Study: Dementia And Excess Weight Are Potentially Linked
Weight and height are the subject of new studies.
Being overweight may be linked to an increased risk for dementia. British researchers used data on 6,582 men and women, age 50 and older, who were cognitively healthy at the start of the study. The analysis, in the International Journal of Epidemiology, tracked the population for an average of 11 years, recording incidents of physician-diagnosed dementia. (Bakalar, 9/3)
Living at high altitudes may be associated with giving birth to smaller babies who grow more slowly through childhood. Researchers studied 964,299 children in 59 low- and middle-income countries in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America. Among them, 106,441 lived above an altitude of 1,500 meters, or about a mile high. (Bakalar, 9/3)
It’s a question many parents of children with dwarfism have contemplated: If a medication could make them taller, would they give it to them? Now, that possibility is becoming less hypothetical. A study published this weekend in the journal The Lancet found that an experimental drug called vosoritide increased growth in children with the most common form of dwarfism to nearly the same rate as in children without the condition. (Solomon, 9/5)
Chickenpox and shingles vaccines are both highly effective, so why is the latter only available to older adults? How many young adults get shingles in the first place, and does the F.D.A. age recommendation for the Shingrix vaccine prevent them from getting it? (Szczypinski, 9/3)
