ALL ABOUT HEALTH -

05Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

Does the Navy SEAL Power Nap Really Leave You Feeling Rested in 8 Minutes?

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If you feel drained throughout the day, this trending sleep hack may be worth a shot.Former Navy SEAL Jocko Willink talked about his napping technique on The Peter Attia Drive podcast back in 2019. He lays down with his feet elevated (so they’re above his heart) and sets an alarm for eight minutes (sometimes 10 or 12). And when he wakes up, he says during the episode: “I feel like Superman. I feel like I just slept for eight hours.”TikToker Nick Vitello (566,400 followers) shared a TikTok video of himself trying the sleep hack on April 28, and the video now has more than 33.3 million views. “Take the best nap of your life,” Vitello says in the video. “It works.”Others are trying out the nap trick, too. TikToker Billy Howell…

05Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

More Time at Home Meant More Kids Died of Gun Violence During the Early Pandemic

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Child deaths due to gun violence increased during the pandemic by more than one death every day, compared with previous years, according to new research. From the start of the pandemic until the end of 2021, there were more than 700 additional child deaths from gun violence than typically would have occurred.“That number is on par with the number of childhood deaths from COVID-19 itself,” says Anupam B. Jena, MD, PhD, who works as professor of healthcare policy at Harvard Medical School and is one of the study authors.The psychological strain of the pandemic on families, combined with school closures, meant adolescents were spending more time at home, where guns are more likely to be present. “This is just one more feather in the argument that the pandemic has had…

05Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

Ashton Kutcher Says He Has Vasculitis — Here’s What You Need to Know About This Autoimmune Disorder

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Ashton Kutcher says he’s “lucky to be alive” after battling vasculitis, a serious autoimmune disease that impaired his hearing, vision, and walking ability.“Like two years ago, I had this weird, super rare form of vasculitis," Kutcher revealed in a preview of an upcoming episode of National Geographic's Running Wild with Bear Grylls: The Challenge, according to Access Hollywood.“Knocked out my vision, knocked out my hearing, knocked out like all my equilibrium,” Kutcher said during the episode. “It took me like a year to like build it all back up.”“You don’t really appreciate it, until it’s gone,” Kutcher added. “Until you go, ‘I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to see again, I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to hear again, I don’t know…

05Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

New Vaccination Guidance Released for People With Rheumatic Diseases

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Get ready to roll up your sleeve and get jabbed. People with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), lupus, and other rheumatic diseases may find that they are eligible for more vaccinations now that the guidance has been updated.Earlier this month, the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) released a summary of new vaccination recommendations for people with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMD). The new guidelines do not address COVID-19 vaccination, which was the focus of the last ACR update, in 2021. Instead, the new guidelines are focused on risk reduction for flu, pneumonia, and other potentially serious diseases.What’s New About ACR’s 2022 Vaccine Guidance There are expanded indications for some vaccines, tweaks about vaccination timing around other treatments and other vaccines, and more recommendations for live or adjuvanted vaccines.Adjuvanted means that an extra ingredient…

05Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

Black and Latino Seniors Commonly Experience Healthcare Discrimination, Report Says

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According to a new report from the Commonwealth Fund, Black and Latino seniors report commonly experiencing racial discrimination and bias in the U.S. healthcare system. The findings highlight the dual challenges of racism and ageism these individuals face in getting the medical attention they need.For this investigation, which was conducted over several months in 2021 by the public opinion research firm PerryUndem with support from the Commonwealth Fund, interviewers posed questions to focus groups of Black and Hispanic adults ages 65 and older. In order to get a range of perspectives, the focus groups included individuals from various income brackets and with a range of health statuses.Focus group participants discussed experiencing discrimination and bias that they perceived as due to their income level, gender, race, language, age, and insurance status.Some…

04Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

Climate Change Is Making the Majority of Infectious Diseases Worse

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More than half of known pathogenic diseases, including hepatitis, pneumonia, dengue, malaria, and Zika, can be exacerbated by climate change, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.Their findings, published on August 8 in Nature Climate Change, reviewed more than 77,000 scientific papers in relation to 10 different climatic events to learn more about how greenhouse gas levels impact currently known infections and diseases.“Given the extensive and pervasive consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was truly scary to discover the massive health vulnerability resulting as a consequence of greenhouse gas emissions,” said lead author Camilo Mora, PhD, professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, in a release. “There are just too many diseases, and pathways of transmission, for us to think that we…

04Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

FDA Approves Myfembree for Endometriosis Pain in Premenopausal Women

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Endometriosis causes symptoms such as painful menstrual periods and chronic pelvic pain, but many women with the condition don’t get relief from the commonly prescribed medicines, including ibuprofen and hormonal contraceptives. Now, they have a new option for managing endometriosis pain: Myfembree, a once-daily pill.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Myfembree to manage moderate to severe pain associated with endometriosis in premenopausal women, the drugmakers Myovant Sciences and Pfizer announced in an August 5 statement.“Endometriosis is a painful, chronic disease with limited therapies to manage symptoms,” Juan Camilo Arjona Ferreira, MD, chief medical officer of Myovant Sciences, said in the statement.Up to 1 in 10 U.S. women ages 25 to 40 have endometriosis, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. The condition causes the tissue that grows on the uterine…

04Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

Discrimination Raised the Risk of Depression for Latino and Asian Americans in the Early Days of COVID-19

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Regularly experiencing discrimination increases the risk of depression and having suicidal thoughts, according to a new study published in JAMA Psychiatry. Health data and survey results from more than 60,000 people in the United States revealed an association between discrimination and depression, especially among Black, Latino, and Asian Americans, during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.It’s well established that the drastic changes wrought by the pandemic, such as physical distancing and isolation, dealt a blow to our collective mental health. During this same time period, hate crimes and racist rhetoric against Asians spiked, and the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor inspired a mass social movement for racial justice. It was a time when the pandemic and the salience of racism converged.That convergence had a pronounced effect on…

04Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

As BA.5 Spreads, Is Now the Time for a Second COVID-19 Booster Shot?

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The new and highly transmissible BA.5 subvariant of omicron has become the dominant strain of the coronavirus in the United States, accounting for just over 80 percent of all new cases as of July 26, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).The mutation is driving a recent surge in COVID-19 cases. Tracking by The New York Times on July 25 shows the average number of infections in the United States rose by an average of 10 percent over the previous two weeks, while hospitalizations climbed by 12 percent and new deaths jumped by 34 percent.A study published June 17 in the journal Nature found that BA.5 and its sister subvariant, BA.4, not only exhibit higher transmissibility than previous omicron versions, but are also better able to evade protections from…

04Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

French Agency Confirms Much-Beloved Charcuterie Linked to Colon Cancer

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It could be the coup de grâce for charcuterie — or at least time to cut back, according to French authorities, who have confirmed that processed meats can increase the risk of colorectal cancer.The French Agency for Food, Environmental, and Occupational Health and Safety (ANSES) issued a statement advising consumers to limit their intake of foods containing nitrates and nitrites like the processed meats popular in hors d’oeuvres and on sandwiches. It’s well established that eating foods containing nitrates can lead to higher risk for colorectal cancer if consumed in excess.“The higher the exposure to these compounds, the greater the risk of colorectal cancer in the population,” the statement reports. ANSES recommends eating no more than 150 grams of processed meat per week — the equivalent of about five slices…