The prevalence of obesity around the world has tripled over the past 40 years, and, along with that rise, dieting and attempts to lose weight also have soared. But according to a review article publishing September 20 in the journal iScience, when it comes to getting healthy and reducing mortality risk, increasing physical activity and improving fitness appear to be superior to weight loss. The authors say that employing a weight-neutral approach to the treatment of obesity-related health conditions also reduces the health risks associated with yo-yo dieting.
“We would like people to know that fat can be fit, and that fit and healthy bodies come in all shapes and sizes,” says co-author Glenn Gaesser of the College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University. “We realize that in a weight-obsessed culture, it may be challenging for programs that are not focused on weight loss to gain traction. We’re not necessarily against weight loss; we just think that it shouldn’t be the primary criterion for judging the success of a lifestyle intervention program.”
“This is especially important when you consider the physiological realities of obesity,” says co-author Siddhartha Angadi of the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Virginia. “Body weight is a highly heritable trait, and weight loss is associated with substantial metabolic alterations that ultimately thwart weight loss maintenance.”
Obesity is associated with a number of health conditions, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and problems with the bones and joints. But weight cycling, commonly called yo-yo dieting, is also associated with health problems, including muscle loss, fatty liver disease, and diabetes. The authors say that by focusing on fitness rather than weight loss, people can gain the benefits of exercise while avoiding the risks associated with weight cycling.
Current public health guidelines recommend that adults accumulate 150-300 minutes per week of moderate-intensity physical activity (the intensity equivalent to walking at casual-to-brisk pace) or 75-150 minutes per week of vigorous-intensity physical activity (the intensity equivalent to jogging or running). “But it’s important to note that the benefits of exercise are dose dependent, with the biggest benefits coming from just moving out of the couch-potato zone to doing at least some moderate-intensity activity,” Gaesser says. “It’s also important to emphasize that physical activity can be accumulated throughout the day. For example, multiple short walks during the day (even as short as two to ten minutes each) are just as beneficial as one long walk for health benefits.”
In the review, the authors cite recent research focused on the magnitude of mortality risk reduction associated with weight loss compared to that associated with an increase in physical activity or cardiorespiratory fitness. The risk reduction associated with increasing fitness and physical activity was consistently greater than that associated with intentional weight loss. They also looked at the magnitude of reduction in the risk markers of cardiovascular disease that are associated with either weight loss or increased physical activity. They used meta-analyses from several studies done over a range of time periods and across a broad geographical area. “Science has generally supported the main points proposed in Big Fat Lies, a book on this topic that I first published in 1996,” Gaesser notes.
The researchers acknowledge limitations in the existing body of research, including the fact that this field is heavily reliant on epidemiological studies that do not definitively establish cause and effect, and note that only large, randomized, controlled clinical trials can fully examine the outcomes of using a fitness-focused approach to optimize cardiometabolic mortality risk in people who are obese. “Collectively, however, these epidemiological studies demonstrate strong and consistent associations, and this is why meta-analyses can be useful,” Angadi says. “In the case of physical activity and fitness, the epidemiological evidence is supported by a large body of experimental studies and randomized controlled trials that have established plausible mechanisms for the consistent findings in epidemiological studies.”
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University of Minnesota Medical School graduate students analyzed and summarized literature on the health effects of chemical demonstration control agents, such as tear gas, including the studies which informed existing exposure guidelines. Their study shows that, despite frequent use around the world, there have been few studies that look into the long-term health and environmental effects of tear gas exposure.
“Tear gas and other chemical demonstration control agents (DCAs) have long been used on the civilian population, even though they have been banned in warfare,” said Jennifer Brown, lead author and a neuroscience graduate student at the U of M Medical School. “Most of the published research on these chemicals was done in the 1960s and 1970s and has not been updated, though the DCAs and their methods of deployment have continued to evolve. In our research, we gave special attention to repeated exposure or longitudinal studies, which might provide insight into the poorly understood long-term effects of these chemicals. ”
Published in the journal Inhalation Toxicology, the study team found that: the research used to determine the current acute exposure guideline levels for CS gas — one common type of DCA — were based on lethal dose experiments in animals; the results from the animal lethal dose study were scaled up to humans using a non-exact formula; the current exposure guidelines do not accurately recapitulate the circumstances of human exposures, which involve variables such as duration of exposure, the health status of the individual, previous exposure history and the variety of chemicals in both the DCAs and solvents; and, the EPA identifies no exposure concentration at which the effects of CS gas could be considered as mild — discomfort or non-disabling. The lowest exposure listed is already irreversible or serious, long-lasting effects or impaired ability to escape the gas.”Conclusions that CS gas does not disproportionately affect vulnerable groups, such as those with asthma or high blood pressure, are based on studies that largely used exclusively male and very small sample groups that did not follow up any further than one week after exposure,” Brown said. “Moreover, this conclusion ignores the finding that people with hypertension did, in fact, have a greater and prolonged increase in blood pressure compared to non-hypertensive subjects following CS exposure.”
“Additionally, people with asthma experienced more severe chest symptoms immediately after exposure, and there are even reports of death as a result of the combination of asthma and DCA exposure,” Brown added. “Since there is evidence that some symptoms can develop after a delay, failure to monitor past the acute exposure could lead to under-reporting of DCA health effects.”
Brown and colleagues noted that the chemical DCAs used on civilians are poorly studied and poorly regulated, and more rigorous exposure follow-up is needed before they can be declared safe. In the meantime, the research team says increased regulatory scrutiny could decrease the risks to both individuals and the environment.
“We need to continue raising awareness about this issue and working to achieve improved oversight on both the use and manufacturing of these chemical weapons,” Brown said.
More recent studies and case reports describe significant negative health effects that were either overlooked or not included in the design of earlier experiments. Some of these impacts included menstrual cycle disruption in women, negative effects on mental health and lingering respiratory problems. Additionally, more inclusive research is needed to parse the effects on different body systems and different demographic groups, including women, pregnant women, children and people with pre-existing conditions.
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Materials provided by University of Minnesota. Original written by Kat Dodge. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingimage source, ReutersThe US is relaxing its Covid travel restrictions, ending an 18-month ban on UK and EU passengers. From November, passengers will be allowed to travel to the US if they are fully vaccinated and undergo testing and contact tracing, the White House said. Donald Trump introduced the travel ban in March 2020. There had been much speculation in recent months about when President Joe Biden would change the rules.White House Covid-19 coordinator Jeff Zients announced the “new international air travel system” on Monday, explaining that the country would be opening up to fully vaccinated passengers.”This is based on individuals rather than a country based approach, so it’s a stronger system,” he said. He said vaccines were the “best tool we have in our arsenal” to keep people safe. The new rules don’t affect land travel. The order restricting overland travel to the US from Mexico and Canada is still in place.Under the current rules, only US citizens, residents and foreigners with special visas are allowed to enter the US from the majority of European countries.One British official told the BBC that the decision had come completely out of the blue. Prime Minister Boris Johnson had been planning to raise it on Tuesday in his meeting in the White House with the president, but with little hope of making progress, the official said. Airline shares rose following reports of the new travel rules. For months a joint working party has been looking at ways to relax the travel ban. The work, I’m told, has been detailed and assiduous. But last Friday in Washington next to no one (not even in the Biden administration) was expecting today’s announcement. So what’s changed? The Biden administration is aware of the growing disquiet among European allies about a range of issues – Afghanistan notably, but in recent days French fury over the Aukus submarine deal. And remember France is America’s oldest ally. This week Joe Biden will be meeting, not only Boris Johnson, but a whole pile of EU leaders during the UN General Assembly in New York. And all had it on their dance cards to raise the travel ban. According to one diplomatic source, the US over the weekend just weighed the countervailing forces: annoy some Americans with a policy that could be characterised as being weak on Covid; or continue to alienate your European allies who are growing increasingly irritable. With the data no longer supporting the ban, this weekend came a decision. Out of the blue in one way, but quite logical in another.

Using the internet during your retirement years can boost your cognitive function, a new study has found.
Researchers from Lancaster University Management School, the Norwegian University Science and Technology and Trinity College Dublin examined the cognitive function of more than 2,000 retired people from across Europe, and found that post-retirement internet usage is associated with substantially higher scores on tests.
The study, published in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, uses data drawn from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) that collects information about the health, employment history and socio-economic status of older people.
Focusing on a sample of 2,105 older people from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Israel, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland who have been retired since 2004, researchers examined retirees’ cognitive function in both 2013 and 2015. They specifically focused on a word recall test, where individuals were asked to recall a list of 10 words immediately, and then again five minutes later.
Results found that, on average, people who used the internet after they retired were able to recall 1.22 extra words in the recall test compared to non-internet users. However, retirees who used the internet were also more likely to be male, younger, better educated, and have been retired for a shorter period. They also appear to be in better health — even though they drink and smoke more.
Dr Vincent O’Sullivan, a co-author from Lancaster University Management School said: “Our results reveal that using the internet, post-retirement, leads to a marked reduction in the rate of cognitive decline.

A study led by UT Southwestern dermatologists suggests that a common inflammatory skin condition may stem from poorly regulated sex hormones. The finding, published this week in PNAS, could offer an unexpected new target to fight this condition.
Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a form of eczema. AD affects up to 13% of children and 10% of adults, with an annual treatment cost of $5.3 billion in the U.S. alone.
“We often think of eczema as a dry-skin condition and treat mild cases with moisturizers,” said corresponding author Tamia Harris-Tryon, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Dermatology and Immunology at UTSW. “Here, we’re showing that a gene that’s important for making sex hormones seems to play a role in the skin making its own moisturizers. If we could alter this gene’s activity, we could potentially provide relief to eczema patients by helping the skin make more oils and lipids to moisturize itself.”
Dr. Harris-Tryon explained that previous research has linked AD to overactivity in genes responsible for the production of two inflammatory immune molecules, interleukins 4 and 13 (IL-4 and IL-13). A relatively new drug called dupilumab — a monoclonal antibody that reduces the amount of the inflammatory molecules — has been extremely effective in many patients with moderate to severe AD. However, the molecular mechanisms behind how IL-4 and IL-13 contribute to this form of eczema was unknown.
To investigate this question, Dr. Harris-Tryon and her colleagues focused on sebocytes, the cells that make up sebaceous glands. These glands produce an oily, waxy barrier that coats the skin, helping it retain moisture.
The researchers dosed human sebocytes growing in petri dishes with IL-4 and IL-13, then used a technique called RNA sequencing to get a readout on gene activity for the entire genome and compared it with gene activity in sebocytes that weren’t treated with these immune molecules. They found that a gene called HSD3B1, which makes an enzyme called 3b-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase 1, became up to 60 times more active when exposed to the two interleukins.
The finding was a surprise, Dr. Harris-Tryon said, because this enzyme is well known for playing a key role in the production of sex hormones such as testosterone and progesterone, but it had never been linked to atopic dermatitis and skin lipid production. Databases of human gene activity showed that HSD3B1 tends to be overactive in patients with eczema; a single study of patients on dupilumab showed that this drug appears to lower HSD3B1’s activity. Both pieces of evidence suggest that IL-4 and IL-13 drive up the activity of this gene.
To determine how this gene affects sebum output, the researchers manipulated HSD3B1’s activity in sebocytes growing in petri dishes. They found that when they made this gene less active, the levels of sex hormones decreased, and skin sebum production increased. The reverse was also true, with more gene activity leading to higher amounts of sex hormones and less sebum. The researchers made similar findings in a mouse model of AD, with sex hormone production decreasing the production of skin lipids.
Together, Dr. Harris-Tryon said, these findings suggest that HSD3B1 could be a new target for fighting AD and potentially other forms of eczema. “Changing the output of this gene could eventually offer a way to treat AD that’s completely different from any treatment that currently exists,” she added.
Other UTSW researchers who contributed to this study include Chenlu Zhang, Mahendran Chinnappan, Courtney A. Prestwood, Marshall Edwards, Methinee Artami, Bonne M. Thompson, Kaitlyn M. Eckert, Goncalo Vale, and Jeffrey G. McDonald.
Dr. Harris-Tryon is supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the UT Southwestern Disease-Oriented Clinical Scholars Program (DOCS), the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, and the National Institutes of Health (HL20948).

More than 40% of adults ages 50 to 64 years in Sweden without known heart disease were found to have some degree of atherosclerosis, according to a new study published today in the American Heart Association’s flagship journal Circulation.
Atherosclerosis, or the buildup of fatty deposits in blood vessels that supply blood to the heart, is a major cause of heart attacks. A widely used approach to screen people who are at risk for heart disease but who do not yet have symptoms is cardiac computed tomography, commonly known as a cardiac CT scan, for coronary artery calcification (CAC) scoring. The scan creates cross-sectional images of the vessels that supply blood to the heart muscle to measure the presence and density of calcium-containing plaque in the coronary arteries. Based on these scans, individuals are given a CAC “score” to estimate their risk for or extent of coronary artery disease. This score can be 0 to over 400. A CAC score of 400 or higher is associated with a high risk for having a heart attack, stroke or dying from either one within the next 10 years. However, CAC scoring can miss a percentage of people who are at risk for heart attack even though they have a zero CAC score.
“Measuring the amount of calcification is important, yet it does not give information about non-calcified atherosclerosis, which also increases heart attack risk,” said study author Göran Bergström, M.D., Ph.D., professor and senior consultant in clinical physiology in the department of molecular and clinical medicine at the University of Gothenburg’s Institute of Medicine in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Bergström and colleagues randomly recruited participants aged 50 — 64 years old from the Swedish census register from 2013 to 2018 as part of the Swedish CArdioPulmonary BioImage Study (SCAPIS). They report on data from 25,182 participants with no history of a prior heart attack or cardiac intervention who underwent both CAC scans and coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) scans . CCTA is a radiologic technique that gives a very detailed image of the inside of the arteries that supply the heart with blood. The researchers wanted to determine the prevalence of atherosclerosis in the general population without established heart disease, and how closely the CCTA findings correlated to CAC scores.
They found: CCTA detected some degree of atherosclerosis in more than 42% of the study participants. CCTA found that in 5.2% of those with atherosclerosis, the build-up obstructed blood flow through at least one coronary artery (out of three) by 50% or more. In nearly 2% of those found to have artery build-up, the atherosclerosis was even more severe. Blood flow was obstructed to the main artery that supplies blood to large portions of the heart, and in some cases, all three coronary arteries were obstructed. Atherosclerosis started an average of 10 years later in women compared to men. Atherosclerosis was 1.8 times more common in people ages 60-64 vs. those ages 50-54. Participants with higher levels of atherosclerosis seen by CCTA also had higher CAC scores. Of those with a CAC score of more than 400, nearly half had significant blockage, where more than 50% of the blood flow was obstructed in one of the coronary arteries. In those with a CAC score of zero, 5.5% had atherosclerosis detected by CCTA, and 0.4% had significant obstruction of blood flow.”The current, 2019 American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology guideline for prevention of heart attacks states that adults with a zero CAC score and intermediate level of risk factors are at low risk of future heart attack. We found that 9.2% of people who fit that description had atherosclerosis in their coronary arteries visible by CCTA,” Bergström said. “One strength of CCTA is that not-yet calcified atherosclerosis can be detected. We found that 8.3% of the adults had one or more non-calcified plaques. Non-calcified atherosclerosis is believed to be more prone to cause heart attacks compared with calcified atherosclerosis.”
The AHA/ACC guideline Bergström mentions does not address the use of CCTA in heart attack prevention.
“It is important to know that silent coronary atherosclerosis is common among middle-aged adults, and it increases sharply with sex, age and risk factors,” according to Bergström. “A high CAC score means there is a high likelihood of having obstruction of the coronary arteries. However, more importantly, a zero CAC score does not exclude adults from having atherosclerosis, especially if they have many traditional risk factors of coronary disease.”
A limitation of the study is that it lacks follow-up information about how cardiovascular heart disease develops in this population, which makes it impossible to determine if these findings predict clinical heart disease in this population.
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Weight-loss medications and surgical procedures show promise for reducing the long-term effects of high blood pressure (also called hypertension) in people who are overweight or have obesity, according to a new American Heart Association scientific statement published today in the Association’s journal Hypertension. A scientific statement is an expert analysis of current research and may inform future guidelines.
“Weight loss achieved through dietary changes and increased physical activity are the cornerstones of treatment for high blood pressure that’s related to being overweight. However, these lifestyle behaviors are often not sustained over the long term. Subsequently, reductions in blood pressure aren’t maintained over time,” said Chair of the statement writing group Michael E. Hall, M.D., M.S., FAHA, associate division director for cardiovascular diseases at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi. “The new scientific statement suggests medical and surgical strategies may help with long-term weight and blood pressure improvement, in addition to a heart-healthy diet and physical activity.”
Previous scientific statements from the American Heart Association have addressed the impact of diet, physical activity and weight control related to blood pressure. The new statement is focused on obesity-related high blood pressure. Overweight or obesity is weight that is higher than what is considered healthy for an individual’s height. Specifically, a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or greater is considered obesity, and a BMI of 25 to 29 is classified as overweight. The writing group for the scientific statement included experts in the fields of obesity and high blood pressure, and they reviewed existing research to provide the latest guidance on weight-loss strategies to reduce high blood pressure.
The impact of diet and physical activity
National guidelines recommend a heart-healthy diet to help manage weight and control blood pressure. These guidelines emphasize dietary pattern rather than individual foods and nutrients. The most well-established healthy eating patterns are the Mediterranean diet and Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH). The diets are similar in emphasizing eating more fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts and seeds with moderate amounts of fish, seafood, poultry and dairy, and low quantities of red and processed meats, and sweets.
“There’s no doubt that eating healthy foods has beneficial effects on both weight and blood pressure,” said Hall. “Numerous weight-loss diets are often successful in the short term; however, eating healthy foods consistently and long term, and maintaining weight loss are challenging.”
Intermittent fasting, an approach that alters the timing of eating and fasting during the day or each week, produced some weight reduction and modest reductions in blood pressure in a few studies involving people with metabolic syndrome — a group of five conditions that can lead to heart disease, including high blood sugar, low levels of HDL cholesterol, high triglyceride levels, large waist circumference and high blood pressure. Metabolic syndrome is diagnosed when someone has three or more of these conditions. However, analyses of several studies found that intermittent fasting had a weak impact on blood pressure and was no more effective than other diets in reducing weight.

Vaccinated kids aged 5 to 11 showed evidence of protection against the virus, the company said. The data must be reviewed by the F.D.A. before children can be inoculated.The Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine has been shown to be safe and highly effective in young children aged 5 to 11 years, the companies announced early Monday morning. The news should help ease months of anxiety among parents and teachers about when children, and their close contacts, might be shielded from the coronavirus.The need is urgent: Children now account for more than one in five new cases, and the highly contagious Delta variant has sent more children into hospitals and intensive care units in the past few weeks than at any other time in the pandemic.Pfizer and BioNTech plan to apply to the Food and Drug Administration by the end of the month for authorization to use the vaccine in these children. If the regulatory review goes as smoothly as it did for older children and adults, millions of elementary school students could be inoculated before Halloween.Trial results for children younger than 5 are not expected till the fourth quarter of this year at the earliest, according to Dr. Bill Gruber, a senior vice president at Pfizer and a pediatrician.Pfizer and BioNTech announced the results in a statement that did not include detailed data from the trial. The findings have not yet been peer-reviewed nor published in a scientific journal.But the new results dovetail with those seen in older children and in adults, experts said.“There’s going to be a huge number of parents who are going to heave a big sigh of relief when they hear this,” said Dr. Kristin Oliver, a pediatrician and vaccine expert at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. “We’ve been waiting for these kids to be protected.”Children have a much lower risk of Covid-19 than adults, even when exposed to the Delta variant. Still, some small number of infected children develop a life-threatening condition called multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C. Still others may have lingering symptoms for months.Nearly 30,000 children were hospitalized for Covid in August; the least vaccinated states reported the highest rates. At Seattle Children’s hospital, about half of the children who are admitted for Covid are older than 12, according to Dr. Danielle Zerr, a pediatric infectious diseases expert at the hospital.“I’ve been dismayed at the fact that the sickest children in our hospital with acute Covid-19 or MIS-C are children who could have been vaccinated,” Dr. Zerr said.A 2-month-old on a ventilator for respiratory failure because of Covid-19 at Children’s Hospital New Orleans.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesAs ideological battles over masking and vaccine mandates play out in communities, the reopening of schools has fueled the surge. In Mississippi, among the states without a mask mandate, nearly 6,000 students tested positive for the virus in one week, and more than 30,000 students, teachers and staff had to be quarantined.One county in South Carolina — where mask mandates are banned — had to quarantine more than 2,000 students in one day. Remote learning is not an option in many districts, so the safety of some medically vulnerable children in many parts of the country has become subject to the actions of others.Unvaccinated children, even if they do not become ill themselves, can spread the virus to family members, teachers and others they interact with regularly — among them grandparents or those who are vulnerable to severe disease or death.Mask wearing and good air circulation can significantly cut down virus transmission. But children are as likely as adults to transmit the virus to others, and more likely to do so than adults older than 60, according to a recent review of the evidence by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Pfizer’s trial included 2,268 children ages 5 to 11, two-thirds of whom received two doses of the vaccine three weeks apart; the rest were injected with two doses of saltwater placebo.Given how rarely children become severely ill, the trial was not big enough to draw meaningful conclusions about the vaccine’s ability to prevent Covid or hospitalization. Instead, the researchers relied on measurements of the youngsters’ immune response, on the assumption that the protective levels of antibodies seen in older people would be as protective in younger children.The children who got the vaccine produced a strong immune response, comparable to the levels of antibodies seen in the earlier trials of participants aged 16 to 25 years. But children in the 5- to 11-year-old group achieved this response with 10 micrograms of the vaccine, a third of the dose given to older children and adults.At higher doses, the researchers observed more side effects in younger children, including fever, headache and fatigue, although none were severe, Dr. Gruber said. With the 10-microgram dose, “we’re actually seeing after the second dose, less fever, less chills than we see in the 16- to 25-year-olds.”Immune defenses weaken with age, and the side effects also become milder. This decline in potency is the reason most vaccines are meted out in childhood — and why a much lower dose is often enough for children, said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, who led the trial at Stanford University and chairs the American Academy of Pediatrics’ infectious disease committee.The first day of school at Normont Early Education Center in Los Angeles in August.Allison Zaucha for The New York Times“You want to hit the sweet spot, where you’re giving the lowest dose that might elicit reactions, but also high enough to get you a good, sustainable antibody response,” she said.In children younger than 5, just three micrograms — a tenth of the adult dose — is being tested in trials and seems likely to prove sufficient, she said..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The F.D.A.’s full approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in August did not include children aged 12 to 15, who are still getting the vaccine under emergency use authorization. As they did for adolescents, the companies will seek an emergency authorization for children aged 5 to 11.Scientists at the F.D.A. must then weigh the benefits of the vaccine against the risk of side effects. In rare cases, the vaccine has led to myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart, in young people.But a large Israeli study, based on electronic health records of two million people aged 16 and older, found that Covid is far more likely to cause these heart problems.In order to detect side effects in younger children, the F.D.A. in July asked Pfizer-BioNtech and Moderna to expand their trials to include 3,000 children. But based on the company’s conversations with the F.D.A., Dr. Gruber said he believed the agency would greenlight the vaccine with the data available so far.Discussions about the vaccine’s risks for children aged 6 months to 5 years are likely to be even more fraught than the vehement disagreements over immunizing healthy adults or teenagers.“There’s some people out there who don’t really feel that there’s convincing data that under-fives need to be vaccinated,” Dr. Maldonado said.Even though most children are spared severe illness following infection, pediatric hospitals and I.C.U. units are overflowing, she added: “Why wouldn’t you want to prevent an infection that could potentially put your child in the I.C.U.?”

That gritty, itchy feeling in your eyes can arise from many causes, including too much screen time, and eye drops may only make it worse.I didn’t have to wait until my ninth decade to appreciate how annoying dry eyes can be. And I was flummoxed by the plethora of products on pharmacy shelves that promise relief for a problem that affects about one in five adults. Perhaps you, like me, are among the many who have tried various over-the-counter remedies that didn’t help or sometimes made matters worse.Dry eye problems become increasingly prevalent with age. But since my mid-30s, I’ve been coping with a mild form of this condition and, despite intermittent visits to health professionals, have gotten only limited relief. With all the “extra” time I had to read for pleasure during the pandemic, the gritty feeling in my chronically dry eyes rendered this diversion anything but pleasant. Other common complaints linked to dry eyes include itching and undue sensitivity to sun and bright lights, all of which I suffer from.In an online survey published in January, two thirds of respondents reported having symptoms of dry eye, and of those, more than a quarter said their symptoms were made worse by wearing a face mask. But Dr. Ira Udell, a professor of ophthalmology at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, said that while masks may indeed cause ocular discomfort, an association between mask-wearing and dry eye per se is unlikely, given that exhaled moisture when wearing a mask fogs glasses and, if anything, the increased humidity would raise moisture levels around the eyes.A more likely explanation of those findings is an association between dry eyes and pandemic-related stress. In two studies of veterans, researchers found strong links between dry eye syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.What causes dry eyes?I’ve recently learned just how complicated it can be to keep my eyes moist and free of irritating dryness, a need made more challenging by an ever-greater reliance on screens for work and play. When people stare at computer screens for hours on end, they blink less often, resulting in tired, distressed and dry eyes.Inadequate lubrication of the ocular surface can also result in blurry vision, a symptom that has repeatedly prompted me to get my vision checked, only to find that my current prescription hasn’t changed even though words on a page are less clear.Although dry eye problems are most common in people over 50, they’re also increasing among young adults, which experts attribute to the ubiquity of smartphones and computers. Younger people are also more likely to wear contact lenses, prolonged wearing of which may also cause dry eye.Dry eye is a hallmark symptom of Sjögren’s syndrome and other autoimmune disorders that impair the body’s lubricating tissues. Dry eye also commonly occurs temporarily following cataract surgery; Lasik eye surgery, which reshapes the cornea to improve vision; and blepharoplasty, an operation to correct drooping eyelids.Some people develop chronically dry eyes because their lids don’t close completely during sleep. If you suspect this may be your problem and you live alone, you might invite a visitor to check your eyes when you’re asleep, Dr. Udell suggested. A cellphone photo would be useful to show to your doctor.How does the eye stay lubricated?Think of the tear film that coats and lubricates the eye as a three-layer sandwich, with each layer produced by different glands. The meibomian glands in the upper and lower eyelids create an oily outer layer that stabilizes the film. If the film breaks up too quickly, blurry vision is the likely result. Next are two sets of lacrimal glands that supply the watery tears. Innermost is the mucin layer that attracts water and helps to spread the tear film over the surface of the cornea. Even if the tear supply is adequate, a mucin deficiency can impede wetting of the cornea and damage its surface.Both the meibomian and lacrimal glands have receptors for the sex hormones, androgen and estrogen, and a decrease in hormone levels likely explains why dry eye problems increase in women at menopause and in men who are treated with anti-androgen therapy for prostate cancer. Indeed, the most common cause of dry eye is evaporation of moisture from the eyes from dysfunction of the meibomian glands that results in instability of the tear film.Sometimes the attempted solution, like using multiple-use eye drops that contain preservatives, can actually make eye irritation worse. I ended up with chronically red eyes after using such drops, and the problem soon resolved when I switched to single-use lubricants that were preservative-free. While single-dose eye drops are only approved for a one-time use, Dr. Udell said that it’s usually safe to use them for up to two days if you want to cut down on cost and waste, as long as the tip isn’t touched and is covered after each use.Medications that treat other conditions can interfere with adequate tear production. Common culprits include antihistamines, beta blockers, oral contraceptives, diuretics and drugs used to treat Parkinson’s disease, anxiety disorders, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (C.O.P.D.) and abnormal heart rhythms.What can you do to relieve dry eyes?Environmental conditions that can exacerbate dry eye problems include smoky or excessively dry air, which can result from indoor heating and air conditioning. Long before the pandemic, I began wearing eyeglasses when outdoors, especially on windy days and always when riding my bicycle, to protect my eyes from dryness and grit. A variety of glasses are available to block out wind, glare and airborne irritants.If you swim, be sure to wear goggles to prevent salty or chemically treated water from irritating your eyes.Another practical measure that Dr. Udell emphasized is applying warm compresses to the eyelids morning and night to assist meibomian gland function. I gently wash my eyelids from the nose outward with a warm washcloth every night. Repeat the washcloth cleanse if you wake up in the morning with “sleep in your eyes,” then apply artificial tears.Use of artificial tears several times a day is essential for most cases of dry eye. Although no product precisely mimics the composition of natural tears, many are helpful if used regularly, Dr. Udell said. He suggested trying various products one at a time to find one that is most effective for you. You could start with a low-cost generic product and, if that doesn’t help, try the brand name version, he said.However, if over-the-counter remedies and the practical measures described above fail to bring adequate relief, consult an eye specialist. There are prescription products and special glasses that create a high-humidity moisture chamber around the eyes, among other remedies, for severe cases of dry eye.

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingimage source, Getty ImagesFolic acid is to be added to UK flour to help prevent spinal birth defects in babies, the government will announce.Women are advised to take the B vitamin – which can guard against spina bifida in unborn babies – before and during pregnancy, but many do not.It is thought that adding folic acid to flour could prevent up to 200 birth defects a year.The new rules will only apply to non-wholemeal wheat flour, with gluten-free foods and wholemeal flour exempt.Mandatory fortification – which the government ran a public consultation on in 2019 – would see everybody who ate foods such as bread getting more folic acid in their diets.Neural tube defects, such as spina bifida (abnormal development of the spine) and anencephaly, a life-limiting condition which affects the brain, affect about 1,000 pregnancies per year in the UK.Many babies diagnosed with spina bifida survive into adulthood, but will experience life-long impairment.Women are advised to take 400 micrograms of folic acid a day for at least a month before conception and up to the 12th week of pregnancy.But about half of pregnancies are unplanned and women are not always aware they should take the supplement – or forget to.Folic acid is added to flour in more than 80 countries – and when it was added to bread in Australia, neural tube defects fell by 14%.However, there have previously been concerns that mandatory fortification could have unintended health effects, such as masking a vitamin B12 deficiency or increasing the risk of colon cancer.But the government’s independent advisory body – the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition – has been satisfied that these concerns are not supported by the evidence.Since World War Two, the UK’s non-wholemeal flour has been fortified with iron, calcium and two other B vitamins – thiamin and niacin.It’s taken years of debating to reach this decision. That’s because the gains need to be carefully weighed against any potential harms.Adding folic acid to flour used in common foods, such as bread, will mean dosing the masses.Clearly, getting enough folic acid around conception and during pregnancy is important for cutting the risk of women having babies with spina bifida or other neural tube defects. But most other people already get their required amount of folate – the natural form of the vitamin – from a normal diet. There was a concern that for some people, particularly the elderly, boosting folic acid might have unintended negative consequences, such as covering up the symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency.But the government’s independent advisory body has looked at all the evidence and is satisfied that fortification is the right thing to do for society as a whole. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said folic acid-fortified flour would be “a quick, simple win” to enhance a baby’s development, as well as helping to boost the health of UK adults.Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid said preventing life-threatening health problems like spina bifida would mean fewer people needing hospital treatment.The government said it did not anticipate the move would require a major overhaul for industrial-scale flour producers – the B vitamin would need to be listed on the labelling of all foods made with flour.Kate Steele, chief executive of Shine, a charity providing specialist support for people affected by spina bifida and hydrocephalus and which has campaigned for mandatory fortification of flour for more than 30 years, said she was “delighted” by the decision.”In its simplest terms, the step will reduce the numbers of families who face the devastating news that their baby has anencephaly and will not survive,” she said.”It will also prevent some babies being affected by spina bifida, which can result in complex physical impairments and poor health. “This is truly a momentous day”. Good dietary sources of folateimage source, Getty Imagesspinach, kale, Brussels sprout, cabbage, broccolibeans and legumes (eg., peas, blackeye beans)yeast and beef extractsoranges and orange juicewheat bran and other wholegrain foodspoultry, pork, shellfish and liverfortified foods (eg some breakfast cereals)Source: British Dietetic AssociationFROM RAGS TO RICHES: The incredible and eventful life of one of the first actresses in comedyHOW TO EAT WELL AT UNI: BBC Food’s top tips for planning, shopping and keeping things tasty