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The new year is the ideal time to focus on your health and one expert has some tips, especially for men, for doing that. According to Dr. Kevin McVary, director of Loyola Medicine Men’s Health Center, in Maywood, Ill., “Men don’t always focus on their health and, in fact, men are less likely to see a doctor or utilize health resources, and wait longer than women to seek care. Often, it’s a man’s spouse or partner who convinces him to see a doctor.” As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, “a focus on health is especially important this year,” McVary said in a Loyola news release. “We know that obesity, heart disease, diabetes and a lack of exercise can lead to poorer COVID-19 outcomes. In addition, some men may have stopped eating healthy during the past year, and/or may be consuming more alcohol due to stress. Others may have a condition or concern that they are not seeking treatment for due to the pandemic,” McVary explained. “And yet, lifestyle choices — exercising, eating healthy, not smoking, limiting alcohol consumption and managing stress — combined with preventive care can keep you healthy this year and throughout your lifetime,” McVary added. “And it’s never too late to start.” McVary offers the following tips: Boost your physical activity. Men should exercise 150 minutes each week. “That sounds like a lot… read on > read on >

Not many people have had the opportunity to get the COVID-19 vaccine yet. But while you wait your turn, there are some steps you can take to give the vaccine — whichever brand you get — a boost when it’s available to you. An Ohio State University review of 49 vaccine studies dating back 30 years examined how stress, depression and healthy behaviors, such as exercise, can affect immune response to a vaccine. Although it’s not realistic to entirely transform your health and habits in a few weeks or months, there are some steps everyone can take — even last-minute ones — to make a difference. Those include getting good sleep as well as exercise in the days before and after you get your shot, said the review’s senior author, Janice Kiecolt-Glaser. She is director of Ohio State’s Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research, in Columbus. “There are several things that are really reasonable and relatively easy,” she said. Pandemic-related stress may have set people back when it comes to maintaining the behaviors that keep them healthier, the study authors noted. Recent data from around the world have revealed higher rates of depression and anxiety, more insomnia, increased alcohol sales and more overeating, according to the review. The studies in this review looked at the effects of psychological factors and behaviors on immune response to a… read on > read on >

The harmful effects of obesity on the heart can’t be undone by exercise, and it’s not possible to be “fat but healthy,” Spanish researchers warn. “Exercise does not seem to compensate for the negative effects of excess weight,” said study author Alejandro Lucia, a professor of exercise physiology at European University in Madrid. The study findings “refute the notion that a physically active lifestyle can completely negate the deleterious effects of overweight and obesity,” he said. Lucia and his colleagues analyzed data from nearly 528,000 working adults in Spain. The participants’ average age was 42 and close to 7 out of 10 were men. About 42% of these adults were normal weight; 41% were overweight, and 18% were obese. Most were inactive (63.5%); 12.3% got some but not enough exercise, and 24.2% were regularly active. About 30% of participants had high cholesterol; 15% had high blood pressure, and 3% had diabetes. No matter how active they were, however, overweight and obese people had a higher risk of heart disease than those whose weight was normal, according to the study, published Jan. 22 in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. Compared to active people of normal weight, active obese people were about twice as likely to have high cholesterol, four times more likely to have diabetes, and five times more likely to have high blood pressure.… read on > read on >

An inhaled medication might make every day physical activity a bit easier for patients with serious scarring of the lungs, a new clinical trial finds. The study, published online Jan. 13 in the New England Journal of Medicine, involved patients with high blood pressure in the lungs caused by interstitial lung disease (ILD). ILD is a broad term for progressive scarring of the tissue surrounding the lungs’ air sacs and blood vessels. It can have a range of causes, from smoking, to occupational exposure to toxins like asbestos, as well as autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. Sometimes, no cause can be found. A potential, and serious, complication of that scarring is pulmonary hypertension, in which the vessels that supply blood to the lungs become hard and narrow. Once pulmonary hypertension arises, patients can become so short of breath they have difficulty walking, and often need to use more supplemental oxygen. The complication may also shorten their lives. Right now, no medication is approved specifically for pulmonary hypertension caused by ILD, said Dr. Steven Nathan, senior researcher on the new trial. He’s director of the Advanced Lung Disease and Lung Transplant Program at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Va. There are, however, drugs for another form of pulmonary hypertension, known as pulmonary arterial hypertension. Those medications are vasodilators, which means they help blood vessels in… read on > read on >