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TUESDAY, Aug. 24, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- The arteries of young people who drink stiffen sooner in their lives, which could increase their risk for heart disease and stroke later on, a British study reports.People's arteries naturally become less elastic with age, but certain factors -- including alcohol and tobacco use -- can speed up the process. This study included more than 1,600 people in the United Kingdom. Their alcohol use, smoking and arteries were assessed at ages 17 and 24."There was some evidence of a graded increase with heavier usage, meaning that the more you drink, the greater the increase in arterial stiffness," said researcher Hugo Walford, a medical student at University College London.He added that the relationship was not explained by other factors for future...

MONDAY, Aug. 23, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- A multi-purpose vaccine that would protect humans against any future COVID-19 variants could one day be possible, a new study suggests.The key to it all lies in a coronavirus scare that happened nearly two decades ago.People previously infected with SARS -- the original coronavirus pandemic from 2003 -- produced an incredibly powerful immune response when given the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine nearly 20 years later, researchers report.Even better, the antibodies they produced were effective against all known COVID-19 variants, as well as animal coronaviruses that could one day make the leap into humans."Our study points to a novel strategy for the development of next-generation vaccines, which will not only help us control the current COVID-19...

MONDAY, Aug. 23, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- There's been a sharp rise in opioid-related cardiac arrests in the United States and they now equal those associated with other prime causes, a new study finds.Of more than 1.4 million cardiac arrest hospitalizations nationwide between 2012 and 2018, more than 43,000 (3.1%) occurred in opioid users, and there was a significant increase in opioid-associated cardiac arrest over the seven-year study period, according to a team led by Senada Malik, a medical researcher at the University of New England in Biddeford, Me. Rates of in-hospital death among cardiac patients were about 57% among opioid users and 61% among those who didn't use opioids, the researchers found.But certain risk factors were markedly higher in opioid users. For example, the...

MONDAY, Aug. 23, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- While the COVID-19 pandemic has had a big impact on the economy and jobs, it didn't result in fewer Americans having health insurance.The number of 18- to 64-year-olds in the United States without health insurance held steady at 11% between March 2019 and April 2021, according to a survey by the Urban Institute, a social policy research organization."Unlike the last recession, losses in employer-sponsored insurance during the pandemic did not lead to growth in the number of uninsured," said Michael Karpman, a senior research associate at the institute. "Medicaid and the health insurance marketplaces provided many people with a safety net that allowed them to maintain coverage during difficult times," he said in an Urban Institute news...