Latest Health News

28Jun
2023

Forty Percent of U.S. Girls, Young Women Are Iron Deficient

Forty Percent of U.S. Girls, Young Women Are Iron DeficientWEDNESDAY, June 28, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Nearly 4 out of 10 girls and young women aren’t getting enough iron and they may have their periods to blame, a new U.S. study shows.Menstrual bleeding, especially when heavy, is a major risk factor for iron deficiency and iron-deficiency anemia, the researchers explained. There are health consequences associated with being low in iron, noted study author Dr. Angela Weyand, a pediatrician at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor. “Iron is important in the making of red blood cells, but also has multiple roles outside of this. We know that iron deficiency can cause many issues including problems with sleep, cognition, energy level and mood,” she said.In addition to blood loss from menstruation, many young women may not...

Transgender People Face Much Higher Risk of Suicide,...

28 June 2023
Transgender People Face Much Higher Risk of Suicide, Landmark Study ShowsWEDNESDAY, June 28, 2023 (HealthDay News) – New research has found that people who are transgender are far more prone to suicide than their peers.The new study, using Denmark’s centralized data repository, found that transgender people had 7.7 times the rate of suicide attempts compared to others, the study found. They also had 3.5 times the rate of suicide deaths. Suicide rates in all groups did decrease over time, the study noted. Still, transgender people died at younger ages than others, whether by suicide or from other causes, researchers said.“This is beyond doubt a huge problem that needs to be looked at,” study co-author Dr. Morten Frisch, a sexual health epidemiologist at Statens Serum Institute in Copenhagen, told the New York Times.To study the issue, his team...

Someday, Your Shopping Cart Might Gauge Your Heart Health

28 June 2023
Someday, Your Shopping Cart Might Gauge Your Heart HealthWEDNESDAY, June 28, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Could a grocery cart save lives by preventing possible strokes? It just might. The notion stems from a new British study in which grocery cart handles were embedded with electrocardiogram (EKG) sensors.The goal: to screen shoppers for undiagnosed cases of atrial fibrillation (a-fib), the most common heart rhythm disorder.“Atrial fibrillation is a leading cause of stroke,” explained Dr. Gregg Fonarow, director of the Ahmanson-UCLA Cardiomyopathy Center, co-director of the UCLA Preventative Cardiology Program, and co-chief of the UCLA division of cardiology, in Los Angeles.“However, atrial fibrillation may be asymptomatic, and first diagnosed at the time of stroke,” Fonarow noted. “Some studies have suggested there may be as many as...

Meningitis Cases Rising Among Gay Men With HIV

28 June 2023
Meningitis Cases Rising Among Gay Men With HIVWEDNESDAY, June 28, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Meningococcal disease -- which includes meningitis -- appears to be on the rise among Americans infected with HIV, new research reveals.Researchers stress that the risk to any one person remains exceedingly rare, regardless of their HIV status.Each year between 2017 and 2021 HIV-positive patients accounted for five to 15 cases of the bacterial disease, which typically shows up as meningitis or meningococcemia. (Meningitis is an infection of the tissue surrounding the brain and spinal cord. Meningococcemia is a blood infection that may involve other parts of the body.)The data mean that during between 2017 and 2021, HIV patients represented 1.5% to 4.3% of all American meningococcal patients.The problem: By 2022, people living with HIV...

A Little Drinking Won't Help Prevent Obesity, Diabetes

28 June 2023
A Little Drinking Won`t Help Prevent Obesity, DiabetesWEDNESDAY, June 28, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Having a couple of drinks a day won't protect you from obesity or diabetes, a new study suggests.Everybody knows that heavy drinking isn't good for your health, but whether moderate alcohol consumption is protective or harmful is still open for debate, researchers say."Some research has indicated that moderate drinkers may be less likely to develop obesity or diabetes compared to non-drinkers and heavy drinkers. However, our study shows that even light-to-moderate alcohol consumption (no more than one standard drink per day) does not protect against obesity and type 2 diabetes in the general population," said lead researcher Tianyuan Lu, of McGill University in Montreal, Canada. “We confirmed that heavy drinking could lead to increased...

Is Coffee's Morning Jolt Mostly Placebo?

28 June 2023
Is Coffee`s Morning Jolt Mostly Placebo?WEDNESDAY, June 28, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Coffee kickstarts many a sleepyhead’s day, but a new study argues that it’s not the caffeine alone that provides the morning wake-up.People who took a basic caffeine pill did not experience the same sort of brain boost they did from sipping a cup of coffee, according to brain scans.Caffeine alone does activate some regions of the brain associated with readiness to tackle tasks, the researchers said.But the act of drinking coffee produced a more comprehensive response in the brain, the results showed.“Taking into account that some of the effects that we found were reproduced by caffeine, we could expect other caffeinated drinks to share some of the effects,” said lead researcher Maria Picó-Pérez, a postdoctoral researcher with Jaume...

Home Delivery of Alcohol Expanded During Pandemic, With Permanent Effects on Health

28 June 2023
Home Delivery of Alcohol Expanded During Pandemic, With Permanent Effects on HealthWEDNESDAY, June 28, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- During the COVID-19 pandemic home liquor delivery soared in the United States, as did binge drinking along with it, a new study finds."'Home delivery’ refers to when restaurants, bars or retailers use their own employees or a third-party delivery system such as DoorDash or Uber Eats to deliver alcohol to consumers’ homes," said researcher Elyse Grossman, a social and behavioral sciences administrator at the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse. "Although the number of states that allowed home delivery was already trending upwards during the last two decades, the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically increased these numbers."Grossman's team analyzed legal databases and found that more states permitted home delivery during the pandemic. In...

Growing Up Poor May Rewire a Child's Brain: Study

28 June 2023
Growing Up Poor May Rewire a Child`s Brain: StudyWEDNESDAY, June 28, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Growing up in poverty may harm the structural wiring of a child’s brain, a new study claims.Researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found a link between both neighborhood and household poverty and the brain’s white matter tracts. These let the brain communicate between its regions and are important for processing information.“White matter integrity is very important in brain development,” said first study author Zhaolong (Adrian) Li, a neuro-imaging research technician in the university's department of psychiatry. “For example, weaknesses in white matter are linked to visuospatial and mental health challenges in children. If we can capture how socioeconomic status affects white matter early on in a...

Reversing a Trend, Sicker Americans Are Staying With...

WEDNESDAY, June 28, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- A new study shows that older Americans with health issues are now staying with their Medicare Advantage managed plans, rather than swapping them for...

Infectious Disease Experts Update Rules on 'Superbug'...

TUESDAY, June 27, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- “Superbug” infections are increasing in U.S. hospitals, and a coalition of medical groups has now issued a set of updated recommendations to protect...
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