by: Dennis Thompson

THURSDAY, June 18, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Aerobic exercise comes immediately to mind when one thinks of ways to reduce heart disease risk through physical activity.

But women might be able to lower their risk of heart disease through consistent strength training as well, a new study says.

Women who lift weights appear to have a reduced risk of heart problems, especially if they’re also doing aerobics, researchers reported June 17 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Women had a 44% lower risk of heart attack and 20% lower risk of heart disease if they did two or more hours of weight training a week, researchers found.

And the more often they lifted, the more their heart risk declined, results showed.

“Despite its established health benefits, resistance training is often overlooked as a prevention strategy for cardiovascular disease, and its impact on cardiovascular disease risk — especially in middle-aged and older women — remains understudied,” lead researcher Dr. Tianyue Zhang, a visiting scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Department of Nutrition in Boston, said in a news release.

Current U.S. guidelines recommend at least two days of resistance training each week, alongside 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous aerobic exercise, researchers said in background notes.

For the study, researchers analyzed data from more than 117,000 women participating in a long-term health study. As part of the study, the women’s physical activity, resistance training and sedentary behavior were tracked for an average of nearly 15 years.

Each additional hour of resistance training per week was linked to a 14% lower risk of heart attack and 5% lower risk of heart disease.

If a woman got the recommended levels of both strength training and aerobic exercise, her risk of heart attack was about 45% lower than those with no physical activity.

“These findings suggest that, within an already active population, resistance training is associated with additional reductions in cardiovascular disease risk above and beyond overall aerobic activity,” Zhang said. “Alongside aerobic activity and reductions in sedentary behavior, resistance training may be an important component of public health strategies for cardiovascular prevention in women.”

Dr. Harlan Krumholz, editor-in-chief of JACC, said resistance training has been encouraged for a long time, and this study provides “strong evidence” to reinforce that.

“It should be included in a well-rounded health routine to support function and longevity,” Krumholz, who was not involved in the study, added in a news release.

More information

The University of Colorado has more on resistance training for women.

SOURCES: American College of Cardiology, news release, June 17, 2026; Journal of the American College of Cardiology, June 17, 2026

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by: HealthDay Staff THURSDAY, June 11, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Getting enough vitamin C may be linked to better brain health as we age. Researchers in Japan studied more than 2,000 adults over the age of 64, comparing vitamin C levels in their blood plasma to MRI scans of their brains. They found that participants with lower vitamin C levels tended to have lower gray matter volume. They also had weaker connectivity within the brain’s default mode network — a collection of regions involved in functions such as attention and autobiographical memory. After accounting for factors that can influence brain health, including age, physical activity and education level, those links remained. “This finding generates the exciting hypothesis that a diet rich in vitamin C might play a supportive role in maintaining brain health and mitigating age-related cognitive decline in older adults,” said study coauthor Tomohiro Shintaku of the Graduate School of Medicine at Hirosaki University in Japan. While the results suggest that maintaining adequate vitamin C levels could help support healthy brain aging, the study does not prove cause and effect. The authors said larger, more diverse studies are needed to confirm their findings. “What I found most fascinating about this research is that we were able to detect these subtle but significant associations between a single nutritional factor and large-scale brain networks by utilizing a robust, community-based cohort of over 2,000 older adults,” Shintaku said. “It truly highlights the potential impact of our everyday dietary habits on our brain structures.” The study was published June 10 in the journal PLOS ONE. More information The Alzheimer’s Association has more on brain health. SOURCE: HealthDay TV, June 11, 2026 Health Day

by: Deanna Neff

THURSDAY, April 2, 2026 (HealthDay News) — You might think shedding tears is a natural way to vent stress and reset the mind after a difficult day.

But new research suggests that a good cry isn’t the universal mood-booster we once thought it was.

An Austrian team took a closer look at what makes people cry, individual differences in crying and how it makes people feel afterward.

The way you feel after crying, it recently reported in the journal Collabra: Psychology depends almost entirely on why you started to cry in the first place.

For the study, 106 adults reported the positive or negative effects immediately after crying as well as 15, 30 and 60 minutes later; what triggered their tears; and how long and intensely they cried.

Unlike previous studies that relied on people’s memories or artificial laboratory settings, this project captured emotions in real-time.

Using a smartphone app, participants recorded 315 crying episodes. On average, each individual had five crying episodes over the four-week study, roughly one every five days.

Participants reported mostly crying in response to media (for example, while watching funny or sad movies); overload (feeling overwhelmed by a task or worrying about the future); and impotence/helplessness (such as the illness or death of a close friend or relative).

“Our goal was to study crying where and when it really happens — in everyday life,” said lead author Stefan Stieger, head of psychological methodology at Karl Landsteiner University in Krems on the Danube in Austria. “Using smartphones, we were able to capture crying episodes in real time and then follow emotional changes over the next hour.”

Researchers found that crying rarely provided immediate relief. In many cases, people reported feeling less positive and more distressed right after their tears stopped.

However, the reason for their crying appeared to affect the outcome.

Individuals who cried because they felt lonely or overwhelmed had the most negative feelings afterward.

On the other hand, those who cried while watching a movie or reading a touching book saw a decrease in their negative feelings.

Researchers said this distinction — between causes related to one’s own psychological needs and those related to something or someone else — could be ground for future study.

The data also highlighted male-female differences.

Women in the study tended to cry more often, with longer, more intense episodes. They were also more likely to cry due to feelings of loneliness, while men were more often moved to tears by a sense of helplessness or media content.

Regardless of gender or cause, the study showed that the effects of crying didn’t last long. While some emotional shifts were measurable for up to 60 minutes, the impact completely vanished by the end of the day.

“The study shows that crying should not be seen as an automatic form of emotional relief,” said senior co-author Hannah Graf, a researcher at the university. “Its emotional effects seem to depend strongly on the context in which it occurs.”

Ultimately, crying is a complex part of people’s emotional lives rather than a simple pressure-release valve, researchers said.

More information

The National Institute of Mental Health has tips on managing complex emotions and understanding mental health.

SOURCES: Karl Landsteiner University, news release, March 26, 2026; Collabra Psychology, March 30, 2026

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by: Dennis Thompson

THURSDAY, March 26, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Even small improvements to your daily habits – a few minutes more sleep, a couple extra minutes of exercise, a daily side serving of veggies – can lower your risk of heart attack, stroke and heart failure, a new study says.

People who slept 11 minutes more, performed an extra 4.5 minutes of exercise, and ate an additional quarter cup of vegetables had a 10% lower risk of major heart health problems, researchers reported March 23 in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.

Those who had the optimum combination of these lifestyle choices were rewarded with an overall 57% lower risk of heart problems, compared to those with the worst habits, researchers found.

“We show that combining small changes in a few areas of our lives can have a surprisingly large positive impact on our cardiovascular health,” lead researcher Nicholas Koemel, a research fellow at the University of Sydney in Australia, said in a news release.

“This is very encouraging news because making a few small, combined changes is likely more achievable and sustainable for most people when compared with attempting major changes in a single behavior,” Koemel said.

For the new study, researchers tracked more than 53,000 adults participating in the UK Biobank, a long-term health research project in the United Kingdom. The participants were followed for an eight-year period.

Results showed that the best lifestyle for heart health involves sleeping for eight to nine hours per night, completing more than 42 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day, and eating a modestly healthy diet.

People who followed that pattern had a 57% lower risk of heart problems, researchers found.

The team noted that the sort of exercise that improved heart health can be as simple as taking the stairs, carrying shopping bags or walking briskly.

A better-quality diet involved more veggies, fruit, fish, dairy, whole grains and vegetable oils, and less refined grains, processed meats, red meat and sugary drinks, researchers said.

“I would encourage people not to overlook the importance of making a small change or two to your daily routine, no matter how small they may seem,” Koemel said.

Senior researcher Emmanuel Stamatakis said new tools to help that effort are in the works.

“We plan to build on these findings to develop new digital tools that support people in making positive lifestyle changes and establish sustained healthy habits,” said Stamatakis, a professor of physical activity and population health at the University of Sydney and Monash University.

“This will involve working closely with community members to make sure the tools are easy to use and can address the barriers we all face in making tweaks to our day-to-day routines,” he added in a news release.

More information

The American Heart Association has more on Life’s Essential 8 for heart health.

SOURCE: European Society of Cardiology, news release, March 24, 2026

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by: Dennis Thompson

THURSDAY, March 12, 2026 (HealthDay News) — People frequently switch between different weight-loss drugs, swapping Ozempic for Zepbound and vice versa within the first year of treatment, a new study reports.

What’s more, those patients who do swap GLP-1 drugs are more likely to stick with the drugs, researchers reported March 10 in JAMA Network Open.

“Switching between GLP-1RA medications should be viewed as a normal part of long-term obesity care,” said senior researcher Sarah Messiah, a professor of epidemiology and pediatrics at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

“Persistence should not be judged by staying on a single drug indefinitely, but by maintaining engagement in care and working with clinicians to find sustainable, effective treatment strategies over time,” she said in a news release.

Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) drugs mimic the GLP-1 hormone, which helps control insulin and blood sugar levels, decreases appetite and slows digestion of food.

For the new study, researchers tracked insurance claims from nearly 127,000 overweight or obese adults who started GLP-1 treatment between 2019 and 2024, looking for people taking drugs like semaglutide (Ozempic/Wegovy), tirzepatide (Zepbound/Mounjaro), or liraglutide (Saxenda/Victoza).

Results showed that treatment often didn’t follow a linear path. Many patients had to change up their GLP-1 meds in response to side effects, access problems, insurance coverage or the introduction of new medications.

Only a quarter of patients remained on any particular GLP-1 drug a year after starting it, and roughly 1 in 5 patients transitioned to a different weight-loss med during that period, researchers said.

People who swapped GLP-1 drugs were more likely to stick with treatment – 36% of switchers versus 21% of those who stuck with their first prescribed drug.

“In today’s clinical environment, successful obesity care often involves adapting treatment over time rather than expecting a single medication to meet every patient’s needs indefinitely,” researcher Dr. Jaime Almandoz, medical director of UT Southwestern Medical Center’s Weight Wellness Program, said in a news release.

Future studies will explore whether certain types of patients are more likely to swap medications, as well as which drugs or timing of treatment influence changes in weight-loss therapy, researchers said.

More information

The National Academy of Medicine has more on GLP-1 drugs.

SOURCES: UT Southwestern Medical Center, news release, March 10, 2026; JAMA Network Open, March 10, 2026

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