Lifestyle « Weekly Gravy

Could hot chocolate deliver relief to those suffering from the painful condition known as peripheral artery disease (PAD)? A small, new study says it’s entirely possible. Though you may be picturing a steaming cup of hot milk chocolate with tiny marshmallows bobbing on the top, the concoction the study volunteers drank was made from dark chocolate, and had a less sweet taste. “A food-derived, nutritional therapy that is accessible, inexpensive and safe may meaningfully improve walking ability in people with peripheral artery disease,” said study author Dr. Mary McDermott. She’s a professor in the departments of medicine and preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, in Chicago. “Peripheral artery disease is common and underdiagnosed,” she said, adding that it’s a major cause of disability in people over 55. PAD causes narrowing in the blood vessels that supply blood to the legs from the heart. Common symptoms include pain, particularly when walking, cramping and weakness in the leg muscles. McDermott noted that “these findings are particularly important because currently few therapies have been identified to help patients with PAD.” However, the study was a preliminary effort and only 44 people were enrolled, so further research is needed to confirm these findings, she said. The study was published Feb. 14 in the journal Circulation Research. Funding for the research was provided by the U.S. National… read on >

A clinical trial of the weight-loss drug Belviq (lorcaserin) shows an association with an increased risk of cancer, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is requesting that its maker withdraw the drug from the U.S. market. Eisai Inc. has already “submitted a request to voluntarily withdraw the drug,” Dr. Janet Woodcock, who directs the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, noted in a statement issued Thursday. Now, “we’re taking steps to notify the public,” she said, adding that “our review of the full clinical trial results shows that the potential risk of cancer associated with the drug outweighs the benefit of treatment.” Woodcock said the FDA is advising that “patients should stop using the medication Belviq and Belviq XR [lorcaserin] and talk to their health care professionals about other treatment options for weight loss. Health care professionals should stop prescribing and dispensing Belviq and Belviq XR.” The agency first announced that Belviq might have links to cancer in a communication issued Jan 15. At the time, the FDA said “we cannot conclude that lorcaserin contributes to the cancer risk,” but “wanted to make the public aware of this potential risk. We are continuing to evaluate the clinical trial results and will communicate our final conclusions and recommendations when we have completed our review.” That review appears to have led to calls for the… read on >

Drugs that many men with prostate cancer might already be taking — cholesterol-lowering statins — may help extend their survival if they have a “high-risk” form of the disease, new research suggests. High-risk patients include men with high blood levels of prostate specific antigen (PSA) and a “Gleason score” of 8 or more. Gleason scores are a calculation used to gauge prognosis in prostate cancer. Men with a high Gleason score may develop difficult-to-treat cancers. Prior research had suggested that statins and the diabetes drug metformin (often prescribed together) have anticancer properties. However, it hasn’t been clear which of the two drugs is the bigger cancer-fighter, or whether either might help against high-risk prostate cancer. To help answer those questions, a team led by Grace Lu-Yao of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center–Jefferson Health, in Philadelphia, tracked data on nearly 13,000 high-risk prostate cancer patients. All were diagnosed between 2007 and 2011. The study couldn’t prove cause and effect, but it found that statins, taken alone or with metformin, did seem associated with an increase in survival. Men who took both statins and metformin had higher median survival (3.9 years) than those who took statins alone (3.6 years), metformin alone (3.1 years), or those who did not take either drug (3.1 years). The study was published Feb. 8 in the journal Cancer Medicine. “Both metformin and… read on >

Bedtime without your partner on Valentine’s Day could make sleep elusive. But a new study suggests one remedy: Cuddling up with a piece of his or her clothing. Researchers say having a loved one’s natural scent nearby could be as effective a sleep aid as melatonin. “One of the most surprising findings is how a romantic partner’s scent can improve sleep quality even outside of our conscious awareness,” said study senior author Frances Chen. She’s an associate professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver. For the study, 155 people were given two T-shirts to use as pillowcases. One had been worn by their lover; the other was clean or had been worn by a stranger. While the participants’ partners were wearing the shirts, they were told not to use deodorant or scents or do anything that might affect their body odor, such as smoking, exercising and eating certain foods. The T-shirts were frozen to preserve their scent. Participants spent two nights in a row sleeping with each shirt. They weren’t told which shirt was which, but they reported feeling more well-rested after using the T-shirt with their lover’s scent. Data from sleep monitors confirmed it. “Our findings provide new evidence that merely sleeping with a partner’s scent improves sleep efficiency. Our participants had an average sleep efficiency improvement of more… read on >

Choosing the right antidepressant for someone who is depressed can be hit or miss. But a new study shows that artificial intelligence (AI) technology may be able to help. Researchers input information from electrical signals in the brain into a computer program that learns as it goes. Based on brain activity, the AI technology helped predict whether or not an antidepressant will help treat a particular person’s depression. So far, the new technology has only been tested on one type of antidepressant — sertraline (Zoloft). But the researchers think it will be useful for other antidepressants. They also hope it can predict how well other types of depression treatments might work, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation. “Right now in psychiatry, when we see a patient with depression, we have very little idea of what the most effective treatment will be. Then we start treatment in a trial-and-error fashion, which can lead to a lot of frustration,” explained senior study author Dr. Amit Etkin, a psychiatry professor at Stanford University in California. He’s currently on leave from Stanford to work on developing this technology as CEO of a company called Alto Neuroscience. “It’s not that antidepressants don’t work well. Some work extremely well. An objective test could help bridge the gap in knowing which treatments are effective and for whom they will be effective,” Etkin said.… read on >

Women who receive general anesthesia during a cesarean section delivery are at higher risk of severe postpartum depression that requires hospitalization, as well as self-inflicted harm and suicidal thoughts, a new study finds. Researchers from Columbia University analyzed more than 428,000 discharge records of women who delivered by C-section in New York state hospitals between 2006 and 2013. Eight percent had general anesthesia. In all, 1,158 women (3%) had to be hospitalized for severe postpartum depression. Of those, 60% were diagnosed at readmission, about 164 days after their initial discharge. Compared with local anesthesia, general anesthesia was associated with a 54% increased odds of postpartum depression, and a 91% higher risk of suicidal thoughts or self-inflicted injury. The study only found an observation rather than a cause-and-effect link. “General anesthesia for cesarean delivery may increase the risk of postpartum depression because it delays the initiation of mother to infant skin-to-skin interaction and breastfeeding, and often results in more acute and persistent postpartum pain,” study first author Dr. Jean Guglielminotti said in a university news release. “These situations are often coupled with a new mother’s dissatisfaction with anesthesia in general, and can lead to negative mental health outcomes,” he added. Guglielminotti is an assistant professor of anesthesiology at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York City. General anesthesia can hasten delivery in an emergency,… read on >

Smartphones, and being on Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok and the like may be taking a big toll on teens’ mental health, a new survey of collected data on the subject shows. Canadian researchers pored over dozens of studies and said the negative effects of social media on teens’ well-being is on the rise. “Physicians, teachers and families need to work together with youth to decrease possible harmful effects of smartphones and social media on their relationships, sense of self, sleep, academic performance, and emotional well-being,” said study lead author Dr. Elia Abi-Jaoude. He’s a staff psychiatrist at The Hospital for Sick Children and Toronto Western Hospital, both in Toronto. As part of their research, Abi-Jaoude and his colleagues uncovered patterns across multiple studies. For example: In one U.S. study, the rate at which kids and teens arrive in hospitals due to suicidal thoughts or attempts “almost doubled between 2008 and 2015, with the highest increase among adolescent girls,” the researchers noted. U.S. overdose rates for young people ages 10 to 18, which has previously been on the decline, “increased substantially from 2011 to 2018, primarily among girls,” another study found. At the same time “the proportion of [U.S.] young people who between the ages of 13 and 17 years who have a smartphone has reached 89%, more than doubling over a 6-year period,” the data review… read on >