Latest news with #PLOSMedicine
Time of India
a day ago
- Health
- Time of India
Why men are more likely to die from common diseases: Insights from study
Despite significant advancements in healthcare, men still face higher mortality rates from many common diseases than women. This gap cannot be explained by biology alone. Behavioural factors such as higher rates of smoking, alcohol consumption, and poor diet contribute significantly. Additionally, men are generally less likely to seek medical advice, attend regular health screenings, or follow treatment plans, which delays diagnosis and worsens outcomes. Lifestyle choices and lower engagement with healthcare services combine to increase the risk and severity of conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and respiratory illnesses in men, leading to a concerning gender disparity in health and longevity. Men at higher risk: Hypertension, diabetes, and HIV/AIDS linked to increased mortality and lower healthcare engagement A comprehensive study published in PLOS Medicine highlights that men are more susceptible to dying from chronic conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, and HIV/AIDS. The research indicates that men not only have higher disease rates and mortality but are also less likely to seek medical help or adhere to treatment plans. This underscores significant gender-based disparities in health behaviours and access to care. Diseases that put men at higher risk: 1. Hypertension Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Use an AI Writing Tool That Actually Understands Your Voice Grammarly Install Now Undo Men are more likely to develop hypertension at an earlier age and often have higher blood pressure levels than women. This condition is frequently asymptomatic, leading many men to neglect regular check-ups and lifestyle modifications. The lack of early detection and management significantly contributes to the higher mortality rates observed in men. 2. Diabetes Type 2 diabetes is another condition where men face higher risks. Factors such as higher rates of smoking, alcohol consumption, and lower levels of physical activity contribute to the increased prevalence of diabetes among men. Additionally, men are less likely to engage in preventive health measures, leading to late diagnoses and complications 3. HIV/AIDS While HIV/AIDS affects both genders, men are more likely to contract the virus and experience worse outcomes. This is partly due to higher rates of unprotected sex and lower rates of HIV testing among men. Moreover, societal stigma and reluctance to seek medical advice further exacerbate the situation, leading to higher mortality rates . Contributing factors to the gender mortality disparity Biological differences: Biological factors play a role in the gender differences observed in disease susceptibility and progression. For instance, women have higher levels of estrogen, which offers protective effects against heart disease. Conversely, men have higher levels of testosterone, which is associated with increased risk factors for cardiovascular diseases. Lifestyle choices: Men are more likely to engage in high-risk behaviours such as smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, and physical inactivity. These lifestyle choices significantly increase the risk of developing chronic diseases and contribute to the higher mortality rates observed in men. Healthcare engagement: Studies indicate that men are less likely to seek medical advice, undergo regular health screenings, or adhere to prescribed treatments. This lack of proactive healthcare engagement leads to delayed diagnoses and poorer health outcomes. Recommendations for improvement 1. Promoting regular health screenings Encouraging men to undergo regular health check-ups can lead to early detection of conditions like hypertension and diabetes, allowing for timely intervention and management. 2. Encouraging healthy lifestyle choices Public health campaigns should focus on promoting healthy eating, regular physical activity, and the cessation of smoking and excessive alcohol consumption among men. 3. Enhancing healthcare accessibility Improving access to healthcare services and addressing the stigma associated with seeking medical advice can encourage more men to engage in preventive and therapeutic healthcare measures. 4. Gender-sensitive health policies Developing and implementing health policies that consider the unique needs and behaviours of men can lead to more effective health interventions and reduced mortality rates. Also read | Everyday lifestyle factors that could be raising your blood sugar "Get the latest news updates on Times of India, including reviews of the movie Coolie and War 2 ."
Fox News
11-06-2025
- Health
- Fox News
Your favorite alcoholic beverage could be linked to deadly form of cancer, study finds
Following the surgeon general's January advisory linking alcohol consumption to seven types of cancer, a new study from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has revealed another possible risk. The research, which was recently published in the journal PLOS Medicine, classified alcohol as a carcinogen, highlighting a particular increased risk of pancreatic cancer. The surgeon general's previous advisory named cancers of the breast (in women), colorectum, esophagus, voice box, liver, mouth and throat. The researchers associated the pancreatic cancer risk with beer and spirits/liquor, but not with the intake of wine. "Alcohol consumption is a known carcinogen, but until now, the evidence linking it specifically to pancreatic cancer has been considered inconclusive," said senior study author Dr. Pietro Ferrari, head of the IARC Nutrition and Metabolism Branch, in a press release. "Our findings provide new evidence that pancreatic cancer may be another cancer type associated with alcohol consumption, a connection that has been underestimated until now." For the study, researchers recruited 2.5 million participants with a median age of 57, following them for about 16 years. Out of the group, 10,067 cases of pancreatic cancer were recorded. Each increase of 10 grams of ethanol per day in alcohol consumption was associated with a 3% increase in the risk of pancreatic cancer, the study found. Women who consumed 15 to 30 grams of alcohol (about one to two standard drinks) per day had a 12% increase in pancreatic cancer risk. Men who consumed 30 to 60 grams (two to six standard drinks) per day had a 15% increased risk of pancreatic cancer, and intake of over 60 grams per day was associated with a 36% greater risk. "There really isn't a safe level of drinking when it comes to cancer risk." The research did have some limitations. "This observational study examined alcohol intake evaluated at a single time point during mid-to-late adulthood and included a limited number of Asian cohorts," the researchers wrote. "Further research is needed to better understand the role of lifetime alcohol consumption — for example, during early adulthood — and the influence of specific consumption patterns, such as binge-drinking." Dr. Adam Scioli, an addiction psychiatrist at Caron Treatment Centers in Pennsylvania, previously commented to Fox News Digital that "alcohol is a toxin." "There have been reports for years that it could be beneficial for one's health — but we know now that alcohol ingestion is one of the modifiable risk factors for cancer," Scioli, who is not affiliated with IARC, told Fox News Digital. Dr. Marc Siegel, senior medical analyst for Fox News, was not involved in the study, but spoke with Fox News Digital about the findings. "This is in keeping with alcohol as a toxin that directly inflames and damages pancreatic cells," he confirmed. Around 75,000 Americans each year are diagnosed with a cancer that is in some way linked to alcohol use, according to Scioli. Dr. Neha Pathak, WebMD's chief physician editor of health and lifestyle medicine, noted that the study highlights a new, independent risk factor for pancreatic cancer. "What's important to know is that there really isn't a safe level of drinking when it comes to cancer risk," Atlanta-based Pathak, who also did not participate in the research, told Fox News Digital. For more Health articles, visit "This study reinforces that message — but it also shows how complex these links are, and how we need to keep digging deeper into the role of alcohol and different drinking habits in cancer development," she added.
Yahoo
31-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
What your blood quietly reveals about your eating habits
Blood and urine tests have been found to detect the amount of ultraprocessed foods (UPFs) a person eats, according to new research. Using machine learning, scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) identified hundreds of metabolites (molecules produced during metabolism) that correlated with processed food intake. The team developed a "biomarker score" that predicts ultraprocessed food intake based on metabolite measurements in blood and urine, according to Erikka Loftfield, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the National Cancer Institute in Maryland. Premature Death Linked To Certain Type Of Food, Study Reveals The researchers drew baseline data from 718 older adults who provided urine and blood samples and reported their dietary habits over a 12-month period, as detailed in an NIH press release. Next, they conducted a small clinical trial of 20 adults. For two weeks, the group ate a diet high in ultraprocessed foods, and for another two weeks they ate a diet with no UPFs. Read On The Fox News App "In our study, we found that hundreds of serum and urine metabolites were correlated with percentage energy from ultraprocessed food intake," Loftfield told Fox News Digital. The findings were published in the journal PLOS Medicine. The Worst Foods To Buy In The Supermarket And The Better Choices Instead Large-scale studies investigating the health risks of ultraprocessed foods often rely on self-reported dietary questionnaires, which can be prone to errors, per the NIH. The new blood and urine test helps to reduce human error by using objective biomarkers, a growing area of interest among researchers. Loftfield added, "It was surprising to find that UPF-correlated metabolites are involved in numerous and diverse biological pathways, underscoring the complex impact of diet on the metabolome." Ultraprocessed foods are defined as "ready-to-eat or ready-to-heat, industrially manufactured products, typically high in calories and low in essential nutrients," according to the NIH. Click Here To Sign Up For Our Health Newsletter Chronic diseases, obesity and various forms of cancer have been linked to diets that are heavy in UPFs. Despite promising results, the researchers emphasized that the new method will require further validation before broader use. Since the current trial focused mainly on older adults, more research is needed across various age groups and diets, the experts said. "Metabolite scores should be evaluated and improved in populations with different diets and a wide range of UPF intake," Loftfield acknowledged. This method could potentially be used in future research to link the consumption of processed foods with chronic diseases, according to the researchers. For more Health articles, visit "For individuals concerned about ultraprocessed food intake, one practical recommendation is to use 'nutrition facts' labels to avoid foods high in added sugars, saturated fat and sodium, as this can limit UPF intake and align with robust scientific research on diet and health," Loftfield article source: What your blood quietly reveals about your eating habits
Fox News
31-05-2025
- Health
- Fox News
What your blood quietly reveals about your eating habits
Blood and urine tests have been found to detect the amount of ultraprocessed foods (UPFs) a person eats, according to new research. Using machine learning, scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) identified hundreds of metabolites (molecules produced during metabolism) that correlated with processed food intake. The team developed a "biomarker score" that predicts ultraprocessed food intake based on metabolite measurements in blood and urine, according to Erikka Loftfield, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the National Cancer Institute in Maryland. The researchers drew baseline data from 718 older adults who provided urine and blood samples and reported their dietary habits over a 12-month period, as detailed in an NIH press release. Next, they conducted a small clinical trial of 20 adults. For two weeks, the group ate a diet high in ultraprocessed foods, and for another two weeks they ate a diet with no UPFs. "In our study, we found that hundreds of serum and urine metabolites were correlated with percentage energy from ultraprocessed food intake," Loftfield told Fox News Digital. The findings were published in the journal PLOS Medicine. Large-scale studies investigating the health risks of ultraprocessed foods often rely on self-reported dietary questionnaires, which can be prone to errors, per the NIH. The new blood and urine test helps to reduce human error by using objective biomarkers, a growing area of interest among researchers. Loftfield added, "It was surprising to find that UPF-correlated metabolites are involved in numerous and diverse biological pathways, underscoring the complex impact of diet on the metabolome." Ultraprocessed foods are defined as "ready-to-eat or ready-to-heat, industrially manufactured products, typically high in calories and low in essential nutrients," according to the NIH. Chronic diseases, obesity and various forms of cancer have been linked to diets that are heavy in UPFs. Despite promising results, the researchers emphasized that the new method will require further validation before broader use. Since the current trial focused mainly on older adults, more research is needed across various age groups and diets, the experts said. "Metabolite scores should be evaluated and improved in populations with different diets and a wide range of UPF intake," Loftfield acknowledged. This method could potentially be used in future research to link the consumption of processed foods with chronic diseases, according to the researchers. For more Health articles, visit "For individuals concerned about ultraprocessed food intake, one practical recommendation is to use 'nutrition facts' labels to avoid foods high in added sugars, saturated fat and sodium, as this can limit UPF intake and align with robust scientific research on diet and health," Loftfield suggested.
India Today
26-05-2025
- Health
- India Today
How much junk food did you eat? A new test may soon tell
Counting how much ultra-processed food someone eats has always relied on diet questionnaires and personal researchers at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world's largest medical research body, may have found a more objective way: by reading it in your blood and a new study published in PLOS Medicine, scientists have developed what they call a poly-metabolite score, a biomarker-based tool that can estimate how much of a person's energy comes from ultra-processed These include packaged snacks, soft drinks, ready-to-eat meals, and other industrially manufactured calorie-dense products and nutrient-poor could be a breakthrough for nutrition research, which has long struggled with the inaccuracies of self-reported diet data.'The limitations of self-reported diet are well known. With metabolomics, we can get closer to an objective measure of food intake and also understand how diet may be impacting health," said Dr Erikka Loftfield, lead investigator and researcher at the National Cancer ABOUT THIS SCOREThe NIH team looked at blood and urine samples for 12 months from two different groups: one observational study of 718 older US adults, and one clinical trial where 20 participants were fed two different diets, one high (80%) and one completely free (0%) of ultra-processed foods, each for two researchers found hundreds of tiny substances in the blood and urine, called metabolites, that were linked to how much ultra-processed food a person machine learning, they created a special score called a poly-metabolite score that could tell how processed a person's diet scores clearly showed the difference between when someone was eating mostly processed food and when they weren't, the study authors THIS MATTERSThe health risks of diets high in ultra-processed foods such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and even some cancers are well quantifying how much people actually eat is tricky, especially when relying on memory-based food logs or questionnaires. People could forget, under-report, or misjudge portion biomarker-based tool could make large-scale population studies more reliable and help uncover stronger links between diet and OF THE SCOREWhile the findings are promising, researchers caution that the current results are based mostly on older American scores still need to be validated in more diverse populations with different eating habits and levels of ultra-processed food this, the study didn't check whether these scores are linked to diseases like cancer or diabetes. That's something the scientists want to study next, to see if people with higher scores (meaning they eat more ultra-processed food) are more likely to get these now, though, the study marks a step toward more precise nutrition science and maybe one day, doctors won't need to ask what you body might already have the answer.
