ReportWire

Tag: Freelance

  • Why Does Everyone Seem to Have IBS Now?

    Why Does Everyone Seem to Have IBS Now?

    [ad_1]

    We’re in the midst of a weird cultural moment involving people’s bowel habits. Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) has been trending on social media, including TikTok videos and posts about the disorder on Instagram, X, and other platforms. Billboards proclaiming that Hot girls have IBS have popped up over the past few years in Los Angeles and other cities.

    As a result, a subject that was once unthinkable to discuss socially has been normalized. “It’s definitely a phenomenon,” says gastroenterologist Dr. Roshini Raj, an associate professor of medicine at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and author of Gut Renovation. “It’s a topic more people are comfortable talking about, and people are paying more attention to how their guts are feeling.”

    What is IBS?

    A functional GI disorder, IBS is characterized by symptoms like bloating, gas, abdominal pain, cramping, constipation, and/or diarrhea. The syndrome is more common among women—affecting more than twice as many women as men—but men experience it, too.

    Thanks to the social-media trend, people may be diagnosing themselves with IBS based on their symptoms, or they may be bringing them to their doctors’ attention.

    Read More: Why Gut Health Issues Are More Common in Women

    “When people share their stories, awareness [of IBS] increases, and with that exposure, people realize their symptoms aren’t normal,” says Dr. Shabnam Sarker, an assistant professor of medicine in the gastroenterology and hepatology division at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “And they’re realizing it doesn’t have to be that way.”

    Dr. Bryan Curtin, director of the Center for Neurogastroenterology and GI Motility at The Melissa L. Posner Institute for Digestive Health & Liver Disease at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, agrees. “The upside of this openness to discussing IBS is that it is less stigmatized and people suffering with these conditions feel less alone and isolated,” he says.

    How do you know if you have IBS? 

    While there’s no structural or biochemical test for IBS, there are specific criteria—called the ROME IV Criteria—that are essential for its diagnosis. These include recurrent abdominal pain at least one day per week in the last three months, along with changes in the frequency and appearance of stools (among other symptoms). Subtypes of IBS include constipation-predominant IBS, diarrhea-predominant IBS, mixed IBS, and unclassified IBS. 

    In other words, it’s a clinical diagnosis based on someone’s medical history, physical examination, and personal set of symptoms. But because other gastrointestinal disorders—such as celiac disease and inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn’s disease—can have similar symptoms to IBS, doctors often order tests to rule those out before making an IBS diagnosis.

    Beyond the hashtags, the latest research does suggest that IBS is more prevalent—affecting 6.1% of people in the U.S.—than previously thought. Experts estimate that as many as 10-15%of people in the U.S. have IBS, and many of them may be undiagnosed, Raj says.

    Why is IBS on the rise?

    The digestive system is complicated, and the precise cause of IBS isn’t well understood. It may be related to gut motility or permeability problems, and many experts believe it has to do with the quality of a person’s diet and dysregulation of the gut microbiome: the community of microbes, including bacteria, that naturally live in the gastrointestinal tract.

    The uptick also could be related to stress. “IBS is a brain-gut axis disorder,” explains Sarker. “The gut has a lot of nerves, and the way the nerves are firing affects [gut] movement, pain, and bloating. Psychological stressors play a big role in IBS, and there’s been a lot more stress since the pandemic.”

    Read More: Green Tea Is Even Better For You Than You Think

    The increase in IBS prevalence also could be related to COVID-19 because “viral illnesses can induce disorders of the gastrointestinal system,” says Dr. Darren Brenner, a gastroenterologist and professor of medicine and surgery at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Indeed, a 2023 review of studies on the subject found that COVID-19 infection was associated with new IBS diagnoses; this was especially true among women and people with depression or anxiety.

    While IBS isn’t life-threatening, it can be a miserable experience and negatively affect someone’s quality of life. “With IBS, a lot of people change their behavior to work around their symptoms,” Sarker says. This may lead them to decline invitations to parties or other social events because they’re worried about having a flare-up. Or, it may spur them to avoid physical activity for the same reason.

    How to find relief

    One of the drawbacks to the IBS social-media sensation: Some of the information being shared isn’t correct, research has found. Another possible downside? If people with GI symptoms start doom-scrolling, their anxiety and hypervigilance can get ramped up, which could worsen their symptoms. They also might be seduced by online products that promise to eliminate bloating that may not actually work.

    Because the symptoms and severity of IBS can vary among people, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to treating it. “The nice thing is because we have so many things in our armamentarium, people can choose their treatment,” says Brenner. “There is no cure for this disorder, and the symptoms wax and wane, but we have multiple modalities that can improve symptoms and quality of life.”

    Read More: What’s So Great About Cottage Cheese?

    These include dietary modifications such as increasing fiber and water intake and avoiding possible trigger foods like gluten and dairy. “Keeping a food diary can help people identify triggers for IBS,” says Sarker.

    Other treatments may include botanical preparations (like peppermint oil, which can reduce intestinal spasms), neuromodulators (such as some antidepressants), antibiotics, or medications that influence gut motility. Mind-body approaches—such as cognitive behavioral therapy, meditation, and gut-directed hypnosis—can also be beneficial because “the gut-mind condition is very real and even more pronounced in someone with irritable bowel syndrome,” says Raj.

    Getting plenty of sleep and regular exercise is also beneficial for managing IBS. Many people with IBS rely on a combination of therapeutic strategies to treat the condition.

    “There’s no definitive cure for IBS,” says Sarker. “But we can manage this and get you to where your quality of life is much better.”

    [ad_2]

    Stacey Colino

    Source link

  • Why Some Men Keep Their Prostate Cancer a Secret

    Why Some Men Keep Their Prostate Cancer a Secret

    [ad_1]

    When it was revealed in January 2024 that Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin, III was privately being treated for prostate cancer, many wondered why he hadn’t disclosed his diagnosis sooner. Austin later explained that he felt President Joe Biden had enough going on and didn’t need to be burdened further. “When you’re President of the United States, you’ve got a lot of things on your plate,” Austin said at a press conference. “I just didn’t feel that that was a thing that I should do at the time.”

    While few people with prostate cancer are in quite as public a position as Austin, the desire to avoid disclosing the diagnosis is common. In fact, some research has found that a majority of men keep a prostate cancer diagnosis secret when they can, due to a number of factors, including fear of being stigmatized or seen as a burden.

    Ultimately, any person going through any type of cancer gets to decide how much they share about their experience and who they share it with. But people with prostate cancer generally report receiving positive, supportive feedback when they disclose, and may miss out on opportunities for connection and care if they never speak up.

    “Keeping a cancer diagnosis a secret is a choice probably made a little less commonly these days because of social media and the growing prevalence of discussions of cancer in the media and everyday conversations,” says Dr. Jesse R. Fann, medical director of psychiatry and psychology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, and a professor at the University of Washington. But that doesn’t mean every cancer patient has gotten that message of acceptance.

    Why disclosure is daunting

    Keeping prostate cancer a secret is likely a little more common at earlier stages of disease, Fann observes. He sometimes sees people delay disclosing a diagnosis until after a first round of treatment so they have a better sense of their prognosis, for example. But with more-advanced, metastatic prostate cancer, treatment may be harder to hide. “Their prognosis may be worse, [which] oftentimes leads to a higher sense of urgency [to disclose],” Fann explains.

    That said, people with all stages of prostate cancer may still choose not to disclose their diagnoses. Here are a few more of the possible reasons.

    They’re not ready to process the news themselves

    For many people with prostate cancer, there’s an initial period of denial after diagnosis. “What people experience at first is, ‘No, it’s not true,’ and then they struggle to accept that they have cancer, so keeping it a secret is really just protective psychologically,” says Vittorio Comelli, a clinical psychologist in psycho-oncology at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.

    As Fann adds, “In general, the diagnosis of cancer can certainly impose a significant sense of vulnerability on individuals, and disclosing their diagnosis can certainly heighten that sense of vulnerability for some.” That might be especially true of someone who “strongly values their identity as a healthy and self-reliant person,” he notes, or if they have a public persona to uphold, as in Austin’s case.

    Read More: Why Are So Many Young People Getting Cancer? It’s Complicated

    They don’t want to be a burden

    Some men feel they have a responsibility to play a certain role as a strong, healthy, provider, Fann says. A prostate cancer diagnosis may not fit into that narrative, and men may end up keeping their diagnosis a secret to avoid feeling like a burden or causing worry to the people they love.

    Comelli, who has been working with people with prostate cancer since 2005 and estimates he’s seen thousands of patients in his support groups, notices this most frequently in people with prostate cancer in high-powered jobs. “They have a very hard time disclosing … because they believe that others would think less of them, feel pity on them, treat them differently,” he says.

    “I think that’s changing, [but] I think there’s this feeling that men have to … take care of everybody, and then all of a sudden they’re in a situation where they’re very vulnerable, so they may not want to share that, even with their closest loved ones,” says Lorelei Mucci, director of strategic research partnerships at the American Cancer Society and the director of the Cancer Epidemiology and Cancer Prevention Program at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who has been researching prostate cancer for more than two decades.

    The symptoms and treatment side effects feel private

    Prostate cancer and its treatments can cause stigmatized symptoms like urinary incontinence, sexual dysfunction, and breast enlargement in men that may simply feel unpleasant or undesirable to discuss.

    “When you can’t control your basic bodily functions, it carries a particular kind of psychological regression that has a lot to do with shame, and that’s another thing that prevents people from disclosing,” Comelli says. “And with erectile dysfunction, that is a particularly injurious thing for men in their sense of sexual functioning and their sense of being a man.”

    The benefits and downsides of disclosure

    In the short-term, keeping a diagnosis private can have benefits, Fann says, especially if the person feels stressed, vulnerable, or anxious about disclosing; by avoiding the conversation, they get to avoid these uncomfortable feelings. 

    But “short-term advantages can dissipate quite quickly, as a person may need more help managing their cancer in different ways, including emotional and practical needs,” he says.

    Plus, there are more serious risks to consider over time. “In the long term, holding emotions back without an outlet can lead to an increase in stress, anxiety, depression, [and] social isolation,” Fann says. Greater social support has also been linked with improved outcomes for certain types of cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute.

    But talking about a diagnosis doesn’t just help a person with prostate cancer access more support; it may also help their loved ones. “Disclosing with family and friends can actually help them cope better and feel like they can better help their loved one with cancer,” Fann says.

    How to encourage disclosure without pushing too hard

    If you’re a doctor treating someone with prostate cancer who doesn’t want to disclose their diagnosis and you’re concerned for their long-term well-being, it’s appropriate to have a conversation about the potential risks and benefits. But it shouldn’t feel like you’re trying to coerce them into something they aren’t ready for. “It’s always the person’s choice, if they want to [disclose or not], and when and how they do it, and I always validate that choice and never force someone,” Fann says.

    He suggests putting the discussion in perspective: “I often ask, ‘Would you want to know if someone you care about got a similar diagnosis?’ That often allows them to think about things from the other person’s standpoint,” he says.

    You can also help a patient brainstorm and even role-play ways of bringing up the topic with various loved ones to make the conversations a little more comfortable when they occur, Fann suggests.

    Remind them they can establish boundaries about whom they choose to share their diagnosis with. “People often ask me not, ‘Should I disclose or not disclose?’ but ‘Who should I talk to about this?’” Comelli says. His answer: “Disclose things proportionate to the level of intimacy that they have with particular people.”

    The level of detail someone decides to share with a close family member is likely not the same detail they’d share with an acquaintance or employer, Fann says, and that’s absolutely normal. If they’re having a hard time disclosing to loved ones, consider encouraging them to lean on a support group, which can help alleviate the mounting pressure of keeping a diagnosis a secret. “Maybe they still aren’t ready to disclose more broadly, but at least they feel they have people going through an experience like them,” Mucci says.

    That connection is strengthened when the group focuses on a specific aspect of their identity, she says: Educate your patients that there are prostate cancer support groups specifically for, say, Black men or for gay men. “The stigma can be very unique for different populations of people,” she says.

    Read More: How to Cope With the Financial Toll of Cancer

    Comelli has run some of those support groups specifically for gay men. “Just being in a group with other gay men has a protective and somewhat psychologically healing function,” he says. “These are [often] people who have grown up in a homophobic environment and their experience of prostate cancer and the side effects of treatment [can] really ramp up the trauma of growing up gay.”

    That protective environment could be even more pronounced if the person with prostate cancer is a trans woman, Mucci says, as receiving care for an organ that doesn’t match their identity may bring up additional trauma.

    Keep an eye on people with prostate cancer who always come to appointments alone. It might be worth asking, “Do you have people in your life who are supporting you?” Mucci suggests. If they say no, that gives you an opportunity to remind them of upcoming support groups at your medical facility or ask if they’d like to be connected to an oncology social worker, a member of a psycho-oncology team, or a patient navigator who can help connect them with even more resources, Comelli says.

    Prostate cancer hasn’t experienced the type of public support that some other cancers have. “In contrast to breast cancer, where you had celebrities coming out and talking about their diagnoses, and then patients really rallying around the diagnosis and coming together, we didn’t really have that in prostate cancer,” Mucci says. No one needs to tell everyone at the office or on Facebook or start their own prostate cancer awareness organization, but even just having one person in their corner can make a big difference for their mental and emotional health throughout their treatment journey, she says.

    [ad_2]

    Sarah Klein

    Source link

  • Do You Need to Take Electrolytes to Stay Hydrated?

    Do You Need to Take Electrolytes to Stay Hydrated?

    [ad_1]

    When people are strong and reliable, we describe them as solid, yet the human body is about 60% water. Let’s face it: even the toughest among us is less like concrete, and more like a walking water balloon. Water is essential to most of our bodily functions, like carrying nutrients to our cells and keeping the brain sharp. The problem is that we’re constantly losing water through sweating, peeing, and breathing. We must do our part to keep the balloon full. We must drink fluids.

    Drinks are absorbed and retained better when paired with minerals commonly found in food like sodium, potassium, and chloride. It’s important to replenish these minerals, called electrolytes, during tough, lengthy exercise, as sweat ushers them out of the body.

    Cue the electrolyte products. Commercials show our favorite pro athletes boosting their electrolytes with sports drinks, powders, and gels—with looks of deep satisfaction etched on their faces—but does the average person actually need these supplements?

    Charge up hydration

    Electrolytes are key to hydration, mainly because they enhance fluid retention. “Having more electrolytes can trigger more efficient fluid uptake from the gut,” says Kim Barrett, a gastrointestinal physiologist at the University of California, Davis and spokesperson for the American Gastroenterological Association. 

    Sodium is the most important electrolyte for staying hydrated. When it’s consumed, sodium hangs around the exterior of cells, where its positive electrical charge attracts water molecules into the bloodstream and tissues. Think of sodium-rich water encircling the cells as “the sea water we took with us” when our ancient ancestors left the oceans to live on land, says Craig Horswill, a professor of exercise and nutrition at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Electrolytes help ensure healthy hydration at the cellular level.

    Read More: Is Green Tea Really That Good For You?

    A negatively-charged electrolyte, chloride, clings to sodium, supporting electrolyte balance, Horswill says. Other kinds, also found in food, prevent sodium levels from cresting too high, which could cause the body to retain excess water, straining the heart and kidneys. Potassium is an electrolyte that offsets sodium by getting the kidneys to filter its salty cousin from the bloodstream. “Sodium, chloride, and potassium are the primary ones to consider,” Horswill says.

    If you rely only on plain water without replacing these electrolytes, you’ll start getting headaches and muscle cramps. Eventually, more serious health problems will develop, says Stavros Kavouras, a professor of nutrition and director of the Hydration Science Lab at Arizona State—like swelling of the brain. 

    He points to another benefit: people actually end up drinking more water when it contains electrolytes. Otherwise, we often drink too little. “One benefit of sodium is that it maintains the drive to keep drinking and reduces the risk of dehydration,” says Mindy Millard-Stafford, a physiology professor at the George Institute of Technology and director of the Exercise Physiology Lab.

    Find the salty sweet spot

    But how many electrolytes, especially sodium, do we need?

    The normal range for sodium in the body is narrow: the minimum is 135 mg per liter of blood, with the max just a little higher at 145 mg. It’s rare for people to drop below the minimum, partly because electrolytes are so plentiful in food, and partly because light sweat contains relatively few electrolytes during casual exercise. 

    “Unless there are significant electrolyte losses during illness or heavy, prolonged sweating, most electrolytes can be replenished by a healthy diet,” Millard-Stafford says.

    Read More: 9 Weird Symptoms Cardiologists Say You Should Never Ignore

    It’s also “very challenging” to get too many electrolytes, Barrett says. But that doesn’t mean you should eat pickles all day, she adds, especially for those with hypertension. Some populations, including African-Americans, tend to have more salt sensitivity. Meanwhile, extremely high potassium levels can be toxic.

    Who really needs electrolytes?

    It turns out that electrolyte supplements, popularized through ads featuring sweat-drenched pro athletes, are mostly useful for…sweat-drenched pro athletes. But these supplements can also benefit us exercise-commoners in certain situations.

    One example is people working outside throughout the day in high heat, such as construction workers, delivery drivers, landscapers, and farm laborers. “Workers exposed to hot environments for over two hours need to start replacing electrolytes,” says Hayden Hess, a professor of exercise science at the University of Buffalo. If they just drink water, “they’re essentially diluting the blood.”

    In these conditions, guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends having fluids every 15-20 minutes while prioritizing electrolytes—and this doesn’t necessarily mean downing sports drinks. Workers can refuel electrolytes with meals and snacks.

    Read More: 7 Metrics Everyone Should Know About Their Own Health

    Similar advice applies to lengthy leisure activities. When hiking for several hours on a warm day, for instance, “electrolytes could become important for maintaining optimal hydration,” Kavouras says. 

    Another example is training for a long-distance race in hot weather. “Beyond two or three hours, the electrolyte imbalance starts to become an issue, and supplementing becomes important—or you could just salt food a bit more,” Kavouras says. Research shows that when fluid loss results in overall body mass dropping by just 2%, sports performance starts to decline, and the risk of heat illness rises. 

    With shorter exercise—say 30 minutes to an hour—you may not need any electrolyte supplements. Your levels won’t change much, Kavouras says. “You’ll complete your electrolyte needs by eating regular foods.”

    Salty sweaters, beware

    Some people need to replenish electrolytes more than others. “Whether replacing them is warranted depends on the individual, particularly with salt-loss sweat,” Millard-Stafford says.

    People vary widely in how much they lose—from 200 all the way up to 1,800 mg of sodium per liter of sweat. One study found that 20% of runners were salty sweaters. A separate but related issue: how much you sweat overall. “The worst combination is if you’re a salty sweater and a heavy sweater,” Kavouras says. Those who perspire salty and heavy may have large electrolyte losses with shorter workouts, making supplements more important. Commercially available tests can determine your sweat type.

    Another individual difference is how much salty food you regularly consume. Most people in the U.S. consume too much (up to 2,300 mg of sodium is recommended per day, yet the average of American clocks in at 3,400), negating the worry that they’re not getting enough electrolytes. . However, certain diets such as raw vegan and the MIND diet contain far less salt, perhaps justifying an electrolyte supplement.

    Read More: What’s So Great About Cottage Cheese?

    Kids are vulnerable to dehydration. They often don’t consume enough fluids, and about 20% drink no water. During hot exercise, a sports drink with electrolytes could help. Research has found that kids given a low-sugar drink with electrolytes consume more liquid compared to kids given water. “They prefer the taste,” Kavouras says.

    A supplement could also help people exercising in warm conditions for the first time in a while, Horswill says. “As we get heat-adapted and fit, the body does a better job of reabsorbing sodium rather than losing it in sweat.” 

    When in doubt, listen to your body. You may get cramps or feel lightheaded when you’re becoming dehydrated. Another measure is what’s happening in the bathroom. Light yellow urine suggests optimal hydration with balanced fluid intake and electrolytes.

    Optimize your electrolytes

    When exercising for hours at a time, options abound for boosting electrolytes, such as drinks, powders, and salty snacks like rice crackers. 

    The best type comes down to personal preference. “They all get into your system with the same end results, once they’re in your intestine and dissolved,” Barrett explains. An advantage of the drinks is that they deliver both electrolytes and fluids. “The pills and gels are more portable, but you’ve still got to get the fluid into the body,” Barrett says.

    Supplements can vary widely in their ingredients, Hess says. Many sports drinks have significant sugar content for refueling energy, while providing fewer electrolytes than what’s lost through sweating, Horswill says. He suggests aiming for a supplement with more electrolytes: around 1,150 mg of sodium per liter.

    And go easy on the sugar. Electrolyte supplements with lower sugar levels “help transport fluids into the blood” for better absorption, Hess says. Up to 14 g of sugar per 8 oz. is optimal for quick fluid absorption during and right after exercise, according to Horswill. Even less, about 7 g, could be ideal if the supplement includes only the glucose form of sugar.

    Read More: Everything You Need to Know About Caffeine—Including How to Quit It

    Amino acids, the building blocks of protein, also seem to support hydration when combined with electrolytes. More research may reveal whether sugar or amino acids make the better hydration partner for electrolytes, Millard-Stafford says. For now, “a complete fluid replacement beverage would ideally contain electrolytes, sugar, and maybe amino acids,” Hess says. Pedialyte, for example, provides a good ratio of sugar to electrolytes, experts say.

    Some sports drinks have caffeine, which could deplete electrolytes since caffeine is a diuretic, increasing urination in theory. But caffeine has this effect only at high levels: more than 400 mg, Millard-Stafford says. Moderate intake of tea and coffee, below 400 mg of caffeine, are as effective for staying hydrated as water, she adds. 

    Combining different beverages throughout the day works well for hydration, especially if they naturally contain electrolytes. Coconut water is an option with electrolytes and low sugar that may support hydration, according to some studies. However, because coconut water is higher in potassium than sodium, it could be less hydrating than typical sports drinks when exercising, Horswill says. 

    Millard-Stafford points to low-fat milk, which offers electrolytes, carbs, and amino acids. However, “milk could cause gastrointestinal distress during exercise,” Barrett notes. It does a body good for replenishing electrolytes after exercise. 

    The perfect electrolyte potion probably hasn’t been alchemized just yet. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we come up with a new recipe for optimal hydration in a few years,” Kavouras says.

    [ad_2]

    Matt Fuchs

    Source link

  • Why Gut Health Issues Are More Common in Women

    Why Gut Health Issues Are More Common in Women

    [ad_1]

    There’s a hidden gender gap when it comes to digestive problems, with women taking the lead in this unpleasant contest. While men are hardly immune to gastrointestinal woes, certain digestive problems are considerably more common in women. “Women aren’t broken—they’re just different,” says Dr. Jeanetta Frye, a gastroenterologist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. For one thing, she says, “women have more visceral hypersensitivity so they may feel gastrointestinal symptoms more intensely.”

    Symptom sensitivity aside, there’s clear evidence that certain digestive disorders are more likely to affect women than men. Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)—a disorder that involves repeated bouts of abdominal pain and changes in bowel movements (diarrhea, constipation, or alternating bouts of the two)—is two to six times more common among women than men. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, affects twice as many women as men, according to the American College of Gastroenterology.

    In addition, celiac disease—an autoimmune disorder that causes bloating, chronic diarrhea, constipation, gas, and other GI symptoms and is triggered by eating gluten—is diagnosed nearly twice as often in women as in men. And functional dyspepsia (a.k.a. chronic indigestion) is also more common in women. So is a lesser known brain-gut disorder called cyclic vomiting syndrome—characterized by recurrent episodes of nausea, vomiting, and dry heaving, separated by symptom-free periods in between, says Dr. David Levinthal, a gastroenterologist and director of the Neurogastroenterology and Motility Center at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

    Across the board, “disorders of gut-brain interaction are more prevalent in women than men,” Levinthal says, and the same is true of motility disorders like gastroparesis (delayed emptying of the stomach) and chronic constipation.

    A mysterious gender gap

    Why are women more susceptible to GI disorders? What is it about being born female that puts their digestive systems at risk? The answer is complicated and not completely understood.

    This much is known: Reproductive hormones may play a role. “The female hormones estrogen and progesterone have a profound effect on the GI tract in terms of motility, pain sensitization, and how the brain delivers messages to the GI tract,” explains Dr. David Johnson, chief of gastroenterology at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk and past president of the American College of Gastroenterology. As a result, women may experience flare-ups of GI disorders at certain times of the month (such as during menstruation) or during pregnancy.

    Read More: 15 Things to Say When Someone Comments on Your Weight

    For another thing, “women have a more easily activated immune system than men do,” says Levinthal. This is significant because immune function, including inflammatory processes, plays a role in celiac disease and inflammatory bowel disease.

    What’s more, the gastrointestinal tract itself is longer in women, and that difference in length can affect transit time through the GI tract, Johnson says. In addition, women’s stomachs empty slightly more slowly than men’s do—“why that is isn’t known,” says Levinthal, but it may explain women’s greater susceptibility to gastroparesis. Research also suggests that the intestine’s nerve cells are more sluggish in women, which may be why IBS and gastroparesis are more common in women.

    Another possible contributing factor has to do with psychological issues. “Anxiety and depression, which are more common in women than men, can worsen the severity of disordered gut function,” Levinthal says. “Feeling stressed or depressed or anxious is linked with how our guts work.” When you’re stressed out or anxious, you may be more likely to experience flare-ups of these GI disorders.

    Giving your gut the right TLC

    Regardless of gender, it’s important to “do everything you can to be proactive about your digestive health rather than just reactive,” Johnson says. That means staying well hydrated and consuming a healthy diet rich in plant-based foods (like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds), and lean protein, and avoiding sugary, highly processed foods.

    Read More: 9 Weird Symptoms Cardiologists Say You Should Never Ignore

    In particular, “fiber helps good bacteria flourish in the gut,” Johnson says, which contributes to the health of the gut microbiome, the community of bacteria and other microbes that naturally live in the GI tract. Research has found a strong correlation between gut bacteria and the risk of GI disorders such as IBS, IBD, and others.

    Being proactive about your gut health also means taking steps to manage stress, get plenty of sleep, and exercise regularly. “The more you move your body, the more your gut is moving, too,” says Dr. Samuel Akinyeye, a gastroenterologist at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. That movement is likely to help with many of these disorders.

    If these measures don’t help sufficiently, there’s no reason to suffer alone. Medications and other treatments are available for all of these digestive disorders. “If you have symptoms you don’t understand, talk to a gastroenterologist,” Frye advises. “A lot of women are embarrassed to talk about their GI symptoms—I want them to feel empowered to discuss them. I tell my patients that it’s a safe space, and I’m not embarrassed to hear anything. This is why I’m here.”

    [ad_2]

    Stacey Colino

    Source link

  • These Are 4 of the Most Common Complications of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy

    These Are 4 of the Most Common Complications of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy

    [ad_1]

    You could argue that the complications of a disease, rather than the disease itself, create most of the problems associated with that condition. Take hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or HCM, a primarily genetic condition that results in a thickening of the walls of the heart—specifically its left ventricle, which is the chamber that pumps blood out of the heart and into the aorta. According to the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Association, HCM is the most common genetic heart condition, affecting at least 1 in every 500 adults—possibly more, given that as many as half of all people with the disorder have no symptoms or ones that are so mild, they go unnoticed.

    The American Heart Association (AHA) reports that about two-thirds of those who have been diagnosed with HCM have so much thickening in their heart muscle that it obstructs blood flow out of the left ventricle and into the aorta. This is called, aptly, obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. This kind of obstruction is behind many of the more troublesome and life-threatening complications of HCM.

    In nonobstructive HCM, the thicker muscles may mean the ventricle is less able to pump the normal volume of blood, but the blood is able to move in and out of the ventricle unimpeded. Most people who have the nonobstructive version of the disease will have milder symptoms and lower risk of death than those with its obstructive relative. In other words, they’re likely to have fewer, though by no means zero, complications of their disease.

    With that in mind, here’s a look at what to know about four of the most common HCM complications—including how they manifest and how they’re treated.

    Atrial fibrillation (AFib)

    There are two main types of heart arrhythmias, and you’re probably already familiar with one of them: atrial fibrillation, or AFib. It describes a rapid and irregular heartbeat that can lead to blood clots within the heart, which, in turn, can increase the risk of stroke. “The longer a patient has the condition, the more likely atrial fibrillation is to occur,” says Dr. Steve Ommen, director of the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Clinic at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

    AFib shows up in about a quarter of people with HCM. However, Dr. Milind Desai, director of the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Center and vice chair of the Heart, Vascular and Thoracic Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, says that estimate may be too low. “I don’t believe we have accurate data,” he notes, “as many patients have short bursts of AFib that are asymptomatic.” In these instances, the heart beats irregularly, but the person feels none of the usual symptoms to warn them of the arrhythmia.

    Those who do experience symptoms might report heart palpitations or a sense of a rapidly pounding heart, shortness of breath, dizziness, or fainting. Treatment often focuses on the use of anticoagulant drugs, which prevent the formation of the blood clots that can lead to stroke. Cardiologists may also recommend drugs to restore a more normal heartbeat, including beta blockers or calcium channel blockers, which work by lowering the heart’s pumping rate and giving the cardiac muscles a bit of a biological break.

    When AFib recurs or doesn’t respond to medications, a minimally invasive procedure known as cardiac ablation may be considered. It involves using heat or cold to create very small scars in the heart tissue to interrupt the abnormal electrical signals that lead to the rapid or irregular heartbeat.

    Read More: What to Know About Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy in Kids

    Ventricular tachycardia (VT)

    Ventricular tachycardia is another type of abnormal heart rhythm, in which an extremely fast heartbeat begins in the lower chambers of the heart. The rapidity of the beat prevents the ventricles from filling with enough blood before they contract again.

    The symptoms of ventricular tachycardia are similar to those of AFib and include palpitations, dizziness, shortness of breath, and fainting, but may also include neck tightness, chest pain, and even cardiac arrest. As with AFib, a cardiologist might prescribe beta blockers or calcium channel blockers to treat the symptoms and control the heart’s rhythm. When people don’t respond to medication, or if they have particularly advanced VT, they may need an implantable defibrillator. That’s “a special pacemaker-like device to monitor the heart for dangerous arrhythmias and deliver an electric shock to reset the heart to a normal rhythmif they occur,” says Dr. Michelle Kittleson, director of education in heart failure and transplantation and professor of medicine at the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles.

    Compared to atrial fibrillation, VT packs a much bigger cardiac punch. “In terms of risk, ventricular tachycardia is the one we screen for annually in HCM,” Ommen says. “Ventricular tachycardia itself can make the squeezing function of the left ventricle ineffective; it can also degenerate into ventricular fibrillation.” While VT is about a rapid heartbeat, the problem in ventricular fibrillation, or VF, is that the ventricles contract in a sort of quivering and random beat. The AHA calls VF the “most serious abnormal heart rhythm,” and notes that, without treatment, it can lead to sudden cardiac death within minutes.

    Kittleson agrees. “Ventricular arrhythmias are more dangerous,” she says, “because they can cause sudden cardiac death, as the heart cannot pump efficiently and no blood gets to the body.” In fact, VT that becomes ventricular fibrillation is the most common cause of sudden cardiac death.

    Heart failure

    Another common HCM complication is heart failure, a broad term that means your heart isn’t able to pump enough blood out into your circulation to properly oxygenate the rest of your body. The heart fails, in other words, to effectively do its most essential job. Heart failure is not, however, the same thing as cardiac arrest, which is when the heart stops—arrests—its beating altogether.

    In HCM, heart failure is generally a result of the thickening and stiffening of the heart’s ventricles. In that sense, according to the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Association, HCM is simply a form of heart failure. Specifically, people with HCM tend to develop a type of heart failure in which the left ventricle can’t fill with enough blood—because of its overly muscular walls—to then pump sufficient blood throughout the body. With less blood in the ventricle in the first place, even a perfectly pumping heart won’t be able to force as much blood out into the circulation as it’s meant to. And a heart with walls thickened by HCM is unlikely to be a perfectly pumping heart.

    Still, Desai notes, not all HCM patients experience heart failure. “Many HCM patients can be asymptomatic,” he says. “But if you have shortness of breath due to a cardiac problem, technically you have some element of heart failure.”

    In addition to an inadequate supply of oxygenated blood in the body, heart failure tends to lead to an accumulation of fluid in the body’s tissues, which is called congestive heart failure. In addition to the obvious physical signs of fluid accumulation, like swollen ankles, there are the more subtle and potentially dangerous ones. Fluid from the processes of heart failure is especially prone, for instance, to build up in the lungs; this can lead to coughing and shortness of breath, generalized symptoms that aren’t always as benign as they may initially seem.

    The treatment of heart failure itself—rather than the disease that causes heart failure, like HCM—tends to focus on the treatment of congestive heart failure, specifically. Cardiologists will likely prescribe diuretics, drugs meant to help the body’s kidneys process the extra fluid. Patients might be asked to limit both time on feet and fluid intake. The same beta blockers and calcium channel blockers used to treat arrhythmias can also be used to slow the heart enough to allow the left ventricle to fill to the best of its ability. For those with the most severe forms of heart failure, heart transplantation may be the best option.

    Read More: 9 Weird Symptoms Cardiologists Say You Should Never Ignore

    Sudden cardiac death

    Sometimes the first—and, sadly, last—sign of HCM is also its most feared complication. Sudden cardiac death, which is also known as sudden cardiac arrest, occurs when the heart stops beating or beats so irregularly or weakly that it can no longer provide enough oxygen to the body to sustain life. A death falls under the sudden cardiac death label if it occurs within an hour of the onset of symptoms such as feeling faint, dizzy, or noticing the feeling of an irregular heartbeat—in other words, the signs of ventricular fibrillation. If the heart actually stops beating, however, death will occur within minutes, unless emergency measures are taken.

    Experts stress that sudden cardiac death—which, in HCM, occurs when the heart’s electrical system misfires, resulting in ventricular tachycardia or ventricular fibrillation—is not the same as a heart attack, in which a blocked artery prevents blood from getting to the heart, killing off the heart’s muscles.

    HCM is one of the most common identifiable causes of sudden cardiac death in athletes under 35. And although it is by no means a common outcome for those with HCM, sudden cardiac death occurs in approximately 0.8% of affected individuals each year, says Ommen. “Assessing each individual’s risk is thus an important part of regular checkups,” he notes.

    The cascade to sudden cardiac death can be treated, if caught immediately after its onset, using CPR to keep blood flowing through the body, an external defibrillator to reset the heart rhythm, and medications to restore the heart’s normal rhythms.

    Read More: How to Talk to Your Family About Their Heart Health History

    Better still, cardiologists say, is to treat the arrhythmias and other electrical-impulse issues that can arise in an individual with HCM—or to treat the HCM itself—sand thereby stave off sudden cardiac death altogether.

    Overall, says Kittleson, it’s important to remember that “HCM is not a death sentence. With current methods of diagnosis, evaluation, and treatment, survival is comparable to that of the general population. With proper management, patients can live full and healthy lives.”

    [ad_2]

    Lori Oliwenstein

    Source link

  • Green Tea Is Even Better For You Than You Think

    Green Tea Is Even Better For You Than You Think

    [ad_1]

    Other than water, tea is the most consumed beverage worldwide. And for good reason: tea is great for you, particularly the green variety.

    Several benefits of green tea are supported by solid research. Others, much less so. For example, influencers sometimes gush about green tea being “nature’s Ozempic,” suggesting it’s as effective as obesity medication. If this claim sounds exaggerated, that’s because it is, researchers say.

    Below, they explain what the science shows about green tea’s role in countering obesity and diabetes, boosting heart and brain health, and fighting cancer.

    Green tea, a nutrition unicorn

    Tea leaves are unique because they have more catechins than any other drink or food. These compounds protect cells from damage as we get older.

    Green tea may be especially healthy compared to other teas, partly because it undergoes little processing on the way to our cups. Black and oolong teas are fermented, a process that reduces their catechins, although fermentation does yield other kinds of healthy compounds.

    Green tea contains a few types of catechins, but one called EGCG is the most powerful for safeguarding the cells and fighting inflammation. “That’s what makes green tea so special,” says Laura Acosta, an instructional associate professor of nutrition at the University of Florida who researches green tea.

    How to drink it

    When green tea is freshly brewed, it packs more EGCG than ready-to-mix or ground green tea powders, which range widely in their EGCG content, from 2 to 200 mg per serving, Acosta says. If you do go the powder route, look for packages that state their EGCG content, she adds, and try to consume them quickly after buying. Sitting on pantry shelves for six months, powders lose 30-50% of their catechins, Acosta says, meaning fewer health benefits.

    Read More: 6 Health Myths About Oils

    Aim for 2 to 4 cups of green tea per day, says Jeffrey Blumberg, a research professor of nutrition science at Tufts University, depending on your sensitivity to caffeine. “Data suggest there are diminishing returns for health after five cups,” says Marilyn Cornelis, associate professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University. “More isn’t necessarily adverse,” but the benefits start to plateau.

    You’ll want to maintain this intake for a while—years, not days. “Over time, it will have a cumulative effect,” Acosta says.

    Managing obesity 

    So, are TikTokers right that you can swap obesity medications like Ozempic for a tall cup of tea? 

    Don’t count on it. The research isn’t as clear as social media suggests. For example, an influencer dietitian TikTok post in March analyzed one clinical trial on whether green tea acts like obesity medications by triggering the hormone GLP-1, which promotes feelings of fullness and lower blood sugar. According to her, the outcome of the trial was that green tea did elevate GLP-1—but the actual result “isn’t what she implied,” Blumberg says. In truth, the researchers found no significant difference between the group that got the green tea, and the group that didn’t.

    A 2017 research review found no evidence that green tea affects blood glucose levels. However, Cornelis thinks it could “inhibit the absorption of carbohydrates, which may reduce glucose levels.” Other studies found that green tea’s catechins contributed to feelings of fullness and drove weight loss. “In theory, it could help with managing obesity or diabetes, but we need a lot more data to support it,” says Dr. Sara Ghoneim, a gastroenterologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and spokesperson for the American Gastroenterological Association.

    Read More: What’s So Great About Cottage Cheese?

    Clinical research on green tea typically involves very high doses of EGCG, using pills instead of the drink. These “green tea extract” pills are available online, packing as many as 800 mg of EGCG. The drink won’t provide that much unless you dust off your beer hat from college and slurp it all day. 

    Very high doses may damage the liver if taken regularly over many years, but research suggests that only about 5% of people are particularly vulnerable to these effects. “Basic research in animals suggests that high doses can harm the liver,” but perhaps only while fasting from food, when the liver is more vulnerable, Blumberg says.

    However, the extract may leave out some of the beneficial properties of tea. “I encourage the whole beverage,” Cornelis says. Excess green tea consumption may also cause nausea or acid reflux, Ghoneim notes, especially for those who are sensitive to tea. “It’s really individual dependent,” she says. “Start with a couple of cups and see how you do.”

    The effects of drinking a few cups per day would be very gradual, like a single pound lost over 12 weeks. “Eating tea plants is not like a drug. It won’t have an overwhelming effect,” says Carol Johnston, professor of nutrition at Arizona State University. But that’s no reason to put down your cup, she adds. “A slow, moderate weight loss is the healthiest kind of weight loss. Don’t expect to lose 10 pounds in two weeks. This is a lifelong process.” 

    Preventing heart disease 

    Regularly drinking green tea supports heart health, partly by decreasing blood pressure, according to a recent meta-analysis. Other research, co-authored by Acosta, showed a similar effect in postmenopausal women. 

    It could lower cholesterol as well, Cornelis found. “It reduced bad cholesterol and increased good cholesterol,” she says. “That may underlie the beneficial impact on cardiovascular disease.”

    Animal studies point to similar benefits, though Johnston notes that most research in humans suggests that only 5% of green tea’s catechins actually get into the blood system. “It’s poorly absorbed,” she says. But there’s a potential solution: mix green tea with sources of vitamin C, like lemon juice or blended strawberries, which act synergistically with the tea. “Vitamin C can enhance some of the absorption,” Johnston says. 

    Protecting brain health

    Drinking green tea is associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Brain health is one of the “best established health benefits” of green tea, Acosta says.

    The caffeine in tea may be especially helpful in keeping the mind sharp. Plenty of research shows that caffeine boosts cognition in the short term, which may translate into long-term protection for frequent quaffers, Cornelis says. Caffeine blocks certain receptors in the brain that affect dopamine, which is involved in Parkinson’s, she adds.

    Read More: Are Dates Actually That Good for You?

    Now, a sensitive topic: green tea vs. coffee. Both drinks have their passionate defenders, but it’s tough to pick a clear winner. Coffee has twice as much caffeine as tea, but green tea has more L-theanine, a building block of protein that has a calming effect and improves focus and attention, Blumberg says. At least one study has found that green tea, but not coffee, was associated with better cognition as people age.

    Detoxing  

    Another theory popping up on the internet is that green tea “detoxifies” the body. This idea isn’t accurate, Acosta says, because EGCG can actually become a toxin in its own right. After EGCG spurs healthy adaptations, the body works to transform and eliminate this compound to avoid being harmed by it. “Green tea is a powerful antioxidant,” Acosta says, “but detoxification is completely different.”

    Fighting cancer

    People on social media have made bold statements about green tea’s ability to combat cancer. What does the research actually show?

    In 2021, a large review found little evidence for green tea’s role in preventing cancer. However, lab research suggests that EGCG blocks pathways involved in tumor formation, says Dr. James Segars, a cancer researcher and head of the reproductive endocrinology unit at Johns Hopkins.

    Other research shows an association between green tea and a lower risk of certain cancers such as breast, ovarian, prostate, and neck. “It might be protective,” Acosta says, as part of a healthy overall lifestyle. Segars studies cells to see how green tea could reduce the size of fibroids, abnormal masses of tissue that may develop into uterine cancer. He tells patients with a family history of fibroids to take two tablets of 400 mg of green tea extract, daily.

    Read More: 8 Eating Habits That Actually Improve Your Sleep

    In theory, green tea may even help with treating cancer, partly because high doses seem to promote the death of cancerous cells. More research is needed on these effects, Segars says.  Dr. Mary E. Money, an internal medicine physician, was diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer in 2012. Several years later, she was impressed by studies on green tea and cancer, and began sipping 6 to 8 mugs of the beverage throughout the day, instead of taking extract pills—without changing the rest of her regimen. Her cancer biomarkers improved significantly, she says. Money continues to receive chemotherapy when needed; green tea may act synergistically with chemotherapy in some cases, research suggests. 

    However, the evidence is mixed, with other studies showing that antioxidants, including those found in tea, might interfere with certain cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy and radiation therapy. 

    Money notes that her experience is just that: one anecdote. She could be a super responder, while others’ responses depend on numerous factors, including their specific diagnosis, treatment strategy, and overall nutrition. “There are so many variables,” she says. What’s clear is that—big picture—green tea is a healthy choice.

    [ad_2]

    Matt Fuchs

    Source link

  • What 5 Doctors Are Excited About in Kidney Cancer Research

    What 5 Doctors Are Excited About in Kidney Cancer Research

    [ad_1]

    With multiple game-changing developments over the past two decades, kidney cancer patients are now living longer and better.

    A big part of the reason is that many are being diagnosed at earlier stages of the disease, when it can often be more easily treated and sometimes cured. Even when cancers are caught later, advances in medications and in methods of targeting cancer cells are significantly extending survival.

    “When I started two decades ago, the average survival for patients with advanced kidney cancer was one year,” says Dr. Brian Rini, a professor of medicine at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. “Now, the median survival is between five and six years. It’s amazing.”

    The growing use of scanning technologies in medicine overall has been one of the most important changes over the last couple of decades: Tumors are being detected during scans for non-cancerous conditions.

    “Most kidney cancers are found by accident quite early, because people get scans for unrelated reasons,” says Dr. William Huang, a professor of urology and radiology at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and a urologic oncologist at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center in New York City. “People get scanned for almost everything now: heartburn, back pain, car accidents. Eight out of 10 newly diagnosed patients who come to see me were scanned for something completely different.”

    Because these cancers are caught early, they may be “completely curable, and sometimes so early that nothing needs to be done,” Huang says. “We can just keep an eye on them, and unless they change, we don’t need to do any intervention.” Advances in imaging have also led to novel ways of determining whether a tumor is benign or malignant. Scanners allow doctors to see growths in much greater detail nowadays, which allows for diagnosis in some cases without a biopsy. For example, scans using radioactive tracers can detect fat, which can be a signal that a growth is benign, Huang says.

    Here’s a look at additional kidney cancer advances that doctors are excited to see come down the pipeline.

    Killing cancer without surgery

    Surgeons used to remove the entire kidney when a tumor was found. “Now you can remove just part of the kidney,” Huang says. Some methods of eliminating tumors don’t even involve cutting. “You can ablate a tumor with heat or you can freeze it,” says Huang. “Right now we are involved in a clinical trial that uses a method that is completely non-invasive. There is no incision, no radiation, no needles. We just ablate the tumor using ultrasound waves, which rupture the cancer cells.”

    Read More: Coping With the Side Effects of Kidney-Cancer Treatment

    Radiation by itself can eliminate tumors, too

    For patients who aren’t good candidates for surgery because of underlying health issues, there’s another option that will eradicate the main tumor and some metastases. “This is something that has been evolving, and it’s very, very exciting,” says Dr. Catherine Spina, a kidney cancer specialist and an assistant professor of radiation oncology at Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. “Traditionally, radiation has been given over long courses in small doses.”

    Over the years, however, specialists have discovered they could give much higher doses of radiation over a much shorter period of time, so long as the radiation was tightly targeted to hit the cancerous tissue, while giving a very low dose to the surrounding areas.

    The result is that patients with a moderate-sized main tumor and cancer that has metastasized to just a few other sites can completely avoid surgery, with their cancer treated after just five or fewer radiation treatments. The technique is mostly limited to 8-centimeter main tumors, though some clinicians are also using it in tumors that are as large as 11 centimeters, Spina says.

    When surgery is needed

    Some patients prefer to have surgery or won’t qualify for non-invasive therapies because their cancer is too advanced. Surgical breakthroughs over the past decade or so have allowed these procedures to be more targeted and less invasive. 

    Many operations are now done with robotic instruments that are inserted into the body through tiny incisions, while surgeons sitting at consoles view the operation and remotely control the instruments, says Dr. George Schade, an associate professor in urology at the University of Washington and a physician with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle.

    Robotic surgeries are a big advance over the original minimally invasive laparoscopic operations, in which tools at the end of stiff rods were inserted through small incisions with the surgeon standing over the patient and viewing the procedure on a computer screen. The new robotic instruments, by contrast, use a jointed probe rather than a straight one, offering more mobility. “They are like tiny arms inside of the patient with wrists and fingers,” Huang says.

    Fluorescent dyes can help surgeons tell the difference between healthy tissue and cancer, as well as shine a light on the location of blood vessels feeding tumors. And in what may be another big step, some specialists are using robotic equipment that allows them to have depth perception. As the surgeons peer into a patient’s body, they see a 3D image overlaying the area that they’re operating on. “This is not in wide use yet, but there are several groups working on improving the technology to bring it to the mainstream,” Schade says.

    Looking forward, as high-speed internet access spreads around the country and throughout the world, it’s possible that the surgeon controlling the robot in the operating room might not even be at the same hospital. “I don’t see that as too far in the future,” Huang says.

    Read More: How to Manage Anxiety and Depression When You Have Kidney Cancer

    Targeted medications 

    It wasn’t that long ago that specialists had little to offer cancer patients after surgery, outside of chemotherapy, which wasn’t very effective against kidney cancer. But in the past two decades, there’s been an explosion of new cancer medications. Some pump up a patient’s immune response, while others target a variety of pathways to slow or stop cancer growth and development.

    Drugs known as checkpoint inhibitors stop the immune system from being fooled into quitting before the cancer is conquered, says Dr. Bobby Liaw, clinical director of genitourinary oncology for the Mount Sinai Health System and an assistant professor of medicine, hematology, and medical oncology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

    Checkpoints are the part of a normally functioning immune system that act as a set of brakes to turn down the system’s response once an infection or other pathology such as cancer has been defeated. That way the immune system doesn’t start turning its attack on healthy cells.

    By blocking the action of a checkpoint, these medications keep the immune system on target. There can be immune system side effects—such as skin inflammation, and less commonly, autoimmune-like effects on certain organs, as well as endocrine disturbances—from cutting one of the immune system’s brake lines.

    “Any time we plan to initiate any kind of new therapy for any cancer patient, there needs to be consideration for the benefits versus the risks,” Liaw says. 

    In the case of serious side effects, particularly the immune system attacking healthy cells, the checkpoint inhibitor is stopped and the patient is given corticosteroids, says Dr. Toni Choueiri, director of the Lank Center for Genitourinary Cancer at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. 

    A study published in April in the New England Journal of Medicine that followed patients for nearly five years showed that the checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab, when given after surgery, reduced the risk of death by 38%.

    Read More: These Factors Increase the Risk of Kidney Cancer

    “Prior to the approval of pembrolizumab, there was no wide-spread accepted standard of care for patients with [the most common form of kidney cancer] after treatment with surgery,” says Choueiri, the lead author of the study. The next step, he says, is to study whether combining it with another therapy, like belzutifan, will reduce the risk of death even further.

    Other drugs take aim at blood vessel formation. “Tumors are more dependent on the growth of new blood vessels than organs are,” Rini explains. “These medications choke off the blood supply to the tumor.” 

    One other type of drug, called a tyrosine kinase inhibitor, blocks an enzyme that’s needed for tumor cells to grow and divide. There are currently numerous tyrosine kinase inhibitors approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

    At the end of 2023, kidney cancer specialists got yet another arrow to add to their quivers: The FDA approved the drug belzutifan, a medication that effectively suffocates tumors by blocking a protein involved in regulating oxygen levels.

    Doctors have traditionally liked to give one cancer drug at a time, but that’s changing. Specialists believe that cancers may have a harder time surviving when multiple medications are taken at once.

    A number of ongoing clinical trials are looking at the impact of this strategy and exploring which combinations work the best. “There’s absolutely an additive effect of giving more drugs at the same time,” Rini says.

    A kidney cancer vaccine? 

    The mRNA technology that was used to create a vaccine to combat COVID-19 was initially developed as a potential way to battle cancer. Only recently has that research started to pan out.

    Once a patient’s tumor has been removed, doctors identify proteins that are specific to cells in the tumor but not found anywhere else in the patient’s body. Then they determine which of those proteins are likely to be able to call the immune system’s attention to the cancer. Those proteins become the targets for the patient’s personalized mRNA vaccine.

    There have already been promising results using mRNA technology to create personalized vaccines to help treat advanced melanoma. In a phase 2 trial that ended in mid-2023, researchers compared the checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab plus personalized vaccines to pembrolizumab alone. They found that the vaccine reduced the risk of recurrence by nearly a half. 

    The same strategy is being tested in a phase 2 trial that will soon be recruiting patients with advanced kidney cancer, says Choueiri, co-lead investigator of the trial.

    Read More: 7 Myths About Kidney Cancer, Debunked

    The results of the phase 1 trial, which was testing just for safety, found “the vaccine to be well tolerated,” Choueiri says. “We and many others have been trying to do vaccines for several decades now.” The goal is to find the specific proteins in the vaccine that will be “the ones that elicit the most intense immune response that will lead to killing the cancer.”

    Experts like Choueiri have high hopes for mRNA cancer vaccines. And with numerous other therapies being developed by pharmaceutical companies at the same time as others are making their way through clinical trials, the future for kidney cancer patients is getting brighter with each passing year.

    [ad_2]

    Linda Carroll

    Source link

  • The Problem With Saying Suicide Is Preventable

    The Problem With Saying Suicide Is Preventable

    [ad_1]

    When I left my father’s condo for the airport on a sunny March day in 2018, I did not once think that he might kill himself. Yes, his depression had returned, dense and unsteadying. But he had just come home from a week of voluntary inpatient care at the psychiatric hospital. He had a psychiatrist, an acupuncturist, and a sunlamp. During my visit, I drove him to his outpatient group therapy. We played Scrabble and listened to 80s dance hits.

    What I saw when I spent that week with my father was a man doing everything he could to shrug the mantle of depression from his shoulders. But within 48 hours of me leaving, my father ended his life.

    He was one of more than 48,000 Americans who died by suicide in 2018, a then-record that has since been surpassed by steadily rising suicide rates in the midst of a mental health crisis the surgeon general called “the defining public health crisis of our time.”

    As this crisis rages on, we have made strides in fighting suicide, like the 988 lifeline and increased barriers on bridges and high structures throughout the United States. This spring, the Biden administration released a new 10-year strategy for suicide prevention. These improvements bolster the declaration that now feels ubiquitous in mental health messaging: suicide is preventable. But that phrase masks a nuanced, persistent reality of suicide that we must acknowledge.

    Read More: America Has Reached Peak Therapy. Why Is Our Mental Health Getting Worse?

    Though well-intentioned, the truth is that not all suicides can be stopped, even with the best efforts. But right after my father’s death, everywhere I looked I read that suicide is preventable. This instilled an immediate, unconscious conviction in me of a double failure: my father, who had not done enough to save himself, and those of us who loved him most, who had not done enough, either. Collectively we could have deterred his death. But we did not.

    In the months following my father’s death, I channeled my guilt into an obsessive energy toward understanding and advocating for suicide prevention. I fundraised for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, lobbied for policy change in Tennessee, and charted my father’s risk factors against his protective factors, certain I would find the tipping point where he should have gone left instead of right—where I should have stayed, instead of left him.

    Alongside the insistence that suicide can be stopped lie reminders for survivors not to feel guilty or blame themselves, a request that feels impossible, as you’re handed checklists of preventative measures. But it is not only for the sake of those left behind that we should add nuance to what we mean when we say suicide is preventable.

    The crux of the issue with blanketing suicide as something that can be stopped is that it flattens one of the most confounding psychological, medical, and philosophical questions of being human into something simpler than its reality. Perhaps one day we will be able to say that, with the right blueprint, suicide is preventable. But we do not have the knowledge, let alone the resources, to make that true now.

    Today I imagine my father on a precipice, teetering between life and death. I will never know exactly why he fell one way and not the other, in the same way we do not know what causes one person to take their life and another to not. We do not know whether the seeds of suicidality are planted moments before a person decides to die, or decades. For each individual, it is different. But it is not something we can cut open on the autopsy table, tracing its progression and tearing it out at the root.

    This does not mean suicide prevention efforts are futile. One of the few, but most encouraging, empirically backed strategies to reduce suicide deaths is limiting access to lethal means—hence the importance of bridge barriers, firearms safety, and safe medication storage. But as my therapist reminded me after my father’s death, people have still found ways to end their lives while in the middle of inpatient mental health treatment. There were no guarantees that anything I might have done would have stopped my father’s death. 

    At first, I interpreted his reminder as bleak. But over time, I started to see the way that my obsession with what could have gone differently dehumanized my father. It was both more painful and more honest when I began to accept that my father’s reality was different from my own. I would have given anything for him to still be alive, but I also did not want to deny what life was like for him. In a world still riddled with stigma against mental illness, those who die by and attempt suicide deserve the dignity of us acknowledging their pain as real.

    This is a scary thing to admit, to both validate the severity of psychological crisis without dismissing suicide deaths as inevitable. And though I want us to add nuance to our language around suicide prevention, I do not believe the suicide epidemic is unstoppable. But we need more than better quality and access to mental health care (which, we do need)—we also must frame mental health as something inclusive of trauma, poverty, substance abuse, and economic, food, and housing insecurity. We need to intercept suicide far before the crisis moment.

    Take, for instance, Italy’s community-centered Trieste model, where people in mental health crisis are directed to short-term stays in peer-managed housing that is more similar to a home than a hospital. The Trieste model also focuses on meeting patients’ basic needs, like food, clothing, housing, and jobs. In the U.S., California awarded $116 million to launch a pilot program replicating the Trieste model in Los Angeles. But the program has been stalled since it received funding in 2019, and remains under revision. More concentrated efforts, like free school lunch programs that have been shown to improve student mental health, can help address some destabilizing factors with more immediacy as larger systemic changes take hold.

    We can also expand therapeutic interventions in a system that does not have enough clinicians to meet the needs of a worsening mental illness epidemic. Earlier in 2024, Alaska passed a law requiring mental health curricula in public schools, following in the wake of states like New York and Virginia. Alabama high-schoolers have been testing a self-guided pilot program to improve mental health literacy before crisis, which research has shown works.  These kinds of approaches contribute to a broader ecosystem of knowledge and resources that help reduce how many people reach a crisis point to begin with.

    Acknowledging that, currently, suicide is not always preventable alleviates the burden for survivors wondering what we did wrong. It also honors that what the world is like for those who die by suicide is real to them, rather than implying that they failed in not doing more to help themselves. And it allows us to admit how much we still don’t know, giving us space to create more holistic, expansive solutions for all that mental health care can be.

    When I stopped focusing over what might have prevented my father’s suicide, my perception of his life burst open into so much more than how he died. His death had made me question whether any of the joy and laughter and car sing-a-longs I’d shared with him in the days before were real. But once I accepted that his suicide was both his choice to make, and just one part of his story, I recognized that his depression did not invalidate all the other things that drove him. Like showing up for the people he loved, solving problems, and creating beauty around him. The way he died does not diminish how dedicated he was to growth and evolution, and it does not invalidate the countless ways he chose to live.

    I have hope that, with continued research, interventions, and destigmatization, suicide deaths will decline. But I also have peace knowing that my father’s death is not defined by what he or I did wrong, but instead is one of the many continuing unknowns we must make space for in how we speak about mental health.

    [ad_2]

    Sophia Laurenzi 

    Source link

  • The World Is Ignoring the Catastrophe in Sudan

    The World Is Ignoring the Catastrophe in Sudan

    [ad_1]

    Two decades ago, the world came together in an effort to “Save Darfur,” a mass mobilization of collective outrage that forced governments and multilateral institutions to act. Rallies, postcard- and letter-writing campaigns, moments of silence on college campuses, “Global Days for Darfur,” widespread support from Hollywood celebrities—all of it made Darfur and the Janjaweed, the notorious “devils on horseback,” into household names.

    “In many ways it is unfair but it is nevertheless true that this genocide will be on your watch,” George Clooney told the U.N. Security Council in 2006. “How you deal with it will be your legacy.”

    The carnage today, not only in Darfur but across Sudan, is in many ways worse than it was then.

    The bitter war launched 17 months ago between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)—the Janjaweed rebranded—has, according to the U.N., killed 18,800 people. But that estimate is a vast undercount. No one knows the true number of dead.

    Refugees wait for a WFP food distribution point to open at a temporary camp in Adre, Chad, on April 22, 2024. Dan Kitwood—Getty Images

    Sudan’s catastrophe can now only be described in superlatives: it is the world’s largest humanitarian catastrophe, is home to the world’s largest displacement crisis, and the world’s largest hunger crisis. More than 10 million people, representing 20% of the population, have been displaced by the fighting. More than half of the population, some 26 million people, are now facing crisis levels of hunger. Famine, the F-word long avoided by the international community, has now been declared in North Darfur. A harrowing report in May from the Clingendael Institute warns that up to 2.5 million people could die from hunger by September this year.

    Twenty years ago, the SAF and RSF led a genocidal campaign against landed African ethnic groups in Darfur. Today, they are fighting each other while perpetuating serious rights violations. The RSF, in particular, has revived its genocidal campaigns against those same populations and extended it to the rest of the country. Alongside its allied Arab militias, the RSF have been accused of deliberate attacks on civilians amounting to crimes against humanity and war crimes. The International Criminal Court has opened new investigations into allegations of grave crimes committed by both the SAF and RSF in Darfur.

    El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, is currently surrounded and under siege by the RSF, the last population center in Darfur that hasn’t fallen to the RSF. “It is unquestionable that risk factors and indicators for genocide and related crimes are present [in El Fasher], and the risks are increasing,” said Alice Wairimu Nderitu, a U.N. Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide.

    Sudanese military personnel stand guard in the basement of a building that had been used as an arms depot by Rapid Support Forces fighters in Omdurman, Sudan, on April 25, 2024.
    Sudanese military personnel stand guard in the basement of a building that had been used as an arms depot by Rapid Support Forces fighters in Omdurman, Sudan, on April 25, 2024. Ivor Prickett—The New York Times/Redux

    From the outset, Sudan’s war against civilians has caused devastating consequences for women and girls. As I told the U.N. Security Council on Aug. 7, widespread and systematic conflict-related sexual violence is taking place throughout the country. It is clear that the RSF and the SAF have subjected women and girls from ages nine to 60 to sexual violence, which is a war crime, and neither party has taken meaningful steps to prevent its forces from committing rape, attacking health care workers, nor investigating such crimes. The deliberate use of conflict-related sexual violence, chiefly by the RSF, aims to terrorize the population into submission.

    The time for the international community to act is now. We need to renew the call to action that gripped the world two decades ago.

    Much of the international community’s diplomatic efforts—including recent U.S.-mediated efforts to secure talks between SAF and the RSF—are focused on securing an elusive ceasefire. Neither SAF nor the RSF have shown serious commitment to one. Both calculate that leveraging external support will lead to significant military gains, particularly the RSF, who have taken over much of the country due in large part to UAE support. More energy should be placed on protection efforts that focus on vulnerable populations. The need of the hour is to prevent genocide and save lives, and three steps are crucial.

    Rem Abduli holds the wrist of her one-year-old daughter, Bara, who is suffering from severe malnutrition in the malnutrition ward of the Cap Anamur German Emergency Hospital near Kauda in the Nuba Mountains on June 15, 2024.
    Rem Abduli holds the wrist of her one-year-old daughter, Bara, who is suffering from severe malnutrition in the malnutrition ward of the Cap Anamur German Emergency Hospital near Kauda in the Nuba Mountains on June 15, 2024. Guy Peterson—AFP/Getty Images

    First, the world must come together around a call for a civilian protection force, particularly in Darfur. Civil society and rights groups have called for the African Union and the U.N. to work together to establish one that could, per Human Rights Watch, “protect civilians, monitor human rights and international humanitarian law violations, including obstruction of humanitarian aid, and facilitate the safe return of displaced people.” Such a mission could help women and girls in particular and include mobile policing units to focus on locations where people are most at risk.

    Second, the international community must demand that foreign players cease arming Sudan’s warring parties. A U.N. Panel of Experts report corroborates media reports that the UAE is sending weapons and supplies to the RSF. (The UAE has denied the allegations.) A July report from Amnesty International found that weapons and ammunition from China, Russia, Serbia, Turkey, Yemen, and the UAE are being imported in large quantities into Sudan. These arms are even flowing into Darfur—as aid is being stymied—despite a U.N. Security Council arms embargo imposed back in 2004. The decades-old initiative should be enforced and expanded to cover the whole of Sudan.

    Third, there must be a unified and coordinated peace process involving all relevant stakeholders—with the full, equal, meaningful participation of women. Sudan’s war has been cursed with an array of peace processes over the past 16 months but the situation continues to deteriorate. Putting women at the center of peace negotiations can help chart a new way forward that prioritizes civilian, rather than military, interests. 

    Sudanese refugees arrive in Renk, South Sudan, on Feb. 13, 2024.
    Sudanese refugees arrive in Renk, South Sudan, on Feb. 13, 2024.Luis Tato—AFP/Getty Images

    Unfortunately, none of this will happen until the world begins to pay more attention to Sudan’s plight. More prominent figures should follow the lead of the American rapper Macklemore, who announced he is refusing to perform in Dubai over the UAE’s role “in the ongoing genocide and humanitarian crisis” in Sudan. Africa’s third largest country cannot be allowed to disintegrate while the world averts its gaze, with so many other crises boiling over. We must “Save Darfur,” and Save Sudan, before it is too late.

    [ad_2]

    Kholood Khair

    Source link

  • Your Cynicism Isn’t Helping Anybody

    Your Cynicism Isn’t Helping Anybody

    [ad_1]

    When I describe “cynics,” you might conjure up a certain type of person: the toxic, smirking misanthrope, oozing contempt. But they are not a fixed category, like New Zealanders or anesthesiologists. Cynicism is a spectrum. We all have cynical moments, or in my case, cynical years.

    Cynicism—the belief that all people are selfish, greedy, and dishonest—is a natural response to a world reeling from social division, rising sea levels, and countless other problems.  But that doesn’t mean it helps us.  Cynics suffer at basically every level scientists can measure. They experience more depression, earn less money, and even die younger than non-cynics.  Cynical communities also do worse, socially and economically. 

    But despite the harm it causes, more people report being cynical now than in decades past.  Why?  One reason is our cultural norms.  These days, hope has been typecast as naïve or privileged, a way of ignoring our problems.  Cynicism, by contrast, seems wise and even moral.  But it turns out these beliefs are often backwards. 

    Let’s deconstruct these myths, one at a time.

    Myth: Cynicism is clever

    What is the opposite of a cynic? That’s easy: a rube, chump, or mark, whose naive optimism sets them up for betrayal. This stereotype reveals what most people believe: that cynics are smarter than non-cynics.

    Most people are wrong. In fact, cynics do worse on cognitive tests and have a harder time spotting liars than non-cynics. When we assume everyone is on the take, we don’t bother to explore what people are really like. Why? When someone has a blanket assumption about what everyone is like, they stop paying attention to signs about who can and cannot be trusted. They learn less about people, and can’t adapt to new situations. Gullible people might blindly trust others, but cynics blindly mistrust them.

    Myth: Cynicism is safe

    Every act of trust is a social gamble. When we place our money, secrets, or well-being in someone else’s hands, they have power over us. Most people who trust will get burned at some point. Those moments lodge themselves inside us, making us less likely to take chances again. By never trusting, cynics never lose.

    Read More: Anne Lamott’s Advice Could Stop You From Drowning in Cynicism

    They also never win. Refusing to trust anyone is like playing poker by folding every hand before it begins. Cynicism protects us from predators, but it also shuts down opportunities for collaboration, love, and community, all of which require trust. And though we forever remember people who hurt us, it’s harder to notice the friends we could have made if we’d been more open.

    Myth: Cynicism is moral

    Isn’t hope a privilege? Not everyone can afford to assume the best about people, especially if they have been harmed by a cruel system. In a world full of injustice, it may seem heartless to tell victims they should look on the bright side. Maybe optimists “hopewash” problems while cynics shed light on them.

    This idea is intuitive, but backward. Cynicism does tune people in to what’s wrong, but it also forecloses on the possibility of anything better. There’s no way to change a broken system if it’s a mirror that reflects our broken nature. Why, then, do anything? At my most cynical, I felt morally paralyzed. I stopped volunteering and protesting, wondering why my more active friends even bothered. Other cynics tend to follow suit, sitting out elections and social movements more often than non-cynics.

    But on the contrary, cynicism is not a radical worldview. It’s a tool of the status quo. This is useful to elites and propagandists sow distrust to better control people. Corrupt politicians gain cover by convincing voters that everyone is corrupt. Media companies trade in judgment and outrage. Our cynicism is their product, and business is booming.

    Our beliefs influence how we treat other people, which shapes how they act in return. Thoughts change the world, and cynicism is turning ours into a meaner, sadder, sicker place. All of this is deeply unpopular. Americans trust one another less than before, but 79% of us also think people trust too little. We loathe political rivals, but more than 80% of us also fear how divided we’ve become. Most of us want a society built on compassion and connection, but cynicism convinces us that things will get worse no matter what we do.

    So, we do nothing. And they worsen.

    But we don’t have to keep falling for cynicism’s allure. We can see it for what it is—a psychological trap—and adopt new ways of thinking. Rejecting cynicism doesn’t mean being gullible or naïve. A powerful alternative is skepticism: a scientific mindset where we focus on evidence to decide who we can believe in. If cynicism is a lack of faith in people, skepticism is a lack of faith in our assumptions. It allows us to neither blindly trust or blindly mistrust others, and to learn about our social world in a more agile way.

    Decades of science demonstrate that people don’t realize how caring, generous, and open minded others are.  Because of cynicism, the average person underestimates the average person.  Underneath that bad news is good news: If you pay closer attention, you’ll likely realize people are better than you think. Replacing cynicism with skepticism can bring us closer to the truth, and become more hopeful, too.

    Adapted from Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness by Jamil Zaki, PhD, published by Hachette Book Group. Copyright © 2024 by Jamil Zaki. Reprinted courtesy of Grand Central Publishing.

    [ad_2]

    Jamil Zaki

    Source link

  • 7 Ways to Beat the End-of-Summer Blues, According to Psychologists 

    7 Ways to Beat the End-of-Summer Blues, According to Psychologists 

    [ad_1]

    Do you feel sad as summer transitions into fall? You may have what social scientists and TikTokers alike call “end-of-summer sadness” or “end-of-summer blues.”

    There are biological, psychological, and social reasons for a seasonal mood swing. Daylight starts to wane and the temperature may drop, which can cause the body to generate less serotonin, a neurotransmitter linked to mood control and sensations of well-being, says biological psychologist Mary Poffenroth, author of Brave New You: Strategies, Tools, and Neurohacks to Live More Courageously Every Day. Melatonin levels, which are also linked to mood, also fluctuate, she explains.

    “There’s the likely dopamine crash that occurs when all the fun summer activities end, and we enter a lull of adjusting to going back to school or work,” says Gilly Kahn, a clinical psychologist based in Atlanta. Fall typically means increased demands on our time. “After more freedom and less responsibility, jumping back into regimented routines can be draining psychologically,” says Poffenroth.

    Though these emotions are natural, they are not beyond your control. “Our brains are remarkably neuroplastic, which lets us adjust to changes and affect our emotional states by deliberate behavior and thought patterns,” Poffenroth says. “Knowing the biological basis of end-of-summer blues will help us to apply scientifically based solutions to reduce its consequences.”

    Ahead are seven things you can do to keep the seasonal malaise at bay.

    Get excited to start a new chapter

    The most effective way to beat the end-of-summer blues is to find meaning and excitement in whatever you’re transitioning to next. “If the excitement isn’t already in there, I work with clients to find a way to add it,” she says. This approach is rooted in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which focuses on creating a sense of meaning in a person’s life by helping them identify and live by their values—like family, creativity, and adventure. “These are things we hold closely to our hearts, and they vary from person to person,” she says. “Doing things that are important to us improves mood, motivation, and persistence.”

    Read More: 9 Weird Symptoms Cardiologists Say You Should Never Ignore

    People can foster this mentality by starting a new hobby or making time for whatever they discovered they loved during the summer—like getting a bi-weekly massage or playing chess in the park (though as temperatures drop, you may have to seek out ways to continue certain activities indoors). An easy way to implement this strategy is simply to start planning. “If you went somewhere amazing this summer, planning your next trip can be a rewarding activity in itself,” Kahn says. Merely thinking about the future  “can be incredibly helpful” in making you feel excited and energized.”

    Chase natural light

    Exposure to natural light, especially in the morning, can help lower the production of the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin and raise the production of mood-brightening serotonin. Poffenroth says this change in the balance of hormones can make you feel better, make you more alert, and improve your overall health. “Sunlight is also the body’s main source of vitamin D, which has been linked to controlling mood and preventing depressive symptoms,” she adds.

    For these reasons, Poffenroth urges people to actively seek out natural light. “This can make the change to fall easier and may even lessen the effects of the end-of-summer blues,” she says.

    Read More: Cuddling Might Help You Get Better Sleep

    A little goes a long way: Just walking for a few minutes around your block or neighborhood in the morning helps. Poffenroth says the ideal time to be in direct sunlight is between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., as your body can create enough vitamin D during these hours with less chance of damaging your skin. (For those with darker skin, experts advise daily sun exposure of 25 to 40 minutes; for those with lighter skin, expert advise aiming for 10 to 15 minutes daily.)

    “Light therapy lamps can be revolutionary for those who find it difficult to get outside because of mobility problems or strict job schedules,” adds Poffenroth, who advises using a 10,000-lux light box seated about 12 to 24 inches away from it for about 20 to 30 minutes each morning. Another option is rearranging your workspace if you work from home so that your desk is near a window. Maximizing your exposure to natural light during your working hours can make a significant difference even if you cannot get outside as often as you’d like, notes Poffenroth.

    Address your anxiety

    Anxiety tends to set in when we realize there’s a “new beginning” on the horizon, says Kahn, whose therapy schedule typically fills up when the school year begins.

    It’s helpful to break up tasks and to create a manageable schedule for yourself. You can also remind yourself that many decisions are not permanent. “For example, if a teen signs up for a class and senses it may be too challenging for them in the first week, they may still transfer to a different class,” says Kahn. A lot of times, our brain tells us a situation is set in stone, but when we are able to take a step back, it’s easier to see that that isn’t necessarily true, she says.

    Embrace the power of play

    One of the best ways to fight the end-of-summer blues is to use the power of play to boost dopamine production in the brain, Poffenroth says. Playing, which takes many different forms for adults, uses the brain’s reward system to fight off bad feelings and improve mood. Dopamine, the “feel-good” neurotransmitter, is very important for motivation, pleasure, and positive reinforcement. “Dopamine levels can naturally rise when we do fun things, which can make us feel better and give us a more positive outlook on life,” she adds.

    Read More: The Best Way to Treat Insomnia

    How do you become more playful as an adult? It doesn’t always mean doing things like a child. “The key is to find ways to make boring tasks more fun and interesting, which will activate the brain’s reward center,” says Poffenroth. Do this by attending creative workshops, like woodworking or pottery, to induce a flow state, or try outdoor adventure activities like kayaking or hiking. The element of difficulty in these pursuits can inspire success and confidence, Poffenroth says.

    “Remember, what constitutes ‘play’ can vary greatly from person to person,” says Poffenroth. “The most effective approach is to experiment with different activities and pay attention to which ones bring you the most joy and satisfaction.”

    Set new goals

    There’s nothing like back-to-school season for refocusing on a personally meaningful objective.  

    “Setting new, challenging goals is a great way to get over the end-of-summer blues because it shifts your attention and energy to good things that will happen in the future,” says Poffenroth. To Poffenroth says to pick goals that are both hard to reach and practical. “Goals that are too easy might not challenge you enough, while goals that are too hard might make you give up,” she says. The best goals should push you just a bit out of your comfort zone to foster personal growth.

    Say goodbye to “sunshine guilt”

    “Sunshine guilt,” another trending phrase on social media, refers to feelings of regret and self-blame over things you wish you had done during warm weather months. People tend to be more aware of time passing as summer ends, social scientists say. “This kind of awareness is often sparked by changes in the environment, like shorter days, changing leaves, and changes in temperature,” says Poffenroth. “These outside signals turn on the temporal processing systems in our brains, which makes us more aware of how quickly time goes by.” (There’s even a psychological name for this very real effect: temporal discounting.) As summer ends, we may feel rushed to make the most of our remaining time, which can make us feel anxious and guilty if we think we haven’t fully taken advantage of the season, says Poffenroth.

    Read More: Is Bed Rotting Bad for You?

    The problem with “shoulds” (i.e., “I should be traveling in the summer” or “I should take a walk on this beautiful day”) is that they don’t necessarily drive you to do those things and are only related to self-blame, Kahn says. This negative script does nothing for you but create a deeper sense of sadness and helplessness. Instead, ask yourself if you actually want or wanted to do that thing—and if so, create a realistic, specific plan to do it. Being active, self-compassionate, and future-oriented is more helpful than mulling over what you “should” have done, says Kahn.

    Relinquish control

    You can’t be in charge of everything that unfolds in your life. This is where acceptance comes in, says Kahn, because if we try to micromanage every detail of our lives, “we’ll drive ourselves nuts.”

    Instead of fighting reality, acknowledge that a transition is coming, and changes to your life and routine will naturally follow. “Take a back seat, notice whatever emotions and thoughts you’re having, and just treat those experiences with compassion and acceptance,” says Kahn. Mindfulness practices like breathwork, meditation, and yoga can all be helpful in fostering a sense of peace as you encounter whatever life throws at you. If these disciplines aren’t for you, connecting with a friend (whether on the phone, via email, or in-person) or going for a walk can similarly help you reset your perspective.

    “It’s okay to feel anxious. It’s okay to feel sad,” says Kahn. “Even these emotions are a meaningful part of life—and without them, we wouldn’t have happiness or excitement.”

    [ad_2]

    Perri Ormont Blumberg

    Source link

  • Should You Work Out If Your Muscles Are Sore?

    Should You Work Out If Your Muscles Are Sore?

    [ad_1]

    A hard workout can come back to haunt you. When you wake up the next morning and try to get out of bed, everyday motions like rolling over and standing up can make your muscles whine in pain. You might have wanted to exercise again, but now you’re wondering: Can I still work out if I’m this sore?

    Well, it depends. 

    “Soreness isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” says exercise physiologist Alyssa Olenick. Some degree of soreness is normal when you train hard or challenge your muscles in new ways. It’s a natural effect known as delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), in which discomfort typically peaks within 48 hours post-exercise, then usually goes away within 72 hours. It happens because putting different or higher demands than usual on our muscles can lead to tissue breakdown, which triggers an inflammatory response. (Don’t worry—that breakdown isn’t bad; the repair process that follows is actually how our muscles grow stronger.) 

    “Your body basically brings a ton of immune cells to that muscle tissue, because it wants to go in and clean up that muscle breakdown,” Olenick explains. “And the soreness that you feel is actually just the swelling and all those cells coming in to clean up that breakdown, putting pressure on your nerves in your muscles.”

    Read More: Cuddling Might Help You Get Better Sleep

    The key thing to pay attention to is just how sore you feel. If the pain is up to about a “three” on a scale of one to 10, that’s perfectly fine to push through, according to Rick Richey, faculty instructor for the National Academy of Sports Medicine. You might just need to adjust your workout based on your soreness level, Olenick adds, lifting lighter weights or running a little easier, for instance.

    However, if your soreness is more than just a mild ache, take it as a sign to back off. “Your body is smart: It’s telling you that you’re sore so you don’t do it again,” Richey says. 

    In this instance, it’s best to give your body time to recover—even if your fitness tracker says it’s time to push hard. Some trackers are equipped with a “recovery” or “readiness” score based on your heart rate variability, which picks up on total systemic stress in your body. (A reduced variation between heart beats is a signal that your nervous system is in more of a fight-or-flight mode.) “Your heart rate response doesn’t necessarily know that your muscles hurt,” Olenick says. 

    If you do try to push through extreme soreness, that could mess with the recovery process, undercutting the work you put in. “The recovery from the workout is [when] the protein synthesis actually takes place and you start to build muscle and build strength,” Richey adds. “If you cut the recovery too short, then you’re not going to get the benefits you want.”

    Read More: 7 Metrics Everyone Should Know About Their Own Health

    What’s more, working out on super-sore muscles simply isn’t very beneficial. “If you’re very sore, that impacts the strength of your muscles,” says Carol Ewing Garber, professor of movement science and education at Columbia University Teachers College. Sore muscles are not able to produce as much force and will usually fatigue more quickly. So even if you wanted to do 20 push-ups, you might not be able to get through them all or go as deep as usual. Richey adds that intense soreness can throw off your form, so you might not get the intended benefit of the exercises you’re doing—and could even end up injuring yourself.      

    There’s also a rare but serious condition called rhabdomyolysis—often shortened to “rhabdo”—that can happen. “It occurs when somebody really overdoes it and causes very significant damage to the muscle,” Garber says. Rapid muscle breakdown can lead to kidney damage that, in extreme cases, can be life-threatening.

    Read More: Should I Use a Foam Roller?

    So what should you do when you’re so sore you can hardly move? Listen to what your body is craving, and take a rest day. That doesn’t necessarily mean you need to be stationary, though. It can actually be helpful to do a little light movement like walking, low-intensity cycling, or a gentle yoga flow. Although it might hurt initially to get up off the sofa and start, you’ll likely feel a little better by the time you sit back down. “Getting blood flow to those tissues can help the body do that cellular cleanup it’s trying to do,” Olenick says. Massage might also be useful for the same reason, Garber adds. 

    If you’re really itching for another hard workout, you can focus on muscles that don’t hurt—for instance, do a leg day if your arms are aching. “If you’re sore in one muscle, it’s localized,” Richey says. “You’ve got a whole different portion of your body that you can start looking at exercising.”

    Yet even if you’re following a dedicated workout program or training for something big like a triathlon, taking a day or two off won’t ruin all your hard work. Remember, recovery is where the magic happens. “Some muscle soreness is a good thing in the long-term because then as the muscle repairs, it becomes stronger and becomes more resistant to soreness occurring in the future,” Garber says. So give your body the time it needs to heal. “It’s good to be a little patient.”

    [ad_2]

    Jennifer Heimlich

    Source link

  • Simple Monitors Can Prevent Air Pollution-Related Illness

    Simple Monitors Can Prevent Air Pollution-Related Illness

    [ad_1]

    Air pollution is the world’s second-largest cause of death globally, leading to 8.1 million premature deaths annually from lung cancer, heart disease, and emphysema, among other diseases. Regular forest fires are a reminder for many in the U.S. that our air quality can be precarious, but in much of the world’s cities, foul air has been a fact of life for decades.

    Tracking air quality is a critical step toward preventing air pollution related illnesses, yet monitoring is nowhere near granular enough. Levels of pollution can vary dramatically within just a few miles. In the U.S, there is only one monitor in the Environmental Protection Agency’s network for every 750 square miles. In India, it’s one monitor per 3,000 square miles.

    Inaccurate air quality information can lead to wasted time and money if people stay home from school or work because they think clean air is actually dirty, or worse, result in poorer health for people who venture out into dirty air thinking it’s clean.

    What the world needs is the equivalent of Waze or Google Maps for air quality instead of traffic, a network of millions of personal devices collecting pollution data in real time and shared with everyone who wants it.

    Unfortunately, your phone doesn’t yet have the capability to monitor air quality, but there are many devices on the market that do. These monitors are easy to use, and once installed, upload air quality data to online networks accessible to anyone with an internet browser (users can opt out of sharing data but most don’t). For monitor owners, and those in the know about the network, they provide real time data about local air pollution. While they’re not as precise as monitors used by the EPA, for most practical questions—is the air clean enough to go for a run today? can I send my kid to soccer practice?—they’re just fine.

    An air monitor in every school

    While these monitors are widespread, they’re not in every neighborhood that needs them. That’s why we propose installing one at each of the 64,311 elementary schools in the U.S., ensuring every community has access to immediate information about local air quality. 

    We conducted research into the adoption of these monitors, focusing on one that has the widest network across the U.S. PurpleAir, a Utah-based company, sells reliable air monitors for between $229 and $299. Tens of thousands of U.S. households have installed their monitors, and they’re in every state and most countries. (We have no financial interest in PurpleAir and they have not participated in our research.)

    While these PurpleAir monitors cover the nation, they don’t do so evenly. As our research into monitor distribution in California demonstrates, they are clustered in affluent and predominantly white neighborhoods. In the Bay Area, for example, the concentration of devices is far denser in affluent Palo Alto, with six outdoor monitors in a neighborhood of roughly 4,000 people, compared to no monitors at all in a comparably sized neighborhood in poorer Oakland.

    Read More: Less than 1% of Earth has Safe Levels of Air Pollution

    The uneven distribution of the monitors shouldn’t be surprising. These monitors are a new technology, and more likely to be adopted by the tech savvy with disposable incomes. But the uneven distribution makes the network less reliable, and creates pockets where less information about air quality is generated and uploaded, predominantly in Black and Latino neighborhoods most vulnerable to illnesses created by air pollution.

    That’s why we propose installing them in every American elementary school.

    While not perfectly distributed around the country, there is an elementary school in virtually every neighborhood in the U.S. And significantly, where there are elementary schools there are children, the cohort most affected by air pollution.

    A monitor at every elementary school would mean everyone can access accurate air quality information regardless of where they live, or how tech savvy their neighbors happen to be.

    With a minimal amount of messaging, monitors located at schools will also create awareness within the school community about air quality more generally, and help encourage parents, teachers, and staff to log on. School-based monitors can also serve a teaching purpose, engaging students in practical lessons about the environment and their community.

    The lesson of AEDs

    While the monitors aren’t without cost, it’s pretty minimal in the context of a school budget.
    But monitors could also be provided by the EPA, and both the American Rescue Plan and Inflation Reduction Act contain funding for air quality monitoring. These devices will likely pay for themselves by facilitating behavioral changes that reduce healthcare expenditure, improve student performance, and increase labor productivity.

    There is a template for schools adopting monitors. Automated external defibrillators (AEDs) are electronic devices that can stimulate the heart during cardiac events. A vigorous public awareness campaign has advocated for the installation of AEDs in every school, and now about half of all U.S. states have laws requiring their presence in schools.

    AEDs save lives, and so can accurate information about air pollution. It’s time we asked our schools to install monitors.

    [ad_2]

    Joshua Graff Zivin, Benjamin Krebs and Matthew J. Neidell

    Source link

  • How to Prevent and Treat Hemorrhoids, According to Doctors

    How to Prevent and Treat Hemorrhoids, According to Doctors

    [ad_1]

    Hemorrhoids aren’t exactly dinner-party conversation, but you or someone you know has likely dealt with them. In fact, there’s a good chance they’re sitting beside you at that proverbial dinner table: it’s estimated that roughly 50% of all people will have hemorrhoids by age 50.

    Despite their ubiquity, there are lots of misconceptions about treating hemorrhoids. And since many people feel self-conscious about seeing a doctor for hemorrhoids, they don’t always get the help they need.

    Several treatment options and lifestyle practices can make troublesome hemorrhoids go away. Here’s what colorectal surgeons want you to know.

    Technically, everyone has hemorrhoids. “Hemorrhoids in and of themselves are actually part of normal anatomy, so [they’re] nothing to be embarrassed about. We’re born with hemorrhoidal tissue,” says Dr. Titi Adegboyega, chief of colorectal surgery at South Shore University Hospital in Long Island, N.Y. “When people say they ‘have hemorrhoids,’ what they’re really saying is, ‘This thing that is normal is now acting abnormally or bothering me.’”

    Sometimes called “piles,” they’re cushions of veins in the anal canal that help with fecal continence. Hemorrhoids are typically caused by straining from constipation or anything that increases intra-abdominal pressure leading to straining, such as pregnancy and childbirth, says Dr. David Greenwald, director of clinical gastroenterology and endoscopy at Mount Sinai Hospital.

    Hemorrhoids may cause symptoms when they become swollen or dilated. They can either be internal (inside the anal canal) or external. “External hemorrhoids often feel like a bump, whereas internal hemorrhoids cannot be seen unless they prolapse outside the anal opening,” he says. Common symptoms of hemorrhoids include itching, bleeding, and rectal pain.

    Read More: The Best Way to Treat Insomnia

    Internal hemorrhoids can be uncomfortable but aren’t typically very painful. “External hemorrhoids, on the other hand—they’re a pain in the butt,” says Adegboyega. “You feel them, they’re itchy, they irritate.” For small external hemorrhoids, those symptoms don’t tend to last past a few days. However, when people have a thrombosed external hemorrhoid—which is when a blood clot forms—severe pain can last for three to five days, with symptoms gradually subsiding over three weeks, says Adegboyega.

    If you’re having intense, around-the-clock pain (especially after bowel movements), the more likely culprit is an anal fissure, which refers to tears in the lining of your anus. “It’s a cut, and just like when you have a wound, there is a pain associated with that wound all the time,” says Adegboyega. 

    An anal abscess, which is typically caused by a local infection, is another potential diagnosis for anorectal discomfort and may be accompanied by symptoms like fever or chills.

    That’s why seeing a colorectal surgeon is essential if you’re having these kinds of issues. Reviewing your history can help point doctors toward the most likely diagnosis.

    Hemorrhoids often improve on their own. Plus, “there are a variety of management options that are not related to surgery or any procedures that can relieve your hemorrhoid symptoms,” Adegboyega says.

    Here is what docs recommend you do if you have hemorrhoids.

    Soften your stool

    Constipation is one of the main causes. “Hemorrhoids are blood vessels, and they’re very fragile,” says Dr. Albert Chung, a colorectal surgeon in private practice in Orange County, Calif., and founder of the YouTube channel “Your Friendly Proctologist.”

    When these blood vessels swell up, symptoms may ensue. That’s why Chung’s first line of attack is to implement a lifestyle routine to ensure soft stools 90-95% of the time. “It’s impossible to have 100%, because life is just like that,” he says. But Chung says you can promote mostly soft stools that are easy to pass by focusing on getting enough fiber, water, and exercise.

    Read More: Are Dates Actually That Good for You?

    Greenwald also endorses lifestyle remedies to address constipation: Aim for at least 25 grams of fiber per day, ensure adequate fluid intake (typically defined as 64 ounces or more of fluid each day), and engage in regular exercise of 30 minutes or more daily. Unfortunately, Greenwald says, doctors regularly see patients rely on over-the-counter medications for symptomatic relief of hemorrhoids without addressing the root cause of the problem, which is often straining and constipation. Just making these lifestyle changes can be “effective at preventing hemorrhoids” in the first place.

    Some people may also benefit from adding a stool softener, fiber supplement, or both to their routine. Here are a few popular options:

    • Docusate sodium (Colace) is a helpful stool softener if constipation is provoking your hemorrhoids, says Adegboyega.
    • Psyllium husk fiber (which you can buy in unflavored powder form or under brand names like Metamucil), works as a sponge, helping to pull water into your GI tract and move things along, Adegboyega explains. When you take psyllium husk you need to increase your water intake, she says; not doing so could make stools even bulkier.
    • Polyethylene glycol (MiraLAX), an osmotic laxative, and senna, a stimulant laxative, are other medications doctors may recommend. 

    Talk to your doctor about which of these—if any—is the best option for you.

    Getting your stool softer can happen in a variety of ways, says Adegboyega, but don’t overlook the simplest: “Some people just need to drink more water,” she says.

    Use a pooping stool

    Though we take bowel movements for granted, having one is a complex process that requires coordination of multiple body parts and processes, explains Chung. “Pelvic musculature needs to completely relax, which involves the pelvic floor lowering into the toilet bowl and the internal anal sphincter opening up,” so stool comes out uninhibited, he says. 

    In this modern era, Adegboyega says, people are spending time on their phones while sitting on the toilet for a lengthy duration, which isn’t good for hemorrhoids. While toilet-reading is an age-old habit, limit your time on the toilet bowl to a few minutes. “You can also use a step stool to help to position you in a more squatting position, which alleviates the need to strain as much,” adds Adegboyega. If you don’t want to buy a stool designed for use during bowel movements like the Squatty Potty or Tushy Ottoman, you can try a footstool or even a yoga block or two.

    Read More: 6 Health Myths About Oils

    Following bowel movements, doctors also recommend “sitz baths” for people struggling with hemorrhoids. These are over-toilet vessels that you fill with warm water to sit in after a bowel movement to help soothe your anal region. Or you can just take a warm bath for 10–15 minutes. “This generally helps to relax the area and helps with the swelling,” says Adegboyega. Some people also find it helpful to put an ice pack on the area, which can have a numbing effect.

    Try an over-the-counter medication

    If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. “Potions” sometimes advertised on the internet to cure hemorrhoids should be avoided, says Greenwald.

    Stick to creams and suppositories doctors trust, like Preparation H, “which can really offer a good amount of relief,” says Adegboyega, and temporarily shrink hemorrhoidal tissue. Lidocaine, a numbing agent, is another good option, she says, because its direct goal is to help the pain and itchiness. Witch hazel pads also help relieve symptoms.

    When you see a physician for hemorrhoids, they most frequently prescribe hydrocortisone, a steroid medication to help with inflammation, says Adegboyega. You can buy it over the counter in 1% strength, but “most of the time when we’re giving it as a prescription, it’s 2.5%,” in either a cream form or suppository version.

    See a doctor

    If your hemorrhoid symptoms haven’t resolved themselves in two to four weeks with at-home remedies, Chung says it’s time to see a doctor.

    Adegboyega similarly points to the need to see a health care provider if your hemorrhoids are persistent: either your primary care physician, a gastroenterologist, or a colorectal surgeon. (Lots of women also confide in their ob-gyn.) That’s because telling a doctor you have anal pain doesn’t confirm any diagnosis without a comprehensive exam, which will include a review of your patient history and onset of symptoms, as well as a digital examination.

    “It’s important for that area to be evaluated to make sure that what we’re calling ‘hemorrhoids’ are indeed hemorrhoids that are causing those symptoms,” says Adegboyega. Follow-up tests such as a flexible sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy may also be recommended to rule out more serious gastrointestinal conditions, polyps, or colorectal cancers.

    Read More: What to Expect at a Colonoscopy

    Chung estimates that 90% of his patients come to him with hemorrhoids, and of the 14 million views on his YouTube channel, among his most popular videos are hemorrhoid-related ones such as “external hemorrhoid treatment” and “how to build a routine and avoid surgery.”

    In advance of your appointment, do your homework. Research, go on Reddit, visit online forums to get more information, advises Chung. “People think that Dr. Google is horrible. In my opinion, Dr. Google is helpful, because it gives you more questions to ask the doctor when you finally see them.”

    Surgical interventions and other treatment approaches

    The treatment approaches discussed above—from dietary tweaks to ointments—are often effective quickly, generally within five to seven days, says Greenwald. However, some hemorrhoids will not respond to topical anti-inflammatory suppositories and creams and may need additional therapy including the application of thermal therapies, a rubber-band ligation technique which removes blood flow to internal hemorrhoids, and even surgery (hemorrhoidectomy), he says.

    Some doctors prefer only to intervene surgically as a last resort. “Hemorrhoids are rarely life-threatening and never turn into cancer,” says Chung. As long as you aren’t losing so much blood that you’re severely anemic, or you don’t have painful prolapsed hemorrhoids, Chung prefers to avoid surgery on his patients. “The big thing is the coaching. I coach them with soft pooping so they can be successful,” without more invasive procedures, he says.

    As Chung bluntly puts it, “bleeding from your arm bothers no one, but if it comes from your butthole, people are already jumping to the phone, jumping to the internet to find a solution.”

    For many people, that’s because they’re worried about colorectal cancer, a disease that has been rising among young people. But doctors stress that considering the context—such as your age, family history of colon cancer,, and when you’ve had your most recent colonoscopy—is key. “Rectal bleeding is one of the most common signs of colorectal cancer, but it is the most common sign, too, of hemorrhoidal symptoms,” says Adegboyega. This is why seeking medical attention matters, since it’s hard to tease out what is causing the bleeding episode without evaluating the bigger picture.

    Of course, it’s natural to feel worried when you see blood in your stool. “Most of the time, that bleeding is not going to be from something more sinister like a cancer; it’s usually going to be from hemorrhoids,” says Adegboyega. When you have hemorrhoidal bleeding, the blood will be bright red, since hemorrhoids are at the end of the anal canal. “The bleeding in and of itself is just a very small fraction of the puzzle.” 

    When in doubt, err on the side of caution and book that appointment. “It is important for people not to be embarrassed about seeking help for anal and rectal problems,” says Greenwald. “As I always say, don’t die of embarrassment.”

    [ad_2]

    Perri Ormont Blumberg

    Source link

  • It’s Time to Start Taking Mpox and Bird Flu Seriously

    It’s Time to Start Taking Mpox and Bird Flu Seriously

    [ad_1]

    It’s been a bad month for public health.

    On August 14, the World Health Organization declared mpox as an international health emergency, given the “unprecedented” spread of a new, more deadly variant. In the United States, bird flu, formally known as H5N1, has spread to 10 agricultural workers in Colorado, an alarming development since only three other cases have been reported this year.

    Mpox and bird flu are distinct infectious diseases; however, they have been united by assumptions that containment is easily achievable and thus a complacent public health response. Indeed, almost 100,000 people got infected with mpox after the 2022 outbreak, and while the disease shrinked away from public view, mpox continued to spread and evolve into deadlier variants. Similarly, while bird flu first jumped into mammals around the same time in 2022, the response in the U.S. was anemic with little consistent messaging or concrete action.

    This is part of a larger inertia around infectious diseases—one we believe is driven by two key factors.

    First, public health leaders have grown overly cautious after the COVID-19 pandemic, seeing how bold efforts to contain the pandemic were met with anti-science aggression, populist outrage, relentless lawsuits, and at least 30 states limiting public health powers. The impending U.S. elections have added to the polarization and disinformation. As such, instead of proactive action, we are seeing trepidation.

    Second, there is a sense that another pandemic cannot happen so soon after COVID-19—that these infectious diseases will inevitably burn themselves out like before. This is a “gambler’s fallacy,” and because of it, the U.S. may be underestimating the risks posed by mpox and bird flu, allowing two potential pandemics to brew on the global stage.

    This has manifested in several failures for both diseases. For instance, the U.S. saw 1800 mpox cases between October 2023 and April 2024, while the more dangerous Clade 1b variant, which combines efficient sexual transmission with high mortality, started to spread in Africa. However, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stopped updating their mpox outbreak case count in January, downplaying this added threat since case counts were not yet increasing. The CDC restarted the public reporting in May, suggesting its discontinuation may have been overly expedient and optimistic.

    Our mpox global health response mirrors such underestimation and delayed action. On August 7, the U.S. announced that it was donating 50,000 vaccines to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, almost a year after Clade 1b was first reported there. For reference, Africa CDC estimates it needs 10 million doses to control the current outbreak on the continent. In 2022, the U.S. failed to tackle mpox while it was confined to Africa, dragging its feet until the disease was spreading uncontrollably at home; we are seeing history repeat itself in 2024.

    Read More: Health Experts are Watching a More Dangerous Version of Mpox

    For bird flu, the mortality rate can be as high as 52%, given WHO case data. But as the New York Times noted, “Only recently has the [CDC] begun to mobilize real funding for a testing push, after a period of months in which various federal groups batted around responsibility and ultimate authority like a hot potato.” In the U.S., ignorance is bliss, with our public health leaders rolling the dice that this too shall pass.

    So, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) detected bird flu in cattle four months after it happened, or that the agency has not required routine testing of cattle (unless they cross state lines) nor vaccination of farmworkers. While decisions to leave these programs voluntary are multifactorial, they are likely influenced by political reticence after COVID-19 and recent Supreme Court rulings striking down vaccination requirements.

    To be clear, the pandemic risk of mpox or bird flu is currently low. The transmission dynamics of mpox, requiring very close contact, make it more difficult to spread than SARS-CoV-2. Similarly, cases of bird flu have thus far been mild and limited in number. However, these are not absolute truths, but day-by-day assessments, which require real preparedness—measured in testing, ongoing surveillance, and forward planning.

    We have no easy answers for overcoming public health paralysis. But at minimum, the U.S. needs better public health communication that not only emphasizes transparency but also holds our leaders accountable. Bringing this COVID-19-era lesson to mpox and bird flu is one way to give Americans a new, positive memory of public health, fostering early, decisive action and realistic risk assessments.

    With two rapidly evolving outbreaks, we cannot afford trepidation and false optimism. And, even as we work to make the U.S. safer, we cannot forget our global obligations to share vaccines, medicines, and resources. Global crises require global solidarity and collective action.

    [ad_2]

    Simar Bajaj and Dr. Robert Glatter

    Source link

  • Cuddling Might Help You Get Better Sleep

    Cuddling Might Help You Get Better Sleep

    [ad_1]

    You swear you sleep better when you drift off in your partner’s arms, while your sweetheart says spooning is more stress than it’s worth. The heat. The accidental kicks. That you’re-smothering-me feeling. So who’s right? Does cuddling help or harm your sleep?

    There is not a lot of scientific research on the subject. But the data that do exist come out in support of snuggles. “The perception is that it is a form of bonding, and there’s actually good empirical support for the idea that cuddling could be good for sleep,”  says Wendy Troxel, a senior behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation and author of Sharing the Covers: Every Couple’s Guide to Better Sleep.

    Here’s how cuddling might help you get better sleep.

    It may make you calmer

    Research has shown that forms of body-to-body contact like hugging can be stress-relieving, and the same applies to bedtime snuggling. “It can produce a feeling of calm and even have physiological effects, including lowering blood pressure and essentially lowering that ‘fight or flight’ or sympathetic nervous-system response,” says Troxel.

    She says that such a calming response before bedtime—“particularly with somebody with whom you have a good quality relationship”—can promote feelings of safety, security, and relaxation, which could be beneficial for sleep.

    Dr. Simran Malhotra, an internal medicine and lifestyle medicine physician in Bethesda, Md., says that for married couples, snuggling has been shown to boost relationship satisfaction more than just spending time together does. “It also enhances sleep quality by promoting feelings of safety and security, especially for women,” she adds.

    The oxytocin effect

    Another reason that snuggling may be a boon for sleep relates to what scientists know about oxytocin, sometimes aptly called the “cuddle hormone” or “love hormone.”

    Research shows that snuggling increases feelings of comfort, relaxation, and intimacy, while boosting positive emotions. All of these benefit sleep quality and overall well-being. These feelings come from oxytocin, which is released through various forms of touch, says Malhotra, and is known to reduce anxiety, depression, and stress by lowering cortisol levels, which can have a negative impact on sleep quality. 

    Different types of touch that don’t just involve sex—cuddling, hugging, or even holding hands—can generate this hormone and an “anti-stress response” along with it, says Troxel.

    Snuggling can enhance your sleep routine

    “Routines in general are good for sleep,” says Troxel—and that includes the five or 10 minutes you spend spooning each night. Historically, sleep has always been a communal behavior, so a tilt toward solo sleep is only relatively recent. Historian A. Roger Ekirch wrote in his book At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past that nighttime was “man’s first necessary evil” and caused a lot of fear, particularly in pre-industrial societies before artificial light was invented. Ekrich posited that sharing a bed offered a sense of security and physical warmth that was critical to ward off real and imagined threats at night. Even now, sleep remains a vulnerable state, Troxel says, and we as humans tend to derive a sense of security via our connections with others. “That’s why it is important to take a close look at how our nighttime routines have changed—in many cases, they are absent all together, and often they are solitary instead of social,” says Troxel. Saying no to snuggling is a missed opportunity for social connection in an increasingly socially isolated world.

    Everyone is aware that using technology before bed is detrimental for sleep, but one little-known reason why is that it’s a solitary activity, says Troxel. In the distant past, the options for pre-sleep activities were limited and often social in nature, such as gathering around the fire. Now, smartphones and tablets rule the night.

    “There is even a term for this called ‘technoference,’ which refers to the increasingly common phenomenon where the use of technological devices interferes with face-to-face (or skin-to-skin) interactions, including cuddling,” she says.

    Read More: 6 Health Myths About Oils

    Having some physical contact and an opportunity to enhance your relational bond prior to sleep, by contrast, “can be very beneficial to cue the brain, ‘OK, now it’s time for settling and unwinding,’” says Troxel.

    Take the example of Saša Malek, a technical documentation specialist based in Munich. She wears an Oura Ring, a smart ring that tracks fitness and sleep. “I realized what really helps me before bed is certain types of body closeness, like cuddling—emotional embodied closeness between me and my partner,” says Malek. When she cuddles, she falls asleep more quickly and gets more REM sleep. “It’s really about allowing your body to relax.”

    “When I’m not having sufficient REM sleep, I have trouble. I’m cranky, and my psychology doesn’t adapt well,” she says, so when she figured out this pattern with her Oura data, she started to prioritize cuddling.

    Pets can be good snuggle partners, too. The fitness-tracker brand WHOOP found in 2022 that sharing a bed with their dog or cat helped people feel more rested and recovered the next day, and helped them sleep a few extra minutes. Despite these potential perks of tucking in with a four-legged friend, research is mixed on whether cuddling with pets in your bed helps or hurts sleep quality; more is needed.

    When is the best time to snuggle?

    Studies suggest that many couples cuddle before bedtime, and then when it’s time for sleep, they go their separate ways, says Troxel.

    Dr. Dylan Petkus, founder of Optimal Circadian Health in Tallahassee, Fla., says that some research shows that touching, hugging, massaging, and being intimate with a partner during sleep onset generally has a positive impact on sleep quality. But cuddling can also negatively affect sleep if it goes on for too long, he points out.

    That same study indicates that there’s a specific threshold of nighttime physical contact for people which can deteriorate sleep quality. “This was highly individual,” says Petkus. “Everybody has a certain snuggle requirement that can improve sleep. If you go over that, it can lead to sleep disruptions.” 

    Whether cuddling negatively or positively impacts your sleep depends on the person and also how sleep is measured. “Many people may feel like they sleep better after cuddling, but that doesn’t necessarily manifest in objective measures of sleep,” says Troxel. What’s soothing and enjoyable for one person can be a sleep disruptor for someone else—particularly for those with a history of trauma.

    Read More: The 1 Heart-Health Habit You Should Start When You’re Young

    Being too close can cause discomfort, overheating, or limited movement, which can wake someone up when they are trying to sleep, says Shelby Harris, director of sleep health at Sleepopolis, an independent sleep and mattress review website. Plus, if one partner moves a lot, it can disturb the other, leading to poor sleep. Those sensitive to temperature or movement may have an especially tough time with falling asleep snuggling, she says.

    “It’s not going to be a one-size-fits-all approach,” echoes Troxel.

    Cheryl Groskopf, a therapist in Los Angeles, says that cuddling comes up a lot in couples’ sessions, and she often coaches clients through such a wide spectrum of cuddling preference differences. “One partner sees not cuddling as rejection, while the other finds it suffocating,” she says. What’s important in this scenario is to explore each person’s needs and come up with a compromise.

    For one couple that Groskopf counseled, this meant implementing a set snuggle time before sleep, then transitioning to separate sleeping positions. She also says using separate comforters or sheets can help regulate temperature, making sleep and even snuggling more comfortable for everyone. “The goal is to find a balance that makes both partners feel valued and comfortable without compromising intimacy,” she says.

    What’s the best snuggling position? 

    A lack of research means it’s hard to single out an ideal position prescription for snuggling. But Harris and Malhotra both mention “spooning” as the most common choice. (This position involves one person lying on their side, and the other person curling up behind them on their side as well). “It allows for close contact while still giving room to move and breathe,” says Harris. 

    If spooning isn’t for you, you can still get the health and relationship benefits through various forms of touch like hugs, hand-holding, gentle stroking and massage, says Malhotra. It’s true from birth: “During the newborn period, skin-to-skin contact, a form of snuggling, has been shown to significantly improve infants’ sleep quality,” she says.

    Since the limited research doesn’t help to provide any guidelines on how to snuggle to reap the most benefits, experts agree you should do what feels best for you and your partner. That could be, say, cuddling in the nook of your spouse’s shoulder or squeezing hands for a few seconds to feel some closeness.

    Perhaps most relevant for couples in this modern age is how solitary we’re making the experience of sharing a bed when it doesn’t have to be, and wasn’t for our ancestors, says Troxel. “It’s a sacrifice that couples are inadvertently making, and they’re not even realizing it,” she says. If we ignore that chance to connect “by independently scrolling through our phones or iPads or watching Netflix, we’re really neglecting that very rare opportunity which could be a sacred ritual,” she says.

    [ad_2]

    Perri Ormont Blumberg

    Source link

  • 6 Health Myths About Oils

    6 Health Myths About Oils

    [ad_1]

    Online health influencers have plenty to say lately about oils. We should cook with certain oils, banish others from our pantries, swish them around our mouths for flawless gumlines, and lather our bodies and hair with them for everlasting beauty. About the only purposes not suggested for oils are finding lost socks and doing our taxes.

    The focus on oils isn’t exactly new; they’ve been praised and debated for eons. The difference today is that scientific research can help separate fact from fiction. But studies are often misunderstood or rejected in favor of personal anecdotes that may be unreliable.

    Here are the biggest oil myths going around the internet, according to scientists.

    Myth #1: It’s bad to cook with olive oil 

    The unrefined version of olive oil—extra virgin, or EVOO—provides significant health benefits, especially in preventing heart disease. However, some online gurus say cooking with EVOO is problematic because of its low smoke point, meaning that, when heated, it may start smoking sooner than other oils. The smoke is viewed as a signal of chemicals developing in food that may eventually cause cancer and heart disease. 

    But scientific research doesn’t support this “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” theory. In fact, cooking with EVOO can make both the oil and the food it’s covering healthier, compared to the same food eaten raw, according to recent research. 

    Smoke “doesn’t correlate very well with the actual breakdown of the oil,” says Selina Wang, associate professor of food science and technology at University of California, Davis. EVOO is packed with phenols, compounds that support health partly by reducing inflammation. Phenols also protect the oil from deteriorating—regardless of whether it’s smoking. Unlike other oils, “EVOO has the ability to protect itself,” Wang says.

    Read More: Why Your Diet Needs More Fermented Pickles

    Oils produce the most smoke during high-temperature cooking processes like frying, which aren’t healthy to begin with. “Smoke point is irrelevant because we shouldn’t cook at those temperatures,” says Mary Flynn, associate professor of medicine at Brown University who studies olive oil.

    Wang advises cooking food like vegetables in EVOO at lower temperatures, below 400°F, for just long enough to heat up the veggies—and for their health-giving properties to seep into the oil’s healthy fat. (On a stovetop, this advice may translate to medium heat, though stoves vary in their cooking strengths.) Once transferred to the oil, the beneficial components, such as vitamins and substances called antioxidants that protect the cells from unstable molecules, are absorbed better by our bodies. Antioxidants called carotenoids, for example, help protect against cancer. 

    The synergy goes the other way, too: the healthy olive oil components “get sucked into the vegetables,” Flynn says. “In the U.S., we don’t consume our vegetables with fat.” That’s a mistake, because when it comes to getting these micronutrients, “if you’re not cooking vegetables with fat, they’re not getting into your body.”  

    Reducing cooking times with EVOO will also ensure a high level of phenols. If cooked longer, their levels decline. Diets rich in phenols are linked to lower risk of heart disease, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases.

    Myth #2: More expensive oil is healthier

    The prices of cooking oils are sometimes inflated to suggest they’re superior to their shelf neighbors. In reality, the cost of EVOO reveals little about its quality. Often, bottles between $45 and $90 are “no better” than more reasonably-priced brands. 

    Instead of cost, judge EVOO by whether the bottle was produced in California. Large producers in California must pass the state’s tests requiring purity and authenticity. Olive oil is often fraudulent and mixed with other cheaper oils. 

    Freshness matters, too. Look for bottles with “harvest dates” showing they’re relatively new to shelves. After opening a bottle, try to use it within four to six weeks. Secure the cap tightly between uses. “Oxygen will destroy the health components,” explains Flynn, who is also an independent science advisor to the Olive Wellness Institute.

    Read More: 5 Dermatologists on the 1 Thing You Should Do Every Day

    Most important may be an old-fashioned taste test. “One of the best tools we can give consumers is to know the flavor of good olive oil,” Wang says. A teaspoon of EVOO should taste slightly bitter at first, she says, followed by a pungent, spicy tingle at the back of your throat—a sign of its phenols—perhaps causing a couple of coughs.

    Myth #3: Non-olive oils are unhealthy 

    Seed oils such as canola are the scourge of several online influencers, who cite studies on the harms of consuming these oils. But such studies are often misinterpreted. Scientists think seed and vegetable oils can be healthy, with some important caveats.

    Unlike EVOO, most oils are refined, meaning they’re heat-treated. This process strips some of their healthful properties—reducing their phenols, for example. However, refined oils like canola are still high in monounsaturated fats—though not as high as EVOO—that buoy heart health. 

    “I don’t want to stigmatize other oils,” Wang says, because they’re generally more affordable than EVOO. She has friends who understand EVOO’s benefits but buy less expensive seed and vegetable oils to save money.

    Read More: Do You Really Need a Water Filter?

    These oils are healthy enough for home cooking, but the problem is what happens in restaurant kitchens, Wang says. Trying to keep their costs low, many restaurants cook with cheap oils like canola and reuse the same oil puddle. Over several hours, the fats in these recycled oils become oxidized, producing harmful compounds that can lead to serious health issues for those who dine out often. The same concern applies to many cooked items in the prepared food sections of supermarkets.

    Like technology, Wang says, it’s not seed or vegetable oils themselves that are bad, but how they’re made and used.

    In theory, avocado oil is another healthy option, but the vast majority of brands are rancid or mixed with less healthy oils, Wang has found. 

    Coconut oil, on the other hand, is inherently unhealthy, says Qi Sun, an associate professor of nutrition at Harvard, despite influencers touting the benefits of consuming it, such as curing back pain and boosting energy and cognition. Scant research supports these claims, and coconut oil is high in unhealthy saturated fats; one tablespoon-sized serving has about 90% of the daily allowance recommended by the American Heart Association. Because it raises fats in the blood linked to heart disease—LDL cholesterol and triglycerides—“you can conclude it wouldn’t provide any cardiovascular benefits,” Sun says. “It’s not too different from butter or lard.”

    By comparison, the same amount of olive oil has 15% of daily recommended saturated fat. Even this lower saturated fat content is potentially harmful, so limit EVOO to 2-4 tablespoons per day, Wang says. 

    Myth #4: Oil pulling beats brushing and flossing

    Another coconut oil myth is that swishing it around the mouth is better for oral health than standard dental practices. Advocates of “oil pulling” claim that the lauric acid in coconut oil helps fight harmful bacteria and plaque that would otherwise build up in the mouth. But credible research hasn’t suggested benefits, whereas brushing and flossing are backed by far more evidence.

    “Has oil pulling ever reversed periodontitis or gingivitis? The answer is no,” says Mark Wolff, professor of restorative dentistry at the University of Pennsylvania. 

    Not that oil pulling will necessarily hurt you. “There’s no real reason it would cause harm,” Wolff says, unless it’s substituted for the gold-standard approaches to oral health. “If you want to oil pull, it’s okay, but still brush and floss,” and use doctor-prescribed antibiotics, not oils, to treat oral infections, says Matthew Messina, assistant professor of dentistry at Ohio State University.

    Read More: Reading This Will Make You Want to Floss

    The swishing action of oil pulling may remove debris from between teeth, which could help with preventing dental problems. But flossing, oral irrigation devices like water flossers, and common mouthwashes with specific antimicrobial ingredients are research-supported options for dislodging these food particles. Sesame and sunflower oils are sometimes recommended for oil pulling, based on Ayurvedic medicine practices. However, like coconut oil, they’re lacking in evidence.

    Myth #5: Coconut oil transforms hair

    Several oils, including coconut oil, contain fatty acid ingredients that hydrate the hair, softening and smoothing it. But claims about the wonders of suffusing hair with coconut oil are exaggerated. These oils may cause more harm than benefit, depending on the person.

    Coconut oil could help some who regularly color their hair, heat it, or use potentially harmful products, says Dr. Joshua Zeichner, associate professor of dermatology at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City. “You want to make sure you’re hydrating the hair shaft, strengthening and protecting it, especially when caring for chemically treated hair,” he says. Coconut oil could serve this purpose by forming a protective barrier. Zeichner compares it to spackling your walls. “It’s kind of filling in the cracks.” 

    But use it in moderation, says Dr. Michele Green, a New York City dermatologist—not every night. 

    For dandruff relief, coconut oil is a “double-edged sword,” Zeichner says. “If it creates a greasy environment, it encourages yeast to grow,” worsening dandruff in some cases, he explains.

    Don’t reach for EVOO as an alternative, Green says. “There’s no evidence that olive oil improves hair health.” Rosemary oil is a hot trend currently for hair growth, she adds; people massage it into the scalp twice daily, in the morning and evening, leaving it in their hair overnight. “There’s a small research literature showing it could work,” although it can irritate the scalp if it’s not mixed with another oil, like argan or coconut, Green adds.

    Myth #6: Oils cure acne

    Applying oil to the skin, like the hair, may benefit some people while causing trouble for others.

    The lauric acid in coconut oil has antimicrobial properties, “so it’s thought to decrease levels of acne-causing bacteria and even yeast on the skin,” Zeichner says. However, coconut oil is comedogenic, meaning it can clog the pores and increase acne. Also comedogenic are olive, marula, flaxseed, and carrot seed oils. “I would stick with refined, non-comedogenic moisturizers proven not to block the pores,” Zeichner says. “The perception is that natural is better, but that’s not always the case.”

    Read More: What To Do If Your High Cholesterol Is Genetic

    Green sees value in natural oils for overall skin health for some patients, but they should be used in moderation and combined with moisturizers. “The additional moisture is retained by the barrier the oils offer,” she says.

    EVOO, in particular, may enhance the skin’s natural moisture barrier, due to its healthy fat, antioxidants, and vitamins A, D, K, and E, according to Green. Jojoba, argan, and almond oils could be beneficial, too. Almond oil is a common allergen, though. Test it on one spot to check for irritation, Green suggests.

    “Some data from lab studies support the use of individual natural oils on the hair and skin,” Zeichner says. “But we’re lacking studies on the real-world use of products.”

    [ad_2]

    Matt Fuchs

    Source link

  • The 1 Heart-Health Habit You Should Start When You’re Young

    The 1 Heart-Health Habit You Should Start When You’re Young

    [ad_1]

    In your 20s and 30s, heart disease can seem like a far-off concern. It’s more common among people 75 or older than in any other age group.

    But there’s good reason to think about your heart health decades earlier: “While young adults often associate heart disease with people in their parents’ and grandparents’ ages, it’s never too early to start prevention,” says Dr. Nieca Goldberg, a cardiologist, author, and clinical associate professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. “In fact, 80% of heart disease is preventable.”

    If there’s just one thing you do for your heart when you’re young, it should be increasing your physical activity, experts agree. “Exercise is the foundation of heart-disease prevention, and combining aerobic exercise with resistance training has been shown to have the greatest impact on preventing and managing heart disease,” Goldberg says. That’s because physical activity taxes your heart and lungs, helping them to adapt to the stress and grow stronger over time.

    Getting regular exercise is also a step in the American Heart Association’s (AHA) Life’s Essential 8, a list of eight crucial health behaviors for maintaining optimal cardiovascular health. Aside from staying active, the list also includes eating a nutritious diet; managing your blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar; maintaining a healthy weight; quitting tobacco; and getting plenty of sleep.

    Starting with physical activity will likely trickle down to these other arenas, says Dr. Keith Churchwell, president of the AHA. “If you stay active, it probably will help your sleep, it’ll probably help you in terms of thinking about your diet appropriately. It’ll help in terms of reducing your blood pressure, controlling your lipid status, your weight…and hopefully keep you away from other issues, like tobacco use.”

    How to get (even just a little) more exercise

    You don’t have to suddenly become a runner or join a gym if that’s not your style. You can focus on simply moving more throughout the day to start, Churchwell says. Take an extra stroll with your dog, meet a friend for a walk instead of a drink, finally give pickleball a try, or sign up for a dance class. Even just 20 more minutes of activity a day is a great benchmark to aim for, he says.

    It’s important not to go too hard, too fast. “The idea here is you want to establish lifestyle changes that are truly going to last you a lifetime,” says Dr. Nishant Shah, a preventive cardiologist and assistant professor at Duke University School of Medicine and the Duke Cardiometabolic Prevention Clinic. “Whatever you decide to do now, don’t do it with the intention of stopping it six months later.”

    Read More: How to Get Your Partner to Stop Snoring

    Establishing a lifelong fitness plan means identifying forms of exercise you actually like; it’s fine if CrossFit isn’t your thing. “Spend time to find activities that you enjoy so it doesn’t feel like a chore,” Goldberg says.

    Gradually build up to at least 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous cardio activity, plus two strength-training sessions a week. That’s the general AHA recommendation for overall health and wellbeing. 

    You can modify and tailor your exercise program to your specific needs, abilities, interests, and fitness level, Goldberg says. If you’re not sure how to get started, speak with your doctor or a certified fitness professional who can guide you. “Start small and build from there: Consistency is key, so it’s important to ensure your routine is manageable based on your current lifestyle and commitments,” she says.

    It can get harder to start a physical activity routine as you get older, so it may be easier to maintain for your entire life if you make it a habit in your 20s or 30s. “When you maintain a habit of exercising at an earlier age, it’s just normal for you,” Shah says.

    Read More: How to Be More Spontaneous As a Busy Adult

    Finding the time can be tough, though, he admits. Try blocking off 30 to 60 minutes of your day for exercise just like you would for any other commitment or meeting, and then stick to it, he says.

    If you already exercise, keep building up your cardiovascular fitness and strength. There are even greater benefits of getting 300 (or more) minutes a week of physical activity.

    Shah offers one caveat to the exercise-first mentality: If you use tobacco, the most important heart-health habit for you, no matter your age, is to stop. While only about 5 to 12% of Americans in their 20s and 30s smoke now, according to a 2023 report in JAMA Health Forum, it’s still the most important habit to quit for your heart and overall health, he says, even before picking up an exercise routine. Smoking is linked to about one-third of heart disease-related deaths.

    And whether or not you’re ready to make some heart-healthy changes, talk with your relatives about any heart-health concerns in your family tree—especially your first-degree relatives. “Oftentimes when I see patients in this age range, they are unaware of any conditions that run in the family,” says Dr. Maxim Olivier, a cardiologist at Orlando Health Heart and Vascular Institute. “A good family history is very important to determine if they are at an increased risk for premature coronary artery disease, heart disease, or even sudden cardiac death. Though the ramifications may seem far off, there are patients who can present with heart disease as early as 20s to 30s, and even younger, which is often a reflection of their genetic predisposition and/or lifestyle.” 

    [ad_2]

    Sarah Klein

    Source link

  • Ukraine’s Energy Sector Faces Its Biggest Crisis Yet

    Ukraine’s Energy Sector Faces Its Biggest Crisis Yet

    [ad_1]

    As part of its hybrid war strategy, Russia has been targeting Ukrainian grain silos, schools, hospitals, power plants, and more for two and a half years. Given the Kremlin’s failure to overrun Ukraine militarily, it has increasingly turned instead to making the country uninhabitable. This strategy isn’t new. But 2024 has seen wave after wave of basic infrastructure hit with previously unknown accuracy and ferocity. The biggest target is now the country’s power sector, and specifically, its ability to generate electricity.

    Between 2022 and 2024, Russia targeted approximately 50% of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, including forcing the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power plant offline with repeated strikes, and the bombing of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Dam. Transmission lines and electrical substations were also often hit. But Ukrainian engineering and power line teams had proved extremely diligent, fast, and adept at repairing them. Difficulty in procuring replacement autotransformers sometimes extended blackouts, but Ukraine bounced back relatively quickly and survived both winter 2022-2023 and 2023-2024. This time is different. 

    Some 60% of Ukraine’s power generation has been knocked out, as Russian precision bombs, drone strikes, and rocket attacks increasingly home in on power plants and energy infrastructure. The country is now suffering the worst rolling blackouts since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

    Ukraine’s ability to regenerate and rebuild has now been overwhelmed, at least for the immediate future. Over 9 gigawatts of power generation alone has been taken out just since March. More hydroelectric plants have been destroyed, including the Dnipro station, the largest that was still working. Solar power facilities, too. Every single one of the thermal—coal and natural gas burning—plants has been hit, and of the original 13 no more than two are still operational. DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private power company, has lost 90% of its generation capacity. The current national power deficit is approximately 35%.

    Four months of brutal strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure have done so much damage that even in Kyiv there are only 10 hours of electricity per day—and just four for some other cities. It will take years to rebuild. Come winter, this situation will get much worse. DTEK executives estimate that winter blackouts could reach 20 hours per day. And several of the power plants that have been destroyed were combined electricity and heating facilities, so it will not only be dark but also very cold in the middle of Ukraine’s famously harsh winters. People will almost certainly die from cold, or lack of access to care.

    There are numerous proposals and ideas about how to help Ukraine survive this winter. Ukrenergo, the national electricity grid company, is working in both the public and private sectors to get new generation and storage capacity online, with a strong priority of developing distributed power instead of centralized facilities. Ukraine is already importing electricity from Poland and other neighboring countries, but imports cannot make up enough of the difference and are expensive. Rebuilding thermal power plants makes little sense in the long run, both because of Ukraine’s climate change commitments and because gas and coal have become scarcer under Russian sanctions, so renewables are the focus in the near future and nuclear power in the long term. Immediately, private generators are humming all over the country, for those who can afford the units and the diesel to keep them running.

    While these possible solutions are gradually taking shape, Ukraine exists in a partial darkness and state of dysfunction that is gradually undermining its stamina. People’s ability to work, to bank, to get medical treatment, to use their phones or internet, and so on, has been hammered by the lack of power. Schools cannot operate normally. Nor can businesses. This in turn means less money for individuals, and also less tax revenues with which to pay for the government and the war effort. And many may finally make the difficult decision to leave their country because life, already no walk in the park, has become even more difficult.

    But this bleakness does not mean Ukraine’s supporters should count it out. Nor should they stop supporting Kyiv, even as global attention has shifted to Israel’s expanding war and the U.S. presidential election. Friendly countries are still looking for much-needed power grid replacement parts to ship to Ukraine. Each shipment of new military support, now including F-16 fighter jets, helps Ukraine survive. Giving Ukraine air defense systems or allowing Kyiv to take offensive measures against Russia could mean a more decisive defense posture. At the very least, the West should help Ukraine win enough of its country back to strengthen its negotiating position against Russia should real peace talks ever take place.

    While Ukraine waits for more help to arrive, perhaps its most important defense against Russia is that its people somehow remain optimistic. Despite the brutality of war, and facing the looming doom of winter with major electricity shortages, only 44% of citizens want to negotiate with Russia. As many as 88% believe Ukraine will still win the war and 80% consider the country’s future to be promising. Their optimism should not make Ukraine’s backers complacent. As many Ukrainians are quick to explain, they are a resilient people. They have to be.

    [ad_2]

    Suriya Jayanti

    Source link

  • How to Get Your Partner to Stop Snoring

    How to Get Your Partner to Stop Snoring

    [ad_1]

    We’ve all been there: You’re snug in bed, moments away from drifting off, only to be jolted back into a state of annoyed wakefulness by a loud, persistent sound coming from the other side of the bed.

    Snoring is a pervasive problem, with around 40% of men and 30% of women sawing logs at least some nights of the week, according to the Sleep Health Foundation. And while it can be linked to a variety of health risks in those who are affected, snoring also takes a toll on bed partners who struggle to get some shuteye in the midst of a cacophony of snorts and rumbles.

    When chronic snorers seek a doctor’s help, it is usually at the urging of their partner, says Dr. Megan Durr, associate professor in the department of otolaryngology, head and neck surgery at the University of California, San Francisco. “I see so many patients that are ending up in different bedrooms than their partners, which is impacting their relationship and just their quality of life,” Durr says.

    The good news is that she and other experts say that people can take a number of steps to help reduce or even eliminate snoring from their—and their partners’—nighttime routine, ranging from lifestyle changes to surgical interventions in more extreme cases.

    More From TIME

    Watch the scale, hold the wine

    When we sleep, the muscles at the back of the throat relax. Some people, such as those who are older or overweight, are more likely to have tissue that relaxes too much, or to have excess tissue in their throat, which can cause their airway to narrow too much during sleep. When the person breathes, the loosened throat muscles and smaller airway lead to vibrations that cause the unmistakable snoring sound. While it can be harmless, snoring can also be a sign of a more serious condition called sleep apnea, which is why many physicians urge people to visit a sleep medicine specialist if they’re worried about snoring. 

    While it can happen to anyone, snoring is more common as people age. If people are carrying extra weight or have consumed alcohol, the effects of snoring tend to get worse, says Dr. Michael Howell, division director of sleep medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School.

    Read More: Is Bed Rotting Bad for You?

    People who are overweight or obese can experience more compression on their airway due to the extra pounds they are carrying, which is why it can cause snoring or make an existing problem worse. Losing weight is one of the first interventions physicians turn to when a patient seeks help with snoring because it can be highly effective at getting the problem under control, Howell says. “Even five or 10 pounds can make a difference,” he says.

    Cutting out alcohol is also another potential solution. Alcohol can make the muscles at the back of the throat even more relaxed, so it “tends to worsen sleep apnea and snoring,” says Dr. Virginia Skiba, a sleep medicine physician at Henry Ford Health in Detroit.

    Change your sleep position

    If your partner snores, a simple yet effective solution could be finding a way to help them sleep on their front or their side. Back sleeping, especially if a person is lying flat, is known to worsen the effects of snoring, Skiba says, so some people find success with foam wedges or similar products to prevent rolling onto their backs. Being proposed up with pillows can also help, she says.

    While there are sleep vests and other similar products on the market designed to keep people from rolling onto their backs during sleep, Durr has developed a DIY solution for her patients. She advises them to find or buy a T-shirt with a front pocket and place a tennis ball inside, securing it with a safety pin. The person who snores puts the T-shirt on backwards when they go to sleep, and it automatically keeps them from rolling onto their back during sleep.

    “The ball kind of pokes you into your back, and then it will shift you to your side,” she says. “So it’s not waking your bed partner up, hopefully.”

    Read More: How Much Do You Actually Need to Shower?

    Durr says there are other things people can try before they go the more drastic route of sleeping in a separate room from their noisy partner, such as using a white noise machine or wearing ear plugs.

    “But a lot of this ends up being on the snorer,” she says. “They end up bearing the brunt of trying to fix this for their bed partner.”

    CPAP and surgery

    In some cases, snoring is a sign of a more serious condition called sleep apnea, which occurs when people momentarily stop breathing when they are asleep. This can lead to fatigue, irritability, and grogginess the next day and, over time, increase a person’s risk of cardiovascular disease and other health problems.

    For a person to figure out if they have sleep apnea, they must undergo a sleep study, during which they are monitored overnight to identify changes in breathing, heart rate, oxygen levels and other health measures. Sleep studies are typically done in a clinic, but can be performed at home. Howell says a diagnosis isn’t necessary for a person to start using a CPAP machine or other therapies, but it is important for doctors and patients to know if snoring is caused by sleep apnea.“Sleep apnea is hugely underdiagnosed,” he says.

    Read More: How Often Do You Really Need to Wash Your Sheets?

    There are several available treatments for sleep apnea. One of the first treatments doctors will often recommend is an orthodontic device called a mandibular advancement device that can help prop open a person’s airway when they are sleeping, according to Howell.

    A continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine is another tried-and-true sleep apnea aid that essentially cures snoring by ensuring a person’s airway is fully open, says Durr. But it can be a lot for some people and their partners to adjust to, and many people simply find it too difficult to tolerate, she says. CPAP machines are notoriously noisy, which can be disruptive to those wearing it as well as their bed partners, and many people find the mask too uncomfortable or wake up with a very dry mouth.

    Although it is fairly rare, some patients with severe snoring problems who have had little success with lifestyle changes or other treatments may require surgery to deal with their snoring, such as a minor procedure to remove some of the elongated tissue from the back of their throat, Durr says. But she says in most instances, it doesn’t take such extreme measures for people to enjoy a relatively quiet night in bed.

    “The vast majority of people will get the snoring volume to a level that’s acceptable to them and their bed partner by doing some of the lifestyle things,” she says.

    [ad_2]

    Carly Weeks

    Source link