children
The effects of high blood pressure, six decades later
A renewed focus on children's health has many asking what can be done to set the next generations up for success. Here's one theme worth paying attention to: Blood pressure in those early years.
A new analysis of 37,000 people, presented at an American Heart Association convening yesterday, suggests high blood pressure at age 7 is associated with a higher risk of premature death from cardiovascular disease. To probe the connection, researchers linked health data from a cohort of American children born in the late 1950s to mid-60s to death data in 2016. They also looked at siblings to see if the associations persisted. The study only included Black and white children, and childhood blood pressure was based on one measurement, so those limitations should be considered. Even so, there is strong evidence that elevated blood pressure in youth leads to worse cardiovascular health, so early intervention is the name of the game.
Ai
Beyond 'Dr. Google': Patients are using chatbots for medical insights
Anyone online in 2025 is probably negotiating their relationship with artificial intelligence, and patients are no exception. Increasingly, people are using chatbots and other generative AI tools to "organize thoughts, explore outcomes, and rehearse how they'll describe what they're feeling" before a doctor's appointment, clinical psychologist Harvey Lieberman writes in a new First Opinion.
That's a challenge — and an opportunity. Healthcare providers should build off patients' AI-generated narratives and fill in the gaps, since large language models' diagnostic accuracy is patchy at best, according to early data on real-world use. "We should be teaching people how to build personal health narratives — drafts that are clear but revisable, reflective but not prematurely certain," Lieberman writes.
the more you know
One big number: 900,000
That's about how many diapers clinicians at the Upstate Pediatric and Adolescent Center in Syracuse, N.Y., estimate they've distributed through their diaper bank.
When one thinks of health disparities, many things come to mind — unreliable transportation, food insecurity, polluted air, etc. — but diapers don't often make that list. In Syracuse, though, advocates see diaper access as a key "social driver of health that is not addressed" by government safety nets.
Nearly 46% of U.S. families don't have the money to change their children's diapers "as often as necessary," the Syracuse team writes in a New England Journal of Medicine Perspective. In their patient population, where many families live in high-poverty areas, that number is about 62%. So patients receive 50 diapers per child per month. With that, a majority of caregivers reported they could buy more food or pay another bill, according to a 2023 survey.
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