Where you live could influence how likely you are to develop heart failure, a new U.S. study suggests. In addition to people’s income and education level, the neighborhood in which they lived helped predict their risk, according to the researchers. People living in the poorest areas were at highest risk for heart failure, the researchers found. The availability of gyms, places to buy healthy foods and medical facilities accounted for nearly 5 percent of the increased heart failure risk in low-income areas, the study suggested. The researchers noted that improving access to these resources could benefit people living in these neighborhoods. “There is existing evidence suggesting strong, independent associations between personal socioeconomic status — like education, income level and occupation — and risks of heart failure and many other chronic diseases,” said study author Loren Lipworth. She’s an associate professor of epidemiology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. “What this study adds is evidence suggesting that characteristics of your place of residence actually also play a significant role in influencing the risk of heart failure over and above the role of your own individual socioeconomic characteristics,” she said in a news release from the American Heart Association. “It opens the door for possible interventions that center on preventive measures in the community.” The researchers used Census data on just over 27,000 middle-aged residents, to…  read on >

In a potential advance for medical research, scientists say they’ve created the first functioning human muscle from skin cells. The breakthrough could lead to better genetic or cell-based therapies, as well as furthering investigations into the causes and treatment of muscular disorders, the Duke University team said. “The prospect of studying rare diseases is especially exciting for us,” Nenad Bursac, professor of biomedical engineering, said in a university news release. “When a child’s muscles are already withering away from something like Duchenne muscular dystrophy, it would not be ethical to take muscle samples from them and do further damage,” he explained. “But with this technique, we can just take a small sample of non-muscle tissue — like skin or blood — revert the obtained cells to a pluripotent state, and eventually grow an endless amount of functioning muscle fibers to test,” Bursac said. According to the researchers, it might also be possible to fix genetic defects in pluripotent stem cells from a patient and then grow small patches of healthy muscle that could be used with other genetic treatments to heal or replace specific areas of diseased muscle. Of course, much more research is needed before any such therapies could be used in humans. In the new study, skin cells were reprogrammed in the lab to revert to what are called pluripotent stem cells —…  read on >

In a finding that will surprise few, new research shows that minorities and the poor suffer more stress than their wealthy, white peers. That additional psychic burden may translate into poorer mental and physical well-being, and longevity is ultimately affected, the American Psychological Association report suggests. “Good health is not equally distributed. Socio-economic status, race and ethnicity affect health status and are associated with substantial disparities in health outcomes across the life span,” said report committee chair Elizabeth Brondolo. “And stress is one of the top 10 social determinants of health inequities.” In the United States, illnesses and injuries associated with stress are estimated to cost more than $300 billion annually. This includes losses from absenteeism, employee turnover and lost productivity as well as direct legal, medical and insurance fees, the report authors explained. They noted that people with lower incomes report more severe stress and tend to face more traumatic events during childhood. Black and Hispanic people also report more stress than whites, partly due to discrimination and greater exposure to violence. “Stress affects how we perceive and react to the outside world,” Brondolo said in a psychological association news release. She is a professor of psychology at St. John’s University in New York City. “Low socioeconomic status has been associated with negative thinking about oneself and the outside world, including low self-esteem, distrust…  read on >

You know that poor lifestyle choices today can affect your health tomorrow. But according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, there’s another surprising predictor of future illness: your financial health. Scientists looked at the health records of 1,000 people from birth to midlife and found a strong connection between a low credit score and poor heart health. The result: the same factors that can lead to financial woes can also bring health woes. People who didn’t manage their financial health well didn’t manage their physical health either. Conversely, people with higher credit scores had healthier hearts, the researchers reported. Your credit score is important because it’s accessed when you want to open a credit card, get a mortgage, rent a home or buy or lease a new car, so this rating matters. Key attributes that predict both better financial status and better health are financial literacy, self-control, planning and perseverance — and it’s never too late to learn them. One of the most surprising findings in the study was that 20 percent of the money-health link stemmed from behaviors and skills the study participants showed from the time they were young children. So if you have kids, it’s never too soon to teach them about savings and making smart money and health decisions. More information To better understand your…  read on >

Happiness is not determined by the size of one’s paycheck, but a new survey suggests that wealth — or lack of it — does influence how people measure their happiness. “Different positive emotions — like awe, love, pride, compassion — are core parts of happiness, and we found that rich and poor differ in the kinds of positive emotions they experience in their daily lives,” said study author Paul Piff. He is an assistant professor of psychology and social behavior at the University of California, Irvine. “Individuals with higher incomes tend to experience positive emotions that are focused on themselves, like pride and contentment,” Piff explained. In contrast, “those with lower incomes are more likely to experience positive emotions toward others, like love and compassion,” he noted. To explore the subject, Piff and his colleague Jake Moskowitz conducted a national survey of just over 1,500 American men and women, ranging in age from 24 to 93. About three-quarters of the participants were white. The poll sought information on household income, as well as how respondents arrived at feeling seven specific types of positive emotions. Those included amusement, awe, compassion, contentment, enthusiasm, love and pride. In the end, the investigators determined that while all the respondents experienced all of the emotions to one degree or another, richer people tended to derive their happiness more on the…  read on >

Raising one particular tax just might have a public health benefit. The tax in question? States’ alcohol excise tax. In the United States, those taxes have not kept pace with inflation, which could limit their public health benefits, researchers report. In inflation-adjusted dollars, the average state alcohol excise tax has fallen by 30 percent for beer, 27 percent for wine and 32 percent for spirits since 1991, the new study found. The average state excise tax on alcohol is 3 cents for a 12-ounce beer, 3 cents for a 5-ounce glass of wine, and 5 cents for a typical shot of liquor, according to the report published in the January issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. Raising those taxes not only could help states raise more revenue, but also might improve alcohol-related public health issues and costs related to excessive drinking, the researchers suggested. Excise taxes are applied to beer sales in all 50 states, and on wine and spirits in most states. “The most important finding here is that alcohol excise taxes are incredibly low,” the study’s lead author, Dr. Timothy Naimi, said in a journal news release. He’s an alcohol epidemiologist at Boston Medical Center and an associate professor at the Boston University School of Medicine. “In several states, the price is so low that it rounds to zero…  read on >

As winter rolls into town, so does the flu and all its miserable symptoms. Yet, doctors and women alike have long noticed that men tend to bemoan those symptoms more than women. The phenomenon even has a name: the “man flu.” So, are men just whiny wimps? No, a new analysis out of Canada suggests, because respiratory illnesses may indeed hit men harder than women. According to study author Dr. Kyle Sue, “there are already many physiologic differences between men and women, so it makes sense that we could differ in our responses to cold and flu viruses as well.” Sue is a clinical assistant professor in family medicine with the Health Sciences Centre at Memorial University of Newfoundland. “The evidence in current studies points towards men having weaker immune systems than women, especially when it comes to common viral respiratory infections,” Sue explained. “Men are more susceptible to them, symptoms are worse, they last longer, and men are more likely to be hospitalized and die from the flu.” To compare how flu symptoms manifest among both women and men, Sue reviewed a number of studies involving both animals and humans. One investigation out of Hong Kong suggested that when the flu strikes, adult men face a greater risk for being admitted to the hospital than their female peers. Another American study also found that,…  read on >

Some thiings never change: Scientists say the bacteria circulating in the International Space Station are similar to those in homes on Earth. That’s the conclusion of researchers at the University of California, Davis, who analyzed bacteria collected by astronauts. “So ‘is it gross?’ and ‘will you see microbes from space?’ are probably the two most common questions we get about this work,” study co-author and microbiologist David Coil said. “As to the first, we are completely surrounded by mostly harmless microbes on Earth, and we see a broadly similar microbial community on the International Space Station (ISS). So it is probably no more or less gross than your living room,” he said in a university news release. Because the space station is completely enclosed, the microbes inside the station come from the people on the station and the supplies sent to them, Coil and his colleagues explained. According to study lead author Jenna Lang, “The microbiome on the surfaces on the ISS looks very much like the surfaces of its inhabitants, which is not surprising, given that they are the primary source.” Lang is a former postdoctoral scholar at UC Davis. “We were also pleased to see that the diversity was fairly high, indicating that it did not look like a ‘sick’ microbial community,” Lang added. For the study, the researchers highlighted some of the…  read on >

Hospital operating rooms produce thousands of tons of greenhouse gases each year, but changing the type of anesthesia used in surgery can help lower those emissions, researchers report. For the study, investigators assessed the carbon footprint of operating rooms at three hospitals: Vancouver General Hospital in Canada; University of Minnesota Medical Center in the United States; and John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, England. The annual carbon footprint of operating rooms in each hospital in this study ranged from about 3,200 metric tons of CO2 equivalents (CO2e) to over 5,000 metric tons of CO2e. A metric ton is 204 pounds heavier than a ton. Anesthetic gases accounted for 63 percent and 51 percent of all surgery-related emissions at Vancouver and Minnesota, respectively, but only for 4 percent of such emissions at Oxford. Other sources included energy use such as heating, air conditioning and ventilation. Anesthetic gases accounted for about 2,000 metric tons of CO2e at each North American site, 10 times higher than from the U.K. hospital. The difference is largely due to greater use of the anesthetic gas desflurane in the two North American hospitals, the researchers said. Changing from desflurane to cheaper, low-carbon alternatives could make a significant difference, according to the study published Dec. 7 in The Lancet Planetary Health. “Not only is desflurane a primary contributor to global anesthetic gas emissions, it…  read on >