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THURSDAY, Jan. 30, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Turning the clocks ahead one hour in the spring and losing an hour of sleep increases the risk of fatal car crashes, new research shows. For the study, the researchers analyzed data on nearly 733,000 fatal car crashes that occurred between 1996 and 2017 in states that make the spring switch to Daylight Saving Time (DST). The risk of fatal crashes rose nearly 6% in the week after the switch and was especially high in the morning and in locations farther west within a time zone, the investigators found. That translates to an extra 5.7 fatal crashes per day from Monday to Friday -- or more than 28 traffic deaths during that workweek. Over the 22 years studied, more than 626 fatal crashes might have been prevented by not switching to DST,...

THURSDAY, Jan. 30, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- All it takes is short-term exposure to fine-particle air pollution from cars and bushfires to increase the risk of cardiac arrest, a new study warns. The findings underscore the need for tighter worldwide limits on so-called PM2.5 air pollution and development of cleaner energy sources, according to the authors. "As no boundary exists in air quality among countries, a global approach to tackle this crucial health issue is necessary for our planet," they wrote Jan. 27 in The Lancet Planetary Health journal. The analysis of data from Japan reported 1% to 4% higher odds of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest to every increase of 10 micrograms per cubic meter in PM2.5 (particulate matter 2.5 micrometers of less). These particles are so small they...

THURSDAY, Jan. 30, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Urinary tract infections plague millions of Americans. Now new research suggests that what they eat might have a role to play. The Taiwanese study compared UTI rates among nearly 10,000 Buddhists living in the island nation, about a third of whom followed a strict vegetarian diet. The research couldn't prove a cause-and-effect link, but it showed that people who eschewed meat had a 16% lower odds for a UTI versus those who didn't. The benefit was more pronounced among women. Female vegetarians had an 18% lower odds of getting a UTI compared to women who ate meat, the study found. Why might the foods people eat dictate UTI risk? As the researchers pointed out, these troublesome infections usually have their origin in microbes introduced...

THURSDAY, Jan. 30, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Many mothers-to-be feel overwhelmed by stress, and it might have implications for their babies' brain development in the womb, a new study suggests. The researchers found that even in a group of highly educated, healthy pregnant women, stress and anxiety were common. More than one-quarter reported higher-than-average levels of "perceived stress," while a similar number had anxiety symptoms. Another 11% had depression symptoms. And on average, the study found, mothers' mental health symptoms correlated with differences in fetal brain structure and chemistry. Using specialized MRI scans, researchers saw that the fetal hippocampus tended to be smaller when moms-to-be were distressed. That part of the brain is involved in forming new memories,...