Tag Archives: Health Studies

Aging, Health, Medicine, Obesity, Old Age, Studies

Health Studies: 80% Of Married Couples Share Heart Disease Risks, Poor Health Lifestyles (JAMA)

October 27, 2020 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

In this cross-sectional study of 5364 couples consisting of employees and spouses (or domestic partners) undergoing an annual employer-sponsored health assessment, 79% of the couples were in the nonideal category of a CV health score. This within-couple concordance of nonideal CV health scores was associated mostly with unhealthy diet and inadequate physical activity.

The study included 10 728 participants (5364 couples): 7% were African American, 11% Hispanic, 21% Asian, and 54% White (median [interquartile range] age, 50 [41-57] years for men and 47 [39-55] for women). For most couples, both members were in the ideal category or both were in a nonideal category.

Concordance ranged from 53% (95% CI, 52%-54%) for cholesterol to 95% (95% CI, 94%-95%) for diet. For the CV health score, in 79% (95% CI, 78%-80%) of couples both members were in a nonideal category, which was associated mainly with unhealthy diet (94% [95% CI, 93%-94%] of couples) and inadequate exercise (53% [95% CI, 52%-55%] of couples). However, in most couples, both members were in the ideal category for smoking status (60% [95% CI, 59%-61%] of couples) and glucose (56% [95% CI, 55%-58%]).

Except for total cholesterol, when 1 member of a couple was in the ideal category, the other member was likely also to be in the ideal category: the adjusted odds ratios for also being in the ideal category ranged from 1.3 (95% CI, 1.1-1.5; P ≤ .001) for blood pressure to 10.6 (95% CI, 7.4-15.3; P ≤ .001) for diet. Concordance differed by ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and geographic location.

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Health, Medicine, Studies

Studies: Osteoarthritis Patients Using Exercise Therapy Have Less Pain, Cut Opioid & Analgesic Use

September 22, 2020 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Conclusion Among patients with knee or hip OA using analgesics, more than half either discontinued analgesic use or shifted to lower risk analgesics following an 8-week structured exercise therapy and patient education programme (GLA:D). These data encourage randomised controlled trial evaluation of whether supervised exercise therapy, combined with patient education, can reduce analgesic use, including opioids, among patients with knee and hip OA pain.

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Diet, Health, Medicine, Studies

Covid-19 Studies: 77% Of Hospitalized Patients Are Overweight Or Obese

September 10, 2020 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

But on its own, “BMI [body mass index] remains a strong independent risk factor” for severe COVID-19, according to several studies that adjusted for age, sex, social class, diabetes, and heart conditions, says Naveed Sattar, an expert in cardiometabolic disease at the University of Glasgow. “And it seems to be a linear line, straight up.”

For starters, the blood of people with obesity has an increased tendency to clot—an especially grave risk during an infection that, when severe, independently peppers the small vessels of the lungs with clots
Immunity also weakens in people with obesity, in part because fat cells infiltrate the organs where immune cells are produced and stored, such as the spleen, bone marrow, and thymus, says Catherine Andersen, a nutritional scientist at Fairfield University. “We are losing immune tissue in exchange for adipose tissue, making the immune system less effective in either protecting the body from pathogens or responding to a vaccine,” she says.

The impact extends to the 32% of people in the United States who are overweight. The largest descriptive study yet of hospitalized U.S. COVID-19 patients, posted as a preprint last month by Genentech researchers, found that 77% of nearly 17,000 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 were overweight (29%) or obese (48%). (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines overweight as having a BMI of 25 to 29.9 kilograms per square meter, and obesity as a BMI of 30 or greater.)

Health, Sleep, Sleep Health, Studies

Studies: “Insomnia / Short Sleep Duration” Is A Type 2 Diabetes “Risk Factor”

September 10, 2020 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Diabetologia (Sept 8, 2020) – Insomnia with objective short sleep duration has been associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes in observational studies [27, 28]. The present MR study found strong and suggestive evidence of a causal association of insomnia and short sleep duration, respectively, with increased risk of type 2 diabetes.

Conclusions/interpretation

The present study verified several previously reported risk factors and identified novel potential risk factors for type 2 diabetes. Prevention strategies for type 2 diabetes should be considered from multiple perspectives on obesity, mental health, sleep quality, education level, birthweight and smoking.

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Health, Medicine, Studies

Health: “Compression Therapy” Reduces Chronic Cellulitis & Leg Edema

August 15, 2020 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

New England Journal of Medicine (Aug 13, 2020) – In this small, single-center, nonblinded trial involving patients with chronic edema of the leg and cellulitis, compression therapy resulted in a lower incidence of recurrence of cellulitis than conservative treatment.

The researchers have conducted a single-center, randomized, nonblinded trial that aimed to find out an association between the compression therapy and controlled incidents of chronic edema of the leg and people with cellulitis that can be defined as an infection of the skin that involves subcutaneous tissues or the innermost layer of the skin. Cellulitis can be caused by trauma or scratching of other lesions due to animal or human bites that result in fever, extreme pain, and redness of the skin.

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Diet, Diet & Nutrition, Health, Studies

Studies: 4- And 6-Hour Time-Restricted Eating (TRE) Diets, No Food Limits Result In Weight Loss

July 20, 2020 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

UIC Chicago Illinois — University of Illinois, Chicago (July 15, 2020)

“The findings of this study are promising and reinforce what we’ve seen in other studies — fasting diets are a viable option for people who want to lose weight, especially for people who do not want to count calories or find other diets to be fatiguing,” Varady said.

…participants in both daily fasting groups reduced calorie intake by about 550 calories each day simply by adhering to the schedule and lost about 3% of their body weight. The researchers also found that insulin resistance and oxidative stress levels were reduced among participants in the study groups when compared with the control group.

Two daily fasting diets, also known as time-restricted feeding diets, are effective for weight loss, according to a new study published by researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The study reported results from a clinical trial that compared a 4-hour time-restricted feeding diet and a 6-hour time-restricted feeding diet to a control group.

“This is the first human clinical trial to compare the effects of two popular forms of time-restricted feeding on body weight and cardiometabolic risk factors,” said Krista Varady, professor of nutrition at the UIC College of Applied Health Sciences and corresponding author of the story.

Diet, Health, Obesity, Studies

New Study: Obesity Results In Six Times Higher Rates Of Type 2 Diabetes, 3X More Than Genetic Risks (2020)

April 16, 2020 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

From a Diabetologia online study release (April 15, 2020):

“Having normal body weight is crucial in the prevention of type 2 diabetes, regardless of genetic predisposition.”

“The results suggest that type 2 diabetes prevention by weight management and healthy lifestyle is critical across all genetic risk groups.”

“Overall, the results indicate that a favorable lifestyle should be universally recommended in the prevention of type 2 diabetes, regardless of genetic predisposition, thus supporting current public health guidelines,”

Methods

We examined the joint association of genetic predisposition, obesity and unfavourable lifestyle with incident type 2 diabetes using a case-cohort study nested within the Diet, Cancer and Health cohort in Denmark. The study sample included 4729 individuals who developed type 2 diabetes during a median 14.7 years of follow-up, and a randomly selected cohort sample of 5402 individuals.

Results

Obesity (BMI ≥ 30 kg/m²) and unfavourable lifestyle were associated with higher risk for incident type 2 diabetes regardless of genetic predisposition (p > 0.05 for GRS–obesity and GRS–lifestyle interaction). The effect of obesity on type 2 diabetes risk (HR 5.81 [95% CI 5.16, 6.55]) was high, whereas the effects of high genetic risk (HR 2.00 [95% CI 1.76, 2.27]) and unfavourable lifestyle (HR 1.18 [95% CI 1.06, 1.30]) were relatively modest.

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Exercise, Health, Medicine, Studies

Health Study: Physical Therapy Superior To Steroid Injection For Knee Osteoarthritis

April 14, 2020 She Seeks Serene 2 Comments

Patients with osteoarthritis of the knee who underwent physical therapy had less pain and functional disability at 1 year than patients who received an intraarticular glucocorticoid injection.

Osteoarthritis of the knee is a leading cause of disability.¹ Current management is typically limited to the treatment of symptoms until late stages of arthritis lead to knee replacement.² Intraarticular glucocorticoid injections are commonly used as a primary treatment for osteoarthritis of the knee,³ but there are conflicting reports regarding the extent and duration of the relief of symptoms with this therapy.^4-6 Complications from these injections occur infrequently but include joint infection,⁷ accelerated degradation of articular cartilage,⁸ and subchondral insufficiency fractures.⁹

PHYSICAL THERAPY

The physical therapy intervention, which is described in the protocol,²⁶ included instructions and images for exercises, joint mobilizations, and the clinical reasoning underlying the priorities, dosing, and progression of treatment. During a typical clinical session, the physical therapist would implement hands-on, manual techniques immediately before the patient performed reinforcing exercises to help the patient perform the movements with little or no pain. For example, if a patient could not fully extend or flex the knee, or those movements were painful, the physical therapist would use a hands-on, passive mobilizing technique to repeatedly move the knee to reduce stiffness while altering the mechanics of the technique to avoid pain. The patient would then perform repeated active knee movements in the same direction.

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Exercise, Health, News, Studies

Study: Middle-Aged Knees With Meniscal Tears – No Benefits To Surgery Over Exercise Therapy (BMJ)

April 5, 2020 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Conclusion: The study was inconclusive with respect to potential differences in progression of individual radiographic features after surgical and non-surgical treatment for degenerative meniscal tear. Further, we found no strong evidence in support of differences in development of incident radiographic knee osteoarthritis or patient-reported outcomes between exercise therapy and arthroscopic partial meniscectomy.

Objective: To evaluate progression of individual radiographic features 5 years following exercise therapy or arthroscopic partial meniscectomy as treatment for degenerative meniscal tear.

Design: Randomized controlled trial including 140 adults, aged 35-60 years, with a magnetic resonance image verified degenerative meniscal tear, and 96% without definite radiographic knee osteoarthritis. Participants were randomized to either 12-weeks of supervised exercise therapy or arthroscopic partial meniscectomy. The primary outcome was between-group difference in progression of tibiofemoral joint space narrowing and marginal osteophytes at 5 years, assessed semi-quantitatively by the OARSI atlas. Secondary outcomes included incidence of radiographic knee osteoarthritis and symptomatic knee osteoarthritis, medial tibiofemoral fixed joint space width (quantitatively assessed), and patient-reported outcome measures. Statistical analyses were performed using a full analysis set. Per protocol and as treated analysis were also performed.

Results: The risk ratios (95% CI) for progression of semi-quantitatively assessed joint space narrowing and medial and lateral osteophytes for the surgery group were 0.89 (0.55-1.44), 1.15 (0.79-1.68) and 0.77 (0.42-1.42), respectively, compared to the exercise therapy group. In secondary outcomes (full-set analysis) no statistically significant between-group differences were found.

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Aging, Diet, Health, News, Obesity, Studies

Health Study: Older Adults With High Glucose Levels (A1C) Have Greater Cognitive Decline

April 3, 2020 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

From a MedPage Today online article (April 2, 2020):

This relationship between higher glucose levels and poorer cognitive functioning extended beyond just CASI z-score, as well, Cukierman-Yaffe noted. Higher HbA1c levels were also tied to significantly poorer performance in other psychological tests, including the clock making test of executive functioning, test of discriminative ability, and for the test of verbal fluency.

Poorer glycemic control was tied to cognitive decline following a lacunar stroke in a prospective cohort study.

Among 942 individuals with type 2 diabetes who had a lacunar stroke, every 1% higher HbA1c was tied to a 0.06 drop in cognitive function at baseline measured by Cognitive Assessment Screening Instrument (CASI) z-score (95% CI -0.101 to -0.018), reported Tali Cukierman-Yaffe, MD, MSc, of Sheba Medical Center and the Sackler School of Medicine of Tel Aviv University in Israel.