Lifestyle « Weekly Gravy

Heat coupled with smog can be a particularly lethal mix, especially for older adults, a new study finds. Unfortunately, both hot temperatures and air pollution are going to increase as the planet warms, and so will deaths, researchers report. “We are experiencing more and more frequent wildfires, which cause pollution, and wildfires happen during the hotter days. So, there will be more of these occurrences in the future,” said lead researcher Md Mostafijur Rahman, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine. Although extreme heat and air pollution each increase the risk of dying, the combination increases the risk exponentially, he noted. Extremely hot days increase the risk of dying by just over 6%. On days when air pollution is high, death risk increases by 5%. However, on very hot, highly polluted days, that risk increases 21%, Rahman said. To come to that conclusion, his team used death certificates from California’s Department of Public Health to analyze more than 1.5 million deaths across the state between 2014 and 2019. They also used data on air temperature and levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5). PM2.5 is known to cause health problems. They found that on days when both heat and air pollutions were high, the risk of dying from heart conditions jumped nearly 30%, and the risk of dying from respiratory… read on > read on >

Severe obesity appears to be on the rise among young U.S. children, based on data from a federal supplemental nutrition program. About 2% of children between 2 and 4 years of age in the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition program were severely obese by 2020, a new study reports. That’s about 33,000 of the more than 1.6 million kids in the program. The data dashes hopes that progress had been made within the program against severe obesity, which is defined as a BMI that’s either above 35 or at least 20% greater than that of the heaviest 5% of kids, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). BMI is short for body mass index, an estimate of body fat based on height and weight. Severe obesity among WIC kids had dropped to 1.8% in 2016 from 2.1% in 2010, according to findings published Dec. 18 in the journal Pediatrics. This jibes with other studies that have noted an uptick in severe obesity among young kids, as high as 2.9% of 2- to 4-year-olds in 2018, the researchers said in background notes. “We were doing well and now we see this upward trend,” researcher Heidi Blanck, chief of the CDC’s Obesity Prevention and Control Branch, told the Associated Press. “We are dismayed at seeing these findings.” In all, 20 states saw… read on > read on >

If you’re one of the 50 million Americans with asthma or allergies, 2024 is another year to redouble efforts to manage them. But how? “It’s not always easy to get allergies and asthma under control,” allergist Dr. Gailen Marshall, president of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI), said in a tip sheet from the organization. “The new year is a great time to take stock of how you’re feeling and assess what kind of changes you might want to make to feel better overall. They might be small changes, which taken together, can mean big improvements in how you navigate your day.” He and the ACAAI offered up a handful of ways you can handle things. Top 5 Resolutions: 1) Update your prescriptions: What worked last year to keep your allergies at bay might not be working by next year: Check in with your board-certified allergist or asthma specialist to make sure you’re up-to-date on the latest meds, the ACAAI said. 2) Ward off respiratory viruses: Folks with asthma and allergies can be at high risk for a lot of germs that hamper breathing, the ACAAI said. Be sure to get up-to-date on your seasonal flu shot, the COVID-19 vaccine and the newly approved respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) shot. The very young and the very old face even higher risks. 3) Keep your… read on > read on >

Much has been made of the effects a pregnant woman’s drinking could have on the health of her unborn child. But alcohol consumption by men also increases the risk of birth defects in newborns – and a new study shows that guys who want to avoid this will have to cut out the booze as much as three months before they try to conceive. Semen from men who regularly consume alcohol has been linked to brain and facial defects associated with fetal alcohol syndrome and other pregnancy complications, researchers said. Now, they say it takes much longer than previously estimated — more than a month — for the effects of alcohol consumption to leave the father’s sperm. “When someone is consuming alcohol on a regular basis and then stops, their body goes through withdrawal, where it has to learn how to operate without the chemical present,” said researcher Dr. Michael Golding, a professor at Texas A&M University’s School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences. “What we discovered is that a father’s sperm are still negatively impacted by drinking even during the withdrawal process, meaning it takes much longer than we previously thought for the sperm to return to normal,” Golding said in a university news release. To play it safe, Golding suggests that fathers abstain from alcohol at least three months prior to conception. “There’s… read on > read on >

The first postpartum depression pill approved for use in the United States is now available to women who need it, the drug’s makers announced Thursday. Sold under the name Zurzuvae, the medication can quickly ease severe postpartum depression and help women regain their emotional equilibrium following childbirth. The medication, which is now stocked in specialty pharmacies, can also be shipped directly to patients, Biogen and Sage Therapeutics Inc. said in a news release Thursday. “Having an option like Zurzuvae that can work at Day 15 and improve symptoms in as early as three days has the potential to make a profound difference in the lives of women with PPD [postpartum depression],” Dr. Kristina Deligiannidis, a professor at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research in New York City who has been the lead investigator on the clinical trials that led to Zurzuvae’s approval, said in the company news release. Advocates welcomed the news. “It’s critical that as a society we recognize PPD is a serious medical condition. I have witnessed the devastating impact untreated PPD can have on women, only heightened by the fact that Black and Brown women and those living in a lower socioeconomic status are disproportionately impacted,” said Wendy Davis, executive director at Postpartum Support International, said in the company news release. “PPD should not be treated as an afterthought. We need to embrace the care… read on > read on >

Most women know that their menstrual cycle can affect their mood. Now, new research suggests suicidal thoughts may peak at certain points during the monthly cycle. The finding could have an upside, helping people pinpoint when they might be most vulnerable to suicide, so they can better prevent it. “As clinicians, we feel responsible for keeping our patients safe from a suicide attempt, but we often don’t have much information about when we need to be most concerned about their safety,” said study senior author Tory Eisenlohr-Moul, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Illinois in Chicago (UIC). “This study establishes that the menstrual cycle can affect many people who have suicidal thoughts, which makes it one of the only predictable recurring risk factors that has been identified for detecting when a suicide attempt might occur,” Eisenlohr-Moul added in a university news release. In the study, her team asked 119 women to complete daily surveys of any suicidal thoughts they might have, or any other mental health issues they experience, over the course of at least one menstrual cycle. The study found that suicidal thoughts, planning and attempts were more common in the “perimenstrual” phase — the days just before and after onset of menses (bleeding). But patterns weren’t universal. Feelings of “depression, anxiety and hopelessness” were most common during the premenstrual and… read on > read on >

Hours plunked down in front of the TV or staring at a phone screen in childhood could bring poor heart health decades later, a new study shows. Finnish researchers say kids who were largely sedentary tended to turn into young adults who battled high cholesterol and other health troubles. “Our study shows increased sedentary time in childhood may contribute to two-thirds of the total increase in a person’s cholesterol levels before their mid-twenties,” study lead author Dr. Andrew Agbaje said in a news release from the Endocrine Society. “This suggests childhood sedentariness may be a major risk factor for elevated cholesterol and subsequent premature heart attack or stroke when individuals reach their mid-forties,” said Agbaje, who is at the University of Eastern Finland in Kuopio. His team published its findings Dec. 14 in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, an Endocrine Society journal. In the study, 11-year-olds were fitted with activity trackers and were also regularly checked for cholesterol levels. Their health was then followed for 13 years. One main finding: ‘Couch potato’ kids became even more rooted to their sofas as they aged. Average sedentary time rose from 6 hours per day in childhood to 9 hours per day as they became young adults. Agbaje’s group calculate that this lack of physical activity contributed to 70% of the rise in cholesterol over the… read on > read on >

Media mogul Oprah Winfrey confirmed Wednesday that she has used a weight-loss medication to help her shed pounds and get healthy. Winfrey has added the drug to a regimen that includes regular exercise and other lifestyle tweaks, People magazine reported. Weight fluctuations “occupied five decades of space in my brain, yo-yoing and feeling like why can’t I just conquer this thing, believing willpower was my failing,” Winfrey told the magazine. Her most recent weight-loss journey began after she had knee surgery in 2021. “I started hiking and setting new distance goals each week. I could eventually hike three to five miles every day and a 10-mile straight-up hike on weekends,” she said. “I felt stronger, more fit and more alive than I’d felt in years.” But that wasn’t the only change she made to her life, said Winfrey, who turns 70 in January. “I eat my last meal at 4 o’clock, drink a gallon of water a day, and use the Weight Watchers principles of counting points. I had an awareness of [weight-loss] medications, but felt I had to prove I had the willpower to do it. I now no longer feel that way.” “I was actually recommending it to people long before I was on it myself,” she noted. After an epiphany in July during a panel conversation with weight-loss experts, she changed her… read on > read on >

Being in a marriage or long-term relationship typically includes promises of monogamy, but new research shows a surprising number of folks, mostly men, are open to the idea of having another person in the mix. Fully one-third of men in the United Kingdom are open to the idea of having more than one wife or long-term girlfriend, while only 11% of women would want someone else in their relationship, results show. Those trends hold when considering both types of polygamy, researchers said. Those are polygyny, a man marrying more than one woman, or polyandry, where a woman marries more than one man, researchers found. About 9% of men said they would share their partner, versus 5% of women interested in such a relationship, according to the report in the Archives of Sexual Behavior. “This study shows that a sizable minority of people are open to such relationships, even in the U.K, where such marriages are prohibited,” said lead researcher Andrew Thomas, a senior lecturer in psychology at Swansea University in Wales. “Interestingly, many more men are open to the idea than women — though there is still interest on both sides,” Thomas added. For this study, researchers asked 393 heterosexual men and women in the U.K. how they felt about a committed partnership in which they shared their other half with someone else. “Comparing polygyny… read on > read on >

An overwhelming majority of older Americans think health insurers and Medicare should cover the cost of weight-loss medications like Ozempic, Wegovy or Zepbound, a new survey has found. More than four out of five older adults (83%) think insurance companies should pay for drugs that help obese people manage their weight, according to poll results from over 2,600 people ages 50 to 80. And about three in four (76%) believe Medicare should cover weight-loss drugs, researchers at the University of Michigan National Poll and Healthy Aging found. “Our data show the strong awareness and interest in these medications, and in access to them through insurance, alongside coverage for other weight-focused care including nutrition counseling, exercise programs and bariatric surgery,” said researcher Dr. Lauren Oshman, an obesity medicine specialist and associate professor in the University of Michigan Department of Family Medicine. Weight-loss drugs have been in the spotlight since the approval of Wegovy, an injectable drug initially approved for treating type 2 diabetes under the name Ozempic. The FDA has since approved Zepbound for weight loss, a diabetes drug previously approved under the name Mounjaro. These new medications are pricey, costing more than $12,000 a year for people who pay out of their own pockets. But the drugs are nearly as effective as bariatric surgery in helping people with obesity lose 10% or more of their… read on > read on >