Lifestyle « Weekly Gravy

Parents are role models who can teach their kids about healthy food and exercise habits in childhood to help avoid future health problems. “Children who are overweight are more likely to develop diabetes, experience feelings of isolation and struggle with self-esteem,” said Dr. Asma Khan, a pediatrician at OSF HealthCare in Rockland, Ill. Khan offered some tips for giving kids an early start on good health. First, teach them about hunger and fullness cues. It’s easy to eat because of boredom or sadness, but important to recognize when you’re hungry or full. “Starting healthy habits early is the best way to maintain a healthy weight,” Khan said in an OSF news release. Use child-sized plates to make it easier to gauge how much food your child needs in a meal. Half the plate should be filled with fruits and veggies. The other half should be a lean protein, such as fish, chicken or beans, and a whole grain, which might be oatmeal, whole wheat bread or brown rice. Choose healthy snacks such as carrots and hummus, an apple or kale chips. Skip snacks that are high in sugar and fat, such as soda, juice, sports drinks, chips, cookies, candy and cupcakes, except on special occasions. “I also tell parents to limit the junk food that comes into the house. There isn’t as much temptation to… read on > read on >

People who are experiencing anxiety and depression months after a mild case of COVID-19 may have changes affecting the structure and function of their brains, Brazilian researchers report. “There is still much to learn about long COVID, which includes a wide range of health problems, including anxiety and depression, months after infection,” said Dr. Clarissa Yasuda of the University of Campinas in São Paulo. “Our findings are concerning, as even people with a mild case of COVID-19 are showing changes in their brains months later. More studies are needed to hopefully identify treatments to prevent any long-term effects on people’s quality of life,” she added. To understand this, the researchers studied 254 people who had a mild COVID-19 infection. On average, the patients were 41 years old and had COVID-19 three months earlier. Each participant completed tests of anxiety or depression symptoms and had brain scans. In all, 102 people had symptoms of both anxiety and depression and 152 people had none, the investigators found. The researchers then looked for evidence of shrinkage in the brain’s gray matter. Scans were compared with those of 148 people who had not had COVID-19. Those who had COVID-19 and were experiencing anxiety and depression had shrinkage in the limbic area of the brain, which is involved in memory and emotional processing. Those who had no symptoms of anxiety… read on > read on >

Researchers may have found a way for coffee-lovers to cut back without suffering symptoms of caffeine withdrawal like headache, fatigue, bad mood and irritability. It’s a cup of decaf. A new study found that people experienced fewer withdrawal symptoms with the substitute. “A convincing cup of decaf has the power to reduce withdrawal symptoms a lot when the person drinking it is unaware it’s decaf. But our study suggests that even if they are aware it’s decaf, their withdrawal still subsides,” said Dr. Llew Mills, a senior research associate at the University of Sydney School of Addiction Medicine, in Australia. For the study, researchers worked with 61 people who said they consumed three or more cups of coffee a day. Each went caffeine-free for 24 hours, and their withdrawal was measured. Participants were then separated into three groups. Two groups were given decaf coffee, and one of those groups was told that it was decaf. The other was deceived into thinking it was regular coffee. The third group was given water. About 45 minutes later, participants were asked to rate their withdrawal symptoms again. “The group we lied to reported a big drop in caffeine withdrawal even though there’s no pharmacological reason why it should,” Mills said. “Because they expected their withdrawal to go down, it did go down.” That’s known as a placebo effect… read on > read on >

FRIDAY, Feb. 17, 2023 (HealthDay News) – Sen. John Fetterman is being treated for clinical depression at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. “While John has experienced depression off and on throughout his life, it only became severe in recent weeks,” Fetterman’s chief of staff Adam Jentleson said in a statement. The Pennsylvania Democrat checked himself into the hospital on Wednesday night, Jentleson added. Fetterman survived a near-fatal stroke last year while he was campaigning for the Senate seat he now holds. Just last week, the first-term senator was hospitalized at George Washington University Hospital after feeling lightheaded during a Senate Democratic retreat. At that time, Fetterman was in the stroke unit for two days, where he underwent various tests including an MRI. He had not suffered an additional stroke. On Monday, he was evaluated by Congress’ attending physician Dr. Brian Monahan, who recommended he receive inpatient care at Walter Reed, in Bethesda, Md. “John agreed, and he is receiving treatment on a voluntary basis,” Jentleson said. The senator missed votes on Wednesday and Thursday night, CNBC News reported. Fetterman’s transition to the Senate in January has been made more difficult because of his stroke recovery, the Times reported. He previously served as Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor. His wife, Gisele Fetterman, asked for privacy. “After what he’s been through in the past year, there’s probably no… read on > read on >

Following a healthy plant-based diet after a diagnosis of prostate cancer may help prevent the disease from progressing or recurring, a new study suggests. Men who ate a diet rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains had a 52% lower risk of cancer progressing and a 53% lower risk of recurrence, compared with men who had the lowest amounts of plants in their diet, the researchers found. “Progressing to advanced disease is one of many pivotal concerns among patients with prostate cancer, their family and caregivers and their physicians,” said lead researcher Vivian Liu, a clinical research coordinator at the Osher Center for Integrative Health at the University of California, San Francisco. “These findings may directly inform clinical care by providing diet recommendations as guidance for managing their health and reducing morbidity for the most common cancer facing U.S. men, in addition to having other positive health benefits for preventing other chronic diseases,” Liu said. A plant-based diet may have these benefits because fruits and vegetables contain antioxidants and anti-inflammatory components, as well as dietary fiber that improve glucose control and reduce inflammation, she explained. Also, this diet reduces potentially harmful exposures to animal-based foods, such as hormones and heterocyclic amines created during high-temperature cooking, which have been linked to prostate cancer in particular, Liu said. Diets high in animal protein may also increase insulin… read on > read on >

A new study builds upon earlier evidence that vaping isn’t any healthier than smoking. In analyzing epithelial cells taken from the mouths of vapers, smokers and people who had never vaped or smoked, researchers found that vapers and smokers had more than twice the amount of DNA damage as found in non-users. Those who vaped or smoked more frequently had higher DNA damage. Epithelial cells line the mouth. DNA damage is an early change associated with an increased risk for cancer and inflammatory diseases. “For the first time, we showed that the more vapers used e-cigarettes, and the longer they used them, the more DNA damage occurred in their oral cells,” said senior study author Ahmad Besaratinia. He is a professor of research population and public health sciences at the Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles. “The same pattern held up in smokers,” Besaratinia said in a school news release. In the study, the researchers recruited 72 healthy adults who were interviewed and underwent biochemical testing. The study participants were divided into three groups: vapers who had never smoked cigarettes; smokers who had never vaped; and people with no history of smoking or vaping. The researchers also collected data on how often, and for how long, participants had smoked or vaped. They asked vapers what devices and flavors they used. The investigators then collected… read on > read on >

A guy pops a little pill just before he expects to get frisky with his girlfriend. But the pill isn’t Viagra, as one might expect. Instead, it’s an on-demand contraceptive that will prevent pregnancy even if taken just before sex. Researchers think they’ve discovered a way to create such a contraceptive pill for men, by inhibiting an enzyme that’s key to a sperm’s ability to swim. Inhibiting this enzyme in lab mice using an experimental compound successfully prevented pregnancy, according to a new report published Feb. 14 in the journal Nature Communications. “The effect started within 30 minutes after dosing and the mice were completely infertile for the subsequent two hours,” said co-senior researcher Lonny Levin, a professor of pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. “By the following day, the mice were completely normal. The compound did not adversely affect the mice in any way, and their sexual behavior and ejaculate were completely normal,” he added. If proven to work in humans, such an approach “would be a tremendous advancement for the field,” said Christopher Lindsey, program officer at the U.S. National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, which helped fund the study. “The benefit of this is that unlike a hormonal approach where you’d have to take that drug for days, weeks, sometimes months, this would work similar to Viagra,”… read on > read on >

How close a person lives to a major road could have an impact on their eczema risk. New research suggests that folks who live farther from one are less likely to develop the skin condition. A 13-year medical chart review focused on patients in Denver, from infants to age 18. Those with eczema were compared to an equal-sized control group of patients without the condition. In all, the study included more than 14,000 children. The researchers calculated the distance from their homes to a road with annual traffic of more than 10,000 vehicles a day. The risk of eczema (atopic dermatitis) dropped 21% for every 10-fold increase in distance from a major road, the study found. “In the end, we found children who lived 1,000 meters [0.6 miles] or more from a major road had 27% lower odds of atopic dermatitis compared to children who lived within 500 meters of a major road,” said lead author Dr. Michael Nevid, a fellow at National Jewish Health in Denver, who pursued this research after learning about a similar study in Asia. “This is an early association study, so more work needs to be done to examine the pathophysiological mechanisms involved in the association,” Nevid said in a news release from the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. The findings were published in a February online supplement… read on > read on >

More than a decade ago, the Obama administration passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 as a way to counter the toll the obesity epidemic was taking on children’s health. The goal was to markedly improve the nutritional value of federal food programs that regularly put free and/or low-cost breakfasts, lunches and snacks on the plates of nearly 30 million American students. Did it work? A new study delivers a resounding yes. “We showed that the annual change in body mass index [BMI] decreased by 10 percent in children and adolescents in America following the implementation” of the law, said study lead author Dr. Aruna Chandran. She is a social epidemiologist and senior scientist with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in Baltimore. What fueled the drop? School-based federal food programs provide “an estimated 50% of students’ caloric intake each school day,” Chandran noted. So, the upshot is that “accessibility to school meals and snacks represents a key opportunity for intervention to combat the childhood obesity epidemic,” she added. In the study, Chandran and her colleagues pored over BMI trends among 14,000 kids between the ages of 5 and 18. As a point of comparison, the investigators focused on two periods of time. The first fell between 2005 and the summer of 2016, before the new law was implemented; the second stretched… read on > read on >

Children who were exposed to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) medications their moms took during pregnancy are not more prone to neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD or autism, researchers report. The news may be welcome to women who’ve needed to take ADHD medication throughout their pregnancy. “We can see that the number of women of childbearing age who are medicated for ADHD is rapidly increasing, and therefore it is very important to garner more knowledge to be able to counsel these women,” said study co-author Dr. Veerle Bergink, director of the Women’s Mental Health Program at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. “We know that there is an increased risk of accidents or losing a job when women do not take ADHD medication, when it is indicated,” Bergink said in a Mount Sinai news release. “There are still unknowns, but these results may contribute to women making informed decisions about using ADHD medication during pregnancy.” Researchers at Icahn and the National Centre for Register-Based Research at Aarhus University in Denmark examined more than 1 million children born between 1998 and 2015 in Denmark and followed through 2018. The data included nearly 900 children whose mothers either continued using ADHD medication throughout pregnancy or started on ADHD medication during pregnancy. It also included 1,270 children whose mothers stopped taking ADHD medication… read on > read on >