ALL ABOUT HEALTH -

20Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

Post-Menopausal Women Should Not Take Hormone Therapy to Prevent Chronic Conditions

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In new draft guidelines, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends against the use of combined estrogen and progestin for the primary prevention of chronic conditions in post-menopausal persons, including those who have had a hysterectomy.The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is “an independent, volunteer panel of national experts in disease prevention and evidence-based medicine,” per its website.The current draft is consistent with the most recent USPSTF statement, from 2017, which recommended against the use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for primary prevention of chronic conditions. Nothing has changed, says Stephanie S. Faubion, MD, an internal medicine doctor at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and the medical director of the North American Menopause Society, and not a member of the task force.“Currently, hormone therapy is recommended only for…

19Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

Is This the End of Roe v. Wade? What Would a SCOTUS Decision Mean for Reproductive Health?

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The U.S. Supreme Court will vote to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that guaranteed abortion rights half a century ago, according to a draft opinion obtained by Politico.While the draft opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, isn’t final and could still change, it is an unequivocal rejection of the premise that there is a federal constitutional right to abortion, the tenet at the heart of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which was reaffirmed by the court in the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision.The Supreme Court confirmed that the leaked draft is “authentic.”“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito writes in the draft.“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Alito writes. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”The Supreme Court was expected to officially…

19Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

Lessons From the Pandemic: A Discussion With Sanjay Gupta, MD

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What has the COVID-19 pandemic era taught us? What lessons still need to be learned?Sanjay Gupta, MD, a neurosurgeon and CNN's chief medical correspondent, recently addressed these and other issues in a fireside chat with the president of Publicis Health Media, Andrea Palmer, at the PHM HealthFront event in New York City. Everyday Health, which was among the event’s sponsors, was there; the following is an edited transcript of the interview with Dr. Gupta.Andrea Palmer: What’s the most important lesson of the pandemic?Sanjay Gupta: Perhaps one of the most important lessons to come out of this whole thing is the idea that bad information could be more damaging and can travel faster than the virus itself. That is something that we need to be really mindful of. You have to…

19Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

Women With Chest Pain Wait Longer for Emergency Care Than Men

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Every second counts when you’re having a heart attack. But a new study suggests women with chest pain — one common heart attack symptom — wait about 11 minutes longer to get seen in the emergency room than men.Women of color fared even worse, waiting about 15 minutes longer than white women for initial evaluations, according to the new study, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.“Chest pain is the most common symptom of heart attack in adults of all ages,” says lead study author Darcy Banco, MD, chief resident for safety and quality in the department of medicine at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City.“Despite a decline in the number of overall heart attacks, this number is rising among young adults,” Dr. Banco…

19Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

What a Psychiatrist Says Naomi Judd’s Death Can Teach Us About Depression and Suicide Risk

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The Grammy-winning country music star Naomi Judd, who was part of the mother-daughter duo The Judds, died by suicide at age 76, according to reports.Her daughters, Ashley and Wynonna, released a statement to the Associated Press on Saturday, April 30. “Today we sisters experienced a tragedy,” the statement read. “We lost our beautiful mother to the disease of mental illness. We are shattered. We are navigating profound grief and know that as we loved her, she was loved by her public. We are in unknown territory.”Naomi’s representative, Adkins Publicity, also issued a statement on behalf of Naomi’s family to Today. “Her husband, Larry Strickland, of 32 years will not be making any further statements,” the statement read. “Naomi Judd’s family request privacy during this heartbreaking time. No additional information will…

19Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

Scientists Find 7 Hours’ Sleep Is Best for Middle-Aged Brains

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Whether our minds stay sharp as we age may depend on how much rest we get, a new study suggests.For the study, published April 28 in Nature Aging, scientists examined data on almost 500,000 adults ranging in age from 38 to 73 who were part of the UK Biobank, an ongoing government-funded research project. All the participants were asked about their sleep habits and mental health and well-being, and they also completed a series of cognitive tests to assess brain function. A subset of about 40,000 people also had brain scans and lab tests to collect genetic information.People who got about seven hours of sleep each night had better cognitive outcomes than other participants, the analysis found. Longer or shorter periods of sleep each night were associated with a reduced…

19Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

Cannabis for Arthritis: Why Don’t We Know More by Now?

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It’s currently legal in 37 states and the District of Columbia. People are increasingly knowledgeable about its options, such as edibles and indica versus sativa (two of its strains). And those with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and other rheumatic diseases are eager to try it.Yet what is scientifically known about the medical use of cannabis products for rheumatic conditions can fit on a pinhead.That’s the essential conclusion of a review article on the state of cannabis research for rheumatic diseases. The article was published online April 29, 2022, in Current Rheumatology Reports.It’s Not Shocking That There Isn’t More Known About Cannabis “I was disappointed but not surprised” by the low level of research, says W. Benjamin Nowell, PhD, the director of patient-centered research at the online arthritis community CreakyJoints and a lead author…

19Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

FDA Approves Camzyos for the Treatment of Obstructive Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy

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On April 28, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved mavacampten (Camzyos), available in 2.5 milligram (mg), 5 mg, 10 mg, and 15 mg capsules, for the treatment of adults with symptomatic New York Heart Association (NYHA) class 2-3 obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HOCM) to improve functional capacity and symptoms.“We’re very excited for our patients about this addition to the toolbox for management of obstructive HCM. It won’t be for everyone — nothing ever is — but it is a very welcome tool,” says Sara Saberi, MD, a cardiologist and assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan Health Frankel Cardiovascular Center in Ann Arbor.Dr. Saberi was a coauthor on the EXPLORER-HCM study published in The Lancet, which was used as the basis for the drug’s approval. Manufactured…

19Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

Lili Reinhart Called Out Other Celebs for ‘Starving’ Themselves — Why Body Image Experts Are Applauding Her

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Lili Reinhart, an actor known for her role as Betty Cooper on TV's Riverdale, took to her Instagram stories on May 3 to call out celebrities for behavior that sends a toxic message about how bodies should look."To walk on a red carpet and do an interview where you say how starving you are … because you haven't eaten carbs in the last month … all to fit in a f***ing dress?" Reinhart wrote in an Instagram Story, People reported earlier this week. (The original Instagram Story with Reinhart’s post was live for only 24 hours.) "So wrong. So f***ed on 100s of levels," Reinhart wrote.She didn’t mention Kim Kardashian by name, but there’s strong speculation that Reinhart’s comments were in response to Kardashian’s Met Gala appearance. Kardashian donned the same…

18Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

Guns Leading Cause of Death For Children and Teens

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In 2020, guns caused more deaths than car accidents among U.S. children and teens for the first time in the last 40 years, according to a paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine.Researchers used data recently released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to quantify the leading causes of death nationwide for individuals ages 1 to 19 and found that firearm-related deaths among children and adolescents increased by 29 percent from 2019 to 2020.Although firearm deaths in people of all ages in the United States is on the rise, the rate among children and adolescents was more than twice as high as the relative increase in the general population, according to the authors."The increasing rates of firearm mortality are a longer-term trend and demonstrate that…