kreteks to flavored cigarettes known as bidis and water pipes called hookahs. “Hookah is not a safe alternative to smoking cigarettes,” Dr. Ellen Rome from Cleveland Clinic in Ohio said in a post about the dangers of sharing these pipes that heat tobacco with charcoal and filter it through cool water. “A typical one-hour session involves inhaling 100 to 200 times the volume of smoke inhaled from a single cigarette,” Rome noted. What are herbal cigarettes? The U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) defines herbal cigarettes as containing a mixture of flowers, herbs and other natural ingredients. What is not in herbal cigarettes? No tobacco or nicotine. Despite these natural ingredients, they still emit many of the same harmful chemicals that cigarettes have, such as tar and carbon monoxide, according to the NCI. While certain herbal cigarettes are well known, others are more obscure. A study published recently in the American Chemical… read on > read on >

College students who routinely cram at the last minute may not only see their grades suffer, but their health, too, a new study suggests. Researchers found that of more than 3,500 college students they followed, those who scored high on a procrastination scale were more likely to report certain health issues nine months later. The list included body aches, poor sleep, and depression and anxiety symptoms. Experts said the findings do not prove that procrastination, per se, directly caused those problems — by, for example, delaying a medical visit and allowing a niggling health issue to worsen. But they do reinforce the fact that procrastination, when chronic, is a red flag. “Everyone procrastinates, but not everyone is a procrastinator,” said Joseph Ferrari, a psychology professor at DePaul University in Chicago, who has been studying the subject since the 1980s. Dragging your feet on doing your taxes, or something equally unpleasant, is normal. Chronic procrastination is different, and it’s not just a benign personality quirk, said Ferrari, who was not involved in the new study. When procrastination is a way of life — rearing its head at work, home and in relationships — that’s a problem, Ferrari said. It’s also common: In his own research, Ferrari has found that about 20% of adults qualify as chronic procrastinators — making it more prevalent than mental health disorders… read on > read on >

Sometimes it really does “take a village” to help you meet life’s challenges, and quitting smoking can be one of the toughest challenges out there. That’s why specially designed smoking-cessation programs can make all the difference, experts say. Many programs employ a combination approach, one that treats the physical and the psychological addictions you’re trying to break. Dr. Amit Mahajan, a volunteer medical spokesperson for the American Lung Association (ALA), says proven ways to help people quit often include professional counseling — including psychotherapies such as cognitive behavioral therapy. Such therapies are typically given alongside nicotine replacement patches and gums (to help ease cravings), and/or addiction-countering drugs, such as Chantix and bupropion (Wellbutrin). Programs that offer up these combo strategies have a higher likelihood of success, Mahajan said. “At the end of the day, the data is pretty clear that if there’s behavioral therapy combined with pharmacotherapy medications, that is the best option for smokers who want to quit and people who’ve already tried and were unable to quit,” he said. Breaking free The ALA offers up its own program, called Freedom From Smoking. First begun in 1975 and then updated and refined ever since, the program helps overcome the physical, mental and social aspects of addiction. It even offers up an online quiz that folks can take to confirm that they’re mentally ready to… read on > read on >

Social media’s impact on young people is a hot topic, with most kids and teens wanting to do whatever their friends are doing and parents worrying about setting limits. A new study examines whether frequent checking of social media sites (Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat) is associated with changes in functional brain development in these early adolescents, about age 12. Using brain scans called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that habitually refreshing and checking social media may be associated with changes in brain sensitivity to social rewards and punishments — those online likes and engagement from others. “We know that adolescence is one of the most important periods for brain development — it’s going through more changes in reorganization second only to that we see in early infancy,” said study author Eva Telzer, who is an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience. “It’s a really dramatic period of brain development, in particular in these brain regions that respond to social rewards.” Social rewards aren’t limited to social media sites. They can be positive face-to-face feedback from peers or even receiving money. But those Facebook likes are social rewards, too. Other research has found that some adolescents are on their cellphones almost constantly, checking their social media at least hourly. For the three-year study, Telzer’s team recruited… read on > read on >

If you’ve ever thought you must absorb more calories from food than other people do, you might be onto something: A new study hints that some people’s gut bacteria extract more energy, as in calories, from food — possibly contributing to weight gain. The study, of 85 overweight adults, found that those with a particular gut bacteria profile — dubbed the “B-type” — had less energy density in their stool samples, versus people with other bacterial profiles. “Energy” is what most of us know as calories, and the finding suggests that people with a B-type gut might pull more calories from their food before it’s eliminated as waste. And it’s possible, though not proven, that could influence body weight, the researchers added. On average, study participants with a B-type gut weighed about 20 pounds more than participants with another gut bacteria profile dubbed the R-type, according to senior researcher Henrik Roager. The big caveat is it’s not clear what caused that weight difference, said Roager, an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen, in Denmark. “Future studies should investigate whether individuals receiving the same amount of calories would differ in weight gain, depending on their gut microbes’ ability to extract energy,” he suggested. The study, published online recently in the journal Microbiome, is one of the latest looks at the gut microbiome — the vast… read on > read on >