Архив рубрики: Здоровье Америка

With more people taking the weight-loss drugs Wegovy and Zepbound, one question inevitably arises: which one is more effective?

In a press release, Lilly announced that in its latest trial comparing its medication, Zepbound, to Wegovy, made by Novo Nordisk, people randomly assigned to receive Zepbound lost about 20% of their body weight after about 18 months, while those taking Wegovy lost nearly 14% of their body weight.

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Wegovy (semaglutide) and Zepbound (tirzepatide) both target a group of hormones that the body makes called incretins. Wegovy works on the GLP-1 hormone, which suppresses appetite and signals the pancreas to produce insulin to break down sugars in food. Zepbound works on both GLP-1 and GIP, another hormone that stimulates insulin production. Separate studies conducted by the respective manufacturers have showed that Zepbound, with its dual-acting effect, was linked to more weight loss than Wegovy, but until now, no studies have compa..

When Kari Leibowitz moved to the Arctic in 2014, she braced herself for the impact of long, dark, freezing winters. The temperature in Tromsø, Norway, plunges to subarctic levels on the coldest nights, and it snows almost daily for eight months of the year. Surely the wind would slap her face, and unshoveled snow would sneak down her boots, wetting her socks. Ice crystals would cling to strands of her hair. But there would be an emotional impact, too, akin to plunging head-first into a deep pool of the winter blues. Most distressing, she assumed, would be the Polar Night: a two-month stretch during which the sun doesn’t rise above the horizon at all.

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Leibowitz—a health psychologist who grew up near the Jersey Shore, where life revolved around beachy summers—made the Arctic her home in order to study at the world’s northernmost university. She didn’t really buy the data suggesting that people in Tromsø are equally happy throughout the year. She did not..

Lenette Sparacino has had dental issues for as long as she can remember. “I’ve probably had at least 30 cavities over my lifetime, if not more,” she says. “I remember as a child getting seven cavities filled at one time.” She also remembers being plagued by mouth ulcers and gum inflammation. Years later, she started experiencing digestive symptoms, and was ultimately diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in 2014.

Her official diagnosis inspired her to learn more about her condition from online resources. “I started understanding that Crohn’s could affect your dental health,” she says. That’s when it all clicked: Years of untreated inflammation had been at the root of both her digestive problems and her dental problems.

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It may not be immediately obvious, but your mouth is a key part of your gastrointestinal tract. “Crohn’s disease in particular involves any part of the GI tract, anywhere from the oral cavity down to the colon and the anus,” says Dr. Shirley..

BOSTON — A handful of Massachusetts lawmakers are hoping to persuade their colleagues to support a proposal that would make the state the first to adopt a ban meant to eliminate the use of tobacco products over time.

Other locations have weighed similar “generational tobacco bans,” which phase out the use of tobacco products based not just on a person’s age but on birth year.

Under a Massachusetts law signed in 2018, the age to buy any tobacco product—including cigarettes, cigars and e-cigarettes—was raised to 21. Massachusetts also has banned the sale of all flavored tobacco products in an effort to reduce youth interest in nicotine.

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Read More: How to Get 4.5 Million Americans to Quit Smoking

The new proposal, which lawmakers plan to file next year, would expand the effort to curb smoking by gradually ending all sales of nicotine and tobacco products. If the bill is approved, young people not old enough to legally purchase nicotine and tobacco wou..

BOSTON — A handful of Massachusetts lawmakers are hoping to persuade their colleagues to support a proposal that would make the state the first to adopt a ban meant to eliminate the use of tobacco products over time.

Other locations have weighed similar “generational tobacco bans,” which phase out the use of tobacco products based not just on a person’s age but on birth year.

Under a Massachusetts law signed in 2018, the age to buy any tobacco product—including cigarettes, cigars and e-cigarettes—was raised to 21. Massachusetts also has banned the sale of all flavored tobacco products in an effort to reduce youth interest in nicotine.

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Read More: How to Get 4.5 Million Americans to Quit Smoking

The new proposal, which lawmakers plan to file next year, would expand the effort to curb smoking by gradually ending all sales of nicotine and tobacco products. If the bill is approved, young people not old enough to legally purchase nicotine and tobacco wou..

It’s the season for sniffles and sore throats, which means that scientists are monitoring the usual suspects like influenza, RSV, and COVID-19. But they’re also watching another virus this winter: H5N1 avian influenza, or bird flu.

U.S. health agencies say that the virus currently poses a low risk to the general public, even though it is spreading widely among chickens, cows, and other animals. There have been 55 confirmed human cases in the U.S., according to the latest statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and all but two of those people had been exposed to sick poultry or cattle. There is currently no evidence that the people who have gotten sick have infected other people, according to the CDC.

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Nonetheless, researchers are tracking the virus in case that situation changes. Recently, a teenager in Canada was hospitalized after being infected with bird flu—and when researchers analyzed the genetic sequence of t..

Holiday season means food—and a lot of it, from work events to social gatherings with friends and family.

“When I talk to my patients, instead of calling it the most beautiful time of year, I call it the most challenging time of the year,” says Dr. Andres Acosta, a physician in the division of gastroenterology and hepatology at Mayo Clinic.

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For the 12% of adults in the U.S. now taking a weight-loss medication that targets the GLP-1 and/or GIP hormones to restrict appetite or treat diabetes—think Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound—the season is even more complicated.

“We’ve heard of people not skipping their injections but pushing them back,” says Michelle Cardel, chief nutrition officer at WeightWatchers. “So if they normally inject on Wednesday, and Thanksgiving is on Thursday, they might give themselves their injection on Friday instead, so they can have a little more room to enjoy the holiday foods and are less likely to experience unwanted ..

Thanksgiving is traditionally a day of carb-heavy feasting—and even dietitians wouldn’t dare recommend skipping the mashed potatoes, stuffing, or fluffy dinner rolls. Yet it’s possible, they say, to level up those favorites with a protein kick that will leave you feeling full for longer. You might even find that it’s fun to reimagine holiday staples.

“It’s not about making Thanksgiving less. It’s a day of abundance,” says Julia Long, a registered dietitian nutritionist in Houston. “It’s about, how can we get more out of this—and add benefits without changing the flavor?”

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If you need some inspiration, we asked experts to share their favorite ways to add a protein blast to this year’s Thanksgiving menu.

Mashed potatoes

Replace some or all of the cream or butter in your spuds with Greek yogurt or cottage cheese, suggests Sarah Bond, a food scientist, nutritionist, and recipe developer in Denver. You might be surprised by the pizzazz it adds. “Greek yo..

Health officials on Friday confirmed bird flu in a California child—the first reported case in a U.S. minor.

The child had mild symptoms, was treated with antiviral medication and is recovering, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in announcing the test results. No details about the child have been released, except that they live in Alameda County, which includes Oakland, and attend day care.

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The infection brings the reported number of U.S. bird flu cases this year to 55, including 29 in California, the CDC said. Most were farmworkers who tested positive with mild symptoms.

One exception was an adult in Missouri who did not work at a farm and had no known contact with an infected animal. It remains a mystery how that person was infected—health officials have said there was no evidence of it spreading between people.

Read More: Is It Time to Worry About Bird Flu?

A British Columbia teen also was recently hospitalized with bird flu, ..

People have been talking up mouth-taping lately on TikTok and Instagram as a home remedy for snoring, insomnia, dry mouth, and other sleep-related issues—and the trend seems to be sticking. “Mouth-taping is very popular right now,” says Dr. Abhay Sharma, an assistant professor and ear-nose-throat doctor at the University of South Florida who monitors such trends, knowing his patients will bring them up.

For the uninitiated, mouth-taping is exactly what it sounds like: the mouth is taped shut, forcing the nose to take in air instead. Mouth-taping had long been the empty threat of spouses irked by their partner’s snoring, but now the TikTok tapers seal their own mouths voluntarily, looking for better sleep and more likes.

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Anecdotes in support of mouth-taping aren’t as wacky as they may seem. Scientists find benefits to breathing mostly through the nose, rather than the mouth, even as more than 50% of Americans breathe regularly through their mouths. I..