How Bad Will This Respiratory Virus Season Be? CDC Weighs In.
The CDC predicted that this year’s fall and winter virus season will look a lot like last year’s. “The bottom line here is we’re likely to have a similar number of total hospitalizations as we had last year,” Dylan George, PhD, director of the CDC’s Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics, told reporters during a […]
ERS Roundup: Cell Transplant Boosts Lung Function in COPD Patients
MILAN — Research presented at this year’s annual European Respiratory Society congress included early successes in transplanting a patient’s own lung cells to ease chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), idrevloride treatment for primary ciliary dyskinesia, and using ultrasounds as a guide for more comprehensive pulmonary embolism screening. Improved Gas Exchange Capacity in COPD Through Lung […]
THC Dose of Edible Cannabis Tied to Degree of Toxicity in Young Kids
The tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) dose of edible cannabis correlated to the degree of toxicity in children under 6 years, a retrospective review showed. Among 80 kids with a median age of 2.9 years, THC weight-based dose was a significant predictor of severe toxicity (adjusted OR 2.9, 95% CI 1.8-4.7) and prolonged toxicity (aOR 3.2, 95% CI […]
Family Of Henrietta Lacks Settles With Biotech Company Accused Of Profiting From Her Cells
BALTIMORE (AP) — More than 70 years after doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital took Henrietta Lacks’ cervical cells without her knowledge, a lawyer for her descendants said they have reached a settlement with a biotechnology company they sued in 2021, accusing its leaders of reaping billions of dollars from a racist medical system. Tissue taken […]
MIND Diet Trial Reports Brain Findings
AMSTERDAM — Changes in cognition and brain MRI outcomes did not differ significantly over 3 years in overweight or obese people with a family history of dementia who followed the MIND diet — a hybrid of the Mediterranean diet and the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet — compared with those who followed a […]
Why Do Superagers Have Sharper Memory?
Superagers — people in their 80s who have the memory function of people 30 years younger — had specific characteristics that set them apart, an observational study showed. Superagers had more gray matter volume in the medial temporal lobe, cholinergic forebrain, and motor thalamus than typical older adults and slower total gray matter atrophy over […]
Ukraine’s Mobile Medical Teams Duck Rockets
VIENNA — After 20 years of battling an epidemic of HIV and hepatitis fueled by injection drug use, Tetiana Deshko, PhD, woke up February 24, 2022, to a whole new challenge as director of the Kyiv-based Alliance for Public Health, Ukraine — providing services to a country torn apart by invading Russian forces and bombers. […]
Hysterectomy Ultimately Needed After 1 in 8 Endometrial Ablations
Hysterectomy rates can be expected to rise slowly in the months and years following endometrial ablation, regardless of ablation device type, a meta-analysis found. Risk of hysterectomy rose to from 4.3% at 1 year post-endometrial ablation to 12.4% at 5 years in patients with heavy menstrual bleeding (HMB), reported Tamara Oderkerk, MD, of Maxima Medical […]
First Drug Approved for Kids’ Functional Constipation
The FDA approved linaclotide (Linzess) capsules for treating functional constipation in kids 6 years and up, the agency announced on Monday. Along with data from trials in adults with chronic idiopathic constipation, support for the pediatric approval came from a phase III trial that included 330 children and adolescents ages 6 to 17 years with […]
‘Ghost’ Provider Networks a Big Problem for Patients, Especially in Mental Health
WASHINGTON — Nine years ago, Keris Jän Myrick had a problem: she got a new job in a new state, and with it, new health insurance, and she needed to change her mental health provider. “Navigating the Blue Cross Blue Shield for federal employees provider directory to find a psychiatrist in the D.C. or Maryland […]