A pro football career can mean chronic pain after retirement, but Black players are especially hard-hit, a new study finds. The study, of nearly 4,000 former National Football League (NFL) players, found that Black men reported more intense, more debilitating pain than their white counterparts. They were also more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety or fatigue — and those problems were often related to their pain levels. Researchers said the findings speak to a larger, well-documented issue: Black Americans are more affected by chronic pain, and less likely to have it effectively treated, than white people. And it appears those disparities are not erased by the status and resources that can come with being a professional athlete. “I do think it’s striking that this disparity is still seen in a group of people that has relatively more advantage than the average American,” said lead researcher Robert Edwards, a clinical psychologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s Pain Management Center in Boston. It all suggests that racial disparities in chronic pain are not explained by health insurance and access to health care alone. “It’s more complicated than that,” Edwards said. “We have known about some of the risk factors for adverse pain-related outcomes, and they include low social support, depression and anxiety.” Those risk factors, he added, are both more common among Black Americans, and —…  read on >  read on >

It can be challenging for people with type 1 diabetes to exercise safely while controlling their blood sugar. People with the condition often struggle with this balance, according to a new study based on a survey conducted through social media groups restricted to adults with type 1 diabetes who run, jog or walk for exercise. The survey findings were presented Thursday at a meeting of the Endocrine Society, in Chicago. “Managing high and low blood sugar levels before, during and after aerobic exercise remains one of the greatest challenges for people living with type 1 diabetes,” said lead researcher Dr. Joseph Henske, an endocrinologist at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. “This study provides a number of key insights into the degree to which published guidelines and recommendations surrounding exercise with type 1 diabetes are understood and implemented in the real world,” he said in a meeting news release. In all, 102 adults with type 1 diabetes responded to the survey. Of those, 68% said they exercised four or more days per week, with weekly average of 23 miles. Nearly all (97%) said they used continuous glucose monitors. About 75% used insulin pumps. The respondents had a self-reported average HbA1C of 7.1%, indicating their diabetes was well-controlled. HbA1C is a measure of average blood sugar levels over the past three months.…  read on >  read on >

Drowning is the leading cause of death among children aged 1 to 4 years old in the United States, and too many older children continue to die in the water, according to a new report from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). A child can slip underwater in the seconds it takes a parent to send a text message. Or while a caregiver turns away to pick up a smartphone. “The fatalities from drowning and non-fatal drowning injuries are still high, so water safety vigilance remains crucially important this summer and all year,” CPSC chair Alex Hoehn-Saric said in an agency news release. For children younger than 15, an average of 371 pool- or spa-related fatal drownings occurred each year between 2018 and 2020, according to the annual report. In 2020, that number was 340, down 7% from the previous year. In 2022, there were 6,400 non-fatal drowning injuries, statistically the same as in 2021. The annual report provides information on fatal drownings for 2018 through 2020 and on nonfatal drownings for 2020 through 2022 because of a lag time in fatality statistics. Pools, hot tubs and the like contribute to thousands of visits to emergency rooms annually. Through 2022, there were an estimated 6,300 pool- or spa-related hospital emergency department-treated, nonfatal drowning injuries each year. About 76% of these nonfatal drowning injuries involved…  read on >  read on >

Extreme heat can be dangerous, but you can stay cool and safe this summer if you take the right precautions. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) offers some tips for doing so. “No matter your age, it is critical to be able to recognize the signs of heat-related illness,” said Dr. Jocelyn Ross Wittstein, an orthopedic surgeon at Duke Health in North Carolina and an AAOS spokesperson. “When we exercise, our bodies cool off by sweating. We become dehydrated if we do not replace the fluids that we lose through perspiration,” she said in an AAOS news release. “Dehydration makes it difficult to sweat and cool down and can result in a heat injury ranging from mild cramps to a more life-threatening heat stroke.” It’s important to stay cool and hydrated. About 70% to 90% of the energy that a person’s body produces during regular exercise is released by heat, according to the AAOS. Environment, clothing and dehydration can hinder heat release and perspiration. Wittstein suggests consulting with your doctor before starting a new exercise activity if you have a health condition, like heart or lung disease, or take medication that could cause dehydration. Then, increase the intensity and duration of your exercise program gradually. Avoid wearing protective equipment at the start of training. Get and stay hydrated before, during and after exercise, even…  read on >  read on >

Summer is here and so, too, is swimming season. As fun as a pool can be, it’s also a major safety risk if you don’t take the appropriate precautions. An expert from Huntington Health, an affiliate of Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, offers some tips for a safe pool season. “If children or non-experienced swimmers will be in the pool, it’s very important to have adult supervision. I think asking another child to watch after their sibling, for example, is not adequate,” said Dr. Amal Obaid-Schmid, medical director of trauma services at Huntington Health. “You need a supervisor who’s an adult, who is not distracted with their cellphone, or a phone call inside the house, or a conversation with another adult, really taking that role very seriously. Not letting your eye off the child is huge because drowning can happen in an instant,” she said in a Cedars-Sinai news release. More children aged 1 to 4 die from drowning than any other cause of death, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Pool owners should be sure to have a fence at least four feet high around their pool, Obaid-Schmid advised. Keep a variety of flotation devices in and around the pool — a life jacket plus pool noodles or a paddle board — so that a drowning person has something to grab…  read on >  read on >

Lack of energy for exercise is a common problem for folks with so-called long COVID. New research pinpoints the most likely reason why: diminished capacity to get the heart pumping fast enough to support the effort. The name for this is chronotropic incompetence. “The amount of aerobic exercise an individual can do is limited largely by the delivery of oxygen by the heart, lungs, blood, and its use by the muscles,” noted study first author Dr. Matthew Durstenfeld, a cardiologist and assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. “If the heart can’t pump as fast, you can’t exercise as much,” Durstenfeld said. Chronotropic incompetence wasn’t the only reason people with long COVID had lower than expected exercise capacity in the new study, “but it was surprisingly common among people with long COVID,” he added. Some people infected with COVID-19 can develop a wide range of ongoing health problems. These conditions can last weeks, months or years, and have been labeled long COVID. Using biomarker testing, the researchers found inflammatory biomarkers early on in long COVID patients. They also discovered that all patients who struggled with a reduced capacity to exercise also experienced reactivation of a prior infection with the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). Epstein-Barr is linked to mononucleosis and multiple sclerosis. “EBV reactivation is common after SARS-CoV-2 infection in general,” Durstenfeld noted,…  read on >  read on >

If you’re one of the millions of folks living with type 2 diabetes, you know that regular exercise can help you keep your blood sugar in check. Now, new research suggests that working out in the afternoon may help maximize these benefits. The new study wasn’t designed to say how, or even if, exercising in the afternoon is better for blood sugar control, but researchers have some theories. “If we exercise after a meal, it may be more beneficial than after fasting, and if you exercise in the afternoon, it is likely after a meal,” said study author Jingyi Qian. She is an associate physiologist and associate director of the medical chronobiology program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. By contrast, folks who work out in the morning may not eat breakfast until after they are finished. This doesn’t mean that you should skip your workout if you can’t find time in the afternoon, Qian cautioned. “The best time to exercise is whenever you can and wherever you can.” For the study, more than 2,400 people with type 2 diabetes wore a device on their waist that tracked physical activity for a week when the study began and four years later. They were grouped based on the time of day that they exercised at one year and four years. Afternoon exercisers, those who worked…  read on >  read on >