Harvard Health Blog

A study published in the journal European Urology suggests that men who have defects in a cancer-suppressing gene known as BRCA are at high risk for aggressive prostate tumors, and so could benefit from PSA testing.

Enterovirus D68 is a respiratory infection that has been spreading across the country and making some children quite ill. It is especially problematic for kids with asthma or other respiratory issues. Enterovirus D68 can start out looking like a garden variety cold but lead to serious trouble breathing. What’s a parent to do? The same things he or she would normally do during cold and flu season: hand washing, staying away from people who are sick, regularly cleaning common surfaces like doorknobs, not sharing cups and utensils, and coughing or sneezing into the elbow, not the hands. Those who have children with asthma need to be extra vigilant about their child’s asthma care routine. Most upper respiratory infections are the simple cold. Still, it’s important to stay alert for signs of breathing difficulties.

Drugs in the benzodiazepine family have long been used to treat anxiety and sleep problems. They can cause a bit of a brain hangover the next day. Experts have long assumed that people’s heads would clear once they stopped taking the drug. That may not be the case. In a study published last night by the journal BMJ, a team of researchers from France and Canada linked benzodiazepine use to an increased risk of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. In the study, the greater a person’s cumulative dose of benzodiazepines, the higher his or her risk of Alzheimer’s. Taking a benzodiazepine for less than three months had no effect on Alzheimer’s risk. Taking the drug for three to six months raised the risk of developing Alzheimer’s by 32%, and taking it for more than six months boosted the risk by 84%. People taking a long-acting benzodiazepine were at greater risk than those on a short-acting one.

According to one persistent Internet myth, women who wear bras are more likely to develop breast cancer. Not true, says a study published online in the journal Cancer, Epidemiology, Biomarkers, and Prevention. In a study of more than 1,500 women, researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle found no links between risk of two common types of breast cancer — invasive ductal carcinoma or invasive lobular carcinoma — and any aspect of bra wearing, including cup size, use of a bra with an underwire, age at first bra use, and average number of hours per day a bra was worn. This may not be the last word on the subject, since the Fred Hutchinson study represents only the second to look at the connection between bra use and breast cancer. But until other findings appear, women worried that wearing a bra might cause cancer have one less thing to worry about.

An FDA advisory panel rejected a French company’s application to market high intensity focused ultrasound as a treatment for localized prostate cancer.

In men with cancer that has spread beyond the prostate gland, radiation therapy plus hormone therapy can ease symptoms and improve survival. But some doctors give hormone therapy by itself to millions of men with localized tumors that haven’t spread beyond the prostate. A new study shows that this approach doesn’t help, and may hurt.

Obstructive sleep apnea is a common cause of daytime sleepiness. It occurs when the muscles in the back of the throat relax too much during sleep. This lets the tissues around the throat close in and block the airway. People with obstructive sleep apnea can wake up gasping for breath scores of times a night, usually without knowing it. Obstructive sleep apnea can boost blood pressure and increases the risk of stroke. New guidelines from the American College of Physicians recommends an overnight sleep test to diagnose, or rule out, obstructive sleep apnea for individuals with unexplained daytime sleepiness. These are usually done in a sleep center, but home tests can also be done using a portable monitor.

People who want to follow a healthy diet sometimes need a little help knowing where a meal or snack falls on the healthfulness scale. Several apps let you snap a photo of what you’re about to eat and post it for all to see — and rate. And though many of the “raters” are regular folks without training in nutrition, a new study shows they do a pretty good job gauging whether foods are likely to make you fitter or fatter.

When back pain strikes, all you want is relief—as quickly as possible. Many folks turn to over-the-counter pain relievers to help take the edge off and keep them moving. Acetaminophen and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs (ibuprofen, naproxen, aspirin), are common and reasonable choices. Australian researchers tested how well acetaminophen worked for back pain that comes on suddenly (so-called acute back pain). Not much, it turned out. Among people who took acetaminophen as needed or on a three-times-a-day schedule, it took about 17 days for the pain to go away completely. Among those who took a placebo, it took 16 days. Does this mean that you shouldn’t bother to use acetaminophen for back pain? Not necessarily. But it might be worth trying cold, heat, and light physical activity.

In the folk song “Dem Bones,” every bone is connected to the next one in line. Here’s an interesting wrinkle on that idea: The gum bone, or at least problems with it, are connected to all sorts of health problems. Gum disease—which begins when the sticky, bacteria-laden film known as plaque builds up around your teeth—is closely linked to premature birth, heart disease, diabetes, and other chronic health problems. Now, a report in the August issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine finds that treating gum disease (also called periodontal disease) can lead to better health — as evidenced by lower health care costs and fewer hospitalizations — among people with common health conditions. The common thread between gum disease and chronic health conditions is inflammation. Eliminating the gum infection may dampen that harmful response throughout the body.

An report in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences calculates several environmental costs of raising cows for meat and milk, poultry and pork for meat, and chickens for eggs. According to the report, per calorie of food that we consume, dairy, poultry, pork, and eggs have similar environmental costs. Compared with their average, beef production generated five times more greenhouse gases, needed six times more fertilizer and 11 times more irrigation water, and used 28 times the land. The same four costs for growing potatoes, wheat, and rice were two-fold to six-fold lower than the nonbeef foods in land use, greenhouse gas emissions, and fertilizer use, and about the same for irrigation water.