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THURSDAY, March 2, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- While the idea of getting 10,000 steps a day is bandied about as a good walking goal, that can be intimidating to some people, depending on how fit they are. Now, new research in adults between the ages of 70 and 90 finds that a much smaller number of steps can make a difference in heart health. It’s possible, according to researchers, that just 3,000 steps a day has benefits for heart health, and adding increments of just 500 more steps can also make a big difference.“Walking, I think, is just such a great activity that we can encourage people to do,” said study author Erin Dooley, an assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Alabama's School of Public Health. “Getting up throughout the day and...

THURSDAY, March 2, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Premature births dropped during lockdowns in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. A groundbreaking study, which included a group of mostly high-income countries — including the United States, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Denmark and Switzerland — found there were about 4% fewer preterm births than would have been expected in spring 2020.That’s nearly 50,000 babies not born early in just one month alone, The New York Times reported.“This is a unique natural experiment, where the whole world experienced this pretty drastic lockdown at the same time,” said one of the study leaders, Meghan Azad, an associate professor of pediatrics and child health at the University of Manitoba. “So, it was a neat opportunity to look at what that...

THURSDAY, March 2, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Men suffering from an enlarged prostate can receive long-term relief from a minimally invasive procedure that partially blocks blood flow to the gland, new research reports.The procedure, called prostate artery embolization (PAE), dramatically improved urinary symptoms in patients without having any effect on erectile function, said senior researcher Dr. Shivank Bhatia, chair of interventional radiology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.PAE also improved the overall health of the prostate, Bhatia added.“Medical imaging before and after the procedure showed a 32% reduction in size of the prostate gland at 12 months following the procedure,” Bhatia said.“Additionally, the PSA [prostate-specific antigen] lab values...

THURSDAY, March 2, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- People who have long COVID — lingering symptoms after a COVID-19 infection — may also have lower brain oxygen levels, cognitive problems and psychiatric troubles, such as anxiety and depression.Researchers from the University of Waterloo in Canada and Drexel University in Philadelphia combined two parallel studies to better understand what is happening in long COVID patients.One was a lab study that included tests of thinking skills and imaging of oxygen levels in the brain. The other was a national population survey of Canadians in 2021 and 2022.The lab study compared people who did not previously have symptomatic COVID-19 with those who did have the virus. Those who had experienced COVID-19 did worse on two computer tasks. One measured...