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WEDNESDAY, Jan. 22, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Dementia patients may develop distinct speech and reading problems depending on their native language, a new study finds. The study included 20 English-speaking and 18 Italian-speaking patients with primary progressive aphasia (PPA), a neurodegenerative disorder that affects language areas in the brain. It is often associated with dementia. The patients had a type of PPA characterized by difficulty producing or pronouncing words (nonfluent PPA). While both groups of patients had similar levels of degeneration and brain function, English-speakers had more trouble pronouncing words -- a traditional sign of nonfluent PPA -- and tended to speak less than usual. The Italian-speakers had fewer pronunciation difficulties but tended to produce...

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 22, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Treatment with the opioid addiction drug buprenorphine is on the rise among most age groups in the United States, but falling among 15- to 24-year-olds, a new study finds. "While it's encouraging to see an overall increase in prescription rates for buprenorphine, the data suggest that the youngest group is having difficulty accessing this potentially lifesaving treatment," said study leader Dr. Mark Olfson. He's a professor of psychiatry, medicine and law at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. "These findings for young people are particularly worrisome, given that their decrease in buprenorphine treatment occurred during a period when there was an increase in opioid-related overdose deaths for this age...

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 22, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Eating a diet high in vegetables and fruits does not slow or cure prostate cancer, according to a new study. U.S. guidelines say prostate cancer patients might benefit from eating a vegetable-rich diet. This study included 478 men, ages 50 to 80. All had been diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer and were under active surveillance, meaning they were closely monitored and did not receive treatment unless their cancer started to progress. The men were randomly assigned to either a control group that received written information about diet and prostate cancer or to a telephone counseling group in which they were encouraged to eat foods high in carotenoids. Those foods include leafy greens, carrots and tomatoes, and cruciferous...

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 22, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- If your blood pressure numbers swing from low to high and back again in your 20s, that could bode ill for heart health in middle age, new research shows. In fact, every 4 mm Hg spike in systolic blood pressure -- the top number in a reading -- during young adulthood was tied to a 15% higher risk for heart disease in midlife, the research team found. Study lead author Dr. Yuichiro Yano believes the findings have implications for how routine blood pressure checks are interpreted by doctors. "If a patient comes in with one reading in December and a significantly lower reading in January, the average might be within the range that would appear normal," said Yano, an assistant professor of family medicine at Duke University in Durham, N.C....