Lifestyle « Weekly Gravy

Obesity is seldom a friend to health, but in one medical context it might give patients a slight advantage, new research suggests. Specifically, when Australian researchers looked at trials of atezolizumab, an immune system-based treatment for lung cancer, they found that the drug worked better in people who were overweight. The trial involved more than 2,100 people with the most common form of lung tumors, non-small cell lung cancer. About half of the participants were normal weight, about one-third were overweight and 7 percent were obese. About two-thirds of patients received the newer drug, atezolizumab, while the remaining third got an older drug, docetaxel. The researchers found that obesity — a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or above — “was associated with significantly improved overall survival in patients treated with atezolizumab, but not in those who received docetaxel.” What’s more, there seemed to be a “linear relationship.” As body weight rose in patients taking atezolizumab, so too did their odds for survival. The study was led by Dr. Ganessan Kichenadasse, a medical oncology researcher at the Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer. “This is an interesting outcome and it raises the potential to investigate further with other cancers and other anti-cancer drugs,” Kichenadasse said in a Flinders University news release. “While our study only looked at baseline and during treatment, we believe it warrants… read on >

If you plan to make a New Year’s resolution about improving your health, the American Medical Association (AMA) has some good suggestions. “With too many holiday sweets and not enough exercise likely in the rearview mirror, now is the perfect time to consider your personal goals and how you can make positive health choices in the coming year,” AMA President Dr. Patrice Harris said in an association news release. “The good news is that there are a few easy steps you can take that will set you on the right track for a healthier 2020,” Harris added. Learn your risk for type 2 diabetes and take steps to prevent or delay the onset of the disease. Get the recommended amount of physical activity. For adults, it’s at least 150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity activity, or 75 minutes a week of vigorous-intensity activity. Know your blood pressure and, if you have high blood pressure, take steps to get it under control. Doing so will reduce your risk of heart attack or stroke. Cut back on processed foods, especially those with added sodium and sugar. Eat less red meat and processed meats, and eat more plant-based foods, such as olive oil, nuts and seed. Reduce your consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and drink more water instead. If you’re prescribed antibiotics, take them exactly as directed. Antibiotic resistance… read on >

The holidays are peak buying time, and perhaps the worst time of the year for people who simply can’t control their urge to shop. Now, research shows that the ease of online purchasing could be making things worse for people with so-called “buying-shopping disorder” (BSD). BSD is still debated as a stand-alone diagnosis, and hasn’t yet been included in the psychologists’ bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. But that’s probably only because not enough good data on the condition exists, said the author of a recent study into online shopping addiction. There’s a “relative lack of published scientific literature,” said Dr. Astrid Muller — but psychologists have long dealt with such cases. “There is well over 100 years of clinical history describing dysfunctional buying or acquisition excesses that interfere with daily life, and are associated with significant clinical distress and impairment in important areas of functioning,” said Muller. She’s head psychologist in the department of psychosomatic medicine and psychotherapy at Hannover Medical School in Germany. BSD is defined as an “extreme preoccupation with shopping and buying [and] to impulses to purchase that are experienced as irresistible,” Muller said. The condition can cause real harm, including post-purchase guilt and regret, a sense of loss of control, family conflict over excessive purchasing, and financial distress. According to Muller, BSD is thought to affect about… read on >

Microbes that live in a child’s upper airway could be linked to severe asthma attacks, new research suggests. For parents, it’s an all-too familiar scene: A child’s seemingly harmless cough quickly escalates to wheezing, gasping and an urgent need for emergency treatment. Asthma is the leading chronic disease in kids and third-most common cause of hospitalization among those under 15, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. Now, a new study found an association between asthma flare-ups in children and the makeup of the upper-airway microbiome, communities of microscopic organisms that include bacteria. “In the future, we wish to understand whether the upper-airway bacteria can play a causal role in the severity of asthma symptoms,” said study author Dr. Yanjiao Zhou, who conducted the research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. She is now an assistant professor of medicine at UConn Health in Farmington, Conn. Zhou and her colleagues collected data on 214 school-aged children who were part of a clinical trial. Participants had mild to moderate asthma that was being treated with daily inhaled corticosteroids. Nasal samples were collected twice — once when asthma was under control, and again when kids had the signs of an emerging flare-up, what the investigators called the “yellow zone.” The researchers said kids who had early warning signs of a flare-up were more… read on >

There’s one type of green Christmas that’s likely to bring joy to gift-givers and recipients alike, a new Canadian study suggests. That’s one based on green consumerism — a push to buy gifts produced in ways that protect the natural environment. For this study, researchers at Concordia University in Montreal asked volunteers how a number of green and not-green products made them feel. The green products generally produced positive feelings, researchers reported. Those who listened to music on green-labeled headphones, for instance, said they enjoyed the music more than those who used conventional headphones. “The warm glow is a good overall feeling,” said study co-author Onur Bodur, a professor of marketing. “It is found in other literature relating to pro-social behavior. You get the feeling when you help others and have a sense of accomplishment that gives you satisfaction.” Participants also reported feeling a warm glow after using a green product, and those who felt isolated reported feeling less so, according to the study published recently in the Journal of Consumer Research. The study also found that actually using green products, such as cleaning solutions, helped dispel a belief that such products were inferior. The findings could have big implications for retailers. “Imagine that the chair you are sitting on is certified bamboo, or the tablecloth at a restaurant is made of recycled materials and… read on >

If you’re overweight or obese, shedding pounds can help improve your health and your longevity. What’s more, doing so may also significantly boost your bank balance. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore wanted to know how a person’s expenses and income might change if their weight went from obese to overweight to normal at different ages. So they created a computer simulation that looked at a person’s health and weight over the years. They considered time lost from work, health complications related to being overweight — such as heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes — and direct medical costs to insurers and health care facilities, among other things. How much could you save? If you’re 20, the research, which was published in the Journal of Obesity, found that slimming down from obese to overweight saves you more than $17,000 in direct medical costs and lost productivity over your lifetime. Reach a healthy weight and the savings exceed $28,000. If you’re in your 40s, going from obese to overweight saves you around $18,000. Drop to a healthy weight and you’ll net an average lifetime savings of about $31,000. Savings peak for those who slim down in the midlife years. A 50-year-old who goes from obese to overweight can see a lifetime savings of about $36,000. You’ll add even more cash to your wallet if… read on >

You know that you need to watch your weight to lower your risk for heart disease, but that is far from the whole story. It is possible to be overfat without being overweight, meaning that you’re storing fat within your body even though the scale says you’re at a normal weight. And that distinction is key when it comes to heart health. For decades, doctors have measured a patient’s body mass index, or BMI, as a way to determine the heart disease risk associated with obesity. (There are even online calculators that let you figure out your BMI on your own.) Basically, BMI determines the percentage of fat in your body related to your height and weight. But some evidence shows that the calculation may misclassify up to 50% of those at risk of heart disease from excess fat. That’s because fat is not all the same. Fat stored around the belly, called visceral fat, is associated with insulin resistance and other metabolic abnormalities. Evidence shows that someone with a large waistline — over 40 inches for men and 35 inches for women — is more at risk for heart disease than someone with a smaller waist, even if they have the same BMI. Who’s most at risk? There are genetic components that indicate that white men, black women and people from India and South… read on >

Male researchers are far more likely than female colleagues to claim that their findings are especially important, a new study says. The language used to describe discoveries can affect how much attention researchers get and also affect their career advancement. These findings may help explain why women in medicine and science tend to get paid less and have fewer career opportunities, the authors said. “The factors that underlie gender disparities in academia are many and complex, but it is important to be aware that language may also play a role — as both a driver of inequality and as a symptom of gender differences in socialization,” senior author Dr. Anupam Jena said in a Harvard University news release. He’s an associate professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School. Jena and his team analyzed more than 6 million peer-reviewed clinical and life science studies published between 2002 and 2017. That analysis revealed that papers with male lead authors were up to 21% more likely to use language that casts the findings as highly significant than papers with female lead authors. Specifically, the titles and abstracts of papers with male lead authors were more likely to use words such as “excellent,” “novel” and “unique.” Papers using this type of positive framing were cited up to 13% more often by other researchers than papers without it,… read on >

If you think vaping is less likely to harm your lungs than traditional cigarettes, think again. E-cigarettes have been touted as safer than tobacco smoke, but evidence is mounting that they are both damaging to your airways, U.K. researchers report. A team from the School of Pharmacy at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland compared cigarette smoke and e-cigarette vapor on bacteria associated with smoking-related chronic lung disease. Specifically, they exposed the bacteria Haemophilus influenzae, Streptococcus pneumonia, Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa to both cigarette smoke and e-cigarette vapor. When exposed to either cigarette smoke or e-cigarette vapor, the bacteria made more biofilms. Biofilms are microbes involved in a wide variety of infections. Cigarette smoke and e-cigarette vapor may both increase the harmfulness of common lung germs and cause persistent infection, the researchers said. In another experiment, the researchers showed that human lung cells exposed to bacteria that had been exposed to cigarette smoke or e-cigarette vapor responded with increased production of Interleukin-8, a key factor tied to inflammation. “A recurring theme of this study is the similarity in the effect of exposure to cigarette smoke compared to e-cigarette vapor on how bacteria behave and how harmful they are. The findings indicate that the effects of vaping on common lung pathogens may be similar to those of smoking,” said researcher Deirdre Gilpin. The report was… read on >

Caring for a grandchild might be the best way to fight the isolation of old age, new research suggests. This conclusion is based on 2014 data collected as part of an ongoing German survey of older adults. Among the nearly 3,900 grandparents in the survey, more than 1,100 said they cared for a grandchild. Those who had grandchildren to care for had lower scores on loneliness and social isolation tests, and a larger social network than those who didn’t care for grandchildren. Meanwhile, grandparents who didn’t care for a grandchild had higher loneliness scores and were in regular contact with fewer people important to them, the study authors said. The findings were unchanged even after the researchers took into account factors such as marital status, domestic arrangements, household income, self-rated health, physical activity levels and depressive symptoms. The study can’t prove that taking care of grandchildren by itself makes older people less lonely, only that there appears to be an association. It might be that grandparents who felt less lonely and isolated to start with are more likely to care for a grandchild, said study author Eleanor Quirke, of the department for health economics and health services research at Hamburg-Eppendorf University Hospital, and colleagues. The study also didn’t account for how near to their grandchildren grandparents lived or how often they provided care, all of… read on >