instruction:
Generate an explanation for the given claim using the provided supporting material from the paragraph. Please consider the following points while generating an output. 1) The claim will always have supporting proof in the paragraph, and the paragraph will have a clear point of view supporting the claim. 2) There can be instances where direct correlation to the claim is not available. Make use of the sentences in the paragraph to provide a corresponding output supporting the claim. 3) The explanation should be at least one and at most twelve sentences long.
question:
Paragraph: A small Swiss study released on Monday showed that walking up and down stairs for three months, without recourse to the lift, increased levels of fitness dramatically. In fact, the improvement in aerobic capacity was equivalent to a 15 percent fall in the risk of dying prematurely from any cause. Subjects also saw marked reduction in waist size, body fat, blood pressure and cholesterol — all of which are known risk factors for heart disease. Philippe Meyer of the University Hospital in Geneva studied 69 employees of the university with a sedentary lifestyle, defined as less than two hours of exercise a week and fewer than 10 flights of stairs climbed a day. After not using elevators for 12 weeks, they increased their use of stairs to an average of 23 stories ascended or descended a day from five before, with a resulting sharp increase in fitness levels. “This suggests that stair climbing at work may have major public health implications,” Meyer told the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology. “However, the results of the pilot study need to be confirmed in a larger randomized controlled trial.” Claim: Take the stairs for a healthy heart.
answer:
Using the stairs at work instead of taking elevators could be a life saver.


question:
Paragraph: U.S. Marines of Weapons Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines are silhouetted against the sunset during a joint patrol with Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers along Helmand river near the Camp Gorgak in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, July 3, 2011. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov The study, published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, analyzed medical records of 307,520 children of active-duty Army personnel, aged 5 to 17 years old. It found almost 17 percent of them exhibited mental health problems. “Children of parents who spent more time deployed between 2003 and 2006 fared worse than children whose parents were deployed for a shorter duration,” the study’s researchers wrote. The lead researcher was Alyssa Mansfield, who was at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at the time the study was conducted. The U.S. Army reported some 562,000 members in active duty and more than 570,000 children of such members in 2010. Just under two-thirds of all active-duty servicemen and women were married and 15 percent were raising children as single parents. The children whose parents deployed at least once, for an average of 11 months, as part of the U.S. Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan were especially likely to suffer from adjustment, behavioral, depressive or stress disorders than those whose parents never went to war, the study found. Boys were more likely to have mental health problems than girls, according to the report, which reviewed records for patients cared for at military medical facilities and at civilian facilities using military medical insurance. “We used to think about deployment as a single experience: I go, I’m away, it’s difficult and then I come back. Well, it’s a way of life in the military that deployments continue to occur and families have to manage the consequences,” said Dr. Stephen Cozza, psychiatry professor at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Cozza has studied the issue and wrote an editorial accompanying the report. “These are consequences that aren’t necessarily short-term,” he said. The challenges don’t necessarily end with the final return home, he said, as soldiers may bring back their own mental health issues which affect relationships with their children. Claim: Mental problems of soldiers' kids tied to wars.
answer:
The longer U.S. soldiers were deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan, the more likely their children would be diagnosed with mental health problems, according to a study published Monday.


question:
Paragraph: There is no discussion of the cost of N-acetylcysteine although it is on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines, is available over-the-counter and is not very expensive. An online search reveals prices ranging from about $6 for 100 capsules containing 600 mg to around $12 for 50 high-dose capsules containing 700 mg. The intent of the pilot study was to determine the effect of N-acetylcysteine on PTSD symptoms, cravings and substance use. All three endpoints are described in the news release albeit in relative terms. We are told that the 8-week trial randomized 35 veterans with PTSD and substance use disorder. Some received N-acetylcysteine and others a placebo, but all of the participants received cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). The release reported that “Veterans in the NAC-treated group showed a 46% reduction in PTSD symptoms, compared with a 25% reduction in the placebo group on the Clinical-Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS), which assesses trauma history and symptom severity. The threshold CAPS score for diagnosis of PTSD is 50.” The release quotes the lead author: “As a group, the NAC-treated veterans were below diagnostic level for PTSD at the end of treatment.” This establishes that the benefit was clinically meaningful. But we prefer to see absolute rather than relative numbers as used here. For example, the actual before and after scores on the PTSD scale would have better illustrated how large the benefit was. The release explains that the drug used “does not cause side effects at the doses used in the study, but it degrades quickly when stored, is contraindicated in patients with asthma, and can cause nausea at higher doses and so should always be obtained and administered under a physician’s supervision.” However, the published study notes a higher incidence of adverse events in the N-acetylcysteine treated group that in those treated with placebo (66.7% vs. 47.1%). N-acetylcysteine can cause “nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea or constipation. Rarely, it can cause rashes, fever, headache, drowsiness, low blood pressure, and liver problems,” according to WebMD. This news release does not exaggerate the benefits found in the study, and added helpful caveats about the limitations of the study, its applicability to the general population and its small size. We’d have preferred to see some specific language cautioning about the short duration of the study (just 8 weeks) and the fact that the results might not hold up over time. There is no obvious disease-mongering here. However, when the release notes that 7-8 percent of Americans have experienced PTSD at some point in their lives it could have been noted that the PTSD experienced by military veterans — leaving them ‘difficult-to-treat’ — is in a different category than what civilians might experience. The release clearly states the funding sources and it would be very unlikely that these researchers would have a financial interest in the product under study since it is off-patent and generically available without a prescription. The news release mentions other treatments for PTSD (such as SSRI antidepressants) even though we don’t learn how effective those treatments are compared to N-acetylcysteine. The lead researcher very helpfully mentions that the drug should not be used without cognitive behavioral therapy or other forms of psychological counseling. The news release places the results of the study in a positive light noting, “Currently, there are no well-explored pharmacological treatments for patients with co-occurring PTSD/SUD. Although selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors have been approved by the FDA for treatment of PTSD, pharmacological treatments for co-occurring PTSD/SUD have yielded suboptimal results.” While SSRI’s have been the most studied to date, other drugs that have been studied in preliminary trials could have been mentioned, including prozosin, prazosin, guanfacine, atomoxetine, topiramate, memantine, acamprosate, and ketamine. A 2014 article in Addictive Behaviors journal describes some of these: “Pharmacological treatment of comorbid PTSD and substance use disorder: recent progress.” (Addictive behaviors 39.2 (2014): 428-433.) We learn it is sold over-the-counter and available everywhere. The release claims novelty with these statements: “This trial is the first to use NAC as a pharmacotherapy for PTSD and a broad range of SUDs” and “NAC treatment with CBT would be a novel approach to treat co-occurring PTSD and SUD.” This does appear to be the first such clinical trial of the supplement to address this combination of disorders. There is no use of unjustifiable language. In fact, we were pleased to see the consistent use of “substance use disorder” or SUD to describe the inappropriate use of illegal and legal drugs. Our recent post on ways to put people first when talking about addiction shows how careful terminology improves accuracy and reduces stigma. Claim: A potential pharmaceutical intervention for co-occurring PTSD and substance use disorder
answer:

This news release describes the outcomes of a small randomized placebo controlled study on the use of N-acetylcysteine, an inexpensive over-the-counter supplement, along with cognitive behavioral therapy in male veterans with PTSD and substance use disorder (SUD). Overall, the release provides a balanced report on the results and the limitations of the study. We think that with the addition of cost and a more in-depth discussion of harms it could have been even better. Post-traumatic stress is a huge problem among veterans who have seen combat, and the effects of PTSD can be lifelong and debilitating. Since PTSD is also found in police officers, firefighters and other emergency personnel, a safe and effective treatment for it might have wide ranging applications. This trial on a small number of veterans who suffered both from PTSD and substance use disorders could very much add to available therapies in which there are few effective treatments but many sufferers. This could also be significant to the 7 to 8 percent of Americans who develop PTSD at some point in their life.