Month: January 2015

People with type 1 diabetes lose an average of 12 years of life because of their disease. But tight control of blood-sugar levels may reduce that loss. Those are the conclusions of 2 new studies. People with type 1 diabetes have to inject insulin because their bodies don’t make it. The first study looked at nearly 25,000 adults with type 1 diabetes. Men died 11 years earlier and women 13 years earlier than people in a comparison group without the disease. Heart disease accounted for the lost years in 36% of men and 31% of women. About 29% of men and 22% of women under age 50 died of problems directly related to extremely high or low blood sugar. The second study randomly divided 1,400 type 1 diabetics into 2 groups. One group checked blood sugar very often. They adjusted medicines quickly to keep sugar levels close to normal. The other group managed blood sugar less intensely.

People who eat more whole grains may live longer, a large new study finds. The study was based on information about diet from 2 long-running studies of health professionals. It included more than 118,000 adults. At the start of the study, no one had heart disease or cancer. People answered questions about diet every 2 to 4 years. Researchers kept track of people for an average of 26 years. In that time, nearly 27,000 people died. For every daily serving of whole grains, people who ate the largest amount of whole grains daily were about 5% less likely to die of any cause than those who ate the smallest amount. For each daily serving, people were about 9% less likely to die of heart disease. Eating whole grains did not affect the risk of cancer death. A serving was equal to 1 ounce (28 grams) of whole grains.

Some types of cancers are known to be linked with genes or risky behaviors. But for many other types, a new study shows, the cause is basically bad luck. They are the result of mistakes, or mutations, that occur when stem cells divide to replace old cells. In the new study, researchers looked at previous research on how often stem cells in a particular type of tissue divide. Then they looked at the lifetime risk of cancer in those parts of the body. Cancers were most common in tissues that divided most often. These included bone marrow, source of cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma. In all, 22 of the 31 cancers studied were linked most closely with these random mutations as cells divided. Other examples included cancers of the ovary and pancreas. The other 9 cancers were linked with random mutations, too.

Cellphones and other “small screen” devices in the bedroom may be just as likely to reduce sleep time for children as TVs do, a new study finds. Previous research shows that children who have a TV in the bedroom tend to get less sleep. The new study was based on questionnaires answered by about 2,000 fourth- and seventh-grade students. They were asked about their sleep habits and their use of cellphones and other small devices, as well as TV. Students who slept near a small screen recorded 20.6 minutes fewer minutes of sleep on a typical weeknight than those who did not have a device nearby. Those who had a TV in the bedroom slept 18.0 minutes fewer each weeknight than those with no TV in the room. The amount of sleep lost was even greater for some groups. These included older children, Hispanics and non-Hispanic blacks. The journal Pediatrics published the study January 5.