Flourishing is more than just being happy, and a new global study finds some countries are doing better than others when it comes to overall well-being. Take it from researchers at Baylor and Harvard universities, who unveiled a study Wednesday that included more than 207,000 people from 22 countries and Hong Kong.  Their Global Fluorishing Study it looked at six areas of well-being: happiness, health, meaning, character, relationships and financial security, CNN reported. Indonesia ranked the highest for flourishing, followed by Mexico and the Philippines.  Surprisingly, many countries that usually rank high in the World Happiness Report, like Sweden and the United States, were only in the middle when it came to flourishing, the report showed. “The uniqueness of the Global Flourishing Study is the size: We are following 207,000 participants around the world in over 40 different languages on the six inhabited continents,” study leader Dr. Byron Johnson, professor of social sciences at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, said. “This gives a voice to approximately 64% of the world’s population.” Researchers plan to follow participants every year for five years to learn more about what goes into a “good life,” CNN said. One major finding? Younger folks around the world are struggling more than older adults. “Perhaps one of the more troubling features of this data is that we find when we aggregate across…  read on >  read on >

Flourishing is more than just being happy, and a new global study finds some countries are doing better than others when it comes to overall well-being. Take it from researchers at Baylor and Harvard universities, who unveiled a study Wednesday that included more than 207,000 people from 22 countries and Hong Kong.  Their Global Fluorishing Study it looked at six areas of well-being: happiness, health, meaning, character, relationships and financial security, CNN reported. Indonesia ranked the highest for flourishing, followed by Mexico and the Philippines.  Surprisingly, many countries that usually rank high in the World Happiness Report, like Sweden and the United States, were only in the middle when it came to flourishing, the report showed. “The uniqueness of the Global Flourishing Study is the size: We are following 207,000 participants around the world in over 40 different languages on the six inhabited continents,” study leader Dr. Byron Johnson, professor of social sciences at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, said. “This gives a voice to approximately 64% of the world’s population.” Researchers plan to follow participants every year for five years to learn more about what goes into a “good life,” CNN said. One major finding? Younger folks around the world are struggling more than older adults. “Perhaps one of the more troubling features of this data is that we find when we aggregate across…  read on >  read on >

A class of drugs used to treat epilepsy, nerve pain and anxiety do not appear to increase a person’s risk of self-harm, a major new study says. Gabapentinoids – which include gabapentin and pregabalin – have been associated with an increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors, researchers said in background notes. But researchers found that patients had an increased risk of self-harm prior to being prescribed gabapentinoids, and that the risk rises again shortly after they stop taking the drugs. “Our results cannot rule out a potential risk of self-harm associated with gabapentinoid prescriptions, but the association does not seem to support a direct effect of gabapentinoid treatment on self-harm because of the elevated risks observed before treatment initiation,” concluded the research team led by senior investigator Kenneth Man, a lecturer in pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety at University College London in the U.K. In 2008, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a report indicating an increased risk of suicide among people who took gabapentinoids and other antiseizure medications. To look into this, researchers analyzed health records for 10,000 adults in the U.K. who were prescribed gabapentinoids between 2000 and 2020 and had at least one recorded incident of self-harm. Results show the rate of self-harm increased by 69% in the three months prior to the start of gabapentinoid treatment, suggesting that people…  read on >  read on >

A class of drugs used to treat epilepsy, nerve pain and anxiety do not appear to increase a person’s risk of self-harm, a major new study says. Gabapentinoids – which include gabapentin and pregabalin – have been associated with an increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors, researchers said in background notes. But researchers found that patients had an increased risk of self-harm prior to being prescribed gabapentinoids, and that the risk rises again shortly after they stop taking the drugs. “Our results cannot rule out a potential risk of self-harm associated with gabapentinoid prescriptions, but the association does not seem to support a direct effect of gabapentinoid treatment on self-harm because of the elevated risks observed before treatment initiation,” concluded the research team led by senior investigator Kenneth Man, a lecturer in pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety at University College London in the U.K. In 2008, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a report indicating an increased risk of suicide among people who took gabapentinoids and other antiseizure medications. To look into this, researchers analyzed health records for 10,000 adults in the U.K. who were prescribed gabapentinoids between 2000 and 2020 and had at least one recorded incident of self-harm. Results show the rate of self-harm increased by 69% in the three months prior to the start of gabapentinoid treatment, suggesting that people…  read on >  read on >

More children stopped using steroid inhalers to control their asthma after a manufacturer discontinued a popular inhaler, a new study says. In 2024, GlaxoSmithKline withdrew Flovent from the market. The inhaler was commonly prescribed to prevent asthma attacks in children. The pharma company continued to sell a chemically identical “authorized generic,” but some families reportedly had trouble getting this drug because their insurance either didn’t cover it or required higher out-of-pocket costs, researchers reported April 26 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. As a result, children were 6 percentage points more likely to have no steroid inhaler in hand to prevent an asthma attack, results show. Asthma inhaler access dropped from nearly 41% to nearly 35% between 2021 and 2023 among patients 18 and younger prescribed Flovent (fluticasone), researchers found. By comparison, young asthma patients prescribed other inhaled steroids had about the same access to an inhaler, at a consistent level around 38%, results show. “Our findings suggest the withdrawal of Flovent disrupted inhaled steroid therapy in children, potentially increasing their risk of asthma attacks,” lead researcher Dr. Kao-Ping Chua, a pediatrician at the University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, said in a news release. Researchers said Flovent was likely pulled from the market due to changes in rebates that manufacturers must pay to Medicaid programs to obtain drug coverage. Historically,…  read on >  read on >

More children stopped using steroid inhalers to control their asthma after a manufacturer discontinued a popular inhaler, a new study says. In 2024, GlaxoSmithKline withdrew Flovent from the market. The inhaler was commonly prescribed to prevent asthma attacks in children. The pharma company continued to sell a chemically identical “authorized generic,” but some families reportedly had trouble getting this drug because their insurance either didn’t cover it or required higher out-of-pocket costs, researchers reported April 26 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. As a result, children were 6 percentage points more likely to have no steroid inhaler in hand to prevent an asthma attack, results show. Asthma inhaler access dropped from nearly 41% to nearly 35% between 2021 and 2023 among patients 18 and younger prescribed Flovent (fluticasone), researchers found. By comparison, young asthma patients prescribed other inhaled steroids had about the same access to an inhaler, at a consistent level around 38%, results show. “Our findings suggest the withdrawal of Flovent disrupted inhaled steroid therapy in children, potentially increasing their risk of asthma attacks,” lead researcher Dr. Kao-Ping Chua, a pediatrician at the University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, said in a news release. Researchers said Flovent was likely pulled from the market due to changes in rebates that manufacturers must pay to Medicaid programs to obtain drug coverage. Historically,…  read on >  read on >

A smartphone app can help asthma patients better track their symptoms and live healthier, a new study says. The app helps patients monitor their symptoms in between visits with their doctor, researchers reported April 23 in JAMA Network Open. People given the app experienced improvements in their quality of life during a 20-month period, researchers found. “Overall, these data suggest that the between-visit symptom monitoring led to an average improvement in asthma quality of life among study patients, although this improvement did not meet the threshold of a minimally important change,” concluded the research team led by Robert Rudin, a senior information scientist with the non-profit RAND research group. “However, the intervention showed potential benefits for certain subgroups and may be useful in other chronic diseases in which between-visit symptoms are important, such as rheumatoid disorders, musculoskeletal disorders, and mental health conditions,” researchers added. For the study, researchers randomly assigned half of a group of 366 patients to use a smartphone app to track their asthma symptoms in between office visits. The app tracked things like their peak air flows and offered educational material about managing asthma. If patients’ symptoms grew worse, they were offered the option of calling their doctor. Results show the app particularly helped people ages 18 to 44 and those who started off with a lower quality of life score or…  read on >  read on >

A smartphone app can help asthma patients better track their symptoms and live healthier, a new study says. The app helps patients monitor their symptoms in between visits with their doctor, researchers reported April 23 in JAMA Network Open. People given the app experienced improvements in their quality of life during a 20-month period, researchers found. “Overall, these data suggest that the between-visit symptom monitoring led to an average improvement in asthma quality of life among study patients, although this improvement did not meet the threshold of a minimally important change,” concluded the research team led by Robert Rudin, a senior information scientist with the non-profit RAND research group. “However, the intervention showed potential benefits for certain subgroups and may be useful in other chronic diseases in which between-visit symptoms are important, such as rheumatoid disorders, musculoskeletal disorders, and mental health conditions,” researchers added. For the study, researchers randomly assigned half of a group of 366 patients to use a smartphone app to track their asthma symptoms in between office visits. The app tracked things like their peak air flows and offered educational material about managing asthma. If patients’ symptoms grew worse, they were offered the option of calling their doctor. Results show the app particularly helped people ages 18 to 44 and those who started off with a lower quality of life score or…  read on >  read on >