New research suggests that switching from smoking to vaping won’t prevent some dangerous changes to a person’s genome. A new study conducted in young adults shows similar cancer-linked gene changes in both vapers and smokers. “These findings have significant implications for public health and tobacco regulation that aim to keep vaping products away from young people, who are a particularly vulnerable population,” said study lead author Stella Tommasi. She’s an associate professor of research population and public health sciences at the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles. At issue is a process called DNA “methylation,” essentially an on/off switch for genes that tells DNA if it should operate. The new study looked at the genetics of 30 young adults averaging 23.5 years of age. Some were exclusive e-cigarette users, vaping at least three times per week for at least six months; some were exclusive smokers, smoking at least three times per week for at least a year; and some neither vaped nor smoked. Tommasi’s group used a high-tech gene sequencing technique to look at the genomes of cells taken from each participant in cheek swabs. They found 831 “differentially methylated regions” (DMRs) in the genomes of vapers and 2,863 in smokers. DMRs are genetic areas that may be more or less methylated (switched on/off) in one person versus another. Overall, there was a 46% overlap…  read on >  read on >

Kids more often get the psychiatric care they need if they live in states that mandate insurance coverage for child mental health care, a new study confirms. Parents and caregivers were 20% less likely to say they’d had trouble getting mental health services for a child if they lived in states with comprehensive laws around mental and behavioral health insurance coverage, reported a team from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Going without needed mental health services can lead to tragedy, study lead author Dr. Ashley Foster said. “Unfortunately, in my own practice, I regularly see children who are unable to access needed mental health care, and their symptoms continue to worsen until they reach a crisis point,” said Foster, a pediatric emergency care physician at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital. The need is real: A poll released last month by the  U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) found that nearly a third of American adolescents and teens received some sort of mental health treatment in 2023. SAMHSA noted that rates of adolescents getting mental health treatment has increased virtually every year since 2009. In the new study, Foster’s team surveyed 30,000 child caregivers nationwide. They found that about 1 in 8 said they’d had trouble accessing mental or behavioral health service for their child between 2016 and 2019. The effect was more common…  read on >  read on >

An apple a day, along with a healthy serving of vegetables, could become a first line of treatment for hypertension, new research suggests. Diet plays a large role in overall health, and the study confirmed that a diet high in fruits and vegetables lowers blood pressure while improving both heart and kidney health. And although most modern diets include animal products, which produce high levels of unhealthy acid in the body, fruits and vegetables can help neutralize that acid. “It’s important for us to remember that the usual diets that we eat in modern societies contain much more animal products like meats than fruits and vegetables,” said lead study author Dr. Donald Wesson, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Texas at Austin’s Medical School. “So, when we eat a diet like we do in modern societies, more animal products like meat than fruits and vegetables, we have an acid-producing diet.” In the study, published Aug. 6 in the American Journal of Medicine, 153 patients with primary hypertension who also had very high levels of blood acid were divided into three groups: those who added 2 to 4 cups of fruits and vegetables to their daily diet; those who took sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) tablets; or those who received standard blood pressure treatment and medications. The patients were followed for five years. What…  read on >  read on >

Does your kid suffer from wheezing that returns again and again? They might be suffering from a “silent” viral lung infection that would be better treated by changing up their medications, a new study finds. Nearly a quarter of children and teens with severe wheezing have undetected lung infections, researchers reported recently in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Unfortunately, these infections won’t respond to corticosteroids commonly used to treat wheezing, researchers said. In fact, higher doses of steroids might put children at higher risk of lingering lung inflammation, as well as other known side effects of those drugs. “While steroids can help some children with wheeze, many children in the study showed no patterns of inflammation that would improve with steroids,” said lead researcher Dr. Gerald Teague, a pediatric pulmonologist with the University of Virginia School of Medicine. Instead, these kids should be treated with medications that target viruses and symptoms of viral infection, Teague said. “I advise the parents of my patients that have wheeze episodes that are triggered by colds should be treated with anti-inflammatory medications that build immunity to viruses, such as azithromycin,” Teague said in a university news release. “They look surprised that we would use an antibiotic for a viral infection, but, in fact, azithromycin bolsters the immune response to viruses in a positive way,” Teague added. For…  read on >  read on >

Pregnant women and new moms have better access to treatment for mood disorders, thanks to Obamacare, a new study finds. More women received treatment for their pregnancy-related depression or anxiety after the Affordable Care Act (ACA) went into effect in 2014, researchers reported Aug. 9 in the journal JAMA Network Open. However, researchers said more can be done to improve treatment for conditions like postpartum depression. About 10% of women with private insurance received therapy in 2019-2020 for pregnancy-related anxiety or depression, a slight increase over pre-ACA numbers, researchers found. Unfortunately, about 25% of pregnant women and new mothers suffered from a mood disorder in 2019, researchers noted. That means many women did not get the mental health care that could help them and their babies, said lead researcher Kara Zivin, a professor of psychiatry, obstetrics and gynecology with the University of Michigan. “The gap between mental and physical health care closed slightly over time, and cost barriers decreased marginally,” Zivin said in a university news release. This slow increase in treatment following the ACA is likely due to a combination of factors, including a shortage of mental health providers, under-diagnosis of pregnancy-related mood disorders and stigma against seeking therapy, Zivin said. “In this high-risk population, and in the context of what we know about the impact of mental health conditions on maternal mortality, many…  read on >  read on >

As Americans sweat through another scorching summer, one expert warns that while extreme heat can cause physical harm it can also wreak havoc with your mental health. Sizzling temperatures can make anyone irritable, but it can be far worse for some, especially those with mental health conditions, said Dr. Asim Shah, executive vice chair in the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Excessive heat can trigger feelings of anger, irritability, aggression, discomfort, stress and fatigue because of its impact on serotonin, the neurotransmitter that regulates your sleep, mood and behaviors, Shah noted. The most vulnerable groups include people with preexisting mental health conditions and people who abuse alcohol or other drugs.  “All mental illnesses increase with heat because it results in more fatigue, irritability and anxiety, and it can exacerbate depressive episodes,” Shah explained in a Baylor news release. What are the signs of impending trouble? They tend to start with irritability, decreased motivation, aggressive behavior and sometimes mental fogging. In worse cases, confusion and disorientation occur, Shah noted. While avoiding the heat may not be possible, Shah recommends hydrating and keeping your head covered when going outside. If it gets too hot, pour some water on your head to cool down and try doing things in the shade. If you normally go for walks outside, try walking in the mall or…  read on >  read on >

Women exposed to TikTok videos that make eating disorders look cool and glamorous tend to have worse body image, a new study finds. These videos include what researchers call “pro-anorexia” clips, as well as other videos focused on weight loss. “Our study showed that less than 10 minutes of exposure to implicit and explicit pro-anorexia TikTok content had immediate negative consequences for body image states and internalization of appearance ideals,” wrote study co-authors Madison Blackburn and Rachel Hogg, from Charles Sturt University in Australia. TikTok is incredibly popular among young users worldwide, and its algorithm creates a customized “For You” page based on user preferences. That means that if girls and young women show a liking for weight loss-oriented videos, such clips can quickly flood their TikTok feed. To understand the impact of all this on viewers’ psyches, Blackburn and Hogg surveyed 273 women between the ages of 18 and 28. They queried the young women on how much time they spent on TikTok, and also assessed symptoms of disordered eating (conditions such as anorexia and bulimia). These conditions also included what’s known as orthorexia: An unhealthy fixation on restricted diets that aim to eliminate “unhealthy” or “impure” foods. The women were then randomized to one of two groups. One group watched seven to eight minutes of TikTok clips focused on disordered eating — for…  read on >  read on >

Pollen is a known trigger for seasonal allergies and asthma, but new research suggests that certain plant species release pollen that are especially tough on asthmatics. Species-specific pollen alerts could help keep people with asthma safe, the Cornell University researchers reasoned. “Even though the percent of asthma-related emergency department visits associated with pollen overall was only a few percent on an annual basis, at certain times of year when particular types of pollen were spiking, we sometimes saw up to almost 20% of visits were due to pollen,” said study lead author Daniel Katz. He’s an assistant professor at Cornell’s School of Integrative Plant Science Soil and Crop Sciences. His team tracked nearly 175,000 emergency department visits recorded by the Texas Department of State Health Services between 2015 and 2020. They focused on people living within 15 miles of one of eight pollen monitoring stations. Viruses and pollen can each help trigger an asthma attack, Katz noted. “Sometimes the timing of when viruses were prevalent changed,” he said in a Cornell news release, “and sometimes the timing of when pollen was in the air changed. So, because of this natural variability, we were able to better untangle what was contributing to these asthma-related emergency department visits.” Pollen from one species of tree, the Ashe juniper, was a clear culprit in exacerbating asthma, the study found. In…  read on >  read on >