Eating lots of ultra-processed foods appears linked to a buildup of fat in the thighs, which in turn raises a person’s odds for arthritis in the knees, new research shows. “In an adult population at risk for but without knee or hip osteoarthritis, consuming ultra-processed foods is linked to increased fat within the thigh muscles,” said study lead author and radiologist Dr. Zehra Akkaya, who conducted the research while at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Her team presented the findings Wednesday in Chicago at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). Ultra-processed foods are made mostly from substances extracted from whole foods, like saturated fats, starches and added sugars. They also contain a wide variety of additives to make them more tasty, attractive and shelf-stable, including colors, emulsifiers, flavors and stabilizers. Examples include packaged baked goods, sugary cereals, ready-to-eat or ready-to-heat products and deli cold cuts.   As Akkaya’s team explained, it’s long been understood that the health of the thigh’s musculature plays a role in the development of arthritis in the knee. A buildup of fat within the thigh has been linked to a higher odds for knee arthritis. A decline in thigh muscles “is potentially associated with onset and progression of knee osteoarthritis,” Akkaya said in an RSNA news release, and “on MRI images, this decline can…  read on >  read on >

Fatty liver disease may contribute to fragmented sleep patterns, robbing already sick people of good rest, a new study finds. These folks woke up more often in the night, and then lay awake longer waiting for slumber to reclaim them, researchers found. These patients also reported taking longer to get to sleep. And their sleep remained poor even after researchers gave them tips for better slumber. “Those with [fatty liver disease] demonstrated significant fragmentation of their nightly sleep due to frequent awakenings and increased wakefulness,” said investigator Sofia Schaeffer, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Basel’s Center for Gastrointestinal and Liver Diseases in Switzerland. Fatty liver disease, formally known as metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), occurs when fat builds up in a person’s liver. It’s commonly linked with obesity or type 2 diabetes, and can lead to inflammation, scarring and liver failure. Fatty liver disease currently affects an estimated 30% of adults, and is expected to affect more than 55% by 2040, researchers said in background notes. Earlier studies have indicated that fatty liver disease might disturb a person’s sleep cycle, but these have relied on sleep questionnaires, researchers said. For this study, scientists sought to gather objective data by having people wear wrist monitors that tracked their sleep patterns. Researchers recruited 46 adult women and men with fatty liver disease, as well…  read on >  read on >

Access to psychotherapy has increased substantially among Americans, particularly young adults, a new study has found. About 12% of young adults received psychotherapy in 2021, followed by 8% of the middle-aged and 5% of seniors, researchers found. Overall, the percentage of U.S. adults receiving psychotherapy rose from about 7% in 2018 to 9% in 2021, and telemedicine may be the reason why. Nearly 40% of adults who got psychotherapy in 2021 had at least one session using telemedicine. However, that means psychotherapy is also significantly more available to adults with more money, higher education and full-time employment. “While psychotherapy access has expanded in the U.S., there’s concern that recent gains may not be equally distributed, despite or maybe because of the growth of teletherapy,” said researcher Dr. Mark Olfson, a professor of epidemiology and psychiatry with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, in New York City. “This increase in psychotherapy use, driven by the rise of teletherapy, has largely benefited socioeconomically advantaged adults with mild to moderate distress,” Olfson added in a Columbia news release. For the study, researchers analyzed survey data on medical expenditures collected between 2018 and 2021 from a total of more than 86,600 adults. As the researchers explained, teletherapy is more convenient for many patients, and is less stigmatizing than showing up at a therapist’s office. Dr. Manish Sapra is…  read on >  read on >

GLP-1 meds are all the rage for weight loss nowadays, but not everyone can safely take the drugs to shed pounds. Invasive weight-loss surgeries can often be a tough sell, too. Now, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) say they’ve developed an alternative: A small, implanted gastric balloon that people can inflate or deflate to feel full or not. Early studies showed the gastric balloon helped animals cut their daily food intake by 60%. “The basic concept is we can have this balloon that is dynamic, so it would be inflated right before a meal and then you wouldn’t feel hungry. Then it would be deflated in between meals,” explained senior study author Giovanni Traverso. He’s an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT and a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. His team published its findings Dec. 3 in the journal Device. Gastric balloons are not new as a weight-loss aid, and stationary balloons filled with saline have long been approved for weight control by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. There’s a problem with these devices, however: Over time, the trick wears off and the stomach becomes desensitized to the fake sense of fullness the balloon provides. “Gastric balloons do work initially,” Traverso explained in an MIT news release. “Historically, what has been seen is that the balloon is…  read on >  read on >

An accumulation of fat lurking around the organs of obese people is strongly linked to a buildup of Alzheimer’s-linked proteins in the brain, new research finds. Buildup of this visceral fat in middle age may boost levels of the two damaging brain proteins, called amyloid and tau, explained a team led by Dr. Mahsa Dolatshahi, of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Actual symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease may not arise until many years later. “Our study showed that higher visceral fat was associated with higher PET [scan] levels of the two hallmark pathologic proteins of Alzheimer’s disease — amyloid and tau,” Dolatshahi said. “To our knowledge, our study is the only one to demonstrate these findings at midlife where our participants are decades out from developing the earliest symptoms of the dementia that results from Alzheimer’s disease.” Dolatshahi is a post-doctoral research associate at the university’s Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology. Her team’s findings were presented Monday in Chicago at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). According to the Alzheimer’s Association, 6.9 million Americans aged 65 and older are now affected by Alzheimer’s disease — a number that could rise to 13 million by mid-century. Dolatshahi’s group wondered if there might be factors in mid-life that affect a person’s late-life odds for Alzheimer’s. Their study of 80 middle-aged people…  read on >  read on >

The hectic holidays play havoc on people’s nerves, not the least because they aren’t able to have any time to themselves. Nearly half (46%) of Americans say they don’t get the alone time they need during the holidays, according to a new national survey by the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. What’s more, 56% of the people surveyed said it’s very important to their mental health to have adequate alone time. Taking a brief break alone can be mentally and physically rewarding, particularly in today’s on-the-go society, said Sophie Lazarus, a clinical psychologist with Ohio State. “By taking a brief pause alone, our nervous system can settle, our mind can settle, our body can settle. And I think that can be important. We know that chronic stress is not good for us,” Lazarus said in a Ohio State news release. Folks who want to get a little self time can accomplish this by adding simple changes to their routine, Lazarus said. “Try putting your phone in a totally different room when you decide you’re going to spend alone time, knowing how hard it is to resist picking it up, the pulls on our attention and on our priorities,” Lazarus said. “Or take two or three minutes in the car before you go pick your kids up or before you go back into the house…  read on >  read on >

Moving away from meat to plants as a main source of protein will do wonders for your heart, new research finds. The 30-year study found that folks with the highest ratio of plant-based protein to animal-based protein cut their odds of developing cardiovascular disease by 19%. They also had a 27% lower risk for coronary heart disease. “Most of us need to begin shifting our diets toward plant-based proteins,” said study senior author Dr. Frank Hu, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard University. “We can do so by cutting down on meat, especially red and processed meats, and eating more legumes and nuts. Such a dietary pattern is beneficial not just for human health but also the health of our planet.” Is there a “sweet spot” for plant-versus-meat intake? The authors believe that a move to a wholly plant-based diet might work best when it comes to reducing risks for coronary heart disease (CHD), but benefits for cardiovascular disease (CVD) plateau at about a 1:2 ratio of plant to animal protein. “The average American eats a 1:3 plant to animal protein ratio,” said lead author Andrea Glenn, who did the research as a visiting scientist at Harvard’s department of nutrition. “Our findings suggest a ratio of at least 1:2 is much more effective in preventing CVD. For CHD prevention, a ratio of 1:1.3 or…  read on >  read on >

Geoffrey Pointing says its hard to describe the distress of an asthma or COPD flare-up. “Honestly, when you’re having a flare up, it’s very difficult to tell anybody how you feel – you can hardly breathe,” Pointing, 77, of Banbury, England, said in a news release.  But an existing injectable drug might make these attacks much less frightening, a new clinical trial has shown. The already-approved drug for asthma could replace steroid medications as a means of quelling asthma and COPD flare-ups, researchers report. Benralizabam, a monoclonal antibody, did a better job than steroids at reducing respiratory symptoms like coughing, wheezing, breathlessness and hacking up phlegm, according to trial results published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. After three months of treatment, four times fewer people taking benralizumab had suffered an asthma or COPD attack, compared to people taking the steroid prednisolone. “This could be a game-changer for people with asthma and COPD,” said lead researcher Dr. Mona Bafadhel, chair of respiratory medicine for King’s College London. “Treatment for asthma and COPD exacerbations have not changed in fifty years despite causing 3.8 million deaths worldwide a year combined,” Bafadhel continued in a news release. “Benralizumab is a safe and effective drug already used to manage severe asthma. We’ve used the drug in a different way — at the point of an exacerbation — to show that…  read on >  read on >