Latest news with #TheClevelandClinic
UPI
4 days ago
- Health
- UPI
Intense grief may nearly double risk of early death
People intensely grieving a loved one are nearly twice as likely to die within a decade of their loss, a new study says. Those whose grief remained persistently high in the first years following a loss have 88% increased odds of dying within 10 years of their loved one's passing, according to results published in Frontiers in Public Health. They also are nearly three times more likely to receive mental health care like talk therapy, greater than five times more likely to be prescribed antidepressants, and more than twice as likely to receive sedatives or anxiety drugs, results show. "This is the first study to investigate the long-term use of health care and patterns of mortality over a decade after bereavement in a large-scale cohort," lead researcher Mette Kjaergaard Nielsen said in a news release. She's a postdoctoral researcher at the Research Unit for General Practice in Aarhus, Denmark. For the new study, researchers recruited more than 1,700 bereaved men and women in Denmark with an average age of 62. Among them, 66% had lost their partner, 27% a parent and 7% another loved one. The study participants were given a questionnaire that assessed their levels of grief during the first three years after losing a loved one. About 6% of participants had levels of grief that remained high despite the passing of time, and 38% had persistently low levels, results show. Another 47% experienced high or moderate grief at first that ebbed over time. Following the people out for 10 years, researchers found those with heavy and unrelenting grief were more likely to die early and to need some sort of psychiatric help. Researchers can't say exactly why unrelenting grief might increase a person's risk of early death. "We have previously found a connection between high grief symptom levels and higher rates of cardiovascular disease, mental health problems and even suicide," Nielsen said. "But the association with mortality should be further investigated." However, there's a chance doctors might identify people at risk of heavy and prolonged grief, since these folks were more likely to have prescriptions for psychiatric conditions even before their loss, researchers said. "The 'high grief' group had lower education on average, and their more frequent use of medication before bereavement suggested that they had signs of mental vulnerability, which may cause greater distress following the death of a loved one," Nielsen said. She said a doctor could look for previous signs of depression or other severe mental health conditions. "They can then offer these patients tailored follow-up in general practice, or refer them to a private-practice psychologist or secondary care," Nielsen said. "The (doctor) may also suggest a bereavement follow-up appointment focusing on mental health." More information The Cleveland Clinic has more on "broken heart syndrome." Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
The Hill
17-07-2025
- Health
- The Hill
5 things to know about Trump's diagnosis of chronic venous insufficiency
The White House on Thursday said President Trump underwent medical testing due to 'mild swelling' in his legs, unveiling a vein condition that is common in those over 70. In a press briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt shared a note from Trump's physician that described the exam. The president went through ultrasounds and a 'comprehensive exam,' which included a diagnostic vascular study. The exam found that the president, who is 79, has chronic venous insufficiency. The condition occurs when someone's leg veins have a difficult time pumping blood back to the heart, causing blood to pool, according to The Cleveland Clinic. Here are five things you need to know about the president's chronic venous insufficiency: Chronic venous insufficiency is a common condition According to Cleveland Clinic, 5 percent of adults experience chronic venous insufficiency, with those 50 and older generally being impacted by it. Johns Hopkins University also states that overweight and pregnant people, as well as those with 'a family history of' chronic venous insufficiency, or those who experienced leg wounding 'due to injury, surgery, or previous blood clots' more commonly, deal with condition. How is chronic venous insufficiency diagnosed? A diagnosis of chronic venous insufficiency can come from a duplex ultrasound, used 'for assessing blood flow and structure of the leg veins' or magnetic resonance venography (MRV), 'a diagnostic procedure that produces detailed, three-dimensional images,' according to the University of California, Davis. How is chronic venous insufficiency treated? Leg elevation, regular exercise, blood flow-raising medicines and compression stockings are among some treatments for chronic venous insufficiency, according to Johns Hopkins. The university also said that surgery 'is done in severe cases,' with a surgery named ligation possibly being performed. 'The affected vein is tied off so that blood no longer flows through it,' Johns Hopkins said on their website of ligation. 'If the vein or its valves are heavily damaged, the vein will be removed. This is called vein stripping.' Trump's prior health In April, the president went through his annual physical exam. His physician, in a memo, declared Trump was in 'excellent health.' 'President Trump exhibits excellent cognitive and physical health and is fully fit to execute the duties of the Commander-in-Chief and Head of State,' White House physician Sean Barbabella wrote, also saying that the president's heart function was 'normal.' In Trump's first term, he was hospitalized at Walter Reed National Medical Center with COVID-19 in October 2020. In 2021, The New York Times reported that Trump had been sicker then than previously reported. When he was hospitalized, the president had severely depressed blood oxygen levels and officials worried he would have to go on a ventilator, according to the Times, who cited two people familiar with the matter. Aging presidents and health issues Trump's diagnosis of chronic venous insufficiency is not uncommon among people his age. He is the second oldest president in U.S. history, with former President Biden being the first. In July 2024, after Biden turned in a rough debate performance against Trump, concerns about his age and mental fitness quickly arose. Biden's White House physician released a letter indicating he had seen a range of specialists, including a neurology consultant, during his time in the White House. Biden was declared fit to serve. The former president, who had already been facing questions about his age prior to the debate, dropped out of the race and was replaced in the race by former Vice President Harris, who ultimately lost to Trump in November. During the 2024 race, Harris's campaign targeted Trump's age, with Harris commenting on interview cancellations by her Republican rival.
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Elizabeth Day Tried Everything to Get Pregnant. After 12 Years, She Stopped — and Found Meaning in Failure (Exclusive)
After 12 years of trying to get pregnant, Elizabeth Day decided it was time to stop — and what she realized next was unexpected. The 46-year-old British podcaster and novelist, who hosts the podcast How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, says she always knew she wanted to have kids. Growing up in a heteronormative family with two sisters and two parents, Day believed she was going to be a mother from the very beginning. "I don't think I ever questioned the fact that I would have children," she tells PEOPLE. Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Day, who grew up attending an all-girls school, explains that she went on birth control when she became sexually active and was on the pill for 14 years before she stopped taking it after getting married to her first husband. "I thought, because there is this idea that if you come off the pill, there's this sort of fertility boost sometimes and you can get pregnant at the drop of a hat," Day says. "And so I thought that might happen, but actually it didn't happen at all. And that's when I started exploring whether there was something awry." Day spent two years trying to get pregnant with her ex-husband before she decided to see a doctor, a time period which she calls a "very lonely experience." Ultimately, she was told she had "unexplained infertility." "[It's] a deeply unhelpful diagnosis because there's no explanation, so no one's quite sure how to treat it, so they just throw stuff at a wall and see what sticks," she explains. The doctors also told her she had a bicornuate uterus which, according to The Cleveland Clinic, is an irregularly shaped uterus that appears to be heart-shaped and can often cause complications with pregnancy. However, throughout all her meetings and appointments with "almost exclusively male clinicians," Day just kept feeling frustrated. She shares that she began to realize that women's medicine is "under-explored, underfunded and under-researched." "So very often when I asked for an explanation, I was told that I was the one who was failing," Day says. "So the language of infertility is very much the language of failure, which is partly why I'm so interested in exploring failure through my podcast is because of these experiences." "It puts the onus on women, and it is very often women who feel that — particularly if you are a kind of type A perfectionist, which I think I was — and you are used to putting in the work and hopefully getting the results, this is something that you cannot possibly control by being quote unquote, 'a good girl.' And I found that really difficult on top of all of the hormones." She was then advised to try in vitro fertilization (IVF), which she started during the beginning of 2014. After two rounds of IVF, Day was again unsuccessful in getting pregnant after transferring an embryo. "And again, there was no explanation for that. So I turned the sense of failure inwards, and it was actually talking to a friend of mine that really helped me kind of recategorize that experience," she explains. "And I told her I was failing to respond to the drugs, and she said, 'Maybe you're not failing to respond to the drugs. Maybe they're failing you.'" Describing that chat as a "lightbulb moment," Day says reframing the way she thought about failure changed how she saw the experience of fertility medicine. She took a break from IVF and ended up getting pregnant naturally, but had the first of three miscarriages at the end of the year in 2014. "2014 was a really intense year, partly because as anyone who has done fertility treatment will know, it's like having another job," Day explains. "There are so many scans that you have to go to. There's so many drugs that you have to take. There's so much measuring and prodding that happens and you are constantly living with this state of ambivalence and ambiguity because it might work, but it might not. And you need to carry both ideas." She explains that even getting something like a positive pregnancy test, which is often a very happy thing for couples, carries weight to it when you're going through miscarriages and fertility treatments. "There's this really difficult tension between all of your feelings because on the one side, you know you should feel uncomplicatedly ecstatic," Day says. "But on the other side, you know how fragile it can be. And if you've had a miscarriage, it robs you of any experience of a relaxed pregnancy." "Now that I've had three miscarriages, I also understand that it's a very nuanced type of grief because you are grieving an absence, but you are also grieving the dreams you had of a presence," she continues. "And that's a really hard thing to cope with." After a tough year, Day divorced from her first husband in 2015. She went on to freeze her eggs and unfortunately did not retrieve that many since she again was told she "failed to respond to drugs properly." When she was about to turn 40, Day met her now-husband on Hinge. She thought there wasn't much hope at getting pregnant since she was now older and her husband was 44, but she did end up getting pregnant naturally just after her 41st birthday. When that pregnancy also ended in miscarriage, Day says it showed herself and her partner how much they really wanted to have a baby. The two embarked on their own fertility journey, which ended with trying egg donation. Day explains that she felt like she was at an age where she would prefer to have a healthy egg that produces a viable embryo, rather than try using her own eggs. After a year of finding a donor and adjusting her lifestyle, she traveled to Los Angeles just after Christmas in 2022 for the embryo transfer. And it did not take. "Again, you are pitched into this devastating realization that there is no explanation that even when you do everything you are meant to do, sometimes it just doesn't happen," Day says. "And that was one of the lowest points of my life." "Looking back, that's over two years ago now, and I could never have imagined that I would be here, which is fully at peace with a life without biological children," she shares. "And the reason I am at peace with it, I had to confront some dark things. I had to ask myself some honest questions. But ultimately, it came down to the idea that maybe it's not my path in this lifetime to be a mother in the conventional sense." Day notes that she's lucky enough to have three step kids, two nieces and 13 godchildren. "I'm very blessed in that respect, and I'm very aware that there are so many different ways to show up in a parenting role in this world," she adds. She goes on to say that although the entire infertility journey is a very difficult one, she has learned something meaningful about herself, about love and about life. "It's my firm belief that actually going through the fertility struggles is an act of parenting," Day says. "That's what you're doing. You are parenting your child, you are living your life for your children, giving them existence," she continues. "And that's an extraordinary thing that you are doing, and you are so strong to be doing it." Day explains that while she was in the thick of trying to get pregnant, the thought of giving up was one she couldn't comprehend. "I thought [not having children] would mean my life wouldn't have meaning that I would be left behind and that I would feel something so fundamentally lacking," she shares. "I promise you that there is so much peace and fulfillment on the other side of it and so many opportunities to create meaning." "I think ultimately for me, part of my journey has been realizing how much I need to parent myself. And I think that's a struggle that many of us have," Day says "And so actually part of my parenting now is understanding what I need and that it's not a failure to meet those needs. And nor is it selfish. It's actually a really necessary part of being human." The podcaster goes on to explain that she's found meaning and a real sense of community by doing her podcast, which explores this topic of failure. "So I just want to say that to the person who is walking that path right now, there will be a way that you can find meaning again if it's not conventional parenting, and if it is and you do end up with a baby in your arms, I'm so so happy for you, and that is your path," Day says. "And I realize now that it's not mine." Read the original article on People
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Elizabeth Day Tried Everything to Get Pregnant. After 12 Years, She Stopped — and Found Meaning in Failure (Exclusive)
After 12 years of trying to get pregnant, Elizabeth Day decided it was time to stop — and what she realized next was unexpected. The 46-year-old British podcaster and novelist, who hosts the podcast How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, says she always knew she wanted to have kids. Growing up in a heteronormative family with two sisters and two parents, Day believed she was going to be a mother from the very beginning. "I don't think I ever questioned the fact that I would have children," she tells PEOPLE. Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Day, who grew up attending an all-girls school, explains that she went on birth control when she became sexually active and was on the pill for 14 years before she stopped taking it after getting married to her first husband. "I thought, because there is this idea that if you come off the pill, there's this sort of fertility boost sometimes and you can get pregnant at the drop of a hat," Day says. "And so I thought that might happen, but actually it didn't happen at all. And that's when I started exploring whether there was something awry." Day spent two years trying to get pregnant with her ex-husband before she decided to see a doctor, a time period which she calls a "very lonely experience." Ultimately, she was told she had "unexplained infertility." "[It's] a deeply unhelpful diagnosis because there's no explanation, so no one's quite sure how to treat it, so they just throw stuff at a wall and see what sticks," she explains. The doctors also told her she had a bicornuate uterus which, according to The Cleveland Clinic, is an irregularly shaped uterus that appears to be heart-shaped and can often cause complications with pregnancy. However, throughout all her meetings and appointments with "almost exclusively male clinicians," Day just kept feeling frustrated. She shares that she began to realize that women's medicine is "under-explored, underfunded and under-researched." "So very often when I asked for an explanation, I was told that I was the one who was failing," Day says. "So the language of infertility is very much the language of failure, which is partly why I'm so interested in exploring failure through my podcast is because of these experiences." "It puts the onus on women, and it is very often women who feel that — particularly if you are a kind of type A perfectionist, which I think I was — and you are used to putting in the work and hopefully getting the results, this is something that you cannot possibly control by being quote unquote, 'a good girl.' And I found that really difficult on top of all of the hormones." She was then advised to try in vitro fertilization (IVF), which she started during the beginning of 2014. After two rounds of IVF, Day was again unsuccessful in getting pregnant after transferring an embryo. "And again, there was no explanation for that. So I turned the sense of failure inwards, and it was actually talking to a friend of mine that really helped me kind of recategorize that experience," she explains. "And I told her I was failing to respond to the drugs, and she said, 'Maybe you're not failing to respond to the drugs. Maybe they're failing you.'" Describing that chat as a "lightbulb moment," Day says reframing the way she thought about failure changed how she saw the experience of fertility medicine. She took a break from IVF and ended up getting pregnant naturally, but had the first of three miscarriages at the end of the year in 2014. "2014 was a really intense year, partly because as anyone who has done fertility treatment will know, it's like having another job," Day explains. "There are so many scans that you have to go to. There's so many drugs that you have to take. There's so much measuring and prodding that happens and you are constantly living with this state of ambivalence and ambiguity because it might work, but it might not. And you need to carry both ideas." She explains that even getting something like a positive pregnancy test, which is often a very happy thing for couples, carries weight to it when you're going through miscarriages and fertility treatments. "There's this really difficult tension between all of your feelings because on the one side, you know you should feel uncomplicatedly ecstatic," Day says. "But on the other side, you know how fragile it can be. And if you've had a miscarriage, it robs you of any experience of a relaxed pregnancy." "Now that I've had three miscarriages, I also understand that it's a very nuanced type of grief because you are grieving an absence, but you are also grieving the dreams you had of a presence," she continues. "And that's a really hard thing to cope with." After a tough year, Day divorced from her first husband in 2015. She went on to freeze her eggs and unfortunately did not retrieve that many since she again was told she "failed to respond to drugs properly." When she was about to turn 40, Day met her now-husband on Hinge. She thought there wasn't much hope at getting pregnant since she was now older and her husband was 44, but she did end up getting pregnant naturally just after her 41st birthday. When that pregnancy also ended in miscarriage, Day says it showed herself and her partner how much they really wanted to have a baby. The two embarked on their own fertility journey, which ended with trying egg donation. Day explains that she felt like she was at an age where she would prefer to have a healthy egg that produces a viable embryo, rather than try using her own eggs. After a year of finding a donor and adjusting her lifestyle, she traveled to Los Angeles just after Christmas in 2022 for the embryo transfer. And it did not take. "Again, you are pitched into this devastating realization that there is no explanation that even when you do everything you are meant to do, sometimes it just doesn't happen," Day says. "And that was one of the lowest points of my life." "Looking back, that's over two years ago now, and I could never have imagined that I would be here, which is fully at peace with a life without biological children," she shares. "And the reason I am at peace with it, I had to confront some dark things. I had to ask myself some honest questions. But ultimately, it came down to the idea that maybe it's not my path in this lifetime to be a mother in the conventional sense." Day notes that she's lucky enough to have three step kids, two nieces and 13 godchildren. "I'm very blessed in that respect, and I'm very aware that there are so many different ways to show up in a parenting role in this world," she adds. She goes on to say that although the entire infertility journey is a very difficult one, she has learned something meaningful about herself, about love and about life. "It's my firm belief that actually going through the fertility struggles is an act of parenting," Day says. "That's what you're doing. You are parenting your child, you are living your life for your children, giving them existence," she continues. "And that's an extraordinary thing that you are doing, and you are so strong to be doing it." Day explains that while she was in the thick of trying to get pregnant, the thought of giving up was one she couldn't comprehend. "I thought [not having children] would mean my life wouldn't have meaning that I would be left behind and that I would feel something so fundamentally lacking," she shares. "I promise you that there is so much peace and fulfillment on the other side of it and so many opportunities to create meaning." "I think ultimately for me, part of my journey has been realizing how much I need to parent myself. And I think that's a struggle that many of us have," Day says "And so actually part of my parenting now is understanding what I need and that it's not a failure to meet those needs. And nor is it selfish. It's actually a really necessary part of being human." The podcaster goes on to explain that she's found meaning and a real sense of community by doing her podcast, which explores this topic of failure. "So I just want to say that to the person who is walking that path right now, there will be a way that you can find meaning again if it's not conventional parenting, and if it is and you do end up with a baby in your arms, I'm so so happy for you, and that is your path," Day says. "And I realize now that it's not mine." Read the original article on People
Epoch Times
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Epoch Times
Jennifer Lawrence Details ‘Extremely Isolating' Postpartum Experience After 2nd Child
Jennifer Lawrence has garnered an Oscar for Best Actress since landing her breakout part in the 2010 thriller 'Winter's Bone.' But behind the scenes, her role is that of a doting mom, having welcomed her second child with husband Cooke Maroney earlier this year. 'Having children changes everything, it changes your whole life—it's brutal and incredible,' the actress, 34, The psychological drama, directed by Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsay, premiered at the French film festival on May 17, drawing a six-minute standing ovation. In the film, Lawrence portrays a writer and new mother named Grace, who struggles with her mental health after relocating from New York to a rural Montana farmhouse with her husband, played by actor Robert Pattinson. 'Die, My Love' is an adaptation of Ariana Harwicz's Argentinian novella 'Matate, amor.' Originally published in 2012 and made available in English five years later, the book provides an intensely raw exploration of motherhood, plunging readers into the mind of a woman grappling with postpartum depression and psychosis. 'There's not really anything like postpartum—it's extremely isolating,' Lawrence said at the press conference. 'But the truth is, extreme anxiety and extreme depression are isolating, no matter where you are. You feel like an alien.' Related Stories 9/16/2024 9/29/2024 The 'Hunger Games' star drew upon her own experiences with postpartum depression for her new role. The actress, whose son, Cy, was born in February 2022, was around five months pregnant with her second child when production began on 'Die, My Love.' 'A part of what [Grace] is going through is the hormonal imbalance that comes with postpartum,' Lawrence said. 'But she's also having an identity crisis. Who am I as a mother? Who am I as a wife? ... And I think she's plagued with this feeling that she's disappearing.' The Cleveland Clinic However, postpartum depression, which is characterized by overwhelming feelings of sadness and loneliness, is a far more severe and prolonged condition, affecting roughly 1 in 7 mothers. If left untreated, it can persist for months or even years after childbirth. Gwendy Gregory, a certified birth and postpartum doula based in Tampa, Florida, told The Epoch Times that the intense emotional challenges women face after giving birth, though incredibly common, are often unspoken. 'After birth, many mothers feel like the world keeps turning while they are standing still. There's a surreal mix of love, exhaustion, vulnerability, and identity shift that can feel alienating,' the All Is Well Doula founder said. The hormonal fluctuations new mothers experience, including drops in estrogen, progesterone, and cortisol levels, only amplify these feelings. 'Isolation can quickly become overwhelming,' the mother of five said. 'We weren't designed to mother alone. We were meant to be surrounded, supported, and seen.' Columbia University 'It's a tender window where rest, nourishment, and support are essential for healing and bonding,' Gregory said. 'Unfortunately, our culture often celebrates the baby while forgetting the mother. But thriving babies need thriving mothers.' In addition to contending with the baby blues or postpartum depression, mothers can also face a slew of other complications, including difficulties breastfeeding, physical trauma from birth, and even grief over their former self. And like the fictional Grace, real-life mothers may also encounter psychosis, experiencing an altered sense of reality, marked by hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia, among other serious behavioral changes. The rare but serious mental health emergency affects about 1 in 1,000 women and carries an increased risk of suicide and harm to the baby, according to the Cleveland Clinic. 'Postpartum is sacred,' Gregory said. 'It's messy, beautiful, exhausting, and holy all at once. And when we honor it with intention—whether through community care, mental health support, or simply showing up with compassion—we give mothers the space to heal and thrive.' Touching on the joys of motherhood after navigating her own postpartum challenges, Lawrence said her children have given her a newfound outlook on her craft as an actress. 'I didn't know that I could feel so much, and my job has a lot to do with emotion,' she told the media at Cannes. 'They've opened up the world to me. It's almost like feeling like a blister or something, [it's] so sensitive. So they've changed my life obviously for the best, and they've changed me creatively.'
