Health | WPN World People News

Prescription use of benzodiazepines — a widely used class of sedative and anti-anxiety medications — increases steadily with age, despite the known risks for older people, according to a comprehensive analysis of benzodiazepine prescribing in the United States. Given existing guidelines cautioning health providers about benzodiazepine use among older adults, findings from the National Institutes of Health-funded study raise questions about why so many prescriptions — many for long-term use — are being written for this age group.

Six young women with a disorder that mimics menopause have gene alterations that hamper the repair of damaged DNA, report researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health. The mutations, occurring in women with primary ovarian insufficiency (POI), are in genes that repair damaged DNA in cells of the ovary that eventually become egg cells. The findings may contribute to an understanding of POI, and to the genetic basis of the precise timing of menopause that occurs at the usual stage in a woman’s life.

Young children who have long-term high blood sugar levels are more likely to have slower brain growth, according to researchers at centers including the National Institutes of Health.