Keep Busy! Stay Sharp!

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, May 17, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Although people complain when their schedule gets too busy, new research suggests that being overbooked might actually be good for the brain.

The study of older adults found that those with packed schedules tended to do better on tests of memory, information processing and reasoning.

Researchers said the findings don’t prove that “busyness” makes us smarter. For one, sharper people may seek out more mental stimulation. These people may also have more resources, such as higher incomes, that allow them to lead active lives.

On the other hand, past research has found that learning new skills can improve older adults’ overall mental acuity, said study leader Sara Festini.

“We think it is likely that being busy is good for your cognition,” said Festini, a researcher with the Center for Vital Longevity at the University of Texas at Dallas.

She and her colleagues reported the findings in the May 17 online issue of Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.

The results are in line with those from many previous studies, the researchers said.

Past research has found that older adults who are more active — mentally, physically or socially — tend to have better mental function and a lower risk of dementia. In fact, the Alzheimer’s Association recommends all three types of activity for maintaining better brain health.

According to Festini, busyness could be a proxy for people’s “cognitive engagement” in daily life.

For the study, she and her colleagues had 330 men and women rate their “busyness” levels — asking questions such as, “How often do you have too many things to do each day to actually get them all done?” The study volunteers were between 50 and 89 years old.

The researchers also gave the volunteers a battery of tests that gauged memory, information processing speed, reasoning and vocabulary.

Overall, the study found, the busier people were in their daily lives, the better their test performance — especially when it came to remembering specific events from the past. The findings were not explained by age or education level.

Still, there are other potential explanations for the connection, said Debra Fleischman, a professor of neurological and behavioral sciences at Rush University Medical Center, in Chicago.

“Occupation, income, ethnicity and race are all important factors that can influence accessibility to resources that support an active lifestyle,” said Fleischman, who wasn’t involved in the study.

Plus, she added, people’s health — physical and mental — could affect both their daily activities and their scores on tests of memory and thinking (“cognition”).

Festini said she was interested in studying the subject because people often talk about their tight schedules, but there’s little research on how our “busyness” relates to health.

On one hand, a packed schedule could cause unhealthy levels of stress; on the other, busy people may have more “effortful engagement” with life, the researchers suggested.

According to Fleischman, it would be interesting to know whether the busy study participants were stressed out by their schedules. And that, she noted, could vary by age.

Older adults might tend to see a hectic schedule as a good thing — a sign that they have purpose in life, Fleischman said. But, she added, it’s possible that younger people could view busyness in a more negative light.

The current findings say nothing about the types of activities that are related to sharper mental skills, Fleischman pointed out. But past studies have already shown there may be benefits from physical exercise, mental tasks — such as crossword puzzles and reading — and social activities, she said.

“Daily activity is important to promote cognitive health in people over age 50,” Fleischman said.

Festini agreed. “[This study] provides further motivation to seek out additional activities and to keep learning new skills throughout adulthood,” she said.

More information

The Alzheimer’s Association has tips for preserving brain health.

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How Much Time Is Left? Doctors, Loved Ones Often Disagree

By Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, May 17, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Loved ones acting on behalf of critically ill patients are often more optimistic about outcomes than physicians. But not necessarily because they don’t grasp the gravity of the case, new research suggests.

The study of more than 200 surrogate “decision makers” found that in more than half of cases doctors and loved ones disagreed about whether the patient would die or not.

However, “it isn’t just a misunderstanding of the patient’s prognosis that is causing the family and friends of that patient to have significantly different estimates for their loved one’s survival than that of their doctor,” said study lead author Dr. Douglas White.

The surrogates’ personal beliefs influence their outlook, said White, a professor of critical care medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Some surrogate decision makers believe that if they “hope the patient does well it will be good for the patient, or that the patient has strengths that the doctor does not know about,” he explained. “And religious beliefs that a higher power may save the patient also come into play.

“Doctors should be aware of everything that may go into a surrogate decision maker’s thinking when conveying a prognosis and laying out potential care options,” White said.

More than half of all American adults are unable to process information and make critical care decisions for themselves when facing an end-of-life situation, according to 2010 statistics cited by the study authors. Relatives or others are often asked to serve as decision makers in these difficult cases.

For this study, the researchers set out to explore how patient surrogates process the information doctors provide. They surveyed 229 people — primarily family members or friends — who had served as “decision makers” for 174 intensive care patients at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center between 2005 and 2009.

All were asked to estimate their loved one’s survival chances on a scale of 1 to 100.

After comparing surrogate answers to those of 99 physicians on duty, the study authors found that 53 percent of the time there was at least a 20 percent gap in the way surrogates and doctors viewed a patient’s prospects.

Surrogates gravitated toward more optimistic prognoses. But the doctors were found to have expressed more accurate views, given the ultimate outcomes (and deaths of more than 40 percent of the patients), the study found.

Among surrogates who expressed overly optimistic views, only 17 percent said they had misunderstood medical information. Roughly one-third (71 surrogates) maintained a more positive view than the physician, despite having understood the information provided.

Why? Almost half of the 71 said they felt that maintaining hope was helpful to the patient. About one-third referenced their more intimate knowledge of the patient’s capabilities, while a little more than one-quarter cited their religious beliefs.

The study was published May 17 in Journal of the American Medical Association.

Dr. Elie Azoulay, lead author of an accompanying editorial in the journal, said very often family members are simply looking for the intimacy and time they need to adjust to a new reality, rather than more medical detail.

“[It’s] not that they did not understand or that they cannot grasp medical information,” said Azoulay, deputy director of the intensive care medical unit at Saint-Louis Hospital in Paris, France. “They just don’t want to hear what we said and how we said it.”

So Azoulay suggested that physicians view the family-doctor divide “as an opportunity to change our way to communicate, better address family needs and provide active listening.”

Doctors should talk less and listen more, while providing loved ones “with opportunities to voice concerns, vent emotions, or sometimes just to be there with the team without hearing or saying a word,” Azoulay said.

More information

The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization has more about end-of-life decisions.

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Scientists Test ‘Magic Mushroom’ Chemical for Tough-to-Treat Depression

TUESDAY, May 17, 2016 (HealthDay News) — A hallucinogenic compound found in “magic mushrooms” shows promise in treating depression, a small, preliminary study found.

“Depression continues to affect a large proportion of the population, many of whom do not respond to conventional treatments,” said Dr. Scott Krakower, a psychiatrist who reviewed the study.

“Although this was a small study, it does offer hope for new, unconventional treatments, to help those who are battling with severe depression,” said Krakower, who is chief of psychiatry at Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, N.Y.

The new trial included 12 people with moderate to severe depression who had been resistant to standard treatment. All of the patients were given the compound psilocybin, found in hallucinogenic mushrooms.

Three months after treatment, seven patients had reduced symptoms of depression, according to a team led by Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris of Imperial College London, in England.

There were no serious side effects, the study authors said in the report published May 17 in The Lancet Psychiatry.

Carhart-Harris’ team stressed that no strong conclusions can be made from the findings — only that further research is warranted.

About 1 in 5 patients with depression does not respond to treatments such as antidepressants or cognitive behavioral therapy, the study authors noted.

“This is the first time that psilocybin has been investigated as a potential treatment for major depression,” Carhart-Harris said in a journal news release.

“The results are encouraging, and we now need larger trials to understand whether the effects we saw in this study translate into long-term benefits, and to study how psilocybin compares to other current treatments,” he said.

How might the drug work to ease depression?

“Previous animal and human brain imaging studies have suggested that psilocybin may have effects similar to other antidepressant treatments,” explained study senior author David Nutt, also of Imperial College London.

“Psilocybin targets the serotonin receptors in the brain,” he said, “just as most antidepressants do, but it has a very different chemical structure to currently available antidepressants and acts faster than traditional antidepressants.”

However, Krakower stressed that caution must be taken with such a powerful drug.

“Psilocybin is still a potent psychedelic compound and can have unwanted side effects,” he said. “Patients should interpret these results with caution until more studies are conducted.”

Another mental health expert agreed.

“Anyone reading of this study should be cautioned to not use this drug on themselves,” said Dr. Alan Manevitz, a clinical psychiatrist with Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

He said the study also had some flaws, most notably its small size and the fact that patients had “expectations” of benefit that might have skewed the results.

Furthermore, the need to watch over the patient, “for hours after treatment may make this an impractical drug to clinically use and further research into dosages is required,” Manevitz said.

But he noted that this isn’t the first time psilocybin has been thought of as medicine.

“Psilocybin has been considered for the use for easing the psychological suffering associated with end-stage cancer,” he explained. “Preliminary results indicate that low doses of psilocybin can improve the mood and anxiety of patients with advanced cancer, with the effects lasting two weeks to six months.”

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Mental Health has more on depression.

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This Is What Happened When I Copied Victoria Beckham’s Foil Face Mask

Every week, I partake in a Sunday night masking ritual. Depending on how my skin is doing, I choose the right mask for the job. If blemishes are my concern, I whip out a clarifying mask (either sheet or the kind from a jar). If the wrinkle in my forehead seems more pronounced than usual, I reach for the one with promised anti-aging benefits. This week though, I was inspired by Posh Spice, er Victoria Beckham. In a recent Instagram post, she shared a snap of herself sporting the Estée Lauder PowerFoil Mask ($22 for 1 or $79 for 4; nordstrom.com) and sunglasses, as one does.

Right off the bat, I could tell this mask was … unusual. From the outside, it resembles a sheet of tin foil, or as my roommate described it, something out of Star Wars. It also comes in two pieces, and the bottom half goes on first, like a metallic beard. Nice.

I was impressed with how substantial it felt compared to sheet masks. This type of foil mask isn’t just made for selfie opportunities (though that’s a definite plus); it’s intended to create a barrier, to help deliver the hydrating formula faster and deeper into the skin. (Makes sense, when you think about how quickly other masks can dry up after they’re exposed to air.)

RELATED: The Best Face Masks for Anti-Aging, Brightening, Moisturizing, and More

The side that you apply directly to your skin is more like a typical mask: It’s where the hyaluronic acid-based serum (the key hydrating ingredient) is infused.

After I applied both halves to my cleansed skin, I waited for the mask to do its thing. Unlike with other masks, my face didn’t feel immobilized. Talking was actually easier than it usually is. The cutouts for the mouth and eyes are significant and sturdier than most, which made all the difference to me. I also felt a cooling sensation when I put the mask on, so I could see how it could help with de-puffing before a big event. (Beckham was using hers at Cannes.)

As I sat in my bed, waiting for the 10 minutes to tick by, I could feel the mask getting stiffer, which I imagined was the effect of the serum getting absorbed by my skin. When my timer went off, the foil seemed to be pulling away from my face, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I have experienced before. The area around my eyes still fit snug, and that’s where I usually find myself pressing down on other masks to make sure no spot goes untreated.

RELATED: This Non-Toxic Anti-Aging Serum Transformed My Skin

I removed each piece and massaged in the remaining serum as instructed. My face looked and felt refreshed, though I wouldn’t say that my skin tone was completely even. (But hey, what mask can work all those miracles after just one application?) I was satisfied with the mask’s moisturizing effects, and I think they even held up over night: The next morning, my skin was noticeably smoother and plumped up. For those results, I would definitely go full-on Tin Man again.

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Marriage a Buffer Against Drinking Problems?

TUESDAY, May 17, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Married people are less likely to have drinking problems than single people, and that protective effect is particularly strong among those with a family history of alcoholism, a new study suggests.

“While clinicians have long been aware of the potentially important protective effects of marriage on alcohol problems, our study puts this observation on a firm scientific footing,” said study leader Dr. Kenneth Kendler. He is a professor of psychiatry and human and molecular genetics at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, in Richmond.

The researchers analyzed data from more than 3 million people in Sweden born between 1960 and 1990, including more than 70,000 with drinking problems.

Compared to single people, the risk of an alcohol use disorder was 60 percent lower among married men and 71 percent lower among married women, although the study couldn’t prove that marriage caused that lower risk.

Still, the findings “strongly suggest that marriage does indeed directly and substantially reduce risk for onset of alcohol use disorder. It is also especially intriguing that this effect is largest in those at highest risk,” Kendler said in a news release from the American Psychiatric Association.

The protective effect of marriage may be due to the fact that married people tend to monitor their spouses’ health and influence their lifestyle habits, the researchers said.

However, the researchers also found that men and women married to a spouse with a history of alcoholism were more likely to have drinking problems than single people.

The study was published online May 16 in the American Journal of Psychiatry and released at the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting this week in Atlanta.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has more about alcohol use disorders.

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Genetically Modified Crops Are Safe: Review

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, May 17, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Genetically modified crops pose no apparent risk to human health, an extensive study released Tuesday by a U.S. science advisory board has concluded.

Crops created through genetic engineering are as safe to eat as crops developed through traditional plant-breeding methods, according to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine panel.

The panel could find no link between consumption of genetically modified crops and rates of cancer, kidney disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, gastrointestinal diseases, celiac disease, food allergies or autism, the report stated.

“We compared the patterns in the U.S. and Canada to the patterns in the U.K. [United Kingdom] and the E.U. [European Union], because in those countries people are not eating genetically engineered foods,” said panel chairman Fred Gould, a professor of agriculture at North Carolina State University. “We did not see a difference [in health risks] in those patterns.”

Because of this, there is “no justification for labeling for food safety purposes” any produce in the supermarket as a genetically modified product, said committee member Michael Rodemeyer, an expert on food and biotechnology who is retired from the University of Virginia.

Genetically engineered crops have been planted on about 12 percent of the world’s total cropland, the experts found.

The 388-page report, requested by the National Academies to review the scientific evidence, represented an attempt to clear up a “confusing landscape for the public and policy makers,” Gould said.

“There are people who are saying without genetically engineered crops, we’re never going to be able to feed the world in 2050, and there are people who say eating a genetically engineered crop will cause sterility or cancer,” he said. “There are a lot of things floating around, and there was clear need for a study to carefully examine the evidence behind those claims.”

Joan Salge Blake, a spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, said the report shows that “there could be going forward, based on the science, a marriage of conventional breeding and genetically enhanced food that could help us have sustainable food systems for the world.”

The creation of new crops through genetic manipulation is something that predates modern laboratory genetic tinkering, Blake noted. She cited the tangelo, which is a crossbreed between a tangerine and a grapefruit.

“Nobody gets upset about a tangelo,” said Blake, a registered dietitian and clinical associate professor at Boston University’s Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences.

However, the report also found that genetically modified crops — sometimes called GE crops — are not living up to their promise of radically improving crop yields to help feed hungry people around the world.

Crops designed to be resistant to insects and herbicides — used to kill weeds — appear to help farmers in the field. But, “we could find no evidence from USDA [U.S. Department of Agriculture] data that genetic engineering has increased the rate at which U.S. crop yields are increasing,” Gould said.

There also is evidence that some weeds have developed resistance to herbicides as a result of herbicide-resistant GE crops, the committee found. Some critics have warned that if farmers start laying on heavier doses of herbicide to kill these weeds, then herbicides could threaten human health by working their way into the soil and groundwater.

The committee came to its conclusions after hearing from 80 experts, reviewing more than 700 comments, and evaluating hundreds of studies, the report stated.

There is some evidence that genetically modified crops have benefited human health, the panel found. For example, insect-resistant crops appear to have reduced insecticide poisonings in humans, because farmers don’t have to protect their fields with dangerous pesticides, the report said.

Looking forward, genetically engineered crops now in development actually could protect human health and better feed the world, the panel said.

“Golden Rice,” a type of rice genetically engineered to increase its beta-carotene content, could help prevent vision loss and blindness in developing nations, the experts said. Each year, as many as 500,000 vitamin A-deficient children go blind, and half of them die within a year of losing their sight, according to the report.

So far, farmers have only made widespread use of genetically modified crops engineered for resistance to insects and herbicides, the committee found.

Three crops — corn, soybean and cotton — represent the majority of genetically engineered crop production, even though there are 12 genetically modified crops that have been approved for commercial use in the United States, Gould said.

The committee recommends that future regulation of crops should focus on a plant’s characteristics rather than the process by which it was developed.

Newer scientific techniques like gene editing have blurred the boundary between engineered and naturally developed plant crops, the panel found. “There’s no longer a clear distinction between crop improvement approaches,” Gould said.

Gould likened the situation to how cellphones and laptop computers used to be completely separate devices. “Today, if you asked somebody about their cellphone and what they’re using it for, it would be doing most of the things their laptop was doing back in 1996,” he said.

Bruce Chassy, an emeritus professor of biochemistry and food science at the University of Illinois, told the Associated Press that the report offers a sensible, fact-based evaluation that refutes many fears regarding genetically modified crops.

“There’s just no sound basis for their opposition just as there was never any scientific basis to believe [genetically modified crops] should be viewed any differently than any other,” Chassy said.

Some groups opposed to genetically engineering foods criticized the report before it was released. Food & Water Watch said the National Academy accepted funding from biotechnology firms and used “pro-GMO scientists” to write its reports, the AP reported.

Funding for the report came from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the New Venture Fund, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and National Academy. It was then reviewed by outside experts.

More information

For more on genetically modified foods, visit the World Health Organization.

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11 Celebs on Why Photoshopping Seriously Needs to Stop

Photo: Getty Images

Vocal powerhouse Meghan Trainor is known for her hit songs about self-love and female empowerment, so when she realized last week that producers had digitally whittled her waist in her new music video “Me Too,” she pulled it from the Internet immediately. The next day, Trainor’s video was re-released, un-retouched. “The real #metoo video is finally up! Missed that bass,” she wrote in a caption of an Instagram post that showed side-by-side pics of her photoshopped body and her natural curves.

Trainor isn’t the only star outraged by the incessant photoshopping that makes it that much tougher for women to feel joyful and proud in their own skin. Here, 10 more celebrities vent how they really feel about digital nips and tucks.

RELATED: Chrissy Teigen Shares Her Honest Makeup-Free Selfie

On the importance of being honest

“If any magazines want to guarantee they’ll let my stomach roll show and my reddened cheek make an appearance, I am your girl Friday. Anything that will let me be honest with you. But moreover, I want to be honest with me. This body is the only one I have. I love it for what it’s given me. I hate it for what it’s denied me. And now, without further ado, I want to be able to pick my own thigh out of a lineup.”
—Lena Dunham, Lenny Letter, March 2016

On being “enough” just the way you are

“I was very taken aback and very uncomfortable about looking at an image that I did not recognize as myself…. That is not OK with me because that echoes that little girl who thought, ‘I wasn’t enough.’ I know that I’m enough. So don’t make me feel like I’m not enough by changing me to fit some idea of what you think I’m supposed to look like. What I look like is OK.”
—Kerry Washington on her Adweek cover, Oprah Women’s Network Super Soul Sessions, April 2016

On models photoshopping themselves

“It’s gotten to the point where they’re not smoothing their skin anymore, they’re actually changing the shape of their body. Nobody can compare to that when you’re fixing yourself so much. It’s so unfair…. It started with Botox and everything, of course, but now it’s just grown into this photoshop phenomenon—and I’ve seen these women in person—they are not like that. Please know that. I’ve shot in barely anything with them, and it’s just amazing what people do to tweak themselves.”
—Chrissy Teigen, The Meredith Vieira Show, April 2015

On creating unrealistic ideals

“Had a new shoot come out today and was shocked when I found my 19 year old hips and torso quite manipulated. These are the things that make women self conscious, that create the unrealistic ideals of beauty that we have. Anyone who knows who I am knows I stand for honest and pure self love. So I took it upon myself to release the real pic (right side) and I love it.”
—Zendaya, Instagram, October 2015

RELATED: The Powerful Message Behind This Fitness Blogger’s Photoshopped Selfie

On baring it all

“For someone who’s had body image issues since they were a child, I went from hating every inch of my body to showing every inch of my body to the entire world and without touching up anything… A lot of times I get frustrated because people will, without my consent, Photoshop my body and it doesn’t look like my own body. Like, no no no, my thighs are bigger than that, can you put them back to the way they were? I’ve literally done that before where I’m like, ‘No, put my legs back on me. Those aren’t my legs.’”
—Demi Lovato on her nude and unretouched photo shoot for Vanity Fair, E! News, October 2015

On accepting your “flaws”

i find this curious – two photos from today, one edited so my skin is perfect and one real. remember flaws are ok http://pic.twitter.com/PuRhxt2u2O

— Lorde (@lorde) March 31, 2014

—Lorde, Twitter, March 2014

On the impact of media

“The media plays such a big role in how women measure themselves against other women, so I can be in a position where I can say beauty comes from within, we’re not all perfect, and the covers of magazines are of course retouched. We do not look like that… I have wrinkles here, which are very evident, and I will particularly say when I look at movie posters, ‘You guys have airbrushed my forehead. Please can you change it back?’ I’d rather be the woman they’re saying ‘She’s looking older’ about than ‘She’s looking stoned.'”
—Kate Winslet, Harper’s Bazaar, July 2009

On body pride

I want to especially thank @EW for not airbrushing me. For real very cool. Thank you. Proud size 6 yo!

— Amy Schumer (@amyschumer) April 2, 2015

—Amy Schumer, Twitter, April 2015

RELATED: The Most Powerful Body-Positive Celeb Selfies We’ve Ever Seen

On being unique

“I love that feeling of, you know, we are women, we are so different, our imperfections are what make us unique and beautiful.”
—Gisele Bundchen on her makeup-free campaign for BLK DNM, Fashionista, May 2013

On how extreme editing can get

Saw this floating around…hope it’s not the poster. Our faces in this were from 4 years ago…and we all look ridiculous. Way too much photo shop. We all have flaws. No one looks like this. It’s not attractive.”
—Ashley Benson, Instagram, December 2013

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Rural Hospitals Often Safer, Cheaper for Common Surgeries: Study

TUESDAY, May 17, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Having a commonplace surgery — such as a gallbladder removal — may be safer when done in a rural hospital compared to a suburban or city hospital, a new study finds.

“This study gives credence to what rural surgeons long suspected — that well-done rural surgery is safe and cost-effective,” study author Dr. Tyler Hughes said in a University of Michigan news release. Hughes is one of only two surgeons at McPherson Hospital in rural McPherson, Kan., and a director of the American Board of Surgery.

Rural hospitals are also called critical access hospitals. They’re the closest option for tens of millions of patients living outside major cities and suburban areas, the researchers said.

For the study, the researchers reviewed 1.6 million surgeries. They were performed at 828 rural hospitals or 3,600 larger hospitals. Specifically, the researchers compared outcomes for Medicare patients who had one of four common operations: gallbladder removal, colon surgery, hernia repair and appendix removal.

There was no difference between hospitals for the risk of dying within 30 days of an operation. However, researchers found the risk for developing a major complication after surgery — such as heart attack, pneumonia or kidney damage — was lower at rural hospitals.

The study also revealed that it cost Medicare about $1,400 less for the same operation at a rural hospital than at a larger hospital.

Patients who had surgery at rural hospitals were also less likely than patients in larger hospitals to use skilled nursing facilities after their operations, the researchers said.

The researchers noted that the patients operated on in rural hospitals tended to be healthier than those treated at larger hospitals, suggesting that rural doctors select low-risk surgical patients and send more complicated cases to larger medical centers.

Study senior author Dr. Justin Dimick said, “While it may make sense to travel to a higher-volume hospital for a few of the most complex operations, this study shows that having surgery locally is safe for many of our most common surgical procedures.” Dimick is professor of surgery and leader of the Center for Healthcare Outcomes and Policy at the University of Michigan.

Hospitals are eligible for critical access designation by Medicare if they have fewer than 25 inpatient beds and are more than 35 miles from another hospital.

Currently, critical access hospitals are paid 101 percent of reasonable costs. Doctors who practice at these hospitals can also receive 115 percent of the usual payment for traditional Medicare patients. This helps rural hospitals to remain open, the researchers said.

The researchers added that many rural hospitals are facing the threat of closure. That’s because national policies that set medical and surgical rates for these hospitals are under scrutiny.

The findings were published May 17 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

More information

The American Hospital Association provides more information on rural health care.

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1 in 3 Female Doctors Faces Sexual Harassment, Survey Finds

TUESDAY, May 17, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Thirty percent of female doctors face sexual harassment on the job, new research shows.

And close to three-quarters perceive gender bias at work, while two-thirds said they have actually experienced it, the researchers added.

“This is a sobering reminder that our society has a long way to go before we achieve gender equity,” said study author Dr. Reshma Jagsi. She is deputy chair of radiation oncology at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor.

For the study, the researchers surveyed just over 1,000 men and women who earned a career development award from the U.S. National Institutes of Health between 2006 and 2009.

This award is presented to physician-scientists with potential to advance their career as independent researchers. At the time of the survey, all of the doctors were in the middle of their career and had an average age of 43.

The participants were asked about their experiences as a doctor, including any gender bias or sexual harassment they suffered during their career.

The study found that 70 percent of the women surveyed perceived gender bias, while 66 percent said they had experienced it. Meanwhile, only 22 percent of men perceived gender bias and just 10 percent reported experiencing it.

The researchers also found that only 4 percent of the men said they had experienced sexual harassment during their career.

“The perception among many of us is that this type of behavior is a thing of the past. So, it’s sobering to see quite how many relatively young women in this sample reported experiences with harassment and discrimination,” Jagsi said in a university news release.

Women comprise about 50 percent of all medical students, the researchers pointed out. Awareness about unconscious gender bias and openly inappropriate behaviors is essential, they added.

“We need to recognize the degree to which sexual harassment and gender inequality continue to be an issue in academic medicine,” Jagsi said.

“Women who experience these types of harassment may be less likely to report these incidents if they feel they are unique and aberrational,” she added. “Our data shows this is not an unusual situation, and reflects a larger societal problem.”

The survey findings were published May 17 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

More information

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has more about sexual harassment.

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HIV Patients Less Likely to Get Treatment for Cancer: Study

By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, May 17, 2016 (HealthDay News) — While powerful HIV medications are granting longer lives to many people infected with the virus, a new U.S. study shows these same patients are less likely to get treatment for cancer if it develops.

It’s not clear why the difference exists. It could reflect the decisions of physicians, patients or both. Whatever the case, the finding confirms that the gap persists even when patients have private insurance or are otherwise healthy, the study authors said.

Previous research has suggested that “people with well-controlled HIV infection should be treated similarly to patients without HIV,” said study author Dr. Gita Suneja.

However, “even looking at cancer patients with private health insurance only, we saw that those with HIV infection were less likely to receive cancer treatment for many common cancer types,” said Suneja. She is an assistant professor of radiation oncology at the University of Utah School of Medicine.

More than 1.2 million people in the United States are thought to be infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Many HIV patients are now expected to live well into old age, a far cry from decades ago when the illness almost always progressed to AIDS and death, Suneja said.

Still, “we know that HIV-infected people are more likely to get certain types of cancers, such as lung cancer,” Suneja said. “We also know that HIV-infected cancer patients are more likely to die from the cancer than uninfected cancer patients,” she said.

The new study, published online May 17 in the journal Cancer, follows up on previous research that didn’t take health insurance or other illnesses into account, Suneja explained.

For this study, Suneja and her colleagues examined a database of people diagnosed with cancer in the United States between 2003 and 2011. The study included 2.2 million cancer patients who did not have HIV and about 10,000 cancer patients who were infected with HIV. All participants were younger than 65.

Overall, HIV-infected patients were younger (with a median age of 47, compared to 55), more likely to be male (77 percent versus 48 percent) and much more likely to be black (41 percent versus 13 percent), the findings showed.

The HIV-infected patients were more likely to suffer from anal cancer and Hodgkin’s lymphoma and much less likely to have breast and prostate cancer. More than 40 percent of the HIV-infected patients had diffuse large B-cell lymphoma; just 2 percent of the other patients did. (Both types of lymphoma affect the immune system and are common among HIV patients.)

“We found large differences in cancer treatment rates,” Suneja said. “For most cancers, HIV-infected patients were two to three times more likely to receive no cancer treatment compared to uninfected people,” she added.

“As an example, for upper gastrointestinal cancer such as esophageal cancer, four out of 10 HIV-infected patients did not receive cancer treatment, while two out of 10 uninfected patients did not receive treatment,” Suneja said.

The differences persisted even when the researchers adjusted their statistics so they wouldn’t be thrown off by high or low numbers of people who shared certain factors such as race, gender and age.

While cancer treatment often improves survival and reduces pain, experts said it’s not clear how the lack of treatment affected the HIV-infected patients.

Michael Silverberg, a research scientist with Kaiser Permanente, pointed out that “the study was not designed to assess appropriate timing or completion of therapy, or whether the most effective regimens were used.”

Still, Silverberg said, “this is a well-designed study and the largest to date evaluating the issue of cancer treatment in HIV patients.”

There’s another wrinkle: As Silverberg noted, research suggests that HIV patients with cancer do worse overall, even when researchers account for the fact that they get less treatment.

One possibility, Suneja said, is that HIV-infected patients may choose to not undergo cancer treatment. Or, she said, “oncologists may be concerned about greater-than-expected side effects from cancer treatment, interactions between cancer drugs and HIV drugs, and the effectiveness of cancer treatment in the HIV population.”

Silverberg offered a similar perspective. “Besides anal cancer and certain types of lymphomas, there are no HIV-specific guidelines for the treatment of cancer. Therefore, it is possible that clinicians were reluctant to treat HIV patients for fear of toxicity, or because they perceive patients as too sick to tolerate treatment.”

What now?

“The next step is to figure out what is driving this large treatment disparity,” Suneja said. “Cancer is a large and growing problem in the HIV population. It needs to be on the radar of patients, HIV care providers, and oncologists.”

In addition, she said, “cancer is quickly becoming the leading cause of death in HIV-infected patients, which is remarkable considering how lethal HIV was before antiretroviral therapy was widely available.”

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more details about HIV and cancer.

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