Most Moms Knew About Safe Sleep for Infants, But Still Engaged in Unsafe Practices
Despite knowledge of and intention to follow safe sleep guidelines for infants, mothers often engaged in non-recommended sleep practices, a series of small focus groups and surveys showed. Among 25 mothers, 80% reported holding or rocking their infant to sleep, and 76% reported feeding their infant to sleep, Lara McKenzie, PhD, MA, of Nationwide Children’s […]
Women Physicians Still Paid Less Despite Wealth of Research on Gender Pay Gap
Despite being a growing percentage of the physician workforce, women physicians continued to be paid less than their male colleagues, a strong body of evidence shows. While the gender pay gap decreased by 2% from 2021 to 2022 — from 28% to 26% — the gap was still significant, according to online networking service Doximity’s […]
Havana Syndrome Mystery Continues to Deepen
Despite persistent symptoms, no significant evidence of brain injury and no abnormalities in most clinical measures were found in U.S. government personnel who experienced anomalous health incidents (AHIs) known as Havana syndrome, NIH researchers said. After adjusting for multiple comparisons, no differences in MRI measures of brain structure or function emerged between individuals with AHIs […]
Study results show 25% of pregnant people are not getting enough omega-3 fatty acids from their diet or dietary supplements
Results from a new nationwide cohort study show that, despite strong recommendations in favor of consuming omega-3 fatty acids for optimal pregnancy outcomes and offspring health, 25% of participants reported rarely, or never eating fish during pregnancy, with fewer taking omega-3 supplements. The study, “Demographic and health characteristics associated with fish and n-3 fatty acid […]
CDC: Biennial Surge in Acute Flaccid Myelitis Has Come to a Halt
Acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) cases remained low in 2022, despite increased circulation of the enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) in the U.S., according to an analysis of CDC data. AFM cases ranged from 28 to 47 per year from 2019 to 2022 — far lower than the 238 confirmed cases in 2018, Sarah Kidd, MD, from the […]
No Increased Risk of Suicidal Ideation With GLP-1 Drugs
Despite recent concerns to the contrary, semaglutide (Wegovy, Ozempic) carried a lower risk of suicidal ideation in patients with obesity or type 2 diabetes, according to retrospective analyses of the two patient populations. An analysis of 240,618 patients who were overweight or obese showed that those taking semaglutide — a glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) receptor […]
Asthma Attacks Decreased Among Black Patients During the Pandemic
Despite Black patients having the highest prevalence of asthma prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, decreasing trends in asthma attacks were observed for this population during the pandemic relative to white patients, according to findings from a national survey study. Asthma attack rates decreased from 29.3% in 2019 to 22.1% in 2022 among Black adults, with […]
ChatGPT Improving, but Still Lacks Reliability as a Clinical Support Tool
Despite mostly being accurate and showing clear improvement over time and across versions, caution is still warranted when using ChatGPT as a clinical decision support tool, according to authors of a cross-sectional study. In an analysis of nearly 300 medical questions developed by 33 physicians across 17 specialties posed to ChatGPT, the median accuracy score […]
Tick-Related Meat Allergy Lurks Under the Radar, Unfamiliar to Many
Despite alpha-gal syndrome (AGS), or tick bite meat allergy, rising over the last several years and affecting many people in the U.S., many healthcare providers remained unsure about its diagnosis and treatment, CDC data showed. An estimated 96,000 to 450,000 people in the U.S. have been affected by AGS since 2010, the large range accounting […]
Threads May Not Replace Twitter in Medicine — Yet
Despite a promising launch, Threads — the social media app that hopes to unseat Twitter as a dominant space for online medical networking and communication — may not be ready to win over the medical community. Threads, a networking platform created by Meta, launched on July 6 and appears to mimic Twitter’s short-form messaging style. […]