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WEDNESDAY, March 24, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- A new study shows just how devastating a diagnosis of mental decline can be: Researchers found that rates of suicide rise sharply in the months after such news is delivered.The study of almost 148,000 older U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs patients, mostly men, looked at diagnoses for mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which is often (but not always) a precursor to dementia."Risk of suicide attempt was 73% higher in patients recently diagnosed with MCI and 44% higher in those recently diagnosed with dementia" compared to patients without such diagnoses, reported a team led by Amy Byers of the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Health Care System. The researchers reported their findings March 24 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.The message to...

WEDNESDAY, March 24, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- For people who are obese, even a small amount of weight gain may come with higher medical costs, a new study finds.It's well known that obesity contributes to health conditions like arthritis, diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers -- and health care costs reflect that.But the new study dug a little deeper into the connection between weight and medical costs. Overall, health care costs for obese adults were nearly $1,900 higher each year, compared to their normal-weight peers. And once adults were in the "obese" category, even incremental increases in weight meant additional health care expenses, the researchers found.The findings, based on nearly 180,000 Americans, sound like bad news.Viewed a different way, though, they also suggest...

WEDNESDAY, March 24, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Kids born to moms who took a drug widely used to prevent miscarriages in the 1950s and 1960s may be twice as likely to develop cancer in adulthood.The drug in question, hydroxyprogesterone caproate, also known as OHPC or 17-OHPC, is a man-made version of the hormone progesterone. It is no longer used to reduce the chances of miscarriage, but it's still prescribed to prevent preterm birth under the trade name Makena. Progesterone may help a uterus grow during pregnancy and keep it from contracting and resulting in preterm labor.In October 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research called for this drug's removal from the market because it didn't seem to work all that well, but no official action has...

WEDNESDAY, March 24, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- If you feel recharged after a day spent in the great outdoors, there's a physiological reason for that.Bird song and lapping waves combat negative feelings such as annoyance and stress, while boosting positive emotions and health, according to new research using the sounds found at U.S. national parks. "It's good for what we're calling positive affect, so things like feelings of tranquility," said co-study author Rachel Buxton, a research associate in the department of biology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. "It's good for alleviating stress and just a wide variety of benefits that we saw from alleviating pain to improving mood and cognitive ability," she said. "I think it's really remarkable, not only that natural sounds confer...