Medical Bulletin 06/ November/ 2024
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Here are the top medical news for the day:
The More One Sits, The Older One Looks?
Between long commutes, Zoom-packed workdays and evenings of streaming and scrolling, millennials now spend more than 60 hours per week sitting, potentially boosting their heart disease risk and accelerating other signs of aging, according to new CU Boulder and University of California Riverside research. The findings were published in PLOS ONE.
The study of more than 1,000 former or current Colorado residents, including 730 twins, is among the first to explore how prolonged sitting impacts health measures such as cholesterol and body mass index (BMI) in young adults.
It found that meeting the minimum recommended physical activity guidelines about 20 minutes per day of moderate exercise isn’t enough to counter the hazards of spending most waking hours in a seat.
The authors analyzed data from participants ranging in age from 28 to 49, average age 33, from CU’s Colorado Adoption/Twin Study of Lifespan behavioral development and cognitive aging, which has followed twins and adopted individuals since childhood.
On average, participants reported sitting almost 9 hours daily, with some sitting as much as 16 hours. They reported between 80 and 160 minutes of moderate physical activity on average weekly and less than 135 minutes of vigorous exercise weekly.
The researchers looked at two key measures of heart and metabolic aging: total cholesterol/high-density lipoprotein and body mass index (BMI). The study found that, essentially, the more one sat, the older one looked. And adding a little moderate activity on top of a long day of sitting did little to buffer these impacts.
In fact, young adults who sat 8.5 hours per day and performed at or below current exercise recommendations could enter a “moderate to high risk” category for cardiovascular and metabolic disease, the authors said. When looking at a subset of twins with different sitting and physical activity habits, the researchers found that replacing sitting with exercise seemed to work better to improve cholesterol than simply adding exercise to a full day of sitting.
Reference: Bruellman R, Pahlen S, Ellingson JM, Corley RP, Wadsworth SJ, Reynolds CA (2024) A twin-driven analysis on early aging biomarkers and associations with sitting-time and physical activity. PLoS ONE 19(9): e0308660. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308660
Low Sugar Diet in 1st 2 Years of Life May Lower Risk of Diabetes in Adults
A low-sugar diet in utero and in the first two years of life can meaningfully reduce the risk of chronic diseases in adulthood, a new study has found, providing compelling new evidence of the lifelong health effects of early-life sugar consumption.
Published in Science, the study finds that children who experienced sugar restrictions during their first 1,000 days after conception had up to 35% lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes and as much as 20% less risk of hypertension as adults. Low sugar intake by the mother prior to birth was enough to lower risks, but continued sugar restriction after birth increased the benefits.
Taking advantage of an unintended “natural experiment” from World War II, researchers examined how sugar rationing during the war influenced long-term health outcomes.
The researchers used contemporary data from the U.K. Biobank, a database of medical histories and genetic, lifestyle and other disease risk factors, to study the effect of those early-life sugar restrictions on health outcomes of adults conceived in the U.K. just before and after the end of wartime sugar rationing.
Sugar intake during rationing was about 8 teaspoons (40 grams) per day on average. When rationing ended, sugar and sweets consumption skyrocketed to about 16 teaspoons (80 grams) per day.
The immediate and large increase in sugar consumption but no other foods after rationing ended created an interesting natural experiment: Individuals were exposed to varying levels of sugar intake early in life, depending on whether they were conceived or born before or after September 1953. Those conceived or born just before the end of rationing experienced sugar-scarce conditions compared to those born just after who were born into a more sugar-rich environment.
The researchers then identified those born around this time in the U.K. Biobank data collected over 50 years later. Using a very tight birth window around the end of sugar rationing allowed the authors to compare midlife health outcomes of otherwise similar birth cohorts.
While living through the period of sugar restriction during the first 1,000 days of life substantially lowered the risk of developing diabetes and hypertension, for those who were later diagnosed with either of those conditions, onset of disease was delayed by four years and two years, respectively.
Notably, exposure to sugar restrictions in utero alone was enough to lower risks, but disease protection increased postnatally once solids were likely introduced.
Reference: Gracner T, Boone C, Gertler PJ. Exposure to sugar rationing in the first 1000 days of life protected against chronic disease. Science. 2024 Oct 31:eadn5421. doi: 10.1126/science.adn5421. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 39480913.
Can Insomnia Therapy During Pregnancy Reduce Postpartum Depression?
While many people believe that poor sleep during pregnancy is inevitable, new research has determined that cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBTi) while pregnant can not only improve sleep patterns but also address postpartum depression. The findings were published in journal of affective disorders.
Researchers discovered that delivering CBTi during pregnancy significantly reduces postpartum depressive symptoms after a baby arrives.
CBTi is a therapeutic intervention that identifies thoughts, behaviors and sleep patterns that contribute to insomnia. Treatment includes challenging or reframing misconceptions and restructuring habits to improve sleep quality
“CBTi is the gold standard for the treatment of insomnia and has consistently been shown to improve symptoms of depression,” says Dr. Elizabeth Keys, an Assistant Professor in UBCO’s School of Nursing and a study co-author. “Its treatment effects are similar to antidepressant medications among adults, but with fewer side effects, and is therefore often preferred by pregnant individuals.”
Sixty-two women assessed for insomnia and depressive symptoms participated in the study—with half randomly assigned to an intervention group and half to a control group.
“We found that CBTi during pregnancy significantly improved sleep and reduced postpartum depressive symptoms for participants,” explains Dr. Keys. “These are enormously encouraging results for anyone that has struggled in those early weeks and months with their newborns.”
Reference: Silang K, MacKinnon A, Madsen J, Giesbrecht GF, Campbell T, Keys E, Freeman M, Dewsnap K, Jung JW, Tomfohr-Madsen LM. Sleeping for two: A randomized controlled trial of cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBTI) delivered in pregnancy and secondary impacts on symptoms of postpartum depression. J Affect Disord. 2024 Oct 1;362:670-678. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2024.07.117. Epub 2024 Jul 18. PMID: 39029668.
Is Social Media Responsible for Normalizing Junk Food?
An analysis of social media posts that mention food and beverage products finds that fast food restaurants and sugar sweetened beverages are the most common, with millions of posts reaching billions of users over the course of a year. The study, published in the open access journal PLOS Digital Health, highlights the sheer volume of content normalising unhealthy eating, and argues that policies are needed to protect young people in the digital food environment.
Researchers investigated the frequency and reach of user generated social media posts in Canada in 2020. They identified the 40 food brands with the highest brand shares in Canada and searched for mentions of them on Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr and YouTube by general users of the sites.
Over the course of 2020, the brands were mentioned 1,68,51,990 times, reaching an estimated 4224,49,95,156 users. The food categories with the most posts and reach were fast food restaurants with 60.5% of posts and 58.1% of total reach, and sugar sweetened beverages with 29.3% of posts and 37.9% of total reach. More men mentioned and were reached by the posts compared to women.
With so many posts mentioning these food categories and certain brands, the authors believe the digital environment is contributing to the normalization of unhealthy food and beverage intake by youth.
Reference: Potvin Kent M, Pritchard M, Mulligan C, Remedios L (2024) Normalizing junk food: The frequency and reach of posts related to food and beverage brands on social media. PLOS Digit Health 3(10): e0000630. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pdig.0000630
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