Lifestyle « Weekly Gravy

Calorie labels on restaurant menus are harming people with eating disorders, a new evidence review claims. These labels are meant to make it healthier to eat out at restaurants, by informing customers of the calorie content of food choices. But people diagnosed with eating disorders tend to respond poorly when presented with a menu featuring calorie labels, researchers reported Jan. 28 in the BMJ Public Health. Unhealthy responses included avoiding restaurants altogether, triggering harmful thoughts associated with eating disorders, and obsessing over the calorie counts. Some said that seeing these menu labels actually reinforced the beliefs behind their eating disorders, researchers added. “It’s definitely set my recovery back by a long way and I only feel safe eating at home now,” a patient with an eating disorder said in one of the studies included in the review. “Our study highlights that people with lived experience of eating disorders are frustrated at being left out of the conversation around calorie labels,” senior researcher Tom Jewell, a lecturer in mental health nursing at King’s College London, said in a news release. The obesity epidemic has caused policymakers to act without any thought to the impact on people with eating disorders, Jewell added. “Striking a balance between the positive and harmful impacts of calorie labels on menus is vital in any public health policies,” he said. “Policymakers should… read on > read on >

Most community crisis services did not expand following the launch of the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, potentially blunting the effectiveness of the hotline, a new study says. Walk-in psychiatric services, mobile crisis response units and suicide prevention programs all declined following the launch of the 988 line in July 2022, researchers reported in a new study published Jan. 29 in JAMA Psychiatry. “The lack of meaningful growth in most crisis services may limit the long-run success of 988, in particular if callers feel that reaching out to 988 fails to result in access to appropriate sources of care,” lead investigator Jonathan Cantor, a policy researcher at the nonprofit research organization RAND, said in a news release. The 988 Lifeline provides a single easy-to-remember phone number for people in a suicidal or mental health crisis. It replaced the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which had been reachable through a 10-digit 800 number. The line is intended to help counsel people in crisis and, if necessary, connect them with a variety of mental health services. However, researchers suspected that mental health emergency response systems might not have been able to rapidly beef up their operations to handle the potentially increased workload from an easier-to-use crisis line. For example, the U.S. continues to have a shortage of psychiatric beds in many regions, as well as a limited and… read on > read on >

People with low back pain might want to look into the ancient Chinese mind-body movement exercise known as qigong, a new study published recently suggests. Qigong is similar to tai chi, in that it uses slow-flowing exercises and still, meditative postures to ease tension and increase flexibility. The practice brought pain relief and better sleep to a small group of military veterans after eight weeks, compared to another group that didn’t use qigong. “Stretching, loosening, strengthening and balancing techniques of qigong may release back tension, ease pain and improve flexibility and alignment,” senior researcher Cheryl Krause-Parello, associate vice president for research at Florida Atlantic University, said in a news release. For the study, a group of 10 veterans with back pain were randomly assigned to take an eight-week course of qigong, researchers said. Another 12 vets were placed on a wait list and served as a control group. Between 40% to 70% of veterans suffer from chronic pain, and back pain is most commonly reported, researchers said in background notes. Painkillers aren’t the solution, researchers argue – veterans are more likely to be prescribed opioids than civilians, and are therefore at increased risk of addiction and overdose. Researchers figured qigong might be a way to help veterans manage back pain without resorting to painkillers. “This holistic approach addresses the complex challenges faced by veterans with… read on > read on >

Helping kids with obesity drop pounds can have a huge impact on their future health. When these children and teens lose weight, they are less likely to have type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol as young adults, researchers reported in a new study published Jan. 21 in JAMA Pediatrics. They also had a lower risk of dying young, their results show. “The results are very good news,” senior researcher Emilia Hagman, a docent of clinical science, intervention and technology at Karolinska Institute in Sweden, said in a news release. “Whether or not the treatment of obesity in childhood has long-term health benefits have been debated, since weight-loss is hard to maintain,” she said. “This emphasizes the importance of providing early treatment, as we know that timely intervention increases the likelihood of success and helps mitigate the long-term health risks associated with obesity.” For the study, researchers analyzed data on more than 6,700 Swedish children who registered for obesity treatment between 1996 and 2019. All received at least one year of obesity treatment prior to age 18. On average, the kids started treatment at age 12 and received around three years of treatment, researchers report. The research team then checked in with the children as they reached adulthood — between 18 to 30 years of age — to see whether losing weight had… read on > read on >

Major heart health risk factors like obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure remain on the rise in the United States, according to an annual report from the American Heart Association (AHA). These risks are thwarting efforts to save lives from heart disease, heart attack, stroke and other lethal heart-related diseases, says the report published Jan. 27 in the AHA journal Circulation. Overall, there was a slight increase in heart-related deaths in 2022, the most recent year for which final data is available, the 2025 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics report says. There were 941,652 heart-related deaths in 2022, an increase of more than 10,000 from the 931,578 deaths in 2021. The report indicates that heart-related deaths appear to be leveling out after a major uptick during the COVID pandemic, the report says — but heart disease remains the No. 1 killer in the U.S. Someone dies of heart disease every 34 seconds, amounting to nearly 2,500 people every day, noted Dr. Keith Churchwell, volunteer president of the American Heart Association. “Those are alarming statistics to me — and they should be alarming for all of us, because it’s likely many among those whom we lose will be our friends and loved ones,” Churchwell said in a news release. He noted that heart disease and stroke together kill more people than all cancers and accidental deaths… read on > read on >

That busy highway could be contributing to depression, and not just because you’re snarled in a traffic jam. Air pollution from traffic appears to increase risk of depression among women, according to a new study published Jan. 21 in the journal Menopause. Further, researchers think this air pollution might be raising depression risk by affecting women’s menstrual cycles. “Traffic-related air pollution exposure was significantly related to having a longer menstrual cycle length, and having a longer menstrual cycle length was significantly related to higher depression,” wrote the research team led by Anwesha Pan, a graduate student at the University of Washington in Seattle. These effects could be more pronounced among minority and poor women, whose neighborhoods are often located nearer to high-traffic areas. Thus, air pollution could be “potentially setting the stage for a clustering of risk factors for poor psychological health in vulnerable individuals,” the researchers wrote. For the study, researchers tracked the health of nearly 700 healthy women of reproductive age living in Northern California. Their exposure to vehicle exhaust was calculated by comparing their home address to state traffic data. Results showed that the more traffic-related air pollution a woman faced, the greater her symptoms of depression. “Women with greater traffic-related air pollution exposure were significantly more likely to experience depression according to self-reports on an established questionnaire measure of depressive symptoms,”… read on > read on >

Could a virtual avatar be the future of mental health care? New research shows that artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR) goggles could revolutionize therapy — helping patients overcome addiction and receive unbiased care. A recent study in the Journal of Medical Extended Reality focused on patients with alcohol-associated cirrhosis, a serious liver condition linked to long-term alcohol use. Using a VR app developed at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, patients had counseling sessions with AI-powered avatars programmed for motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioral therapy. After 30-minute sessions, 85% of participants said they found the experience to be helpful, and 90% expressed interest in doing it again. “For individuals awaiting liver transplants for cirrhosis, alcohol addiction remains a high-risk factor,” corresponding author Dr. Brennan Spiegel, a professor of medicine and director of health services research at Cedars-Sinai, said in a news release. “We see VR as a way to augment traditional interventions, which often fall short due to a shortage of mental health professionals, societal stigmatizing of alcoholism and other factors.” A second study, published earlier this month in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, explored whether AI-driven virtual therapists could provide care to a varied selection of patients. Researchers simulated more than 400 conversations between AI-powered therapists and virtual patients, assigning each patient a unique profile based on characteristics such as race,… read on > read on >

Pregnancy increases the risk of mental illness among women with multiple sclerosis (MS). Pregnant MS patients have a higher risk of mental illness both during gestation and in the first years after they give birth, researchers reported in a new study published Jan. 22 in the journal Neurology. Overall, women with MS have a 26% increased risk of mental illness during pregnancy and a 33% increased risk after giving birth, compared to women without the degenerative nerve disease. “Mental health struggles can affect both parents and kids, making it important to understand how mental health challenges around pregnancy affect people with MS,” lead researcher Dr. Ruth Ann Marrie, a professor of medicine and community health sciences at the University of Manitoba in Canada, said in a news release. For the study, researchers tracked the health of nearly 900,000 mothers, including more than 1,700 with MS. They looked at records from two years before conception to three years after participants gave birth. The research team then examined how many women had been diagnosed with a mental illness, including anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, psychosis, suicide attempts or substance abuse. Mental illness affected about 42% of women with MS during pregnancy, and that increased to 50% within the first year after birth, results show. By comparison, 30% of women without MS had mental health problems during pregnancy and… read on > read on >

A well-marbled steak is highly prized for grilling, but those sort of fat deposits in human muscles can be deadly, a new study says. People with pockets of fat hidden within their muscles have a higher risk of dying from heart-related health problems, researchers reported in a study published Jan. 20 in the European Heart Journal. For every 1% increase in fatty deposits in muscle, there was a 7% increased risk of heart-related death, heart attack or heart failure, researchers found. Even people with a healthy BMI can have these hidden fat deposits within their muscles, researchers said. (BMI is short for body mass index, an estimate of body fat based on height and weight.) In fact, the heart risk associated with fatty muscle was independent of BMI and other known heart risk factors, results show. “Knowing that intermuscular fat raises the risk of heart disease gives us another way to identify people who are at high risk, regardless of their body mass index,” senior researcher Dr. Viviany Taqueti, director of the Cardiac Stress Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said in a news release. For the study, researchers performed imaging scans on nearly 670 patients being evaluated at Brigham and Women’s Hospital for chest pain or shortness of breath. CT scans were used to assess how well the patients’ hearts were functioning.… read on > read on >

A broken home seems to set a ticking time bomb in the brains of some children of divorce. Seniors have a 61% higher risk of stroke if their parents divorced when they were children or teenagers, researchers reported in a study published Jan. 22 in the journal PLOS One. The level of added risk is on par with that posed by two other well-established risk factors for stroke, diabetes and depression, researchers said. “Even after taking into account most of the known risk factors associated with stroke — including smoking, physical inactivity, lower income and education, diabetes, depression, and low social support — those whose parents had divorced still had 61% higher odds of having a stroke,” lead researcher Mary Kate Schilke, a lecturer in psychology at Tyndale University in Ontario, Canada, said in a news release. For the study, researchers analyzed data on more than 13,200 seniors 65 and older collected by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2022 as part of an annual survey of American health. More than 7% of older Americans included in the study had suffered a stroke, and nearly 14% were children of divorce, researchers said. The study specifically excluded people who’d suffered childhood abuse. “We found that even when people hadn’t experienced childhood physical and sexual abuse and had at least one adult who made… read on > read on >