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Here's the latest research on prostate cancer, arthritis, eye health, coffee and more.
- Prostate cancer? Diet & exercise can’t hurt.
- Heated mittens for arthritis?
- Does semaglutide ease the arthritis pain in knees?
- Aspirin & fish oil fail to protect eyes
- Does meat keep you feel full for longer?
- Can coffee help you stay sharp?
- Do leafy greens help prevent macular degeneration?
- Can some diets help prevent chronic kidney disease?
Prostate cancer? Diet & exercise can’t hurt.
Curbing insulin may help some men on “active surveillance” for their low-grade prostate cancer.
Scientists randomly assigned 100 men with prostate cancer grade group 1 or 2 and excess weight to a control group or to cut 500 to 1,000 calories a day and do 150 minutes of exercise per week.
After 6 months, the
diet-and-exercise group had lost 15 pounds, and their fasting insulin and insulin resistance dropped by about 24 percent. The control group lost 4 pounds, and their fasting insulin and insulin resistance rose by about
7 percent. (Not surprisingly, cancer progression didn’t vary in just 6 months.)
What to do
On active surveillance? Try diet and exercise to curb insulin levels. If insulin fuels cancer growth, as studies suggest, that may keep your cancer from progressing. Bonus: It should also help prevent type 2 diabetes.
Heated mittens for arthritis?
Can heated mittens help with hand osteoarthritis?
Researchers randomly assigned 200 people with hand osteoarthritis to wear battery-heated or non-heated mittens for at least 15 minutes a day.
After 6 weeks, the two groups reported no significant difference in function. The heated-mitten wearers did report slightly less pain and stiffness, but they might have overestimated those benefits because they knew that their mittens were heated.
What to do
Got hand arthritis? Try heating them (with or without mittens), but don’t expect miracles.
Does semaglutide ease the arthritis pain in knees?
Semaglutide (sold as Ozempic for type 2 diabetes and Wegovy for obesity) may relieve pain caused by osteoarthritis in your knees.
Scientists randomly assigned 407 adults with obesity and knee osteoarthritis to take semaglutide (2.4 milligrams) or a placebo each week. (The study was funded by Novo Nordisk, which sells the drug.)
After 68 weeks, pain scores had improved by 42 points in the semaglutide takers versus 28 points in the placebo takers (on a scale of 1 to 100). The semaglutide takers also reported less stiffness and were able to walk farther on a 6-minute walk test. And weight dropped by 14 percent in the semaglutide group but only by 3 percent in the placebo group.
What to do
Got obesity and osteoarthritis? Ask your doctor about semaglutide.
Aspirin & fish oil fail to protect eyes
People with diabetes have an elevated risk of retinopathy (damage to tiny blood vessels in the retina) and maculopathy (damage to the center of the retina).
In a 6½-year trial on 7,360 people with diabetes, those risks were no lower in people randomly assigned to take a daily aspirin (100 milligrams) or fish oil supplement (460 mg of EPA plus 380 mg of DHA) than in those who took matching placebos.
What to do
Don’t expect aspirin or fish oil to lower your risk of diabetic retinopathy or maculopathy.
Does meat keep you feel full for longer?
Does meat keep you feeling full longer than vegetable protein?
Researchers randomly assigned 25 young men to eat a 750-calorie pasta with bolognese sauce that was made with either beef or texturized pea and oat protein at noon.
At 2:30 p.m., when the men were told to eat as much quiche with potatoes and carrots as they wanted, they ate more calories if they had eaten the meat sauce (230) than if they had eaten the pea-oat sauce (180) earlier.
What to do
Don’t assume that meat keeps you full the longest.
Can coffee help you stay sharp?
Drinking coffee is linked to higher scores on cognitive tests in people with atrial fibrillation, an abnormal heart rhythm that raises the risk of a stroke.
In a study of 2,413 older people with atrial fibrillation, those who drank 2 to 5 cups of coffee a day had higher scores on a set of cognitive tests than those who drank less than 1 cup a day.
What to do
This kind of study can’t prove that coffee can keep you sharp if you have atrial fibrillation because something else about coffee drinkers may explain their cognitive scores. But since there’s no good evidence that giving up coffee or caffeine will lower your risk of atrial fibrillation, enjoy. Just keep in mind that a Starbucks grande (16 oz.) is 2 cups.
Do leafy greens help prevent macular degeneration?
Leafy greens and fish may help protect your vision.
Researchers tracked 2,697 eyes (in 1,757 people) with early or intermediate age-related macular degeneration (AMD). After 5 years, people who reported eating at least 2.7 servings of green leafy vegetables a week had a 25 percent lower risk of moving to a more severe level of macular degeneration than those who reported eating no leafy greens.
And those who ate at least two servings of fish per week had a 21 percent lower risk than those who ate less.
What to do
Salad and salmon, anyone? This kind of study can’t prove that greens and fish protect eyes because something else about people who eat those foods may explain their lower risk.
However, leafy greens are rich in lutein and zeaxanthin, which helped slow macular degeneration in people with intermediate or advanced—but not early—AMD in earlier studies.
Can some diets help prevent chronic kidney disease?
What’s the best diet to lower your risk of chronic kidney disease?
Researchers tracked 106,870 participants in the UK Biobank study. After 9 years, eating either a DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet or a healthy plant-based diet was linked to about a 22 percent lower risk of chronic kidney disease. Both diets are rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, and nuts. In contrast, an unhealthy plant-based diet—packed with white bread, potatoes, and sweets—was linked to a 27 percent higher risk of kidney disease.
What to do
This kind of study can’t prove that a healthy diet will protect your kidneys, but hypertension and type 2 diabetes are the biggest threats to them.
