Aging May Blunt Some of Exercise’s Benefits

FRIDAY, June 17, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Aging may dampen some beneficial effects of exercise, a new study suggests.

But, that’s no reason for seniors to morph into couch potatoes, health experts say.

For the new study, researchers compared men aged 18 to 30 with men 55 and older who used exercise bikes for 30 minutes. During that time, blood samples were collected six different times, to assess cell function and antioxidant response.

Antioxidants are believed to protect healthy cells from damage caused by unstable molecules called “free radicals,” according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

“Through this study, we were able to determine that an individual’s antioxidant response to exercise becomes suppressed with age,” researcher Tinna Traustadottir, an associate professor of biology at Northern Arizona University, said in a university news release.

“Exercise is effective and critical for people of all ages, but this study shows that older adults do not achieve the same beneficial cellular responses as younger adults from a single bout of moderate exercise,” she said.

“By better understanding the molecular signals promoting beneficial effects of exercise, definitive recommendations could be made for improving the body’s reaction to oxidative stress, which could lower the risk for many chronic diseases,” the researchers said.

Oxidative stress involves the overproduction of oxygen byproducts that are toxic to cells.

Still, health experts advise seniors to make exercise a key part of their lives. According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, studies have shown that exercise “provides many health benefits and that older adults can gain a lot by staying physically active.

“Even moderate exercise and physical activity can improve the health of people who are frail or who have diseases that accompany aging,” according to the NIH.

The study was published in the July issue of the journal Free Radical Biology and Medicine.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Aging has more about exercise and physical activity.

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Eyeliner Makeup Techniques Are Taking Over Instagram

Photo: Getty Images

Poke around any of your social media feeds for long enough and you’ll quickly discover that the techniques being employed by makeup artists, beauty vloggers, and cosmetic enthusiasts are anything by boring. Obviously, the classic cat eye is here to stay, but people are branching out and trying new eyeliner techniques. Spoiler: They are good!

These are just a few that have caught our attention recently, and we’re sure they’ll keep coming, too.

Blue on blue on blue.

We really can’t get enough rainbow eyeliner. We love that this MUA used a lot of drugstore brands to create the look, as well.

How about this super colorful, thick, outlined eyeliner? And the little gems on the inner corners make this look even more fun.

Confetti eyeliner is like a party for your face. This one kind of feels like a nod toward Seurat’s pointillism, as well.

Glitter ombre liner makes the world a better place.

We covered bubble eyeliner a little while ago, and it’s just as cool now as as it was then.

This post originally appeared on InStyle.com.

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Why IVF Made Maria Menounos Feel Self-Conscious at Her Health Cover Shoot

Photo: James White

Wouldn’t you love to chat with Health cover star Maria Menounos? Our executive editor Lisa Lombardi was lucky enough to talk with the E! star yesterday on her radio show, “Conversations with Maria,” about no-gym workouts, photo shoot insecurities, and the reality of fertility treatments.

“So how do you guys pick a cover?” Menounos asked Lombardi at the start of the show. “Like, why me?”

The answer to that question was easy: “What we look for, in general, in our cover celebrities is women who are living the life, who believe in health and fitness, and who take really good care of themselves,” Lombardi explained.

There’s no doubt that Menounos does just that. The two-time Health cover girl stays fit “pretty much year-round” by mixing up her workouts often. “I’m either hiking or I’ll play basketball or I’ll go on a kick like now that I’m on with my FitBit, and getting my steps,” Menounos said.

RELATED: Maria Menounos Opens Up About IVF: “It’s Exhausting, Physically and Mentally”

But the star admitted that she actually felt self-conscious before her recent cover shoot for Health. “This time, because I was in the middle of IVF, my body was not right,” Menounos said. Even after working out with friend and trainer Harley Pasternak for the three weeks leading up to the shoot, Menounos wasn’t feeling like herself.

Still, she said she felt grateful for the opportunity to speak openly about the challenges that accompany the IVF process. After undergoing the fertility treatment twice, she’s learned that “bloating and extra weight gain are okay and normal, and [I’m] not crazy or doing something wrong.”

The candid star also encouraged other women who are undergoing IVF to speak up. “It’s amazing to me how silent people are, that are going through this,” she said. “When it’s all secretive, no one can learn and help each other.”

RELATED: Maria Menounos Snapchats Her Egg-Retrieval Procedure

Check out the full interview below for more of the conversation.

You’ll also get a sneak peak at what’s inside our July/August issue (including wacky breast trends and avocado fudge pops!) on stands now.

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Sleep Loses Out for Many Hooked on Video Games

FRIDAY, June 17, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Are video games like “Bloodborne,” “Fallout” and “Call of Duty” worth losing sleep over? For plenty of gamers, the answer is yes.

A new study of almost 1,000 gamers finds many will sacrifice sleep to continue playing, suggesting video games are addictive for some people, the researchers said.

“Our data shows that video gaming is quite an important factor that frequently leads to missed sleep for 67 percent of gamers,” said study lead author Brandy Roane, director of the Sleep Research Lab at the University of North Texas Health Science Center.

“Additionally, the reasons provided by gamers for their choice to delay their bedtime strongly supports the inclusion of video gaming as an addictive behavior,” Roane said in an American Academy of Sleep Medicine news release.

Researchers analyzed online survey results from 963 gamers in the United States, average age 29, who said they had played video games in the previous week.

On average, the gamers delayed going to bed 36 percent of the nights they played video games. The average delay was 101 minutes. They played video games close to five nights a week on average, the researchers found.

While the study can’t prove that playing games into the wee hours means you’re hooked, it suggests a possible link between the two.

“These findings provide further insight into factors that influence individuals’ decision making when determining if they should get sufficient sleep,” Roane said.

The findings were published in the journal Sleep and presented June 13 at a meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in Denver.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse has more about video game addiction.

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Scientists Explore Possible Way to Stop Zika in Its Tracks

FRIDAY, June 17, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Scientists say they’ve identified a potential way to prevent Zika and similar viruses from spreading in the body.

They pinpointed a gene pathway that is vital for Zika and related viruses to spread infection between cells. The researchers found that shutting down a single gene in this pathway prevents these viruses from leaving an infected cell.

“We wanted to find out if we could identify genes present in the host cells that are absolutely required by the virus for infection,” said study senior author Dr. Michael Diamond, the Herbert S. Gasser Professor of Medicine at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

The discovery suggests a potential target for new drugs to fight Zika and other flaviviruses such as dengue and West Nile, according to the researchers.

“Out of about 19,000 genes that we looked at, we only found nine key genes that the virus relies on for infection or to spread,” Diamond said in a university news release.

“All of [the nine] are associated with an important part of the cell that processes viral particles, which is essential to spreading the infection,” he said.

Of those nine genes, disabling one called SPCS1 reduced viral infection but appeared to have no harmful effects on human cells, he added.

“Flaviviruses appear to be uniquely dependent on this particular gene to release the viral particle,” Diamond said.

“In these viruses, this gene sets off a domino effect that is required to assemble and release the viral particle,” he said. “Without it, the chain reaction doesn’t happen and the virus can’t spread. So we are interested in this gene as a potential drug target because it disrupts the virus and does not disrupt the host.”

The research was supported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The study was published June 17 in the journal Nature.

More information

Visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for more on the Zika virus.

This Q&A will tell you what you need to know about Zika.

To see the CDC list of sites where Zika virus is active and may pose a threat to pregnant women, click here.

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Better Care Could Cut Deaths From Trauma by 20 Percent: Report

FRIDAY, June 17, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Improved care could prevent one in every five deaths currently lost to traumatic injuries in the United States, a new federal report finds.

Injuries from car crashes, gun violence, falls and other incidents remain the leading cause of death among Americans younger than 46, a committee from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine noted.

Trauma’s aftermath also costs the United States about $670 billion in medical care and lost productivity in 2013, the group said.

And with incidents of domestic and international terrorism and “mass casualty” events increasingly in the spotlight, the United States could learn from the military’s response to such incidents, the panel said.

“With the decrease in combat and the need to maintain readiness for trauma care between wars, a window of opportunity now exists to integrate military and civilian trauma systems and view them not separately, but as one,” explained committee chair Dr. Donald Berwick, president emeritus of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, in Cambridge, Mass.

The committee stressed that prevention is the best way to reduce the impact of trauma. However, it’s also crucial to provide the best possible trauma care when injuries do occur.

The panel estimated that of the nearly 148,000 deaths due to trauma in the United States in 2014, as many as 20 percent — about 30,000 — may have been prevented with top quality care.

It noted that great strides have been made by the U.S. military in trauma care over the last decade in response the large number of casualties during the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. For example, between 2005 and 2013, the percentage of wounded U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan who died of their injuries fell by nearly 50 percent, the committee said.

In a news release, the panel urged that the White House “lead the integration of military and civilian trauma care to establish a national trauma care system and set an aim to achieve zero preventable deaths after injury.

“In addition, Congress, in consultation with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, should help ensure that pre-hospital care, such as emergency medical services, are included as a seamless component of health care delivery, rather than being viewed and paid as merely transportation providers,” they said.

But Berwick said that not all areas of the country, or medical centers, have benefited equally.

“There are serious limitations in the diffusion of [improvements in trauma care] from location to location,” Berwick said in the news release. “Even as the successes have saved many lives, the disparities have cost many lives,” he said.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers injury prevention resources.

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Blood Pressure May Soar if You Live Near an Airport

FRIDAY, June 17, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Living near an airport isn’t just hard on your hearing, it may also be hard on your heart, new research suggests.

“The volume of air traffic has skyrocketed since jet-powered planes were introduced in the 1960s,” said study author Marta Rojek, a researcher at Jagiellonian University Medical College in Krakow, Poland. “According to the International Civil Aviation Organization, there were 64 million take-offs and landings in 2013 and this figure is set to double in the next 20 years.”

“The steady growth in air traffic and expansion of airports, along with the development of residential areas near airports, has led to more people being exposed to aircraft noise,” Rojek said in a European Society of Cardiology news release.

She added there is emerging evidence that exposure to aircraft noise may increase the risk of high blood pressure, especially at night. There’s also some data that suggest hospitalization for heart disease and stroke may increase with exposure to airplane noise, she said.

The new study included 201 people between the ages of 40 and 66. Approximately half lived in an area with high levels of aircraft noise for more than three years. The other group had low exposure to aircraft noise for more than three years.

People in high-noise areas were more likely to have high blood pressure — 40 percent vs. 24 percent. People exposed to more aircraft noise were also more likely to have heart damage, the study showed.

Although the study wasn’t designed to prove cause-and-effect, the “results suggest that living near an airport for three years or more is associated with an increased risk of high blood pressure and hypertension. These changes may then lead to damage of the aorta and heart which could increase the risk of having a heart attack,” Rojek said.

“More work is needed to enforce laws on exposure to aircraft noise as it is detrimental to our health. We also need further research to understand how the damage occurs and whether it can be reversed,” she concluded.

The findings were presented recently at the European Society of Cardiology meeting in Sophia Antipolis, France. Studies presented at meetings are typically considered preliminary until they’ve been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The World Health Organization has more about excessive noise.

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Depression Plagues Many With COPD

By Chuck Green
HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, June 17, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Struggling with chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) may raise the risk of depression among patients with the incurable respiratory illness, two new studies suggest.

One report, from scientists at Manchester Metropolitan University in England, found one in four patients with COPD suffered persistent depressive symptoms over the three years of the study.

If untreated, depression can have a negative effect on the patients’ overall health and the effectiveness of their treatment, the researchers noted.

A second study from the University of Texas analyzed data from a random sample of 5 percent of Medicare beneficiaries diagnosed with COPD between 2001 and 2011. The researchers found that 22 percent of those patients had one or more psychological disorders.

The study also showed that the odds of 30-day readmission to the hospital were higher in patients with COPD who had depression, anxiety, psychosis, alcohol abuse and drug abuse, compared with those who did not have these disorders.

Both studies were published recently in the journal CHEST.

COPD is an umbrella term for progressive lung diseases that include chronic bronchitis and emphysema. It affects 24 million Americans, and is characterized by increased breathlessness, coughing and wheezing, according to the COPD Foundation.

Depression makes it tougher for those with COPD to adhere to needed therapies, especially since they tend to fault themselves for developing the disease by smoking, explained Dr. David Mannino. He is a professor of medicine in the division of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine at the University of Kentucky.

“They call it ‘the shame-and-blame game’ because a lot of people who have it [COPD] feel like they brought it on themselves and got what they deserved,” said Mannino, who was not involved in either study. “Part of this is the message that smoking’s bad and no one should do it. That leads to the misguided interpretation that ‘smokers are bad people.’ “

However, COPD can also be caused by factors like asthma or dusty work places, Mannino noted.

Dr. Norman Edelman, scientific consultant for the American Lung Association, said depression is relatively common among those with a disabling chronic illness such as COPD.

However, “what’s not so clear and very important is whether depression itself makes the disease worse, or how it could,” he added.

Exercise can be a COPD patient’s biggest ally, according to Edelman.

Those with COPD should work out to their level of tolerance, said Edelman, a professor of preventive medicine and internal medicine at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

“Otherwise, their muscles get deconditioned, and that makes their shortness of breath on any kind of exercise worse,” he said.

But, “you can imagine that someone depressed doesn’t want to exercise, go to the mall or the store,” Edelman acknowledged.

One way to overcome that mindset is by incorporating psychological counseling into COPD care as long as it’s feasible, he said.

Meanwhile, family and friends can also help.

“The thing to do is engage the patient: Don’t let Joe sit in the corner and watch television all day,” Edelman said. “Get him up and out, doing things he can tolerate. And ask questions. That’s not so easy. If you ask old Grandpa if he’s depressed, he’ll snarl at you.”

So, the situation has to be handled “sensitively and gently,” Edelman said.

Still, Mannino said, patients have to assume their share of responsibility for their own welfare.

“The key intervention for people still smoking is to stop,” he said.

Beyond that, COPD patients should make sure they’re using their inhalers correctly.

“Nearly half our patients aren’t using them as directed,” Mannino said. “Every device is a little different. If you’re not using them right, you’re not getting the correct dose.”

More information

Find out more about COPD at the COPD Foundation.

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Zika Spreading Rapidly Through Puerto Rico: CDC

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, June 17, 2016 (HealthDay News) — The Zika virus is spreading fast through Puerto Rico, placing hundreds of pregnant women at risk for delivering babies with the devastating birth defect known as microcephaly, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.

Testing of blood donations in Puerto Rico — “our most accurate real-time leading indicator of Zika activity” — show that more and more people in the U.S. island territory have been infected with the mosquito-borne virus, CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden said during a media briefing.

“Based on the best information available, Zika infections appear to be increasing rapidly in Puerto Rico,” Frieden said.

“The real importance of this information is that in coming months it’s possible that thousands of pregnant women in Puerto Rico could become infected with Zika,” he stressed. “This could lead to dozens or hundreds of infants being born with microcephaly in the coming year.”

In microcephaly, a newborn’s head is smaller than normal, with the potential for long-term neurological damage.

Blood centers in Puerto Rico began testing donations for Zika on April 3, using an experimental test made by New Jersey-based Roche Molecular Systems Inc., according to the CDC.

For weeks now, the percentage of blood donations testing positive for Zika has been increasing in Puerto Rico, reaching as high as 1.1 percent for the latest week of reporting, June 5-11, the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report indicates.

Only one in every five people infected with Zika develops any symptoms, making the virus very difficult to track.

Prior outbreaks of other tropical viruses have shown that blood donations can provide an accurate reflection of infections in the general population, Frieden explained.

Basically, every Zika infection detected in a relatively small proportion of blood donors can reflect hidden infections in a substantial percentage of the general public throughout the course of an epidemic season, the CDC report said.

“The concern here is when we translate that into an exposure over multiple months, it is many times that 1 percent rate,” Frieden explained. “That’s why we’re so concerned about protecting pregnant women.”

Zika has been tied to thousands of cases — mainly in Brazil — of microcephaly. It is typically transmitted via the bite of the Aedes aegypti mosquito.

“Controlling this mosquito is very difficult,” Frieden said. “It takes an entire community working together to protect a pregnant woman.”

Because the virus remains largely undetected, it will be months before affected babies begin to be born, Frieden said. Some will have microcephaly or other brain-related birth defects. But many will appear healthy and normal, and there’s no way to know how they might have been affected, he added.

“We simply don’t know, and may not know for years, if there will be long-term consequences on brain development,” Frieden said.

Zika can be transmitted via blood donation, but to date there have been no reported cases of this happening either in the United States or any of its territories, said Dr. Matthew Kuehnert, director of the CDC’s Office of Blood, Organ and Other Tissue Safety.

“Through the interventions we have in place, the blood supply is being protected in Puerto Rico,” Kuehnert added.

A total of 68 blood donations have come back positive for Zika out of 12,777 tested, the CDC said. All Zika-tainted donations are removed from the blood supply.

Plans are in place to implement the Roche test at blood banks in the continental United States if Zika virus starts to spread locally, Kuehnert said.

No places in the continental United States currently have local transmission of Zika, the CDC said. But one blood bank, the Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center in Houston, has already started screening donations for Zika under the FDA’s investigational approval for the Roche test.

Mosquito bites remain the typical way Zika is spread, but transmission of the virus through sex is more common than previously thought, World Health Organizations officials have said.

The CDC has said it expects to see Zika infections in Gulf Coast states like Florida, Louisiana and Texas and mosquito season heats up.

Women of child-bearing age who live in an active Zika region should protect themselves from mosquitoes by wearing long-sleeved shirts and long pants, using mosquito repellent when outside, and staying indoors as much as possible, according to the CDC.

President Barack Obama has asked Congress to allocate $1.9 billion to combat the Zika threat, but lawmakers have yet to agree on a spending package.

More information

Visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for more on the Zika virus.

This Q&A will tell you what you need to know about Zika.

To see the CDC list of sites where Zika virus is active and may pose a threat to pregnant women, click here.

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Folic Acid Now Added to Corn Masa Flour: FDA

FRIDAY, June 17, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Adding folic acid to corn masa flour could help reduce birth defects among Hispanic babies in the United States, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says.

The FDA recently approved the addition of folic acid, a B vitamin, to corn masa flour, which is used in foods such as tortillas, tacos, tortilla chips and tamales.

“By adding folic acid to corn masa flour, we have the opportunity to impact a large segment of the U.S. population and protect parents and their children from the devastating birth defects that are linked to insufficient folic acid consumed by the mother before and during pregnancy,” said Dr. Jonca Bull, director of the FDA’s Office of Minority Health.

When consumed by pregnant women, folic acid is known to lower the risk of a baby being born with neural tube defects, which affect the brain, spine and spinal cord.

While folic acid has long been added to certain cereal grain products, many “Hispanic women don’t benefit from the folic acid in cereal grain products because those products are not a mainstay of their regular diets — which often are corn masa-based,” Bull explained in an agency news release.

That could be one reason why Hispanic women are more likely than other women in the United States to have babies with neural tube defects, the agency noted.

Cynthia Pellegrini is senior vice president of public policy at the March of Dimes. “[The] FDA worked closely with us to design a study that garnered the information needed to establish the safety of this action,” she said. “We’re thrilled at the outcome and feel confident that it will address the disparities we’ve seen in the Latina community and will give even more babies a healthy start in life.”

Women should start consuming 400 micrograms of folic acid a day at least one month before becoming pregnant and throughout pregnancy, the FDA says.

Easy ways to get enough folic acid include eating a bowl of an enriched breakfast cereal; eating other enriched cereal grain products; and taking a daily vitamin or multivitamin supplement that contains folic acid, according to the agency.

More information

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

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