Consumption of caffeinated coffee, tea and caffeine alone was linked to reduced dementia risk and improved cognition, with the most significant associations found at moderate intake levels, new data from JAMA show.
“A major gap in this area is that dementia develops over decades, but many earlier studies measured diet only once or followed people for a relatively short time,” Yu Zhang, MBBS, a doctoral candidate in the department of nutrition in the T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University, told Healio.
As prior research linking tea and coffee to dementia and cognitive outcomes

The American College of Lifestyle Medicine, or ACLM, announced updates to its dietary position statement aimed at helping clinicians address chronic disease.
“ACLM’s original dietary position statement was a brief, simple statement about the optimal foods to include for the treatment, reversal and prevention of lifestyle-related chronic diseases,” Micaela Karlsen, PhD, MSPH, ACLM senior director of research, told Healio. “That original statement has now been expanded to include four points.”
The updated statement “coincides with a key time of increased national attention on nutrition,” ACLM

Being a care partner to a person with kidney disease can be a rewarding experience, and we know that our patient’s well-being benefits substantially from strong social supports and loved ones rising to the challenge of fulfilling this special role.
We also know that many care partners experience a significant degree of burden in their role, including impacts on their own health, reduced quality of life, financial strain and emotional burnout. These accumulating stressors may interfere with their ability to fulfill the care partner role and leave the patient with unmet needs.
Our patients

Children exposed to high levels of fine particulate matter and water damage/home dampness in their early life had a heightened risk for childhood asthma, according to data published in Environmental Epidemiology.
In contrast, the risk for childhood asthma was lower among children with a dog at home during infancy, according to researchers.
“Our findings emphasize the importance of considering multiple early-life exposures — such as PM2.5, home dampness and the absence of dogs in the home — together as risk factors for childhood asthma,” Akihiro Shiroshita, MD, MPH, PhD student at Vanderbilt

There are multiple genetic, environmental, microbial and social factors that can play a part in the development of food allergies in children, according to findings published in JAMA Pediatrics.
“Our findings inform doctors, parents and policymakers on which children are most at risk and where prevention efforts should focus,” Derek K. Chu, MD, PhD, FRCPC, assistant professor with McMaster University’s departments of medicine and health research methods, evidence and impact, told Healio. “Doctors and other clinicians need to identify high-risk children early and guide prevention; public health

U.S. women prefer clinic-based cervical cancer screening over home-based self-sampling by a 3-to-1 margin, according to results of a cross-sectional study.
Tailored messaging about the availability and effectiveness of home-based self-sampling may increase comfort with and utilization of the approach and help reverse a recent decline in cervical cancer screening, researchers concluded.
“Self-collection is still new, so there is a need for greater awareness,” senior author Sanjay Shete, PhD, deputy division head of cancer prevention and population sciences at The University of Texas MD Anderson

Experts across the field of rheumatology are giving mixed reviews to the recent bipartisan federal spending package, which features pharmacy benefit manager and telehealth reforms but also makes cuts to the CDC Arthritis Program.
The five-bill, $1.2 trillion minibus package, signed into law by President Donald J. Trump on Feb. 3, includes stipulations to improve transparency in PBM practices and extensions for Medicare telehealth payment flexibilities that may benefit the rheumatology community. However, spending cuts — including a reduction of the CDC Arthritis Program budget to $2 million —