Health & Medicine

2021-08-24 14:30:45 75 doctors from multiple South Florida hospitals staged a walkout to protest a surge in unvaccinated #COVID19 patients

Link #FL #Vaccine Open / Comment

2020-10-08 19:30:38 Now the CDC confirms Covid-19 is airborne — here’s what that means for you

The Centers for Disease Control revised its Covid-19 guidelines on Monday to include that the novel coronavirus can be spread through aerosols, which “can linger in the air for minutes to hours” and travel farther than six feet.

Until now it was understood that the #CoronaVirus is spread is through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes, sings, talks or breathes, and experts still believe that is the main way it is spread. But now experts also agree that airborne transmission is a key piece of the Covid-19 puzzle.

“I believe pretty confidently that there is some element [of airborne transmission],” White House advisor Dr. #AnthonyFauci said Wednesday.

Here’s how to interpret these new guidelines and stay safe

Via t.me/HealthMedicine Open / Comment

2019-06-02 05:22:43 Another Tick-Borne Disease To Worry About

When a tick bores into your skin, anchoring itself for what can be a leisurely meal while often spreading germs, it isn't just Lyme disease that you have to worry about.

Various kinds of ticks have been shown to carry at least 16 diseases in the U.S alone that can infect humans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Now add one more to the global list of ills that a tick bite can bring about, according to a study in the May 30 New England Journal of Medicine.

The study, identifying a new tick-borne disease, shows that we still don't know how many more diseases ticks can carry. "We continue to discover new viruses," says Dr. Bobbi Pritt, director of the Clinical Parasitology Laboratory and co-director of the Vector-Borne Disease Lab Services at Mayo Clinic. She was not involved in the study. Open / Comment

2019-05-31 14:25:37 Measles Cases Reach Highest Level in More Than 25 Years, CDC Says

There have been more #Measles cases in the United States the first five months of 2019 than there were in all of 1992, when the last large outbreak occurred, federal health officials said on Thursday, in part because of the spread of misinformation about vaccines.

The #CDC said Thursday that there had been 971 known cases of measles in the #US so far this year.

That is eight more cases than in 1992, the previous high since vaccines became widely used, when 963 cases were reported in the United States all year. And it is a sharp jump from last year, when just 372 cases were reported, the center said. (Earlier Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention mistakenly said that the previous high was in 1994.) Open / Comment

2019-05-31 14:22:07 Teasing Kids About Their Weight May Make Them Gain More

School can be tough on kids who have overweight or obesity. They're often cruelly teased and bullied. And this type of bullying may lead to long-term consequences, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Pediatric Obesity.

The study, conducted by researchers at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., and the National Institutes of Health, found that making fun of kids for their weight is linked to increased weight gain well into adulthood — and the more teasing that kids and teens experience, the more weight they may gain.

"There's this school of thought that says [weight-based] teasing might have a motivating effect on youth," says study author Natasha Schvey, assistant professor of medical and clinical psychology at the Uniformed Services University. "This study shows that that's not only not true but that teasing might increase weight gain over time." Open / Comment

2019-05-23 04:24:05 Thousands of cancer diagnoses tied to a poor diet, study finds

Your diet may have more impact on your cancer risk than you might think, a new study has found.

An estimated 80,110 new cancer cases among adults 20 and older in the #US in 2015 were attributable simply to eating a poor diet, according to the study, published in the JNCI Cancer Spectrum on Wednesday.

"This is equivalent to about 5.2% of all invasive cancer cases newly diagnosed among US adults in 2015," said Dr. Fang Fang Zhang, a nutrition and cancer epidemiologist at Tufts University in Boston, who was first author of the study.

"This proportion is comparable to the proportion of cancer burden attributable to alcohol," she said. Open / Comment

2019-05-21 03:15:49 Google’s AI improves accuracy of lung cancer diagnosis, study shows

One of lung #Cancer’s most lethal attributes is its ability to trick radiologists. Some nodules appear threatening but turn out to be false positives. Others escape notice entirely, and then spiral without symptoms into metastatic disease.

On Monday, however, #Google unveiled an #ArtificialIntelligence system that — in early testing — demonstrated a remarkable talent for seeing through lung cancer’s disguises.

A study published in Nature Medicine reported that the algorithm, trained on 42,000 patient CT scans taken during a National Institutes of Health clinical trial, outperformed six radiologists in determining whether patients had cancer. It detected 5% more cancers and cut false positives — when cancer is suspected though a nodule is harmless — by 11% from reviewing a single scan. It performed on par with the radiologists when prior images of patients were also included in the evaluation. Open / Comment

2019-05-16 04:38:54 A Smartphone App And A Paper Funnel Could Help Parents Diagnose Kids' Ear Infections

Researchers are developing a smartphone app that, with the help of a simple paper funnel, might help parents detect fluid buildup in a child's ear — one symptom of an ear infection.

The app is still experimental and would require clearance by the #FDA before it could hit the market. But early data, published Wednesday in Science Translational Medicine, suggest that the smartphone can perform as well as an expensive test in a doctor's office.

While there are many thousands of health-related apps, this one stands out because it uses the phone's microphone and speaker to make its diagnosis. Open / Comment

2019-05-07 05:25:34 Arizona seeing surge of hepatitis A cases, health officials say

#AZ is seeing a surge in #HepatitisA cases, mostly in the #Tucson area but also in metro Phoenix, health officials say. The outbreak of the viral disease that affects the liver began in November and cases have continued to rise since then despite efforts to step up vaccinations. The Arizona Republic reports the outbreak could take months to rein in.

Many cases have been reported among homeless people, individuals with precarious housing situations and those who use illicit drugs. Open / Comment

2019-05-03 21:38:18 HIV treatment eliminates risk of passing on virus, landmark study says

The risk of passing on the #HIV virus is completely eliminated by effective drugs treatment, a landmark study has shown, in a significant boost to the prospects of ending the #AIDS pandemic.

A study of nearly 1,000 gay male couples, where one partner with HIV took antiretroviral therapy (ART), found no new cases of transmission to the HIV-negative partner during sex without a condom.

Over the course of the eight-year study, 15 men were infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. But genetic tests showed that the transmissions were a result of the HIV-negative men having sexual relations with someone other than their regular partner. Open / Comment