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TUESDAY, July 27, 2021 (American Heart Association News) -- Last summer, Don Teigen noticed he lacked his usual energy.His ankles swelled so much they felt like cement blocks. Then there was his labored breathing. On walks with his wife, Julie, she usually struggled to keep up with him. Now, it was the other way around.While on a beach vacation in their home state of Washington, Don felt a sharp chest pain while pushing an electric bike through sand to the parking lot. When he stopped, the pain disappeared.The 55-year-old batted away all these signs with an arsenal of excuses: He was too heavy, he had asthma, he'd pulled a ligament in his chest years ago.He didn't focus on the fact he'd been diagnosed several years earlier with an irregular heartbeat. Or that doctors had told him to...

TUESDAY, July 27, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Young people aren't immune from severe COVID-19, and a new study warns that some are more at risk than others.Folks under 45 have more than triple the risk for severe COVID-19 if they have cancer or heart disease, or blood, neurologic or endocrine disorders, according to Mayo Clinic researchers."One of the surprising findings was that almost every single chronic condition category we looked at was a risk factor for more severe COVID infection," said lead study author Jennifer St. Sauver, a Rochester, Minn.-based epidemiologist."We also found that some of these risk factors differed across age groups. They seem more problematic in our younger population, compared to our older population," she said.In general, younger patients tend to get less...

TUESDAY, July 27, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- There's been a sharp rise in schizophrenia cases linked with marijuana use since the mid-1990s, a new Danish study finds.Prior research has suggested that marijuana -- particularly very heavy use -- is associated with an increased risk of schizophrenia. Although strict cause-and-effect can't be proven by the new study, many experts believe that heavy pot use might work in conjunction with other risk factors to help trigger schizophrenia in certain individuals.In the new study, researchers found that the percentage of schizophrenia diagnoses in Denmark associated with "cannabis use disorder" rose from 2% in 1995 to about 4% in 2000, and has climbed further to 8% since 2010, CNN reported.According to the researchers, cannabis use disorder is...

TUESDAY, July 27, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Bullying remains a threat to American teens, and a new study reveals which kids may be at highest risk.Race-based bullying takes a heavy toll on teens, the research found, but minority kids who are picked on for other reasons — whether gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability or immigration status — suffer a double whammy.Victims' physical and mental health suffer as their exposure to violence rises, according to a survey of high school students in Pennsylvania. They're also more likely to become violent themselves."Oftentimes, there is a focus on really trying to capture or assess the consequences of identity-based bullying based on a single aspect of someone's identity, and we know that people are multifaceted, right? There are...