Persistent asthma may take a toll on the heart, not just the lungs, a new study suggests. When the respiratory condition is relentless, it appears tied to plaque in the carotid arteries, increasing the risk for heart attack and stroke, researchers say. The carotid arteries — large arteries on the sides of the neck — carry blood to the brain. In a study of more than 5,000 men and women, researchers found that people with persistent asthma had nearly double the odds of having plaque buildup in the carotid arteries, compared with those without asthma. Persistent asthma was defined as using daily controller medications to control asthma symptoms, such as wheezing or shortness of breath. The plaque may be a response to inflammation caused by asthma, the researchers noted. “Inflammation also plays a big role in cardiovascular disease,” said lead researcher Dr. Matthew Tattersall, an assistant professor in the department of medicine at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Tattersall cautioned, however, that this study cannot prove that asthma causes plaque buildup in the carotid arteries, only that the two may be connected. People with persistent asthma — but not intermittent asthma — also had higher levels of markers of inflammation, compared with those without asthma. But that might not entirely explain the increased plaque, Tattersall said. “There are other things, too, that could cause people…  read on >  read on >

If holiday demands get you frazzled, you can take heart from a new study: When it comes to stress, a little is good. “The bad outcomes of stress are pretty clear and not new,” said Assaf Oshri, lead author of the study and an associate professor in the University of Georgia College of Family and Consumer Sciences. “But there’s less information about the effects of more limited stress,” Oshri said in a university news release. “Our findings show that low to moderate levels of perceived stress were associated with elevated working memory neural activation, resulting in better mental performance.” Working memory is the short-term information you use everyday for things like remembering a phone number or recalling directions on how to get someplace. For the study, the researchers analyzed MRI scans from the Human Connectome Project, a project sponsored by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Scans came from more than 1,000 people with diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. Those who reported having low or moderate stress levels had increased activity in the parts of the brain that involve working memory. Meanwhile, those who reported high stress had a decline in those areas, the findings showed. The research team assessed perceived stress levels through questions like these: “In the last month, how often have you been upset because of something that happened unexpectedly?” and “In…  read on >

Are you an older man worried about your risk for colon cancer? Eating whole grains, vegetables, fruits and legumes may improve your odds of dodging the disease, new research shows. “Although previous research has suggested that plant-based diets may play a role in preventing colorectal cancer, the impact of plant foods’ nutritional quality on this association has been unclear,” said study co-author Jihye Kim, from Kyung Hee University in South Korea, “Our findings suggest that eating a healthy plant-based diet is associated with a reduced risk of colorectal cancer.” Kim noted that colon cancer is the third most common cancer worldwide and that a man has a lifetime odds for developing it of one in 23. A woman has a lifetime risk of one in 25. The new report was published online Nov. 29 in BMC Medicine. The researchers studied a population of nearly 80,000 American men, finding that those who ate the highest average daily amounts of healthy plant-based foods had a 22% lower risk of colon cancer compared to those who ate the lowest amounts of these foods. While studying more than 93,000 American women, the researchers did not find the same association. “We speculate that the antioxidants found in foods such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains could contribute to lowering colorectal cancer risk by suppressing chronic inflammation, which can lead to…  read on >  read on >

Fungal lung infections are spreading to parts of the United States where they were once never seen — likely a result of climate change, experts say. To the average person, the term fungal infection may conjure up thoughts of athlete’s foot or toenail problems. But some fungus species cause potentially severe respiratory infections, when a person inhales microscopic spores from fungi in the soil. In the United States, the major fungal species behind those illnesses were historically limited to regional “hot spots.” But that’s no longer the case, according to Dr. George Thompson, a professor and infectious disease specialist at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine. Writing in the Nov. 22 Annals of Internal Medicine, Thompson and colleague Dr. Tom Chiller, of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, describe the expansion of three fungal diseases: histoplasmosis, blastomycosis and coccidioidomycosis (commonly called Valley fever). Each was once confined to specific areas of the United States. Now, Thompson said, more than 10% of the infections occur outside of their traditional ranges. Valley fever was historically confined to California and the southwestern United States. But now the disease is expanding north — with cases turning up in Washington State a decade ago, for instance — and eastward. Histoplasmosis, meanwhile, used to be a disease of the Midwest and parts of the East. Now cases…  read on >  read on >

Having a clear purpose in life could reduce your risk for premature death. That’s the conclusion of researchers who spent eight years tracking about 13,000 Americans over age 50. Those who considered their life particularly purposeful were found to have about a 15% risk of death from any cause during the tracking period, the new study found. That figure jumped to almost 37% among participants with the lowest level of purpose. “[Having] a purpose in life is defined as the extent to which people perceive their lives as having a sense of direction and goals,” said lead author Koichiro Shiba, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health. And a greater sense of purpose was linked to a lower risk of premature death risk among people of all races and ethnicities, he noted. The link was also seen in both men and women, though the protective benefit was somewhat weaker among men, the researchers found. For the study, participants were asked between 2006 and 2008 to indicate how purposeful they considered their lives to be, based on a standard questionnaire. They were then classified as having a “low,” “medium-low,” “medium-high” or “high” sense of purpose. Deaths were tracked for the next eight years. As purpose levels rose, the risk of death during that period fell, be it from stroke, cancer, diabetes,…  read on >  read on >

Anyone who’s ever loved a pet like a member of the family knows that the grief when that dog, cat or other furry friend dies can be devastating. But too often, finding others who truly understand and support that sense of loss can be challenging. Michelle Crossley, a mental health counselor, and Colleen Rolland, a pet loss grief specialist, have each experienced deep bereavement after losing a much-loved pet. They also see value in helping others whose animal friend has died. Together, they’ve written a paper on the issue, published Nov. 25 in Human-Animal Interactions. Rolland is a pet loss grief specialist for the Association for Pet Loss and Bereavement (APLB) and has a small private practice in Ontario, Canada. She said her own loss of a beloved Golden Retriever left her “in a puddle on the floor.” It also motivated her to help others through their grief, which is how she came to be the president of APLB about three years ago. “I would love for the human-animal bond and the love that people feel for their animals to become more accepted by society as a whole,” Rolland said about her hopes for this paper. “For that segment of the population that just don’t ‘get it,’ I would love for them to nod their head and go, ‘OK. It is a big deal for…  read on >  read on >

Your chances of surviving cancer could depend on the type of Medicare plan you have, a new study reports. Americans enrolled in a privatized, cost-saving Medicare Advantage plan are more likely to die within a month of undergoing complex cancer surgery, compared to those in traditional Medicare, the researchers found. Those covered by Medicare Advantage were 1.5 times more likely to die within a month after having their stomach or liver removed, and twice as likely if they had cancer surgery of the pancreas, according to findings published Nov. 21 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Nearly half of all Medicare beneficiaries — about 29 million Americans — are enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans, the study authors noted. People covered by traditional Medicare can go to any U.S. hospital that accepts the public insurance, while Medicare Advantage enrollees can only see doctors and providers in their plan’s network and service area. As a result, the investigators found that people with traditional Medicare are more likely to be treated by a hospital more experienced in dealing with cancer, including: A teaching hospital (23% versus 8%) A hospital accredited by the Commission on Cancer (57% versus 33%) A National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center (15% versus 3%) “Research has repeatedly linked improved surgical outcomes to cancer patients who receive care at a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center, such…  read on >  read on >

Taking care of a loved one can either be a break from loneliness or help to bring loneliness on, depending on your circumstances, new research shows. Researchers broadly studied the issue, using data from 28 studies with more than 190,000 participants in 21 countries. They found certain types of caregiving — such as volunteering and caring for grandchildren — offered protection against loneliness in people over age 50. However, for those caring for a spouse with complex health conditions, particularly dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, caregiving was often a big risk factor for loneliness. “Loneliness can leave people feeling isolated and disconnected from others — and can have a wide range of negative effects on their physical and mental health,” said lead author Samia Akhter Khan, a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s College London, in the United Kingdom. “There is a pressing need to identify people who may be more vulnerable to feeling lonely — and to develop targeted solutions to prevent and reduce loneliness in these population groups,” she said. Six out of seven studies conducted in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and China linked caring for grandkids or other children with lower loneliness. Caring for a spouse was consistently associated with higher loneliness. And volunteering was linked with lower levels of loneliness in…  read on >  read on >