Lifestyle « Weekly Gravy

Research out of the United Kingdom finds workers often feel overwhelmed by digital technology and the need to always be connected online. It’s a worldwide issue, the study authors believe. “What we have found in our research is that there is a potential dark side to digital working, where employees can feel fatigue and strain due to being overburdened by the demands and intensity of the digital work environment,” said lead study author Elizabeth Marsh, a graduate student in psychology at the University of Nottingham. “A sense of pressure to be constantly connected and keeping up with messages can make it hard to psychologically detach from work,” she added in a university news release. The study was published Dec. 17 in the journal Frontiers in Organizational Psychology. In their research, Marsh and colleagues conducted in-depth interviews with 14 employees about how 21st-century digital workplaces impact their well-being. The biggest factor weighing on workers is what the researchers called “hyperconnectivity” — the fact that texting and emails mean workers can truly never get away from the alerts and requests of clients or co-workers. “You kind of feel like you have to be there all the time. You have to be a little green light,” one worker told the research team. “[It’s] just more difficult to leave it behind when it’s all online and you can kind of… read on > read on >

Can you literally step away from depression? A new global review of data found that “increasing the number of daily steps, even at modest levels, was associated with a reduction in depressive symptoms.” The Spanish study found that up to a level of about 10,000 steps per day, the odds for depression decline as daily step levels rise. The findings were published Dec. 16 in the journal JAMA Network Open. Researchers led by Estela Jimenez-Lopez, of the University of Castile-La Mancha, noted there’s already solid evidence that exercise of any kind is a natural antidepressant. But what about something as easy as walking? To find out, they looked at data from high-quality studies on daily step counts and their links to mental health. In total, the new review covered 33 studies involving a total of more than 96,000 adults worldwide. Studies included people who used fitness-tracker devices to calculate their daily steps. Compared to a baseline of 5,000 steps taken per day, folks who took even 1,000 more steps daily saw a 9% drop in their odds for developing depression, the researchers found. Those benefits quickly mounted up: Compared to folks walking 5,000 steps per day or less, those who walked 7,000 steps/day had a 31% lower odds for depression, the study found. “In addition, counts above 7,500 steps/d were associated with a 43% lower… read on > read on >

Do parents use Santa Claus to help guide kids to better behavior? It happens often, a new poll shows. One-quarter of parents of kids ages 3 to 5 said they’ve threatened misbehaving kids with no Santa or gifts if they don’t shape up, according to results from the University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health. Many parents also reported threatening to leave a Christmas activity, taking away toys or denying dessert to get their kids to behave, the poll found. What’s more, nearly half of parents polled have resorted to bribes to get better behavior from kids. Unfortunately, these aren’t likely to be winning strategies, Mott pediatrician Dr. Susan Woolford said in a hospital news release. “Discipline helps young children learn what behaviors are safe and appropriate and can play a crucial role in helping them learn the difference between right and wrong,” Woolford said. “Empty threats, however, undermine trust and credibility and aren’t usually effective,” Woolford added. “Positive reinforcement and consistent discipline are more likely to shape long-term behavior.” About half of parents rated themselves as very consistent in disciplining their child, based on poll responses from 725 parents with at least one child between the ages of 1 and 5. But it’s not easy — nearly a quarter of parents said they become overly irritated by their… read on > read on >

Close friendships are incredibly important to the mental health of middle-aged folks and seniors, a new study finds. Older adults with worse mental or physical health were twice as likely to say they don’t have any close friends, according to results from the University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging. “With growing understanding of the importance of social connection for older adults, it’s important to explore the relationship between friendship and health, and identify those who might benefit most from efforts to support more interaction,” said investigator Sarah Patterson, a research assistant professor with the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. Overall, 90% of people 50 and older said they have at least one close friend, and 75% say they have enough close friends, poll results showed. But about 20% of those with fair to poor mental health and 18% of those in fair or poor physical health say they have no close friends, researchers found. Another 47% of those in fair or poor mental health said they don’t have enough close friends, results show. The poll also found that 79% of those with at least once close friend felt that they could turn to them for emotional support, and 50% had a friend who encouraged them to make healthier choices like eating better or getting more exercise. In addition, 35% said a… read on > read on >

The U.S. obesity rate declined for the first time in a decade last year, coinciding with the rise of GLP-1 weight-loss meds, a new study finds. Data on almost 17 million adults nationwide showed the obesity rate — which has been rising for years — fell from 46.2% of adults in 2021 to 45.6% in 2023, Harvard University researchers report. Obesity was defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or above. At the same time, the use of GLP-1 medications like Wegovy and Zepbound has surged, although the researchers said it’s not possible to confirm a cause-and-effect relationship between the trends. Still, they noted that, “The most notable decrease [in obesity] was in the South, which had the highest observed…dispensing rate,” for GLP-1 medications. The study was led by Benjamin Rader, an assistant professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School, and published Dec. 13 in the journal JAMA Health Forum. As Rader’s team noted, “the prevalence of obesity in the U.S. has increased for several decades. Some long-term forecasts estimate that this upward trajectory will continue, while others forecast a plateau.” The introduction of GLP-1 meds like semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro, Zepbound) into the marketplace has been a perhaps unexpected new factor in recent years, however. Sales of the injected medications have soared, and the results in terms of weight… read on > read on >

Have you been boozing more often than usual? A new blood test might be able to tell if you’re damaging your liver from too many beers, margaritas or belts of scotch, researchers report. A blood-borne byproduct of alcohol consumption called phosphatidylethanol (PEth) can give doctors a fair idea of how much liver scarring has occurred due to drinking, as reported recently in the American Journal of Gastroenterology. Blood testing for PEth would help doctors understand patients’ drinking habits better than just asking how much they’ve been drinking. “This is a more direct way to measure the harm that alcohol is causing in the body than asking patients,” said senior researcher Judy Hahn, a professor in the University of California, San Francisco’s (UCSF) Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases and Global Medicine. “We don’t ask someone how much fatty food they eat. We measure their cholesterol,” Hahn noted in a university news release. “We don’t ask people how much they think they weigh. We weigh them.” The body produces PEth as it processes alcohol, and previous studies have shown that PEth blood concentrations accurately reflect the amount someone imbibed, researchers said in background notes. Heavy drinking is widespread in the United States and that increased even more during the pandemic. About 24% of U.S. adults binge drink, and more than 6% are heavy drinkers, according to data… read on > read on >

In what appears to be a last-ditch effort to limit the harms of smoking before its term ends, the Biden administration has proposed a rule that would significantly lower the amount of nicotine in tobacco products. The agency’s efforts to counter the dangers of the addictive chemical stretch back to 2018, when it first proposed the idea. Then, FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf went even further in 2022 and announced that the agency was developing a rule that would require tobacco companies to reduce the amount of nicotine in cigarettes. The next step in that effort took place Tuesday when the FDA finally submitted its refined proposal to the Office of Management and Budget. “A proposed product standard to establish a maximum nicotine level to reduce the addictiveness of cigarettes and certain combusted tobacco products, when finalized, would be among the most impactful population-level actions in the history of U.S. tobacco product regulation,” the FDA told CNN on Wednesday. The latest action was welcomed by health experts. “Once finalized, this rule could be a game-changer in our nation’s efforts to eliminate tobacco use,” Harold Wimmer, president and CEO of the American Lung Association, told CNN. “Making tobacco products non-addictive would dramatically reduce the number of young people who become hooked when they are experimenting.” “To fully address the toll of tobacco on our nation’s health and across all… read on > read on >

Keeping your blood pressure in check is important for more than just heart health — it can also keep your brain sharp as you age. A new study published Dec. 11 in the journal Neurology shows that seniors whose blood pressure spikes and drops over time might be more likely to suffer a decline in their thinking and memory skills. “These results suggest that fluctuation in blood pressure is a risk factor for cognitive problems beyond the negative effects of high blood pressure itself,” said researcher Dr. Anisa Dhana, a postdoctoral researcher with Rush University in Chicago. For the study, researchers recruited nearly 4,800 people with an average age of 71. Participants had their blood pressure tested regularly over three years, and completed thinking and memory skills tests at the beginning and end of the 10-year study. Overall, participants had an average blood pressure of 138/78. High blood pressure is defined as 130/80 or higher. It’s important to note, however, that this study was observational and could not draw a direct cause-and-effect link between blood pressure and brain health, Dhana noted. Results showed that people whose blood pressure fluctuated the most experienced nearly three additional years of brain aging, based on cognitive tests. On the other hand, people taking blood pressure medications showed no difference in scores on thinking tests by the end of the… read on > read on >

Unhealthy ultra-processed foods have wormed their way into American kitchens, likely harming people’s health for decades, a new study warns. More than half of the calories adults eat at home now come from ultra-processed foods, which contain high levels of sugar, salt, fat and other additives, and have been linked to heart disease, obesity and type 2 diabetes. Folks typically consider ultra-processed food to be either fast food or junk food, but this heavily processed fare even includes options that might seem healthy at first, said lead researcher Julia Wolfson, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. “The perception can be that ‘junk food’ and ultra-processed foods are equivalent,” Wolfson said in a news release from the university. “Yet ultra-processed foods encompass many more products than just junk food or fast food, including most of the foods in the grocery store,” Wolfson added. “The proliferation and ubiquity of ultra-processed foods on grocery store shelves is changing what we are eating when we make meals at home.” For the study, researchers analyzed data from annual health and nutrition surveys conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention between 2003 and 2018. The research team used their answers to sort Americans’ daily diets into one of four groups — unprocessed or minimally processed foods, processed ingredients used during… read on > read on >

Sneaking cigarettes might seem like a harmless pre-teen rite of passage, but it’s more dangerous than you think, a new study warns. Regular smoking at a young age doesn’t just lead to a higher chance of smoking later in life — it can also cause serious harm to young hearts. Experts have understood that children who smoked earlier in life were more likely to continue the habit, and the risks that come with it, later into their lives. Now, the new study gives a better idea of the damage it does early on. “Teen smoking doesn’t just increase the risk of heart disease later in life — it causes early and lasting damage to heart muscle and function,” said Dr. Emily Bucholz, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Until now, there wasn’t a lot of data on cardiac structure and function in healthy children, since assessing the hearts of healthy young people is uncommon. Overall, persistent smoking from childhood to young adulthood was associated with an over 50% increased risk of premature heart damage, the study, published Dec. 11 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), showed. The damage, such as an enlarged heart or increased pressure in blood flow to the heart, was evident by the age of 24. This analysis followed more than… read on > read on >