EDMONTON, Alberta, April 17 (UPI) — Older men and women with heart failure could breathe better and exercise more after taking testosterone supplements, researchers in Canada said.

Study author Dr. Justin A. Ezekowitz, an assistant professor and director of the Heart Function Clinic at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, and colleagues analyzed four randomized clinical trials of patients with moderate to severe chronic heart failure.

The analysis involved 198 patients — 84 percent men, average age 67 — were given commercial testosterone supplements by injection, patch or gel. one study involved only women.

The study, published in Circulation Heart Failure, found those who received supplemental testosterone scored 50 percent better than those receiving placebo in a 6-minute walking test, and the researchers noted gains in muscle and skeletal endurance that appeared quickly and lasted for a least one year. those involved in the study involving only women were given lower doses of testosterone than men in the other trials received, but similar improvements were found.

“The improvement in exercise capacity was consistent across all of the studies,” Ezekowitz said in a statement. “Compared to patients in placebo groups, the differences were striking.”

None of the male patients developed signs of prostate disease and there was no increase in cardiovascular events, Ezekowitz said.

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AMES, Iowa, Jan. 18 (UPI) — A study of children in Singapore found those who play 20 hours of video games a week are more likely than others to be anxious or depressed, researchers say.

However, the study published online ahead of print in February’s Pediatrics, says spending many hours with a PlayStation or an Xbox daily can lead to serious psychiatric problems in children, and “pathological” video game playing may not be just a result of pre-existing mental disorders, MedPage Today reported.

Douglas Gentile of Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, and colleagues say depression, social difficulties and poor school performance seemed to act as outcomes of pathological gaming.

Video game-playing habits were considered pathological when children considered themselves to have at least five or 10 behaviors listed on a questionnaire, such as the hours spent playing video games, whether schoolwork suffered or whether they ever stole money to buy games, Gentile says.

The researchers also find that after the two-year study of 3,000 children, the more pathological gaming symptoms participants had at baseline, the more likely they were at the last follow-up to show symptoms of depression, anxiety, social phobia and lower school grades.

The researchers say they do not see why the findings may not apply to other countries.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Nov. 25 (UPI) — Retirement leaves people much less mentally and physically fatigued and to a smaller degree less depressed, Swedish researchers say.

However, Dr. Hugo Westerlund of Stockholm University in Sweden also finds retirement does not change the risk of chronic illnesses such as respiratory disease, diabetes and heart disease.

Westerlund and colleagues say the study of 11,246 men and 2,858 women in France who were surveyed annually from 1989 to 2007 — seven years prior to retirement and seven years after retirement. Seventy-two percent retired between the ages of 53 and 57, but all retired by the age of 64.

In the year before retirement, 25 percent suffered from depressive symptoms and 7 percent were diagnosed with one or more of respiratory disease, diabetes, heart disease or stroke.

“If work is tiring for many older workers, the decrease in fatigue could simply reflect removal of the source of the problem … furthermore, retirement may allow people more time to engage in stimulating and restorative activities, such as physical exercise,” Westerlund and colleagues say in a statement.

The research results “indicate that fatigue may be an underlying reason for early exit from the labor market and decreased productivity, and redesign of work, healthcare interventions or both may enable a larger proportion of older people to work in full health.”

The findings are published in the British Medical Journal.

ODENSE, Denmark, Nov. 20 (UPI) — Discoveries by Danish researchers could help wine-makers develop low-allergenic vintages — wines with less potential to trigger allergy symptoms.

Scientist Giuseppe Palmisano of University of Southern Denmark in Odense and colleagues identified 28 glycoproteins — proteins coated with sugars produced naturally as grapes ferment — that may be causing the headaches, stuffy noses, skin rash and other more serious allergy symptoms such as difficulty breathing suffered by 500 million people worldwide if they drink wine.

Wine allergies occur in about 8 percent of people worldwide, with 1 percent allergic due to sulfites — sulfur-containing substances that winemakers add to wine to prevent spoilage, but also occur naturally. However, the wine substances that trigger allergies in the remaining 7 percent are unclear.

The study, published in the Journal of Proteome Research, found the glycoproteins had structures similar to known allergens — including proteins that trigger allergic reactions to ragweed and latex.

The researchers found the glycoproteins while analyzing Italian Chardonnay. the glycoproteins were formed as the grapes fermented.