Maintaining adequate social distance from strangers — a key COVID-19 preventive measure — can be tough when you’re drinking alcohol, researchers say. In a new study, the researchers put more than 200 young social drinkers in different social situations in laboratory settings. They drank either alcoholic or nonalcoholic beverages. In half of the cases, participants…  read on >  read on >

Being obese or overweight can increase the odds of developing several types of cancers, new research from the United Kingdom reveals. But shedding the excess pounds can lower the risk, researchers say. Reducing obesity cuts the risk for endometrial cancer by 44% and uterine cancer by 39%, and could also prevent 18% of kidney cancers…  read on >  read on >

You’re getting no real benefit from taking weight-loss supplements like garcinia cambogia, green tea extract, glucomannan, conjugated linoleic acid or chitosan, two new reviews show. Most of the clinical trials studied didn’t show these supplements producing any weight loss among users, the researchers said. In the rare cases where people did lose weight, they didn’t…  read on >  read on >

When young women land in the emergency room with chest pain, they wait longer and get less treatment than their male counterparts, a preliminary study finds. Using a federal survey of U.S. hospitals, researchers found that younger women with chest pain were treated less urgently than men their age. That included a lower likelihood of…  read on >  read on >

Could having heart disease risk factors in childhood sow the seeds of thinking declines in middle-age? It looks like it might, new research claims. “I think it was not so big of a surprise for us, but maybe for the scientific community who have been focusing mainly on the midlife risk factors and old-age cognition,”…  read on >  read on >

There’s more evidence that a switch away from meat in your diet could cut levels of unhealthy “biomarkers” that encourage disease, researchers say. A new study reported Saturday at the virtual European Congress on Obesity (ECO) found that people on vegetarian diets have lower blood levels of disease-linked biomarkers, such as “bad” (LDL) cholesterol and…  read on >  read on >

Looking for a morale boost or some solid encouragement? If so, socializing the old-fashioned way — live and in-person — will likely do more to lift your spirits than online interactions, new research suggests. It’s the key takeaway from a survey of more than 400 college undergraduate students. “We wanted to see if the social…  read on >  read on >

Heart complications are rare among college athletes who have had COVID-19, according to a small study. “Our findings may offer reassurance to high school athletes, coaches and parents where resources for testing can be limited,” said senior author Dr. Ranjit Philip, assistant professor in pediatric cardiology at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, in…  read on >  read on >