Exercise May Prevent Injurious Falls in Men

THURSDAY, Feb. 4, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Regular exercise reduces older men’s risk of serious injuries from falls, a new study finds.

“The physical activity program was more effective in reducing the rate of serious fall injuries in men than in women,” said study author Dr. Thomas Gill, a professor of geriatrics at Yale University, in New Haven, Conn.

Although the findings were mixed, they suggest that moderate exercise may help prevent serious falls, the leading cause of injury in people 70 and older, Gill said in a university news release.

The study included more than 1,600 inactive women and men, aged 70 to 89, randomly assigned to either a long-term, moderate exercise regimen or to a health education program.

The physical activity sessions included walking and flexibility, strength and balance training.

Compared to those in the health education group, men in the workout group had a 38 percent lower risk of serious fall injuries, a 53 percent lower risk of fall-related fractures, and a 59 percent lower rate of fall injuries requiring hospitalization.

The exercise program did not appear to reduce women’s risk of serious fall injuries, according to the study published online Feb. 3 in the journal BMJ.

The men in the exercise group boosted their physical activity levels more than the women, and also had greater improvements in gait, balance and muscle strength, the researchers said.

“The results from the current study support continued evaluation of the physical activity program for possible widespread implementation in the community,” Gill said.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Aging has more about older adults and falls.

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Steroids Might Help More Than Just Very Premature Babies: Study

THURSDAY, Feb. 4, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Giving steroids to pregnant women at risk for late preterm delivery may reduce the risk of severe respiratory problems in their babies, a new study finds.

The study included more than 2,800 pregnant women with a high risk of late preterm delivery (34 to 36 weeks of pregnancy) who were randomly selected to receive two injections over 24 hours of either the steroid betamethasone or a placebo.

The steroid is commonly used to prevent complications in babies born before 34 weeks of pregnancy. A full-term pregnancy is considered to be 40 weeks.

Compared to babies born to mothers who received the placebo, babies born to mothers who received the steroid were much less likely to have severe respiratory complications shortly after birth, to require a long stay in the neonatal intensive care unit, or to need respiratory treatments.

The findings were published Feb. 4 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

“Our study demonstrates that administering a medication that is commonly used to prevent complications in babies born before 34 weeks of gestation can also reduce the risk of many serious complications in babies delivered just a few weeks before term,” lead investigator Dr. Cynthia Gyamfi-Bannerman, an associate professor of women’s health at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, said in a Columbia news release.

“This will transform the way we care for mothers at risk for late preterm delivery,” added Gyamfi-Bannerman, who is also an obstetrician and maternal-fetal medicine specialist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, in New York City.

Each year, about 8 percent (more than 300,000) of babies born in the United States are late preterm births. About 12 percent of those babies have respiratory or other serious complications and require long stays in the neonatal intensive care unit, the researchers said.

“While survival among late preterm infants is comparable to that of babies born at term, the rate of respiratory problems and other serious complications in this group is not comparable and remains unacceptably high,” Gyamfi-Bannerman said.

“Expanding the use of a well-studied, safe medication to improve lung development before birth offers a means of preventing many of these complications,” she said.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development has more about preterm labor and birth.

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Meditation May Ease Pain, Anxiety From Breast Cancer Biopsy: Study

THURSDAY, Feb. 4, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Meditation and music may reduce pain, anxiety and fatigue associated with a breast cancer biopsy, a new study suggests.

Researchers from the Duke Cancer Institute in Durham, N.C., evaluated 121 women who listened to recorded meditation or music, or received standard care during image-guided needle biopsies.

The meditation focused on creating positive emotions and dispelling negative feelings, while the music was a patient’s choice of instrumental jazz, classical piano, harp and flute, nature sounds or world music. Standard care was a health care worker offering casual conversation and support.

Compared to those in the standard care group, women who listened to meditation or music had greater reductions in anxiety and fatigue. Those in the meditation group had much less pain during the biopsy than those in the music group, the study found.

The study was published online Feb. 4 in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.

“Image-guided needle biopsies for diagnosing breast cancer are very efficient and successful, but the anxiety and potential pain can have a negative impact on patient care,” said study lead author Dr. Mary Scott Soo, an associate professor of radiology at the institute.

“Patients who experience pain and anxiety may move during the procedure, which can reduce the effectiveness of biopsy, or they may not adhere to follow-up screening and testing,” she explained in a Duke news release.

Anti-anxiety drugs are one option for dealing with pain and anxiety during the procedure. But due to their sedating effects, Soo said, patients need to have someone drive them home.

Meditation and music offer simple and inexpensive alternatives to drugs, she said.

“We would like to see this study scaled up to include a multicenter trial, and see if the findings could be generalized to different practices,” Soo said.

More information

Breastcancer.org has more about breast biopsy.

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Could IVF Raise Children’s Odds for Blood Cancer?

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Feb. 4, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Children conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF) might have a slightly increased risk of developing blood cancer, a new study suggests.

Children born via IVF had a 67 percent increased risk of leukemia and a more than tripled risk of Hodgkin’s lymphoma compared to children conceived naturally, researchers found in an analysis of more than 1.6 million children in Norway.

Parents shouldn’t panic, however. The risk of childhood cancer is still very small, even after factoring in the results of this study, said lead author Dr. Marte Myhre Reigstad. She is a researcher with the Norwegian National Advisory Unit on Women’s Health at Oslo University Hospital.

“For example, in Norway, the risk of being diagnosed with leukemia within the first 10 years of life is 0.5 in 1,000,” Reigstad said. “A risk increase of such magnitude as found in our study would amount to a risk of 0.8 in 1,000. So for children conceived by assisted reproductive technology, there is still only a very small chance of developing cancer.”

In the study, published online Feb. 4 in the journal Pediatrics, researchers reviewed medical data for all children born in Norway between 1984 and 2011. Of the more than 1.6 million children, about 25,800 were conceived through different assisted reproductive technology procedures.

Researchers did not find any significant increase in IVF kids’ overall risk of cancer, other than leukemia and Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which are cancers that affect blood cells.

However, the statistics behind these risks are based on very small numbers of sick kids, said Susan Amirian, an assistant professor with the Baylor College of Medicine’s Duncan Cancer Center in Houston.

For example, only 17 cases of leukemia and three cases of Hodgkin’s lymphoma were reported among the IVF kids in the sample, said Amirian, co-author of an accompanying editorial in the journal.

She called the results based on those numbers “borderline statistically significant.”

“We need to be extra cautious interpreting that number, and we need a lot more studies that confirm that association before we can say there’s a true relationship there,” Amirian said.

There are a number of possible reasons why IVF kids might be at higher risk for some cancers, said Amirian and her editorial co-author, Melissa Bondy, also of Baylor’s Duncan Cancer Center.

Mothers who use IVF to conceive often do so later in life, and previous studies have shown that kids of older mothers have an increased risk for childhood cancers, Bondy said.

Parental genetics might also play a factor, in that whatever has contributed to the parents’ infertility might also increase their children’s cancer risk, Bondy added.

But Bondy and Amirian agreed that the study does not warrant “sounding any alarms.”

“This is an implication there may be something going on,” Bondy said. “We need to investigate it, but we don’t want to alarm anybody and we don’t want to make any recommendations as of right now.”

Reigstad concurred, adding that her study should not deter hopeful parents from using assisted reproductive technology.

“I think this should not dissuade couples from being treated with IVF, but medical researchers and care providers must keep these findings in mind, and we must keep observing these children as they grow older,” Reigstad said.

Worldwide, more than 5 million babies have been conceived through assisted reproductive technology, such as IVF, according to background notes with the study.

More information

For more on assisted reproductive technology, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Do vitamins boost your workouts?

 

If you think that vitamins, particularly antioxidants such as A, C and E help maximise your workouts, think again.

There's emerging evidence that antioxidant supplements may adversly effect:

Insulin benefits of exercise
“One previous small study found that trained and untrained people who dose up on antioxidant supplements impair important exercise training adaptations such as improved insulin sensitivity and production of special proteins that actually help defend the body against oxidative stress caused by exercise,” says Tim Crowe, Associate Professor in the School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences at Deakin University and founder of Thinking Nutrition.

Oxidative stress during and after a workout
“Now researchers have extended this study by looking at the effect of antioxidants in trained female runners,” says Crowe. “The study, which was published in the European Journal of Sports Science, found that when blood was measured, the markers that indicated oxidative stress were found to actually be higher in those taking the vitamin C.” Though it is not clear why, it is yet more proof that we don’t really understand how supplements may work differently to food in our bodies, nor are we really across the many different lifestyle impacts supplements may have on everything from sleep and stress to exercise.

Image: Thinkstock

 

NEXT: Check out our guide to supplements to discover the scoop.

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Michelangelo Likely Had Arthritis, Medical Experts Say

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 3, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Michelangelo, the renowned painter and sculptor, suffered from arthritis in his hands, but it’s likely that his intense work helped him keep using his hands until he died, a team of doctors says.

Chiseling and hammering probably accelerated the arthritis, the experts said. But, that activity also prolonged his ability to use his hands.

The doctors examined three portraits of Michelangelo when he was between the ages of 60 and 65. All three paintings show that the small joints of his left hand have arthritis-related deformity. Earlier paintings show no such signs, the doctors said.

Their conclusions were reported online Feb. 2 in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.

“It is clear from the literature that Michelangelo was afflicted by an illness involving his joints. In the past, this has been attributed to gout, but our analysis shows this can be dismissed,” lead author Dr. Davide Lazzeri, a specialist in plastic reconstructive and aesthetic surgery at the Villa Salaria Clinic in Rome, said in a journal news release.

There are no signs of inflammation in Michelangelo’s hands, Lazzeri noted. There’s also no evidence of the small lumps of uric acid crystals that can form under the skin of people with gout, he explained.

Letters written by Michelangelo reveal that his hand symptoms developed later in life. By 1552, he had great discomfort when writing. Eventually, he could no longer write and only signed his letters, the team said.

Even so, he continued to create masterpieces and was still hammering up to six days before he died in 1564. That was just three weeks before his 89th birthday, they noted.

“The diagnosis of osteoarthritis offers one plausible explanation for Michelangelo’s loss of dexterity in old age and emphasizes his triumph over infirmity as he persisted in his work until his last days. Indeed, the continuous and intense work could have helped Michelangelo to keep the use of his hands for as long as possible,” Lazzeri said.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about arthritis.

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The New Series You’ll Want to Binge Watch While Doing Lunges

Nike sprinted into new territory this week with the launch of an original eight-episode web series titled Margot vs Lily.

Staring Samantha Marie Ware and Brigette Lundy-Pain, the show is about two twenty-something sisters—one, a gym junkie who lacks social skills (Lily), and the other, a social butterfly who is far from athletic (Margot). The narrative follows a bet between them in which Margot must start a fitness channel and amass 1,000 followers before Lily (who has 900,000 YouTube subscribers) befriends three real-life pals.

RELATED: 25 Genius Ways Fitness Trainers Stay Motivated to Exercise

Directed by Tricia Brock (Girls, Mr. Robot, Silicon Valley, and Mozart in the Jungle) and executive-produced by Emmy-nominated Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (American Horror Story: Coven), Margot vs Lily is part of Nike’s uber popular women’s campaign #BetterForIt, which is all about consistently pushing yourself to be your absolute best. Not to mention, the series is a pretty ingenious way to inspire a generation of young women (hello, millennials) to incorporate exercise into their lives…and perhaps scoop up some killer Nike threads in the process.

Check out the first episode below to watch these two get way out of their comfort zones, and determine if you’re Team Margot or Team Lily. Then tune in on Mondays to see exactly how this sibling rivalry unfolds.

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Diabetes Drug May Not Help Obese Women Have Normal-Weight Babies

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 3, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Giving the diabetes drug metformin to obese pregnant women may not help their newborns come into the world at a healthier weight, a new trial finds.

The study, reported Feb. 4 in the New England Journal of Medicine, adds to evidence that metformin does not curb obese women’s risk of having an abnormally large newborn.

On the other hand, the British researchers found the drug did help control a woman’s own weight gain during pregnancy. And it may slash the risk of a potentially dangerous complication called preeclampsia.

“Those findings bring to light some potential benefits of metformin for these women,” said Dr. Jerrie Refuerzo, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Texas Health McGovern Medical School, in Houston.

For now, diet and exercise will remain the mainstay of managing obesity during pregnancy, according to Refuerzo, who was not involved in the study.

But she said researchers should keep looking at a possible role for metformin.

Metformin is an oral drug used to control type 2 diabetes, which causes chronically high levels of blood sugar and insulin — a hormone that regulates blood sugar.

Metformin is also sometimes given to women who develop pregnancy-related diabetes. One of the main concerns with pregnancy-related diabetes is that the fetus will grow large enough to complicate childbirth or require a cesarean section delivery.

Those newborns are also at increased risk of potentially dangerous blood-sugar lows after delivery, according the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

But obese moms-to-be often have large newborns, even if they do not have diabetes. And that might be because their blood sugar and insulin are elevated — but not high enough to be diagnosed with diabetes, explained Dr. Hassan Shehata, the senior researcher on the new study. He is an obstetrician-gynecologist at Epsom and St. Helier University Hospitals, in London.

So going into the trial, Shehata’s team hoped that metformin would lower obese moms’ odds of having a large baby. It didn’t turn out that way.

The trial, which was funded by the Fetal Medicine Foundation, included 450 British women who were between their 12th and 18th weeks of pregnancy. All were severely obese — with a body mass index topping 35. Half were randomly assigned to take a 3-gram dose of metformin every day; the other half received placebo tablets.

Among the women given metformin, almost 17 percent had a “large for gestational age” baby. That compared with just over 15 percent of women who were given the placebo.

“Large for gestational age” means that the baby’s birth weight is at least in the 90th percentile.

Still, Shehata said, metformin did curb women’s weight gain: They typically gained nearly 4 pounds less than placebo users did. (Experts recommend that obese women gain a limited amount during pregnancy — 11 to 20 pounds.)

Women on metformin also had a substantially lower risk of preeclampsia — with 3 percent developing it, versus 11 percent of placebo users.

Preeclampsia, which occurs after the 20th week of pregnancy, is marked by high blood pressure and other signs that a woman’s organs — such as the kidneys and liver — are not functioning properly. It can cause preterm delivery and low birth weight, and can raise a woman’s risk of seizures and coma.

“Preeclampsia is one of the important pregnancy complications that we’ve been trying to reduce for decades, with variable success,” said Shehata.

He cautioned that this study was not actually “powered” to prove that metformin cuts preeclampsia risk — meaning there were not enough women in the trial to tell whether the benefit was real or due to chance.

But he said his team hopes to run a future study aimed at answering that question.

According to Refuerzo, the drug’s effects on women’s weight and preeclampsia risk were “impressive” in light of another recent trial. That study, published last year, suggested metformin had no benefits for women who were obese but diabetes-free.

In this latest study, Refuerzo said, women were given a higher metformin dose and they were more likely to stick with the medication regimen.

Metformin can have side effects that make it difficult to take, Refuerzo pointed out. Stomach pain, nausea and vomiting are among the most common.

But, Shehata said, the drug has long been used for pregnancy-related diabetes, and there is no evidence it carries a risk of birth defects.

It’s estimated that 20 percent of pregnant women in the United Kingdom are obese, Shehata noted. In the United States, that figure is around one-third.

More information

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has more on obesity and pregnancy.

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Legionnaires’ Disease Can Transmit Person-to-Person, Case Suggests

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 3, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Legionnaires’ disease — the respiratory illness that plagued New York City in an outbreak last summer — is typically thought to develop when people breathe in contaminated mist or water droplets.

However, a case that occurred in the fall of 2014 in Portugal suggests that the often deadly bacterial infection may, in rare cases, pass person-to-person.

One expert in the United States urged caution in interpreting the findings, however.

“While this case report sheds new light on a potential concern for person-to-person transmission for Legionnaires’ disease, it’s important to realize that the primary mode of transmission continues to be via inhalation of infected aerosols from cooling towers associated with large-scale air conditioning and ventilation units,” said Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

Legionnaires’ disease was first seen among 2,000 American Legionnaires attending a convention in Philadelphia in the summer of 1976, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The outbreak was linked to air conditioner cooling towers in the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel. That outbreak sickened 221 people, and killed 34 of them.

Last summer, 124 people were sickened and 12 people died in an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease tied to contaminated cooling towers at a hotel in New York City’s South Bronx.

Those cases were not thought to involve person-to-person transmission.

However, Portuguese researchers reporting Feb. 4 in the New England Journal of Medicine believe they have identified such a case.

According to a team led by Dr. Ana Correia, of the Northern Regional Health Administration in Porto, a 48-year-old male maintenance worker contracted an infection with the Legionnaires’ bacterium after working at a contaminated cooling tower complex near Lisbon.

He returned to the home he shared with his 74-year-old mother in Porto, nearly 190 miles away, and began to show signs of illness about three days later.

His mother nursed the ailing man — who was later transferred to a hospital — and about two weeks later, she too became ill.

Laboratory testing confirmed that the mother’s illness was caused by the same strain of Legionnaires’ bacterium that had infected her son.

Both the mother and son died of the illness. Since mother and son had the identical strain of Legionnaires’ bacterium, and the mother had never visited the infected site near Lisbon, “we suspect that person-to-person transmission probably occurred” in this case, Correia’s team concluded.

Dr. Leonard Krilov is chief of pediatric infectious diseases at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y. He agreed that this is the “first case of documented person-to-person” transmission of Legionnaires’ disease — probably due to the long and sustained closeness between mother and son as she cared for him at home.

But Glatter stressed this case is likely very rare, and should not raise alarm bells. Instead, he said, “what is apparent to me is the importance of conducting future high-quality epidemiologic studies to better understand and determine actual and reported risks of person-to-person transmission for Legionnaires’ disease.”

In the meantime, Glatter said, the best way to curb outbreaks should be “the meticulous disinfection of cooling towers,” since they are the source of the vast majority of infections.

More information

Find out more about Legionnaires’ disease at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Should Tackling Be Banned From Youth Football?

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 3, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Tackling should be eliminated from youth football due to the risks that collisions and head injuries pose to young athletes, a researcher argues in the Feb. 4 New England Journal of Medicine.

A recent evidence review conducted by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) found that tackling is “associated with pretty much every negative outcome” in youth football, including concussions and severe injuries, said researcher Kathleen Bachynski. She is a doctoral candidate at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York City.

Despite this evidence, an AAP policy statement issued in the November 2015 Pediatrics didn’t recommend that tackling be eliminated from youth football.

Instead, the AAP’s Council on Sports Medicine and Fitness said coaches and officials should teach safe tackling techniques to kids, and make sure that rules against illegal tackling are enforced.

“I felt given the risk they described, they should have made some stronger recommendations,” Bachynski said. “Given the evidence, we should consider a more fundamental change in the way football is played, that might include removing tackling.”

The National Football League’s ongoing concussion crisis has raised concerns at all levels of football about the effects of head injuries on players. Autopsies have shown that a number of prominent NFL players, including “Iron Mike” Webster and Steve Baul “Junior” Seau, suffered brain damage as a result of the repeated hits they took during play.

Many parents are concerned that not enough is being done to protect youth football players from head injuries, according to a recent HealthDay/Harris Poll.

In the poll, four out of five people said that aggressive tackles that can lead to head injuries should be restricted in youth football.

That’s the stance taken by the AAP, which recommended in its statement that “head-up” tackling be required in youth games to limit the risk of head-to-head collisions, which often result in concussions.

The AAP policy statement recognized that “removing tackling from football altogether would likely lead to a decrease in the incidence of overall injuries, severe injuries, catastrophic injuries and concussions” in youth players.

“The American Academy of Pediatrics recognizes, however, that the removal of tackling from football would lead to a fundamental change in the way the game is played,” the statement continued. “Participants in football must decide whether the potential health risks of sustaining these injuries are outweighed by the recreational benefits associated with proper tackling.”

Dr. Cynthia LaBella, chairperson of the AAP Council on Sports Medicine and Fitness, said the committee took its stand following a “data-driven” review that balanced the risks of youth tackle football versus the benefits.

“We didn’t find the data supported a ban on tackling,” said LaBella, medical director of the Institute for Sports Medicine at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. “Our statement recommends that officials and coaches must enforce the rules of the game, including proper tackling techniques, and every effort should be made to reduce blows to the head.”

The AAP review found that tackling is the most common activity associated with injuries in youth football, but LaBella said injuries are not limited to football alone.

“Right now football is in the spotlight, but it is important to remember that overall injury rates in youth football are similar to other youth sports, such as baseball and soccer, and that concussions occur in all sports,” LaBella said. “In my clinic, I probably see just as many if not more female soccer players with head injuries as football players with head injuries.”

In her article, Bachynski stated that the academy took a much stronger stand against youth tackle football in the 1950s, when a panel recommended that body-contact sports such as tackle football be excluded from athletic programs for kids 12 or younger.

But as football grew in popularity, the risks of injury came to be overshadowed by the potential benefits of team sports, she wrote.

The benefits of youth football were one of the considerations that the AAP council weighed in crafting the policy statement, LaBella said.

“Organized sports have so many benefits for kids,” she said. “One of the risks of all organized sports is injury. However, for most kids and teens, the benefits of youth sports outweigh the risk of injury.”

The academy also recommended expanding the availability of non-tackling football leagues for young athletes. Bachynski believes those types of leagues should be the only options available.

“I understand how beloved football is in many communities, but it would be better to participate in flag or touch football,” Bachynski said. “I think flag or touch football is the way to enjoy the fun of football without the physical contact and the risk of head injuries. I would recommend against tackle football.”

LaBella said the AAP likely will review its policy statement on youth tackle football in three years, which is about the same interval at which it reviews any of its positions.

“Usually it takes that long for a significant amount of new data to be produced that would warrant making changes to the policy statement,” LaBella said.

More information

For more about concussion, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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