Paul George’s first night in green was memorable for all the right reasons, except for the final score. The nine-time All-Star delivered a record-setting performance during Tuesday's NBA opener, despite the Boston Celtics falling 121-113 to the Detroit Pistons.
George scored 38 points in 31 minutes during his Celtics debut, the most ever by a player in his first game with the franchise.
While the loss dampened George’s performance, it did give Boston an encouraging glimpse of what he can provide after injury-plagued stints with his previous teams.
George said the last time he felt this healthy was toward the end of his tenure with the Los Angeles Clippers, and admitted an injury lingered during his run with the 76ers.
"My stint in LA. I was pretty healthy to finish my last year there, and then, honestly, going to Philly, I just had a bad hyperextension that really set me back, and I couldn’t quite shake that one — it was an ongoing thing of my leg, my knee not feeling strong, and it was rough, right?" the 36-year-old said.
"Because I was trying to rest, but I was also trying to be available for the team, and just couldn’t quite find the time to let it all come together."
Injury setbacks and load management arguably became a theme of George's stints with the Clippers and Sixers. He's managed to play at least 57 games during the regular season just once since taking the court for 77 contests in the 2018-19 campaign. That year also marked his last season with Oklahoma City.
The Celtics visit New York City on Friday night to face the defending champion Knicks. Both teams are seeking their first win of the 2026-27 season after losing their openers.
Frequent daytime napping among older adults has been linked to a higher risk of developing dementia, according to a study published in The Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences.
Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health tracked nearly 1,000 adults age 65 and older who showed no signs of memory or thinking problems when the study began in 2013.
A decade later, the researchers found that daily rest habits — like how often people nap, how long they sleep and whether they fall asleep by accident — are linked to long-term brain health.
The study found that participants who napped frequently, defined as most days or every day, had a 48% higher risk of developing dementia compared to those who rarely or never napped.
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Whether the naps were intentional also appeared to play a role. Seniors who fell asleep unintentionally had a 39% higher risk, while shorter naps were also linked to poorer outcomes.
Napping for 30 minutes or less was linked to a 40% increased risk of dementia, even after researchers adjusted for other health factors. For naps longer than 30 minutes, the association was less pronounced after researchers accounted for nighttime sleep patterns.
The research team stressed that looking at daytime napping habits gives a much clearer picture of overall health than looking at nighttime sleep alone.
"Our study highlights the importance of looking beyond just how long people nap and considering other napping characteristics, such as how frequently they nap and whether their naps are intentional," study authors Adam Spira, Ph.D., a professor at the Bloomberg School, and postdoctoral fellow Kening Jiang, Ph.D., told Fox News Digital.
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"This study provides important longitudinal evidence that frequent and unintentional daytime napping were associated with a higher risk of developing dementia among older adults."
The findings held true even after accounting for nighttime sleep length, daytime drowsiness and indicators of sleep apnea.
"Nighttime sleep and daytime napping are closely related," Spira and Jiang went on. "Daytime napping may compensate for poor nighttime sleep, but it may also reduce the drive to sleep at night, potentially contributing to nighttime sleep disturbances, another important potential risk factor for dementia."
Researchers pointed out that daytime resting does not necessarily cause brain changes. Rather, changing nap habits could be an early warning sign of underlying changes in the brain.
Brain regions that help regulate wakefulness can start to break down in the early stages of dementia, leading to more frequent daytime fatigue, they noted.
To double-check this, the team re-analyzed the data after removing anyone who developed dementia during the first five years.
The link between frequent, accidental naps and dementia remained just as strong, suggesting that changes in napping habits can show up years before a formal diagnosis.
The researchers emphasized that this was an observational study with limitations.
"We did not directly intervene on participants’ napping behaviors to examine whether changing these behaviors would affect their dementia risk," Spira and Jiang told Fox News Digital.
"Although we don’t know whether napping causes dementia, our study findings suggest that daytime napping patterns may be useful indicators of future dementia risk," they added.
The findings suggest that daytime napping patterns in older adults may be worth monitoring, particularly when naps become frequent or happen unintentionally, according to the researchers.
A growing number of American parents are using cannabis, prompting questions about potential child exposure and safety, according to a new study.
Cannabis use increased substantially among parents between 2012 and 2024, with researchers estimating that at least 5.9 million U.S. children were living with a parent who used marijuana on most days in 2024.
By 2024, 8% of parents used cannabis on most days, 5.2% used it daily and 6.7% met the criteria for cannabis use disorder (CUD).
Daily cannabis use among parents was about four times as common as daily alcohol use, the study found.
While increases occurred across nearly all demographic groups, some of the largest were seen among younger and unmarried parents, those in lower-income households and those without a four-year college degree.
Researchers from the University of California, San Diego, analyzed data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), involving nearly 482,000 U.S. individuals ages 12 and older.
The findings were published in the journal Addictive Behaviors.
"Marijuana has become so socially acceptable that people are starting to overlook the risks," Dr. Jarid Pachter, who specializes in family medicine and addiction medicine at Stony Brook Medicine in New York, told Fox News Digital.
"Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's harmless," added Pachter, who was not involved in the study.
The physician also expressed concern about the example parents are setting for their children.
"If marijuana use is a regular part of life at home, children may start to see it as something that's normal and relatively harmless," he said, pointing to studies that show children whose parents use marijuana are more likely to use it themselves as they get older.
"That doesn't necessarily mean the parent's marijuana use is causing the child to use, but there's clearly an association."
The doctor also cautioned that THC, the main psychoactive chemical in the marijuana plant, is known to affect attention, memory, coordination and reaction time.
"When you have young children, you need to be alert and able to respond to their needs," he said. "I'm not suggesting that someone who uses marijuana can't be a good parent. My concern is about being impaired when you're responsible for a child's safety."
"I also think we need to be careful about normalizing daily marijuana use," he went on. "We wouldn't automatically consider daily alcohol use harmless, and we shouldn't look at marijuana that way, either."
Pachter emphasized that accidental ingestion is another concern, especially with edibles like marijuana gummies or chocolate, which can look like regular candy to a young child.
"Some develop severe sedation, confusion and difficulty walking. In more serious cases, children can have breathing problems and require hospitalization."
The more frequently someone uses marijuana, the greater risk of developing cannabis use disorder, the doctor cautioned.
"We also know THC can affect memory, attention and coordination. Frequent use, particularly of high-potency products, is associated with an increased risk of certain psychiatric problems in susceptible individuals."
Smoking marijuana around children can also pose a risk of secondhand exposure.
"Marijuana smoke contains many of the same harmful chemicals found in tobacco smoke," the physician said. "We know children can be exposed to THC through secondhand smoke, although we're still learning about the long-term health effects."
For those who use marijuana every day, Pachter suggests they ask themselves whether they can go without it, and whether it is affecting work, relationships or responsibilities.
"And if you're a parent, you need to consider whether your marijuana use is affecting your ability to care for your children."
The study had some limitations. The researchers did not assess parenting quality or childrenâs health, and the findings do not establish that parental cannabis use causes adverse child outcomes.
Additionally, the data relied on self-reported substance use, which could be subject to recall or reporting bias.
The researchers called for further studies examining whether the frequency of parental cannabis use, cannabis use disorder, household exposure and storage practices are associated with children's health or developmental outcomes.
The researchers reported funding support from the California Department of Cannabis Control, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
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