Is losing a parent harder for boys? Plus, people with Alzheimer’s genes may lose sense of smell first, and more health news
Is losing a parent harder for boys?
After the death of a parent, boys may have a tougher time than girls, a new study suggests.
Young people who lose a parent before age 21 are at risk for poor mental health, lower income and unemployment in adulthood. Researchers say boys seem to be harder hit.
The study was published July 25 in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.
“Early parental death is strongly associated with a higher risk of children’s poor mental health in adulthood for both males and females, but the estimated odds ratios are usually quantitatively larger for males,” the authors, led by Petri Böckerman of the University of Jyväskylä in Finland, said in a journal news release.
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Why stairs might be a bigger hazard for young women
When it comes to falling down stairs, young women are more prone to take a tumble than their male counterparts.
According to a new study, this is because they are more likely to be distracted or to wear impractical footwear.
Going down a staircase while talking or texting on the phone or engaging in other distractions is an invitation to take a header, researchers report. Women were more likely to be talking to another person than men while on stairs in the study.
“When we found that women were talking to a friend more than men, it was like a groan because we’re confirming the stereotype, which you never want to do,” researcher Shirley Rietdyk, a professor of kinesiology at Purdue University, told NBC News.
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Quartz countertops are damaging the lungs of installers
Workers making the most popular type of countertop sold in the United States are at risk for potentially deadly lung disease, a new study finds.
The risk owes to the tiny particles of dust produced while cutting, shaping and polishing the synthetic quartz.
Inhaling the dust causes the same lung damage, called silicosis, seen for centuries in miners and cutters of natural stone. Engineered stone, however, is more dangerous because of its high concentration of silica, found in sandstone, and the polymer resins and dyes added to the synthetic quartz, according to researchers.
“Increasing case counts of silicosis among stone fabricators over the last 10 years and accelerated progression of disease transforms the paradigm of an all-but-previously-forgotten disease in the U.S.,” said lead researcher Dr. Jane Fazio, a pulmonary specialist with UCLA Health in Los Angeles.
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How common are co-infections with COVID, flu, RSV?
Results from more than 26,000 respiratory tests in late 2022 found simultaneous infections with COVID-19, influenza or respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in more than 1% of positive tests.
Co-infections were especially widespread in children and teens. In people under age 21, researchers saw a 6% co-infection rate of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza A.
“With changing behaviors as the COVID pandemic began to recede, we felt it was important to investigate the resurgence of other respiratory viruses and potential incidents of co-infection, especially with the additional circulation of SARS-CoV-2,” lead scientist George Pratt said in a news release from the American Association for Clinical Chemistry. He’s technical director at Quest Diagnostics in Marlborough, Mass.
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Many seniors with thinking declines still drive
Getting older adults who are failing mentally to relinquish their car keys can be challenging. But those conversations are necessary, said researchers who found a majority of adults with cognitive impairment still get behind the wheel.
Michigan Medicine researchers studied this issue in a South Texas community. They found that more than 600 adults over age 65 in Nueces County had cognitive assessment scores — scores of thinking and memory — that indicated a likelihood of impairment.
Among them, more than 61% were current drivers. About one-third of their caregivers had concerns about the drivers’ abilities to safely navigate the roads.
“It is likely appropriate that some with mild cognitive impairment are still driving, but for some it may not be,” said senior author Dr. Lewis Morgenstern, professor of neurology, neurosurgery and emergency medicine at University of Michigan Medical School.
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Omega-3s may protect against hearing challenges
Higher blood levels of the omega-3 fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) may protect against hearing difficulty in middle-aged adults, according to a study presented during NUTRITION 2023, the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition, held from July 22 to 25 in Boston.
Michael I. McBurney, Ph.D., from the University of Guelph and Tufts University/Fatty Acid Research Institute in Canada, and colleagues examined associations between plasma omega-3 fatty acids (i.e., DHA) and self-reported hearing loss. The analysis included more than 100,000 participants (aged 40 to 69 years) in the U.K. Biobank.
The researchers found that 38 percent of respondents reported difficulty hearing, with 26 percent reporting background noise hearing problems. Only 5 percent of respondents reported using hearing aids.
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People with Alzheimer’s genes may lose sense of smell first
People who carry a gene that’s associated with Alzheimer’s disease may lose their sense of smell long before memory and thinking problems occur, a new study suggests.
This early sign of potential dementia is not seen in people who don’t carry this gene, called APOE e4, researchers report July 26 in the journal Neurology.
“Testing a person’s ability to detect odors may be a useful way to predict future problems with cognition,” said researcher Dr. Matthew GoodSmith, a resident at the University of Chicago.
“While more research is needed to confirm these findings and determine what level of smell loss would predict future risk, these results could be promising, especially in studies aiming to identify people at risk for dementia early in the disease,” GoodSmith added in a journal news release.
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Alcohol kills men more often, but women’s death rates are catching up
Women are catching up to men when it comes to dying from alcohol abuse, a new study finds.
Although men are nearly three times more likely to die from alcohol abuse than women, such deaths among women are rising at a faster rate. Between 2018 and 2020, alcohol-related deaths rose 12.5% among men, but jumped nearly 15% among women.
“It’s really concerning,” said lead researcher Dr. Ibraheem Karaye, an assistant professor of population health at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y.
For the study, he and his colleagues examined data on nearly 606,000 alcohol-related deaths between 1999 and 2020.
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