Public Health

A new paper finds that adolescents have become less likely to approve of and use marijuana over the last decade when compared to young adults. This is coming during a time where a majority of Americans support the full legalization of marijuana, according to a 2013 Gallup poll.   Using survey data collected from the nationally representative National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) conducted between 2002 through 2013, the researchers broke the sample into three subgroups based upon age: younger adolescents (aged 12–14), older adolescents (aged 15–17), and young adults (aged 18–25…

A new review finds that people consume more food or non-alcoholic drinks when offered larger sized portions or when they use larger items of tableware. Overeating increases the risks of heart disease, diabetes, and many cancers, which are among the leading causes of ill health and premature death. However, the extent to which this overconsumption might be attributed to ‘overserving’ of larger-sized portions of food and drink has not been known. The research suggests that eliminating larger-sized portions from the diet completely could reduce energy intake by up to 16% among UK adults or 29%…

Imagine if you could ban a certain, easily replaceable food component and save thousands of lives as a result. That’s the claim of new research that says a ban on trans fats in England could prevent 7,200 deaths between 2015 and 2020. The problem is that industrial trans fats have already virtually disappeared from UK diets. The term “trans fat” refers to fats that contain trans fatty acids (TFAs). These have a higher melting point than other kinds of fatty acids and so are useful for making biscuits, cakes, margarine and stable deep-frying oils. They are usually produced from vegetable…

Banning smoking in the workplace and increasing taxes on cigarettes have discouraged teens and young adults from taking up smoking, according to a study by researchers at UC San Francisco and UC Merced. The study, published today (Sept. 8, 2015) in JAMA Pediatrics, used data on the smoking habits of a group of 12- to 18-year-olds living throughout the country in 1997. They were tracked for 11 years as they transitioned to young adults. The researchers found that a 100 percent smoke-free environment reduced the odds of taking up smoking by one third and that the number of new smokers…

More than half of Asian Americans and nearly half of Hispanic Americans with diabetes are undiagnosed, according to researchers from the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Additionally, prevalence of diabetes for all American adults went up, from nearly 10 percent to over 12 percent between 1988 and 2012. Diabetes prevalence - how common the condition is - also went up in every age, sex, level of education, income and racial/ethnic subgroup. One bright spot: The proportion of people with diabetes that was undiagnosed decreased 23 percent between…

Want fries with that diet soda? You aren't alone, and you may not be saving as many calories as you think by consuming diet drinks, according to a new examination of the dietary habits of more than 22,000 U.S. adults which found that diet-beverage consumers may compensate for the absence of calories in their drinks by noshing on extra food that is loaded with sugar, sodium, fat and cholesterol. Flawed use of epidemiology efforts have instead tried to suggest that diet soda must cause obesity - because obesity has risen along with the popularity of diet drinks. Curve matching does more harm…

Smoking has been shown to have drastic consequences for lifespan and disease progression, yet it is not a kiss of death. Almost half of lung cancer patients have never smoked and only around 10 percent of smokers will get lung cancer. When it comes to acceleration of the aging process, however, the case has seemed more clear, and that certainly impacts the risk of death and disease, because age is the biggest risk factor for almost everything. Yet a new study shows even that is not clear-cut. Using long-lived smokers as their phenotype, the authors of a study published in The…

Midday naps are associated with reduced blood pressure levels and prescription of fewer antihypertensive medications, according to research presented at ESC Congress today by Dr Manolis Kallistratos, a cardiologist at Asklepieion Voula General Hospital in Athens, Greece. "Although William Blake affirms that it is better to think in the morning, act at noon, eat in the evening and sleep at night, noon sleep seems to have beneficial effects," said Dr Kallistratos. "Two influential UK Prime Ministers were supporters of the midday nap. Winston Churchill said that we must sleep sometime between…

Europeans love to smoke but the good news is that the people who at least say they want to quit has risen in the last seven years, according to results from the latest EUROASPIRE surveys. EUROASPIRE is a series of cross sectional surveys of the practice of preventive cardiology in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) and people at high risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD) across Europe. Four EUROASPIRE surveys have been conducted under the ESC's EORP initiative. EUROASPIRE III, conducted in 2006 to 2008, included for the first time people at high risk of developing CVD…

Depressive symptoms and extremes of blood pressure predict the highest rates of harmful vascular events in patients with existing heart disease, diabetes or stroke, according to research presented at ESC Congress by Dr Bhautesh Jani, clinical academic fellow in the Institute of Health and Wellbeing, University of Glasgow.  The study in more than 35 000 patients found that the risk of further stroke or heart attack, heart failure or dying due to heart disease at four years was 83% higher in depressed patients with high blood pressure and 36% higher in depressed patients with low blood…