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Check in with us as we feature the latest trends, research and news in medicine, health and science. A team of Star Tribune staffers will aggregate updates from news wires, websites, magazines and medical journals.
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HIV down among black women, up among gay men
Posted by: Colleen Stoxen Updated: December 19, 2012 - 6:31 PM
Fewer black women in the United States are being infected with HIV, but the number of young gay and bisexual men infected is rising, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday.
Between 2008 and 2010, the number of newly infected black women dropped 21 percent, according to the CDC report. Yet despite the decline, they still accounted for 70 percent of all new HIV cases among women, the federal health agency said.
The rate of new infections for black women was 20 times higher than the rate for white women, the CDC said.
The number of new infections among young gay and bisexual men increased by 22 percent during that same two-year period, the CDC said.
The number of new HIV infections diagnosed annually in the overall U.S. population remained unchanged between 2008 and 2010 at about 47,500, according to health officials.
Read more from Reuters.
Teen marijuana use is at all-time high
Posted by: Colleen Stoxen Updated: December 19, 2012 - 5:35 PM
A new survey shows marijuana use by teens remains high, and officials say it will probably increase after Washington and Colorado decriminalized the drug last month.
“Based on what we know ... we are predicting that it’s going to go up,” says Nora Volkow, M.D., director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “Just the fact that there are some states that have made it legal ... will send a message” to teens throughout the country.
Already, the proportion of teens who consider marijuana to be harmful is the lowest it’s been in decades, according to the 2012 “Monitoring the Future” survey of eighth, 10th, and 12th graders. The annual survey of teen drug use is conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan.
The survey's silver lining is that it shows the use of illicit drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes is declining.
Still, about 70% of eighth graders said they thought regular use of marijuana was harmful, while about 42% said they considered occasional use harmful. Those rates are the lowest since the survey began asking eighth graders that question in 1991.
Among 12th graders, the proportion who said regular use was harmful was about 44%, occasional use, about 21%. Those are the lowest rates since 1979 and 1983, respectively.
The survey shows that 6.5% of high school seniors said they smoke marijuana daily, which is about the same as last year but up from 5.1% five years ago.
Use of synthetic marijuana, known as K-2 or Spice, was stable in 2012, with slightly more than 11% of high school seniors reporting they had used it in the past year, the survey shows.
Read more from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and WebMD.
Cancer study on 9/11 responders inconclusive
Posted by: Colleen Stoxen Updated: December 18, 2012 - 6:26 PMRescue and recovery workers who provided aid after the World Trade Center attacks may have an increased risk of certain types of cancer, including prostate and thyroid cancers, a new study suggests.
However, that finding was based on a relatively small number of cancers. So there is no clear link. And neither relief workers nor people who lived, worked or went to school near the towers had a higher-than-average chance of being diagnosed with all cancers combined up to seven years later. The study was the largest to date, with 55,700 people.
"There's a lot of interest in the question of, does exposure to the World Trade Center cause cancer?" said Dr. Thomas Farley, the New York City Health Commissioner.
Based on this study, Farley said the role of the attacks on cancer risk is "complicated."
"Most of the people who have had cancer so far would have had it anyway," Farley told Reuters Health.
But because cancer can take 20 or more years to develop, the true risks may not become clear for many years, he added.
Read more from Reuters.
How smoking and red meat take days off your life
Posted by: Colleen Stoxen Updated: December 18, 2012 - 5:33 PMWe all know smoking and bingeing on red meat and alcohol are bad for us. But how bad?
British statistician David Spiegelhalter, in a report published Monday in British Medical Journal, attempts to quantify which habits have a greater impact on life expectancy: Is drinking heavily worse than living a sedentary lifestyle?
To do this, he created a unit of measure called a "microlife," which corresponds to 30 minutes of life expectancy. Using other studies, he determined that for each day of heavy smoking, a person could be shaving about five hours off his life; someone who watches TV for two hours a day loses about 30 minutes for each day they take part in that activity.
"I'm taking lifelong habits and looking at how they affect people on average, convert it to a daily rate," Spiegelhalter says. "The whole idea is to make a comparison about healthy activities and bad activities. Crudely, drinking two cups of coffee will cancel out eating a burger."
Here's how different habits stack up, according to Spiegelhalter (estimates are based on various life expectancy studies and hours gained or lost are per day of exposure)
- Smoking (15-24 cigarettes per day): -five hours
- Alcohol: First drink, + 30 minutes; -15 minutes per subsequent drink per day
- Sedentary behavior: -30 minutes per two hours of TV watching
- Red meat: -30 minutes per three ounces of red meat consumed
- Fruit & vegetables: five servings per day: +two hours
- Exercise: +one hour for first 20 minutes, +30 minutes for every additional 40 minutes
Read more from U.S. News.
Cardio burns more fat than weight lifting
Posted by: Colleen Stoxen Updated: December 17, 2012 - 12:28 PM
If you want to burn fat and lose weight, aerobic exercise beats resistance training, a new study says.
Previous studies have shown that resistance training has many benefits, including improving blood sugar control, she said, but the effects of it on fat reduction have not been conclusive.
"We not trying to discourage people from resistance training," said study author Leslie Willis, clinical research coordinator at Duke University Medical Center and an exercise physiologist.
The new study, published Dec. 15 in the Journal of Applied Physiology, compared resistance training to aerobic exercise to determine which is best for weight and fat loss.
The new study results suggest for people short on time, focusing on aerobic exercise is the best way to lose weight and fat, Willis said.
Read more from U.S. News.
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