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THURSDAY, March 5, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Financial struggles are common among young breast cancer patients in the United States, even if they have steady jobs that provide health insurance, new research shows. The study included 830 women, aged 18 to 39, in California, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina who were diagnosed with breast cancer between January 2013 and December 2014. Nearly half (47%) of the women had financial challenges due to the costs of their cancer care, according to the study. The researchers found that 27.7% of the women spent less than $500 on out-of-pocket costs, 27.9% spent $500 to $2,000, 18.7% spent $2,001 to $5,000, and 17% spent $5,001 to $10,000. To pay for their out-of-pocket costs, 81.5% of the patients used personal funds, 22.9% borrowed from...

THURSDAY, March 5, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- If you want a longer, healthier life, try replacing that steak with beans, vegetables or whole grains -- but preferably not a fast-food veggie burger. That's according to two preliminary studies by Harvard researchers. They found that people who eat plenty of "high-quality" plant foods instead of red or processed meat have a lower risk of heart attack and tend to live longer. The "high-quality" part is key, experts stressed. It's not enough to simply cut out steaks, burgers and deli meat, according to Dr. Andrew Freeman, a cardiologist who was not involved in the research. Those foods have to be replaced with healthy choices like nuts, legumes, vegetables and fiber-rich whole grains. Freeman said ditching meat in favor of processed,...

THURSDAY, March 5, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Take a walk, weed your garden, go for a swim or dance -- it could keep your brain from shrinking as you age, a new study suggests. Being physically active may keep your brain four years younger than the rest of you, which might help prevent or slow the progression of dementias like Alzheimer's disease, researchers say. "We recently published a paper using information of both current and past physical activity and found they both are associated with lower risk of developing Alzheimer's disease," said lead researcher Dr. Yian Gu, an assistant professor of neurological sciences at Columbia University in New York City. "The current study is a step further to show that physical activity is also protective against brain volume loss." Gu...

THURSDAY, March 5, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- If you love to drizzle a bit of olive oil on your salad, a new study suggests a side benefit to that tasty fat: a lower risk of heart disease. The research, funded by the National Institutes of Health, found that people who had more than half a tablespoon of olive oil daily had a 21% lower risk of heart disease. And, if you replace a teaspoon of butter, margarine or mayonnaise with the same amount of olive oil, your risk of heart disease and stroke may drop by 5%, the study found. "The take-home message from our study is that our results provide recommendations to replace saturated animal fats (like butter) with unsaturated plant oils for the prevention of cardiovascular disease," said the study's lead author Marta Guasch-Ferre. She's a...