By Nancy Lapid, Health Science Editor |
Hello Health Rounds readers! Today we have good news for those of us (including me) who struggle to find time to exercise during the week. Squeezing most of the recommended weekly 150 minutes into the weekend seems to provide the same significant cardiovascular benefit as an exercise program spread out across the week, according to large new study. We also report on a study presented today at a major meeting of dementia experts that suggests hearing aids can slow cognitive decline in high-risk seniors, and we have lots of links below to stories reporting on other findings from that meeting, too. Additionally, we share data that suggests racial bias affects use of physical restraints in pediatric emergency rooms. In breaking news, see these stories from our Reuters journalists: Europe on red alert as heatwave brings health warning; Lilly drug slows Alzheimer's by 60% for mildly impaired patients; Acumen's Alzheimer's drug passes initial safety test; CMS proposes broader coverage of PET scans for Alzheimer's patients; White House says restrictive abortion laws hurting US military; J&J sues to halt Medicare drug price negotiation plans; and Britain lags in delivery of new hospitals. |
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Hearing aids may slow cognitive decline in higher-risk seniors, according to data released on Tuesday at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Amsterdam. REUTERS/Steve Marcus |
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Weekend bursts of exercise yield significant heart benefits |
"Weekend warriors" who get 150 minutes of exercise per week as recommended by many health experts but squeeze most of it into the weekend appear to get just as much cardiovascular benefit as people who spread their exercise minutes over the course of a week, according to a large study. It has been unclear whether concentrated moderate-to-vigorous exercise provides the same benefits as more evenly distributed activity. To learn more, researchers tracked nearly 90,000 adults with an average age of 62. Wrist-worn accelerometers showed that nearly 60,000 participants got 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise per week, but roughly one in three of them accomplished most of that exercise in one or two days. Six years later, on average, after accounting for other risk factors, people who squeezed most of their exercise into one or two days and those with more evenly distributed physical activity patterns had similar significant reductions in risks of atrial fibrillation, heart attack, heart failure and stroke, compared with participants who did not get at least 150 minutes of exercise weekly, the researchers reported on Tuesday in JAMA. "These results highlight the flexibility with which physical activity can be accumulated to achieve health benefits," Peter Katzmarzyk of Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and John Jakicic of the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City wrote in an editorial published with the study. But, they added, "The public health message should ... clearly convey that every minute counts," and therefore doctors should help patients set achievable goals, even if that means less than 150 minutes per week. |
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Essential Reading on Reuters.com |
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Hearing aids may delay dementia in high-risk seniors |
Hearing aids may slow cognitive decline in older higher-risk adults, researchers said on Tuesday at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Amsterdam. Their randomized, controlled trial involving nearly 1,000 hard-of-hearing seniors did not show a cognitive benefit of hearing aids for everyone. But in a subset of 238 adults who had more risk factors for cognitive decline and lower cognitive scores to start with, a hearing intervention slowed cognitive decline by 48%, according to a report of the study published in The Lancet. Altogether, the researchers randomly assigned 977 volunteers, with an average age of about 77, to either a treatment group that received hearing aids, a hearing "toolkit" to assist with self-management, and ongoing instruction and counseling with an audiologist, or a control group that received talk sessions with a health educator about preventing chronic diseases. At the start, all study participants generally had mild to moderate hearing loss very typical of older adults, but no substantial cognitive impairment. The primary endpoint was the change, three years later, in participants' scores on tests of brain processing and thinking. "The positive results with the hearing intervention in the (higher-risk subgroup) ... are encouraging and warrant further investigation," Alzheimer's Association chief science officer Maria Carrillo said in a statement. If the findings are confirmed in larger trials with participants like those who appeared to benefit in this study, "hearing aids could really make a difference for populations at risk of dementia," an editorial published with the study concluded. Read more about hearing aids on Reuters.com |
Black children more often restrained in U.S. emergency rooms |
Black children are more likely than white children to be physically restrained in pediatric emergency rooms, according to a study from the New England region of the United States. Data collected from 2013 through 2021 from hospitals of the Yale-New Haven Health System showed that use of physical restraints was rare overall. Among the 189,259 emergency room visits by Black and white children ages 5 to 16, restraints were employed in fewer than half of one percent. But Black girls were 2.5 times more likely than white girls to be restrained, while Black boys were 69% more likely to be restrained than white boys, the researchers reported on Monday in JAMA Pediatrics. Restraint was more common in boys overall, but racial disparities were more pronounced among girls, study leader Dr. Destiny Tolliver of Boston Medical Center noted. Previous studies in U.S. adults have found that Black people are more often physically restrained in emergency rooms than whites. The new findings show that "though we don't always think about these disparities in girls, they're not only present, but actually even more pronounced than they are with boys," Tolliver said. Black children are often perceived as older and less innocent than similarly aged white children, Tolliver's team noted in its report. "Many parents, especially Black parents, worry about their children being perceived as dangerous, and have seen the ways that perception can lead to harsh treatment," Tolliver said. Similar patterns are likely elsewhere in the United States, she said. "Our ... findings align with racialized and gendered disparities in schools and in the criminal legal system that have been studied at the national level, and I think it is likely that the same drivers impact physical restraint around the country as well," Tolliver said. Read more about racial health disparities on Reuters.com This newsletter was edited by Will Dunham. Additional reporting by Shawana Alleyne-Morris. |
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