cardiovascular health
Vigorous exercise didn't raise risk in people treated for a heart rhythm disorder
JORG CARSTENSEN/DPA/AFP via Getty Images
For many people, sudden cardiac arrest comes out of nowhere, the first sign of heart disease they never knew they had. For others, family history or unexplained fainting might prompt an ECG that reveals a heart rhythm disorder that could cause dangerously chaotic heartbeats. Medications and implantable cardiac defibrillators can help, and a new study out today in Circulation suggests people who depend on them face a similar risk during vigorous exercise — even competitive sports — as others on the same treatments whose exercise was limited to walking, gardening, or none.
After three years, the rates of adverse cardiac events among the 1,400 participants treated for abnormal heartbeats in long QT syndrome were low: 2.7% overall and similar for both groups. That's in line with previous American Heart Association guidelines saying sports could be considered for athletes with defibrillators.
"This is actually very powerful information," said Patrice Desvigne-Nickens of NIH's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, which funded but did not conduct the study. "This is not about you should do this or you should do that, but rather, this is what happened: Here are the averages, discuss this with your physician. It may be that exercise is right for you, that it's a tolerable risk for you, especially considering the benefits that you seek." —Liz Cooney
mental health
CDC will finally collect data on disordered eating in youth
The CDC will include a question about binge eating in its nationally-representative Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System questionnaire in 2025. It's been more than a decade since the survey, given to high school students every other year, included any questions about disordered eating habits like purging or fasting. Without nationally representative data, researchers have had to rely on smaller localized surveys and datasets, which make it difficult to understand national trends.
Ariel Beccia is a postdoctoral research fellow at Boston Children's Hospital who has been advocating for the CDC to include disordered eating questions on the YRBS questionnaire since 2021. She and colleagues in a working group focused on the issue were asked by CDC which of two proposed questions they would prioritize if only one were to be selected, Beccia told me in an email. The team suggested one that asks about the frequency of eating "an unusually large amount of food in a short period of time." Binge eating is the most prevalent disordered eating behavior among youth and disproportionately affects marginalized groups like queer youth and kids of color, "so we wanted to prioritize this item from an equity perspective," Beccia wrote.
first opinion
Psychotherapy needs to be regulated. Can the FDA do it?
Tom Insel wasn't surprised when an FDA advisory committee voted "no" on MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD. On top of other barriers, psychotherapy is like a bug to the FDA, not a feature, writes the former director of the National Institute of Mental Health in a First Opinion essay.
The FDA doesn't regulate psychotherapy. In fact, there's no federal agency reviewing the effectiveness or safety of psychological interventions or enforcing the safe and appropriate provision of that care. That needs to change, Insel argues. "Just as the FDA was formed over more than a century ago to help the public distinguish medicine from snake oil, a regulatory process is needed today that defines the effectiveness and safety of psychological treatments," he writes. Read more.
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