Lifestyle « Weekly Gravy

When Elizabeth R.’s husband passed away from bone cancer in 2016, she felt grateful that her employer offered generous bereavement leave. Now 40, she worked in the development department of a large nonprofit cancer group at the time and felt ready to go back when her leave was up. However, about two weeks into her return, she realized it was too much, too soon. “Every time I would hear a cancer survivor or caregiver story, I had a reaction,” she recalled. Elizabeth, who asked that her last name not be used, decided to resign and has since remarried and started a second career as a massage therapist in Grand Rapids, Mich. But not every widow or widower who works has these options, and those who don’t may face increased physical and mental health challenges, a new study suggests. People who returned to work within three months of losing a spouse had higher perceived stress levels and greater systemic inflammation than retirees who had lost their partner. The less these folks earned at their job, the worse the mental health effects, the study showed. “It is important to recognize that widows and widowers have twice as much to deal with as other people who work and are not grieving a spouse,” said study author Jensine Paoletti. She is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Biobehavioral Mechanisms… read on > read on >

While you can’t trust everything you read or see on social media, some information is reliable. Researchers from Duke University studied popular videos on the social media site TikTok. The videos offered information on ways to obtain a medication abortion. These were typically informative and useful, the study authors said. “When we started the study, we expected to find more videos with misinformation,” said Dr. Jenny Wu, a resident in obstetrics and gynecology at Duke in Durham, N.C. “After looking at the data, we were surprised by how accurate the videos were. A significant number of videos were created by health care professionals and organizations providing abortion. TikTok says it has internal policies for blocking inaccurate information which might also have helped on this topic.” For the study, the Duke team evaluated the 100 most-viewed TikTok videos tagged #abortionpill, #medicalabortion and #medicationabortion. Those videos often describe the pills, what a medication abortion is and how to get that medication. About 89% of the videos that depicted public health information were mostly accurate, the study found. About 11% were mixed. Of 51 videos that presented scientific claims, about 86% were mostly accurate. About 14% were mixed. Social media platforms can help educate patients and combat the stigma surrounding abortion, according to the researchers. “It’s important that people in more restrictive states have the opportunity to learn… read on > read on >

Laws bar advertising cannabis to teens, but that doesn’t mean they always work. In a new survey, researchers found that teens still see a lot of positive cannabis messages through social media posts. These messages influenced their intentions and actual use of cannabis, the survey found. When young people saw anti-cannabis messages, the intent to use lessened, but young people saw fewer of those messages, the study authors said. “Youth, in particular, have really grown up bombarded with cannabis information compared to previous generations,” said first author Jessica Willoughby, an associate professor of communications at Washington State University (WSU) in Pullman. “We found that they were seeing more positive messages about using cannabis and a lot less about the risks.” For the study, the researchers surveyed 350 teens and 966 college students across Washington state. Recreational marijuana has been legal in the state since 2012, though it has regulations aimed at preventing advertising cannabis to minors. These rules bar the use of cartoons or youth-oriented celebrities in cannabis advertising. Of course, the study noted, individuals can still post about cannabis on social media. And more than 80% of survey participants reported seeing pro-cannabis messages on social media. These posts talked about being high or claimed marijuana was harmless. The pro-cannabis messages most often encountered were from celebrities or in song lyrics. Teens and college students… read on > read on >

A phone call from a nurse may be the lifeline needed to help improve survival for heart failure patients. New research from the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles finds that check-in calls may help save lives. “There’s a lot of new technology and new ideas about how to manage people who have heart failure remotely, but we demonstrated that low-tech and old-fashioned talking on the phone, essentially monitoring the response to, ‘How are you feeling?’ can improve outcomes,” said corresponding study author Dr. Ilan Kedan, a professor of cardiology at the institute. About one-third of people die within a year of being hospitalized for heart failure, a condition in which the heart does not pump enough blood to support the organs. About 15% to 20% of heart failure patients who were hospitalized return to the hospital within 30 days, according to past research. To study the impact of phone calls on outcomes, the researchers included just over 1,300 patients aged 50 or older who were hospitalized for acute heart failure between October 2011 and September 2013 at six academic medical centers in California. Half of the patients were randomized to receive a new post-hospitalization care plan. In this new plan, patients were given a blood pressure monitor and a scale. The patients received pre-discharge heart failure education, along with an average of… read on > read on >

Antidepressants are often prescribed to people suffering from chronic pain, but a new evidence review argues that the science behind these prescriptions is shaky at best. These drugs helped people in chronic pain in only a quarter of potential uses tested, and even then the effect ranged from low to moderate, according to a combined analysis of 26 prior reviews. “We found that, for most pain conditions and types of antidepressants, the evidence of their effectiveness was either inconclusive or they were ineffective,” said lead researcher Giovanni Ferreira, a research fellow at the University of Sydney Institute for Musculoskeletal Health in Australia. In particular, the review found scant evidence supporting the use of tricyclic antidepressants, he said. Previous studies have found that as many as 3 out of 4 antidepressant prescriptions for pain involved a tricyclic antidepressant, researchers said in background notes. “Tricyclic antidepressants such as amitriptyline are by far the most commonly used antidepressant for the treatment of pain,” Ferreira said. “But to our surprise most evidence for tricyclic antidepressants showed that the effectiveness of these antidepressants is inconclusive. We think this is a concerning finding.” The U.S. opioid epidemic has led doctors to look to non-opioid drugs as a means of pain relief. For example, a 2021 guideline for chronic pain management from the U.K’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)… read on > read on >

Americans who live near a “food swamp” may have a higher risk of suffering a stroke, a preliminary study finds. A number of studies have looked at the health consequences of living in a so-called food desert — areas with few grocery stores or other options for buying fresh food. Food swamps are different: The term was coined to describe communities where fast food restaurants, convenience stores and other junk-food purveyors heavily outweigh healthier options like grocery stores and farmers’ markets. The new study looked at whether Americans’ stroke risk varies based on how far their county of residence veers into food swamp territory. It turned out it did: Among nearly 18,000 adults age 50 and older, those living in U.S. counties high on the food swamp scale had a 13% higher risk of suffering a stroke, compared to those in areas with more healthy options. Many factors affect stroke risk, and it is hard to separate the importance of food swamps from those other variables, said lead researcher Dr. Dixon Yang, a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City. In fact, he said, the food swamp issue is intertwined with other factors in those communities. People living there may have lower incomes, little time or places for exercise, or less access to health care, for example. But food swamps… read on > read on >

Androstenedione is one of those supplements that was peddled to athletes for years as a quick path to bulging muscles and high testosterone levels, but it carries some grave dangers. Also known as “andro,” the dietary supplement was once touted to enhance athletic performance by stimulating muscle growth and boosting testosterone levels. But once it enters the body, it acts like a steroid and can pose similar health risks. In October 2004, President George Bush signed the Anabolic Steroid Control Act, which reclassified androstenedione from a supplement to an anabolic steroid, making it and other steroid-based drugs a controlled substance. They are currently banned in sports. This was because a small number of studies of androstenedione led the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to believe that its use may increase the risk of serious health problems because of its conversion in the body to the hormones testosterone and a particular form of estrogen. While over-the-counter androstenedione supplements are now banned, doctors can still prescribe it for medical purposes. According to a study published online recently in the journal Molecules, doctors can offer androstenedione shots for preventing or treating certain chronic diseases. Androstenedione’s dangers But the supplement is linked to numerous side effects. According to the Mayo Clinic, long-term use of androstenedione supplements by men can result in testicular atrophy, impotence and the development of female… read on > read on >

A new study hints that treating low vitamin D levels with supplements might have a critical benefit for certain people: a decreased risk of attempting suicide. In a study of more than 1 million U.S. veterans, researchers found that those prescribed vitamin D were nearly 50% less likely to attempt suicide over eight years, versus those who were not prescribed the supplements. The benefit was seen specifically among veterans who had low vitamin D levels to begin with, as well as Black veterans — who may be at greater risk of insufficient vitamin D stores. Experts stressed that the study was not a clinical trial that directly tested vitamin D for reducing suicidal behavior. So it does not prove that supplements, per se, actually cause suicide risk to fall. At the same time, it’s known that vitamin D deficiency can cause depression-like symptoms, including mood changes and chronic fatigue, said Dr. Christine Crawford, a psychiatrist and associate medical director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Crawford, who was not involved in the study, said that in her practice, she often has patients with depression symptoms tested for blood levels of vitamin D, as well as vitamin B12, folic acid and thyroid hormones. (Deficiencies in those vitamins, or thyroid hormone disturbances, can also cause depressive symptoms.) “I think that medical evaluation is so important,” Crawford… read on > read on >

Dave Conway had a heart attack in 2018. He was only 30. The Clintonville, Ohio, resident had been experiencing fatigue and shortness of breath, finally going to the emergency room with what he thought was pneumonia. Instead, he learned he’d had a “widowmaker” heart attack and a 100% blockage in a major artery. “I thought people who had heart attacks or heart disease were older people who drink and smoke a lot and weigh much more than I did,” Conway said. “Recovery has been really tough, but I’m willing to do whatever my doctors tell me is needed to keep my heart safe in the future,” he said in an Ohio State University news release. Stories like Conway’s are becoming more common, with studies showing heart attacks and stroke are on the rise among Americans younger than 40. Certain healthy habits can help prevent heart problems — but getting younger adults to accept their risks remains an obstacle. “It is alarming that younger people don’t feel that they’re at risk for heart disease, but it’s not surprising,” said Dr. Laxmi Mehta, director of preventative cardiology and women’s cardiovascular health at the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center. “Most young people think heart disease only happens in old people, but that’s not the case,” Mehta said in the release. The medical center surveyed 2,000 Americans, finding that… read on > read on >

Black and Hispanic women who work as hairdressers are exposed to an array of chemicals, including many that have not been previously identified, a small study finds. Researchers found that compared with women of color in office jobs, hair stylists had higher levels of various chemicals in their urine. Those substances included expected ones — ingredients known to be in salon products — but also many more the researchers could not identify. Experts said the findings underscore a need to better understand the chemical exposures inherent to salon work — and what the health effects could be. There is particular concern for Black women and Hispanic women in the industry, according to senior researcher Carsten Prasse, an assistant professor of environmental health and engineering at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Those women may have especially high exposure to chemical hair products like straighteners and dyes, because their clients often want those services. Hair products, as well as a range of personal care products, commonly contain chemicals that are considered endocrine disruptors — meaning they may interfere with the body’s hormones. Studies have linked some of those products, including hair straighteners and dyes, to increased risks of breast, ovarian and uterine cancers in women who use them frequently. Some of the chemicals in personal care products may be familiar to consumers, such as parabens, pthalates and… read on > read on >