Hormone May Be Linked to Teenage Obesity

TUESDAY, May 24, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Obese teens may have lower levels of a weight-regulating hormone than normal-weight teens, a new study says.

“Our study is the first to look at levels of spexin in the pediatric population,” said Dr. Seema Kumar, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

Previous studies in adults concluded that spexin is likely involved in regulating the body’s energy balance and fat mass.

For this study, researchers assessed levels of spexin in 51 obese and 18 normal-weight teens, ages 12 to 18.

Teens with the lowest levels of spexin were more than five times as likely to be obese than those with the highest levels of the hormone, the researchers found.

The study was published online May 24 in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

“Previous research has found reduced levels of this hormone in adults with obesity. Overall, our findings suggest spexin may play a role in weight gain beginning at an early age,” Kumar said in a journal news release.

“It is noteworthy that we see such clear differences in spexin levels between obese and lean adolescents,” she said.

However, more research is needed to explore how spexin might be involved in the development of childhood obesity and whether it can be used to treat or manage the condition, Kumar added.

Also, the researchers only found an association, rather than a cause-and-effect link, in this study.

About 17 percent of American children and adolescents are obese, which increases their risk for serious and costly health conditions. Childhood obesity costs $14 billion in additional prescription drugs, and emergency room and outpatient visits each year, according to the Endocrine Society.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on childhood overweight and obesity.

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Time to Drop the ‘No-Eating Rule’ Before Colonoscopy?

By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, May 24, 2016 (HealthDay News) — New research suggests that the grueling process of preparing for a colonoscopy may not have to be endured on an empty stomach.

Colonoscopy patients typically have to forgo all solid foods and go on a clear-liquid diet while taking laxatives the day before their procedure. However, this new study found that those who ate a limited amount of low-fiber foods were happier and didn’t suffer any negative effects during their exam.

In fact, their bowels were actually better prepared for the procedure than those of the patients who stuck to traditional clear-liquid diets, the researchers said.

“The assumptions about no food on the day before colonoscopy are probably not correct. The clear-liquid diet is very restrictive, and probably too restrictive,” said study author Dr. Jason Samarasena. He is an assistant clinical professor of medicine with the division of gastroenterology and hepatology-interventional endoscopy at the University of California, Irvine.

The American Cancer Society estimates that more than 134,000 cases of colorectal cancer will be diagnosed in the United States this year. But while colonoscopy screening is recommended at age 50 for most adults (and even earlier for those at high risk), many don’t undergo the procedure. The required preparation is simply too much for some to bear, the researchers said.

The clear liquid is designed to keep the colon clear during a colonoscopy. “Things that are hard or fibrous like seeds can clog the scope,” explained Dr. Theodore Levin, chief of gastroenterology with Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Walnut Creek, Calif.

Enter the idea of a low-fiber diet. The concept is to allow patients to eat foods that aren’t likely to stick around in the bowel and disrupt a physician’s examination of the intestines.

In the new study, researchers assigned 83 patients to undergo a colonoscopy after a day on a clear-liquid diet or a day in which they were allowed to eat a small number of low-fiber foods like macaroni and cheese, yogurt, white bread, lunch meats and ice cream. The patients ate about 1,000 to 1,500 calories from a combination of fat, protein and carbohydrates.

The researchers found that more of the patients on the low-fiber diet were adequately prepared for a colonoscopy than those who took clear liquids only. And, those in the low-fiber group were less tired on the morning of the procedure. Also, 97 percent of those in the low-fiber group said they were satisfied with their diet compared to just 46 percent of those in the clear-liquid group.

Samarasena said the low-fiber food — also known as “low-residue” food — clears out of the colon because it easily liquefies in the digestive system. “The problem isn’t food,” he said. “It’s specifically the type of food that you’ll have on the day before. Things that liquefy quickly will get washed out easily.”

By contrast, he said, high-fiber foods like vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and grains are often undigested when they make their way to the colon, and they can interfere with the examination of the colon.

But why would those who ate food actually have clearer bowels? Eating “probably stimulates more bowel movements the day before the procedure,” Samarasena said. “You’ve started the colon-emptying process with the food that you’ve been eating.”

The study was small, but Samarasena said other research has produced similar results.

Levin, the gastroenterologist, said the study is useful, but patients should talk to their physician before changing their colonoscopy prep.

“It is worth discussing, though,” said Levin, who allows diabetic patients and some others to consider a low-fiber diet.

As for himself, Levin said he’d probably try a clear-liquid diet first, to maximize the chances of a “well-prepped colon,” but “the low-residue diet is worth looking into.”

The findings were to be presented Monday at the Digestive Disease Week conference in San Diego. Studies released at conferences should be considered preliminary until they are published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

More information

For more on colonoscopy prep, visit the Colon Cancer Alliance.

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What Really Works to Help Baby Sleep

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, May 24, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Common techniques for helping babies — and parents — sleep at night seem to carry no long-term harms, a small trial finds.

The study tested two methods: “graduated extinction” (also known as “controlled crying”) and “bedtime fading.”

The former strategy is aimed at letting babies “self-soothe” on their own, without immediate parental intervention. The latter method extends a baby’s bedtime, to help sleep come more quickly.

Researchers found that both approaches encouraged babies to fall asleep faster at bedtime. The controlled-crying approach also helped them wake up fewer times during the night.

What’s more, neither technique seemed to harm babies’ emotional development or bonding with mom and dad, the researchers found.

It’s that latter finding that’s most important, according to Dr. Marcel Deray, a pediatric sleep specialist at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, in Miami.

“We’ve known that these techniques work,” said Deray, who wasn’t involved in the study.

However, he added, parents often worry that sleep training will distress their baby — possibly with lingering consequences.

“But this study shows that 12 months later, the babies are perfectly fine,” Deray said.

Parents worry about the controlled-crying method, in particular, according to study leader Michael Gradisar, a clinical psychologist at Flinders University, in Adelaide, Australia.

With that technique, parents resist the urge to immediately respond to their baby’s nighttime cries, so he or she can learn to self-soothe. Some parents worry that will damage their baby emotionally, and possibly cause “attachment” problems or other issues in the long run, Gradisar explained.

But, he said, his team found no evidence that was the case.

They report the findings in the May 24 online issue of Pediatrics.

For the study, the researchers randomly assigned parents of 43 babies to one of three groups: one that started practicing controlled crying; one that took up bedtime fading; and a third, “control” group that was just given information on healthy sleep.

The babies ranged in age from 6 months to 16 months. All had a “sleep problem,” according to their parents.

Parents in the controlled-crying group were given a basic plan: When their baby woke up crying during the night, they had to wait a couple of minutes before responding. They could then go comfort, but not pick up, the baby.

Over time, parents gradually let their baby cry for longer periods before responding.

Bedtime fading is a “gentler” approach, according to Gradisar: The aim is to help babies fall asleep more quickly by putting them down later.

Parents in that study group were told to delay their baby’s bedtime for a few nights — to 7:15 p.m. instead of 7 p.m., for instance. If the baby was still having trouble falling asleep, bedtime could be pushed back another 15 minutes.

After three months, the researchers found, babies in both sleep-training groups were falling asleep faster when their parents put them down — between 10 and 13 minutes faster, on average. On the other hand, there was little change in the control group.

Babies in the controlled-crying group were also waking up less often at night: averaging once or twice a night, versus three times at the study’s start.

For moms in both groups, stress levels generally declined in the first month, and there was no evidence that either sleep tactic stressed babies out, Gradisar said.

In fact, saliva samples showed that the babies’ levels of the “stress hormone” cortisol declined a bit, compared with babies in the control group.

The study found no evidence of any lingering harm, either.

A year after the study’s start, children in the three groups had similar rates of behavioral and emotional issues. They were also similar in their “attachment” to their parents — which was gauged during standard tests at the research center.

How do you know when your baby has a sleep “problem”?

Young infants normally wake up frequently, but by the age of 6 months, Deray said, about 80 percent of babies sleep through the night. By 9 months, 90 percent do, he noted.

So if your baby is still routinely waking at those ages, it’s a good idea to talk to your pediatrician, according to Deray. For one, he said, that can help spot any underlying issue, such as chronic reflux — where food backs up from the baby’s stomach.

If sleep training is recommended, Deray said, the choice of technique is up to parents. “They have to do what they’re comfortable with.”

More information

The American Academy of Pediatrics has advice on helping your baby sleep.

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Loss of Y Chromosome in Men Tied to Alzheimer’s Risk

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, May 23, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Men who lose Y chromosomes from their blood cells as they age may have an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, a new study suggests.

The study of more than 3,200 men found those who already had Alzheimer’s were nearly three times more likely to show a loss of the Y chromosome in some of their blood cells. What’s more, older men with that “loss of Y” faced a higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s over the next eight years.

Experts said the study doesn’t prove that loss of the Y chromosome directly contributes to Alzheimer’s disease.

But it adds to evidence tying loss of Y to disease risk, said study co-author Lars Forsberg.

It also raises the possibility of one day testing men’s blood for loss of Y, to predict their risk of developing Alzheimer’s, said Forsberg, a researcher at Uppsala University in Sweden.

The findings were reported online May 23 in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

Men have an X and a Y chromosome, while women have two X chromosomes. Researchers used to think that the Y did little more than determine male sex and ensure normal sperm production.

But recent studies have shown that the Y chromosome contains a large number of genes, whose jobs are not fully understood yet.

Similarly, researchers have long known that as men age, they can lose the Y chromosome from some of their body cells. It was seen as a normal part of aging. Some recent studies, however, have suggested otherwise.

In a 2014 study, for example, Forsberg and his team found that older men with a loss of Y had a higher cancer risk and shorter lives than other men.

These latest findings on Alzheimer’s are “very interesting and provocative,” said Dr. Luca Giliberto, a neurologist and researcher with the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, in Manhasset, N.Y.

Giliberto, who was not involved with the study, said the researchers accounted for other factors tied to Alzheimer’s risk — including older age, education levels, high blood pressure and diabetes.

And still, men who had a loss of Y in their blood cells were nearly seven times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s, versus other men.

“It seems that the loss of Y is, per se, an independent risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease,” Giliberto said.

That opens up many more questions, Giliberto noted. One is, which genes on the Y chromosome — when lost — might leave a man more vulnerable to Alzheimer’s?

Another question is, when does loss of Y begin? “We speculate that whatever cellular mechanisms fail and lead to Alzheimer’s, they start in our young adult life, not in our 70s,” Giliberto said. “Is loss of Y a process that starts that early?”

If loss of Y does not begin until late in life, he added, then it may only make an “ancillary” contribution to Alzheimer’s risk.

The findings are based on blood samples from more than 3,200 European men, average age 73. Overall, 17 percent had a detectable loss of Y in some of their blood cells.

When the researchers focused on men free from Alzheimer’s at the outset, they found that loss of Y predicted a higher risk of developing the disease. And the greater the loss, the higher the risk: Men missing the chromosome from around 35 percent of their blood cells were more likely to develop Alzheimer’s than those with loss of Y in 10 percent of their cells.

Since scientists do not fully understand the workings of Y, the reasons for the link are unclear.

But Forsberg speculated that impaired immune function could play a role — since loss of Y has been tied to cancer risk as well.

Giliberto agreed. He noted that loss of Y has also been seen in certain autoimmune diseases — where the immune system mistakenly attacks the body’s own tissue. And some researchers suspect immune function may affect Alzheimer’s risk.

“A faulty brain immune system has been proposed as a possible ‘soft spot’ for Alzheimer’s disease, allowing for the abnormal accumulation of proteins and consequent (brain cell) degeneration,” Giliberto said.

For now, though, researchers have much to learn about the connection between the Y chromosome and disease. And more studies will be needed before loss of Y can be used as a “biomarker” of Alzheimer’s risk, Giliberto said.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Aging explains some basics of Alzheimer’s disease.

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Living Near Fast-Food Places Hurts Less-Educated Most

MONDAY, May 23, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Living in a neighborhood full of fast-food outlets is especially unhealthy for people who are poorly educated, a new British study suggests.

“Neighborhoods are clearly important in shaping what all of us eat, no matter how educated we are,” said researcher Thomas Burgoine, a fellow at the University of Cambridge. “But this effect appears to be much greater for those with lower levels of education,” he said in a university news release.

The researchers wanted to understand how the availability of fast food influences diet and obesity. To find the answer, they examined survey results from 6,000 adults ages 29-62 living in Cambridgeshire, a county in England.

The study found that the least educated people had unhealthier diets than the most educated, even if they lived in the same neighborhoods full of fast-food restaurants.

In those neighborhoods, the least educated people ate about one-third more unhealthy fast food a day than the most educated people. That’s the equivalent of nearly 9 pounds of unhealthy food a year, the researchers said. The least educated people were also the most prone to obesity.

While the study did not prove cause-and-effect, the researchers think the findings show the value of regulating the number of fast-food outlets in neighborhoods.

“Our results suggest that these policies will be effective across socioeconomic groups, but, critically, particularly for the most disadvantaged. This could help to reduce socioeconomic inequalities in diet and health,” said study senior author Pablo Monsivais, a public health researcher at Cambridge.

This is important, Monsivais said, “because attempts to encourage more healthy living at an individual level have largely failed to reduce health inequalities.” Some say such initiatives have been especially ineffective among disadvantaged groups, he added.

The study was published in the May 11 issue of American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

More information

The American Heart Association offers tips for making fast food friendlier.

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Whooping Cough Shot Safe for Pregnant Women

MONDAY, May 23, 2016 (HealthDay News) — The whooping cough vaccine is safe for pregnant women, a new study indicates.

The researchers also found the tetanus-diphtheria-acellular pertussis (Tdap) vaccine, which protects against whooping cough, is critical for the health of newborns that are particularly vulnerable to the illness.

“Our study adds to the growing body of evidence that the Tdap vaccine is safe for pregnant women and their unborn children,” said. Berenson. “It’s important for women to get the Tdap vaccine while they are pregnant to protect their infants from pertussis [whooping cough]. Doctors can share the findings of our paper with their pregnant patients to let them know the vaccine is safe for them and their babies.”

The Tdap vaccine is currently recommended for all pregnant women in the United States.

The study was published recently in Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics.

For the study, the researchers reviewed outcomes from nearly 1,800 births. They compared more than 1,100 cases involving a mother who was vaccinated against whooping cough with 650 women who weren’t immunized.

“We took advantage of electronic medical records to look at the health of a large number of women and their infants, many more than some previous studies. We also examined more health outcomes than previous studies and were able to thoroughly check women’s medical records,” study author Dr. Abbey Berenson said in a journal news release. Berenson is from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

The only difference in health outcomes among the mothers or their infants was that vaccinated women were less likely to deliver via C-section, the study found.

The researchers noted this finding is probably not directly linked to the Tdap vaccine.

Whooping cough is caused by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis. There were 200,000 reported cases of the disease each year in the United States until routine immunization resulted in a more than 90 percent drop in rates of the disease in developed nations, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

But, the CDC cautions that whooping cough remains a threat, particularly for infants.

“Babies less than 3 months old are especially vulnerable to the devastating outcomes from pertussis. They are most at risk of dying from the disease. And yet, newborns don’t receive their first dose of [whooping cough vaccine] until they are 2 months old and aren’t fully protected until they are 6 months old,” Berenson said.

That’s why it’s so important to protect newborns from whooping cough in other ways. And, one way to do that is to make sure pregnant women are vaccinated. Antibodies that can protect against the disease can be passed from mom to fetus if the mother has been immunized.

“These maternal antibodies can provide short-term protection to newborns,” Berenson said.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides more information on the whooping cough vaccine.

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Too Many Advanced Cancer Patients Lack Info About Their Disease

MONDAY, May 23, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Many patients battling advanced cancer lack basic information about their prognosis or treatment, meaning they can’t make informed decisions about their care, a small new study suggests.

“These were people with highly lethal metastatic cancers that had progressed after at least one prior line of chemotherapy; their life expectancy was approximately four months from our interview,” said lead researcher Dr. Holly Prigerson. She is a professor of geriatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City.

“We were astonished to learn that only 5 percent of this sample had sufficient knowledge about their illness to make informed decisions about their care,” Prigerson said in a Weill Cornell news release.

The findings highlight the need for doctors to improve communication with these patients, she said.

In the study, Prigerson’s team compared 178 advanced cancer patients’ understanding of their disease before and after they underwent medical scans to stage their cancer. The researchers also did the same comparison before and after the patients discussed the scan results with their cancer doctor.

Before their scans, only nine of the patients understood that they were at the latter stages of an incurable cancer and had just months to live.

“Many did not know that they were at the end-stage of their illness or that their cancer was incurable. They were basically making treatment decisions in the dark,” explained Prigerson, who also co-directs the Center for Research on End-of-Life Care at Weill Cornell.

But there was good news, too: The findings “show that when advanced cancer patients reported having recently discussed their life-expectancy with their oncologist, their illness understanding improved significantly,” Prigerson said.

“That information may also help patients prioritize how they wish to spend the last few months of their lives, some by fulfilling ‘bucket lists,” she said. “Treatment choices patients make might follow from these priorities.”

The study was published May 23 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more on coping with advanced cancer.

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Stool Transplant Soothes Tough-to-Treat Colitis in Study

By Maureen Salamon
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, May 23, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Stool transplants helped ease debilitating symptoms and heal the colons of tough-to-treat ulcerative colitis patients, new research shows.

Australian scientists said the findings could pave the way for such transplants to be used on a more widespread basis. Transferring fecal matter from healthy donors into these patients alters the composition of their gut bacteria, circumventing one of the drivers of ulcerative colitis, experts said.

“We were not completely surprised by the study findings, as . . . smaller studies along with unpublished experience suggested repeated fecal microbiota transplantation may be an effective treatment for ulcerative colitis,” said study author Dr. Sudarshan Paramsothy, a gastroenterologist at University of New South Wales. “This study shows that [stool transplant] is a very promising therapeutic option for ulcerative colitis patients.”

Up to 700,000 Americans suffer from ulcerative colitis, a chronic disease believed to stem from an abnormal immune system response, according to the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America. The condition causes the lining of the colon to become inflamed and develop tiny, open ulcers. Symptoms include bloody stools, abdominal pain and persistent diarrhea.

Currently, stool transplants — which experts acknowledge come with a “yuck” factor — are standard treatment only for virulent Clostridium difficile gastrointestinal infections. These infections can be life-threatening.

Across three Australian study sites, Paramsothy and his team analyzed 81 ulcerative colitis patients whose disease had proved resistant to standard treatments such as steroids or anti-inflammatory medications.

Participants were randomized into two groups, with 41 receiving repeated fecal transplants over eight weeks and the rest receiving a placebo.

The fecal matter used for transplantation had been derived from at least three donors per participant, to minimize the chances that a single donor’s gut bacteria could skew results.

Donor stool was homogenized and filtered, then frozen for storage prior to infusion as a liquid “slurry” enema directly into the rectum, Paramsothy said. Multiple donations were needed to supply the 40 infusions required for each participant receiving stool transplants, who administered their own infusions after the first treatment.

“There is a risk of infection transmission whenever a biological product is [used],” he said, “but this can be minimized by comprehensive screening of history [and] stool and blood testing for known pathogens.”

After eight weeks, 27 percent of stool transplant recipients achieved the study’s primary goal, which was patients reporting no ulcerative colitis symptoms and doctors determining through endoscopic examination that the lining of the colon had healed or significantly improved. Only three of the 40 patients, or 8 percent, in the placebo group had achieved this goal.

When researchers counted only those patients who reported being symptom-free, without colon observation, they found that 44 percent of stool transplant patients reached this milestone, compared to 20 percent in the placebo group.

The study is to be presented Monday at Digestive Disease Week, in San Diego. Research presented at scientific conferences typically hasn’t been published or peer-reviewed, and results are considered preliminary.

Still, a U.S. expert said he found the results remarkable.

“I was most impressed . . . and I think we need to pay attention to this study,” said Dr. R. Balfour Sartor, director of the Broad Research Medical Program for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America. “There’s a ‘yuck’ factor with stool transplants, although it’s quite trendy these days. The clinicians, the patients and the government agencies have to be convinced it’s safe and effective, and this study is probably the best example it can be for ulcerative colitis.”

But more research is still needed to determine the treatment’s long-term effects in ulcerative colitis patients, Paramsothy and Sartor agreed.

“What’s not shown here is the staying power — how long do these patients remain in remission after the eight weeks of therapy is over?” Sartor asked. “One of the defects of the current study is we don’t know what happened after the fecal transplants stopped.”

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases offers more about ulcerative colitis.

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Blood Pressure Swings Linked to Faster Decline in Mental Skills

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, May 23, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Fluctuations in blood pressure may be linked to faster declines in thinking skills among seniors, a new study suggests.

Among older patients, those whose systolic blood pressure — the top number in a blood pressure reading — varied between doctor’s visits showed more rapid mental deterioration and loss of verbal memory than those whose blood pressure stayed within normal ranges, researchers found.

Variability in the bottom number — diastolic blood pressure — was also associated with faster decline of mental ability among those aged 55 to 64, but not among people aged 65 and older, the study authors added.

“The relevance of blood pressure variability between doctor’s visits has been dismissed until recently,” said study author Bo Qin, a postdoctoral associate at Rutgers Cancer Institute, in New Brunswick, N.J.

“However, over the past six years, evidence has accumulated that blood pressure variability over monthly or yearly visits may lead to greater risk of stroke and some additional health problems,” she said.

This study suggests that it may not be a random phenomenon or an unimportant measurement related to use of blood pressure medications, “but may instead provide information relevant for prognosis,” Qin said.

According to Qin, this study cannot prove that fluctuations in blood pressure cause declines in mental ability, but it adds to mounting evidence that these changes in blood pressure may have health consequences.

“Higher long-term variability in blood pressure readings predicted faster declines of mental function among older adults,” Qin said. “Controlling blood pressure instability may be a potential strategy in preserving mental function among older adults,” she suggested.

The report was published online May 23 in the journal Hypertension.

For the study, Qin and colleagues collected data on nearly 1,000 adults aged 55 and older who took part in the China Health and Nutrition Survey over five years.

Blood pressure was calculated from three or four visits to health professionals. Participants also completed a series of mental quizzes, such as word recall and counting backwards.

“Although the study was done in China, the same results apply in the U.S.,” said Dr. Gisele Wolf-Klein, director of geriatric education at Northwell Health in Great Neck, N.Y.

“The correlation of fluctuation in blood pressure and dementia is known to be linked to circulatory problems — specifically to high blood pressure,” she said.

But high blood pressure and low blood pressure may both be damaging to the brain, she added. The goal is to try to achieve a stable blood pressure rather than have huge variations. “You want good, solid, stable, average numbers,” Wolf-Klein said.

Keeping blood pressure within normal ranges may help “prevent dementia and may even benefit patients who are losing their mental abilities,” she said.

More information

Visit the American Heart Association for more on high blood pressure.

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All of Britney Spears’s Daring Billboard Looks Have Us Racing to the Gym

Photo: Getty Images

If you’ve ever doubted what Britney Spears is capable of, look no further than her scintillating presence at the 2016 Billboard Music Awards Sunday night in Las Vegas.

After wowing on the red carpet in a pant-less, lacy black ensemble with over-the-knee Schutz gladiator heels—that, quite frankly, was enough to earn her headlines alone—the pop star took to the stage with an opening medley of her greatest hits that had us yearning for the early aughts.

The 34-year-old talent kicked it all off with “Work, Bitch,” following up with “Womanizer,” where she ripped off her jacket to reveal an embellished red bikini with chains festooned over her toned dancer’s body.

Photo: Getty Images

After that rousing performance, the Billboard Millennium Award honoree went for a semi-sheer light blue embellished halter crop top showcasing her killer abs with a coordinating skirt. Have we mentioned she’s a mother of two?

RELATED: The Hottest Looks from the 2016 Billboard Music Awards

Photo: Getty Images

It’s clear her Vegas residency has treated her well, honing her already adept, skin-baring stage presence and costumery in a way that have fans begging for more. Keep ’em coming, Brit!

This article originally appeared on InStyle.com.

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