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THURSDAY, April 22, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Waking up briefly throughout the night may do more than leave you feeling grumpy and tired in the morning.Disrupted sleep may actually increase your odds of dying early from heart disease or any other cause, and women seem to be harder hit by these effects than men."The data underscores all the more reasons why we need to be screening people about whether or not they feel refreshed and how much sleep they're getting each night," said Dr. Andrea Matsumura, a spokeswoman for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, who reviewed the findings.Nighttime arousals are caused by noise, temperature, pain or pauses in breathing as a result of sleep apnea. They are brief, and you're often unaware they are happening unless they're strong enough to wake...

THURSDAY, April 22, 2021 (HeathDay News) -- April 16 was the first day that any Californian aged 16 or older became eligible to get the COVID-19 vaccine. And at a bustling vaccination center in Pomona, Calif., 16-year-old Ashley Madera was in line to get her first dose of the Pfizer vaccine."I think that this vaccine is effective," said Madera, who lives in nearby Rancho Cucamonga. "When I did my own research I thought, why not just take it?" "It was pretty easy," she added. "It was really, really fast. I came right after school and it was max about 20 minutes."The center, located on the campus of the Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, saw 400 to 500 people get the Pfizer shot in their arms on April 16. For some, it was that long-awaited first dose; for others, the second...

THURSDAY, April 22, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- It's no secret that too much sugar and saturated fat aren't good for you, but what food combos put you at greater risk for heart disease and death in middle age?The answer, from a new University of Oxford study, is likely to disappoint a lot of folks.Researchers found that diets heavy in chocolate and pastries, butter, table sugar, sodas and fruit juices -- and low in fresh fruit and veggies -- are the worst. Also risky, though less so, are diets high in sugary drinks, chocolate and candy, table sugar and preserves -- even when those diets were lower in foods like butter and cheese, which are high in saturated fat."There's a lot of research and evidence on single nutrients -- the problem with that is that people do not eat nutrients, we eat...

THURSDAY, April 22, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- It may not be a good idea to take a daily low-dose aspirin if you're also taking a widely used class of blood thinners called direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs), researchers caution.DOACs include drugs such as Eliquis (apixaban), Pradaxa (dabigatran), Lixiana (edoxaban) and Xarelto (rivaroxaban). They're used to help prevent strokes from atrial fibrillation or for the treatment of what's known as venous thromboembolic disease, which include the leg clots known as deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism (when the clot travels to the lungs).In a new study, nearly one-third of the patients who were taking one of the prescription blood thinners was also taking daily aspirin, which is also a blood thinner, without a clear reason for doing so,...