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MONDAY, Nov. 28, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Having a clear purpose in life could reduce your risk for premature death.That's the conclusion of researchers who spent eight years tracking about 13,000 Americans over age 50.Those who considered their life particularly purposeful were found to have about a 15% risk of death from any cause during the tracking period, the new study found. That figure jumped to almost 37% among participants with the lowest level of purpose."[Having] a purpose in life is defined as the extent to which people perceive their lives as having a sense of direction and goals,” said lead author Koichiro Shiba, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health.And a greater sense of purpose was linked to a lower risk of premature...

MONDAY, Nov. 28, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Eating more berries and drinking tea may help slow mental decline as you age, new research suggests.In a study of more than 900 adults, researchers found that foods like these -- containing antioxidant flavonols -- delivered brain benefits to older adults. Flavonols are found in fruits like berries, green leafy vegetables, tea and wine.For example, people who ate a serving of leafy green vegetables a day slowed their rate of cognitive decline by about 32%, compared with people who didn't eat any foods with flavonols, said lead researcher Dr. Thomas Holland, an instructor of internal medicine at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago."Flavonols are both anti-inflammatories and antioxidants," he said. "These foods that contain flavonols...

MONDAY, Nov. 28, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Anyone who's ever loved a pet like a member of the family knows that the grief when that dog, cat or other furry friend dies can be devastating. But too often, finding others who truly understand and support that sense of loss can be challenging.Michelle Crossley, a mental health counselor, and Colleen Rolland, a pet loss grief specialist, have each experienced deep bereavement after losing a much-loved pet.They also see value in helping others whose animal friend has died.Together, they’ve written a paper on the issue, published Nov. 25 in Human-Animal Interactions.Rolland is a pet loss grief specialist for the Association for Pet Loss and Bereavement (APLB) and has a small private practice in Ontario, Canada. She said her own loss of a...

MONDAY, Nov. 28, 2022 (HealthDay News) – U.S. health officials are tracking a new COVID variant that's a combination of two earlier Omicron subvariants.Known as XBB, this latest subvariant now represents 3.1% of new COVID cases throughout the U.S. and 5% of cases in the Northeast. Based on preliminary estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cases of XBB may be doubling every 12 days. However, the variant shouldn't pose the same threat that the emergence of Omicron posed a year ago, CBS News reported."Where we've seen surges, they've seen mostly it be driven by seasonality, people coming inside, spending more time around one another, but not being specifically being driven by the emergence of a new variant," the CDC's Ian Williams told the agency’s...