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FRIDAY, Feb. 26, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- The most widely prescribed antidepressants in the United States don't appear to increase the risk of the deadliest type of stroke, according to a new preliminary study.It examined the association between selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and intracerebral hemorrhage. This is when a brain blood vessel bursts and blood spreads into the surrounding tissue.The most common causes of this type of stroke are high blood pressure and head trauma, but some earlier research had suggested that SSRIs may increase the risk. SSRIs include drugs such as Prozac (fluoxetine) and Zoloft (sertraline)."Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors work by preventing reabsorption of the chemical serotonin, which regulates mood, into the cells, making more of...

FRIDAY, Feb. 26, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Menthol cigarettes helped lure about 10 million extra Americans into smoking over 38 years, with often deadly results, according to a new study.Researchers also concluded that menthol cigarettes were responsible for 378,000 premature deaths in the United States during the study period --1980 to 2018. Their report appears in the journal Tobacco Control.The findings suggest that menthol cigarettes "have had a significant detrimental impact on the public's health and could continue to pose a substantial health risk" to all age groups, the authors said in a journal news release. They were led by Thuy Le, from the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Menthols, such as Newports and Kools, started to become widely used in the late 1950s and...

THURSDAY, Feb. 25, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- If you suffer the itchy, sneezy, wheezy consequences of seasonal allergies, you're probably painfully aware that pollen season is starting earlier and lasting longer than ever.It's an upshot of climate change, and new research from Germany offers an explanation for this extended sneezin' season: Pollen is on the move, with early blooming spores now wafting across traditional locales and into regions where those pollen species have typically bloomed later, if at all."In the long run -- with climate change and species distributions changing -- we have to account for 'new' pollen species being more frequently transported to us," said study author Ye Yuan of the Technical University of Munich. He holds a professorship in ecoclimatology."The...

THURSDAY, Feb. 25, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- If you think you can safely exercise without your mask in a gym during the pandemic, two new government reports show you are mistaken.Coronavirus outbreaks at fitness centers in Chicago and Honolulu last summer were likely the result of exercisers and instructors not wearing masks, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discovered.In the Chicago study, 60% of people who attended in-person fitness classes at one facility between Aug. 24 and Sept. 1, 2020, tested positive for COVID-19, while another 7% reported symptoms consistent with the disease. Although some infection prevention measures were in place, such as temperature checks and symptom screenings upon entry, exercisers were allowed to remove their masks...