Long COVID May Be Difficult to Identify in MS
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – People with multiple sclerosis (MS) appeared to have a low risk of developing long COVID, but lingering complaints after SARS-CoV-2 infection were difficult to untangle from MS symptoms, registry analyses showed. In studies presented at the Americas Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ACTRIMS) Forum, Robert Fox, MD, […]
Florida Has A Measles Outbreak. Here’s What That Actually Means For You.
LOADINGERROR LOADING Currently, Florida is experiencing a measles outbreak in which nine people, mainly children, are infected. Despite this, Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo went against Centers for Disease Control guidance and told parents of unvaccinated children they can decide whether they want to keep their children home from school during the outbreak. The […]
Helping caregivers help people with dementia eat at home
For many people with dementia and the caregivers helping them live at home, mealtime is no picnic. The home environment can pose challenges for both the patient and those providing care — confusion and functional problems linked to dementia and a lack of caregiver support for friends and family members thrust into the role, to […]
E-Cigs Show Some Benefit as Smoking Cessation Aid in Clinical Trial
Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) helped people better stick to smoking cessation in the randomized controlled ESTxENDS trial. Participants smoking at least five tobacco cigarettes a day at baseline showed validated continuous abstinence from tobacco smoking at 6 months in 28.9% of cases after getting free e-cigarettes and counseling, which was significantly better than the 16.3% abstinence […]
Bariatric Surgery Tied to Long-Term Cognitive Benefits
Gastric bypass surgery in people with severe obesity was associated with sustained improvements in cognitive function, inflammation, and comorbidities, according to results of a cohort study in the Netherlands. At 2 years post-surgery, neuropsychological tests showed improvements of 20% or higher in global cognition (43% of patients), ability to shift attention (40%), episodic memory (32%), […]
Cognitive Slowing May Be a Hallmark of Long COVID
Pronounced cognitive slowing distinguished people with long COVID from others, a cross-sectional study showed. On a 30-second task measuring simple reaction time, moderate-to-severe cognitive slowing was evident among long COVID patients compared with age-matched healthy individuals who had previous symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection and recovered, reported Sijia Zhao, PhD, at the University of Oxford in England, […]
Why Aren’t More Doctors Prescribing Paxlovid to High-Risk Patients?
Recent evidence is piling up that many people at high risk for severe COVID-19 don’t receive nirmatrelvir/ritonavir (Paxlovid) — or any outpatient antiviral treatment — when diagnosed with a SARS-CoV-2 infection. MedPage Today looked at new studies and talked to experts to find out why. In a new observational study, people on Medicare who were […]
How obesity dismantles our mitochondria
The number of people with obesity has nearly tripled since 1975, resulting in a worldwide epidemic. While lifestyle factors like diet and exercise play a role in the development and progression of obesity, scientists have come to understand that obesity is also associated with intrinsic metabolic abnormalities. Now, researchers from University of California San Diego […]
Benzodiazepines Tied to Worse Outcomes in Progressive Supranuclear Palsy
People with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) who were prescribed benzodiazepine derivatives had a faster decline in PSP Rating Scale (PSPRS) scores than those who didn’t have benzodiazepines, a post hoc analysis showed. In a secondary analysis of concomitant drugs used in a phase II/III clinical trial, only one medication class — benzodiazepine derivatives, including lorazepam, […]
Ancient ‘chewing gum’ reveals stone age diet
What did people eat on the west coast of Scandinavia 10,000 years ago? A new study of the DNA in a chewing gum shows that deer, trout and hazelnuts were on the diet. It also shows that one of the individuals had severe problems with her teeth. Some 9,700 years ago, a group of people […]