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MONDAY, May 17, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Just as some elderly drivers need to give up their car keys, older gun owners may eventually face "firearm retirement." And a preliminary study suggests they are open to the idea.In focus-group interviews with older gun owners, researchers found that many had considered putting limits on their firearm access -- though they usually hadn't yet laid out plans for when and how.It's an important issue, given that 40% of older Americans live in a home with a gun, said lead researcher Laura Prater of Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center at the University of Washington in Seattle.The concern, she said, is that a significant number of those seniors have or will develop dementia or major depression. If they have easy access to a firearm, they...

MONDAY, May 17, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Boys who weigh less than 2 pounds at birth don't age as well as their normal-weight peers, a long-term study finds.Canadian researchers have followed a group of extremely low birth weight (ELBW) babies and their normal-weight counterparts since 1977. When participants were in their early 30s, researchers compared the genes of 45 who were ELBW babies with those of 47 whose birth weight was normal. After accounting for health issues that could affect the results, researchers found that at least biologically, premature boys age faster than and were five years older than boys born at the same time whose weight was normal. This difference was not found in girls."Although it is unclear why accelerated biological aging is seen in the ELBW men, this...

MONDAY, May 17, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Gender-diverse youths are three times more likely to be bullied and victimized than those who identify as male or female, a new study of more than 4,400 teens has found."Transgender youths reported the highest rates of all forms of peer victimization, which were double to nearly triple those of males and up to 2.6 times higher than those of females," said researcher Rachel Garthe, a social work professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign."Slightly more than half of transgender youths reported verbal abuse such as peers calling them names or spreading rumors about them. About 1 in 3 of these youths reported cyber victimization, and slightly fewer reported psychological dating violence," such as a romantic partner denigrating or...

MONDAY, May 17, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Do yon need to have your teeth cleaned or a cavity filled?Go ahead. Dental treatment won't put you at risk for contracting COVID-19, a new study affirms."Getting your teeth cleaned does not increase your risk for COVID-19 infection any more than drinking a glass of water from the dentist's office does," said lead author Purnima Kumar, a professor of periodontology at Ohio State University in Columbus.Because COVID-19 spreads mostly by airborne droplets, fears have persisted throughout the pandemic that saliva released during a dental procedure could spread the virus.For the study, Kumar's team analyzed the genetic makeup of organisms found in air samples during a range of dental procedures. The takeaway: Water solution from irrigation tools —...