Jason Lee

A team of doctors in Saudi Arabia has separated a Yemeni baby from her parasitic twin, authorities said, marking their 50th successful operation on conjoined twins. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-doctors-saudi-yemeni-baby-twin.html

China raced Saturday to contain its worst coronavirus outbreak in months, as health officials blamed the highly infectious Delta variant for a surge in infections spanning 14 provinces. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-china-delta-variant-virus-surge.html

Britain's state-run healthcare service warned Saturday that devices used by people with COVID to monitor blood-oxygen levels at home may give inaccurate readings for people with darker skin. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-uk-covid-devices-darker-skin.html

China and Australia ramped up COVID-19 curbs Saturday as Delta variant cases surged and tens of thousands rallied in France against restrictions designed to stop the pandemic. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-china-australia-ramp-covid-curbs.html

Access to clinical-trial data helps doctors make informed prescribing decisions and promotes good science, but a new study co-authored by Yale researchers reveals that few pharmaceutical companies are fully transparent about the data behind the products they develop. The study also shows that large companies are far more transparent than smaller ones. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-gaps-clinical-trial.html

US President Joe Biden said on Friday "in all probability" new guidelines or restrictions would be imposed in the United States in response to a resurgence of COVID-19 cases. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-biden-covid-restrictions-probability.html

China raced Saturday to contain its worst coronavirus outbreak in months as fresh cases were reported in two more parts of the country including the sprawling megacity of Chongqing. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-china-covid-outbreaks.html

Australia's third-largest city of Brisbane and other parts of Queensland state will enter a snap COVID-19 lockdown from Saturday as authorities race to contain an emerging outbreak of the Delta strain. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-australia-third-largest-city-brisbane-covid.html

A resurgence of coronavirus cases in West Africa is hitting the region hard, inundating cemeteries where funeral numbers are rising and hospitals where beds are becoming scarce. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-west-african-health-vaccinate-spikes.html

Canada's chief public health officer said Friday that the country could face a fourth wave of COVID-19, driven by the delta variant, by the end of summer if restrictions are eased too quickly and before enough people have been vaccinated. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-canada-4th-virus.html

Mushrooming outbreaks of the highly contagious Delta variant prompted China and Australia to impose stricter COVID-19 restrictions on Saturday as the WHO urged the world to quickly contain the mutation before it turns into something deadlier and draws out the pandemic. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-china-outbreak-alarm-delta.html

Florida's coronavirus cases jumped 50% this week, the state Health Department reported Friday, continuing a six-week surge that has seen it responsible for 1 in 5 new infections nationally, becoming the outbreak's epicenter. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-florida-coronavirus-cases-surge.html

Two leading obstetricians' groups on Friday recommended COVID-19 shots for all pregnant women, citing concerns over rising cases and low vaccination rates. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-obstetrician-groups-covid-vaccine-pregnancy.html

Walmart announced Friday it is again requiring some American employees to wear face masks, while Disney mandated non-union US employees get vaccinated. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-walmart-disney-covid-delta-surge.html

Centenarians are less susceptible to age-related chronic diseases and more likely to survive infectious diseases. Now, a new study reveals that people who live to be 100 or older have a unique microbiome that may protect them from certain bacterial infections including those caused by multidrug-resistant bacteria. The findings, published in Nature, could help researchers develop new ways to treat chronic inflammation and bacterial disease. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-centenarians-distinct-microbiome-longevity.html

Researchers from UNSW Sydney's Centre for Healthy Brain Aging (CHeBA) have developed an improved neuroimaging measure to monitor age-related cognitive decline in older adults. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-imaging-track-brain-aging.html

Australia has led the world with several RNA research discoveries that have changed humans lives. Think: the discovery of the Shine-Dalgarno sequence, enabling high yields of cloned medicines such as insulin and growth hormone, or CSIRO/Peter Waterhouse's RNAi technology to shut down or turn off genes to protect plants and animals from diseases. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-australia-emerge-covid-pandemic-world-leading.html

University of Queensland researchers are refuting claims that COVID-19 can enter a person's DNA. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-covid-dna.html

A novel therapy engineered by Northwestern Medicine investigators improved progression-free and overall survival for patients with newly diagnosed malignant gliomas, according to results from a recent phase I clinical trial published in The Lancet Oncology. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-therapy-survival-patients-malignant-gliomas.html

Obesity increases the risk of developing cancers of the digestive system and it is the person's fat mass, rather than size, that is the main obesity-related risk factor for these cancer types, according to a new study published in the journal PLOS Medicine by researchers at the University of Cambridge and Karolinska Institutet. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-excess-body-fat-digestive-cancers.html

Mount Sinai researchers have found evidence for the first time that World Trade Center responders had a higher likelihood of developing liver disease if they arrived at the site right after the attacks as opposed to working at Ground Zero later in the rescue and recovery efforts. Their study links the increase in liver disease risk to the quantity of toxic dust the workers were exposed to, which was greatest immediately after the September 11, 2001, attacks. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-world-center-greatest-exposure-toxic.html

Mexico recorded more than 200,000 deaths from the coronavirus in 2020—35 percent more than originally reported by the government, the national statistics institute said Thursday. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-mexico-covid-deaths-statistics-agency.html

The Philippines will send more than 13 million people in the national capital region back into lockdown next week, the government said Friday, as it tries to head off a surge in cases of a hyper-contagious coronavirus strain. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-philippines-million-lockdown-delta.html

Do I need to get tested for COVID-19 if I'm vaccinated? source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-covid-im-vaccinated.html

Scientific studies with poor methodology and inaccurate findings are exacerbating a COVID-19 misinformation crisis that is discouraging vaccination and putting lives at risk. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-flawed-scientific-papers-fueling-covid-.html

Governments around the world on Thursday raced to head off a surge in coronavirus cases driven by the Delta variant, with US President Joe Biden offering new incentives to vaccine holdouts and Israel authorizing booster shots. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-world-delta-variant-anti-virus.html

A coronavirus cluster that emerged in the Chinese city of Nanjing has now reached five provinces and Beijing, forcing lockdowns on hundreds of thousands of people as authorities scramble to stamp out the worst outbreak in months. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-china-virus-success-threat-delta.html

Japan is set to expand the coronavirus state of emergency in Tokyo to neighboring areas and the western city of Osaka on Friday in the wake of a record-breaking surge in infections while the capital hosts the Olympics. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-japan-widen-virus-emergency-spike.html

Hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 vaccine doses have been saved from the trash after U.S. regulators extended their expiration date for a second time, part of a nationwide effort to salvage expiring shots to battle the nation's summer surge in infections. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-states-covid-vaccines-expire.html

Hospital admissions of coronavirus patients continue to soar in Florida with at least two areas in the state surpassing the previous peaks of last summer's surge, prompting calls by local officials for the governor to declare an emergency. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-florida-virus-cases-soar-hospitals.html

Researchers are trying to unravel why some COVID-19 survivors suffer "brain fog" and other problems that can last for months, and new findings suggest some worrisome overlaps with Alzheimer's disease. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-covid-alzheimer.html

In the face of rising regional COVID-19 infection numbers, the nation's capital is returning to mandatory indoor mask requirements, regardless of vaccination status. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-washington-dc-requiring-masks-worn.html

Health authorities in Thailand raced to set up a large field hospital in a cargo building at one of Bangkok's airports on Thursday as the country reported record numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-thailand-field-hospital-virus-hit-bangkok.html

They spit. They wait. They hope. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-effort-curb-covid-tokyo-olympics.html

People around the world dramatically changed their shopping behaviors at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-uncertainty-behavioreven-shouldnt.html

Vitamin D supplements are not an effective treatment for easing painful symptoms of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), a new study from the University of Sheffield reveals. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-vitamin-d-supplements-ineffective-treatment.html

Patients with cancer who reported clinically significant fatigue at the start of their treatment had shorter overall survival times and more side effects than patients without fatigue. Those are the findings of a new analysis of patients who took part in four clinical trials testing treatments for lung cancer or prostate cancer conducted by the SWOG Cancer Research Network, a cancer clinical trials group funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-pretreatment-fatigue-worse-survival-outcomes.html

About 2.4 percent of preschool-age children have an attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis. For these children, behavioral interventions intended to redirect a child or otherwise replace negative behaviors with positive ones are the first line of treatment. But what if symptoms linger, or are so severe that they interfere with a child's social, emotional, and educational development? source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-adhd-drug-class-side-effects.html

WEHI researchers have made a discovery that could help more Australian women with ovarian cancer gain access to game-changing cancer treatments called PARP inhibitors. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-powerful-ovarian-cancer-treatments-benefit.html

A foundation of trust is crucial to help patients with chronic pain have productive conversations about pain management with their clinicians as well as better overall health outcomes, especially when it comes to opioids, according to a viewpoint article in the Journal of General Internal Medicine written by authors from Regenstrief Institute, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the University of California, Davis.   source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-complexities-relationships-communicationin-treatment-chronic.html

T cells are a crucial part of the human adaptive immune system. In response to a foreign invader in the body, various subsets of T cells are responsible for several functions that include killing infected cells and secreting signaling molecules called cytokines that tell other immune cells where to go and what to do. Different types of T cells and other immune cells are often characterized by the presence of certain proteins on the cell surface. However, how these proteins affect cell functions and interactions during an immune response is not clear. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-cell-death-ligands-critical-immune.html

A soldier exposes his shoulder and awaits a jab to the amusement of fellow troops, a familiar scene in Iraq where a COVID spike is prompting more vaccinations despite widespread hesitancy. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-iraq-vaccine-hesitancy-jabs-covid.html

Thailand's health ministry sounded the alarm over Bangkok's dire lack of hospital beds and isolation facilities on Thursday as COVID-19 cases and deaths soared to a new record. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-thai-hospitals-short-beds-covid.html

More than 4 billion doses of anti-COVID vaccines have been administered around the world, eight months after the vaccination drive started, according to an AFP count Thursday. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-billion-anti-covid-shots-worldwide.html

British pharmaceuticals giant AstraZeneca said Thursday that its COVID vaccine generated $1.2 billion (1.0 billion euros) in sales in the first half of the year. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-astrazeneca-covid-vaccine-sales-10bn.html

For Americans with diabetes, being enrolled in a high-deductible health plan (HDHP) substantially increases the risk of not taking prescribed medications due to cost, according to a new study conducted by researchers at Harvard Medical School that was published today in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. HDHPs, which now account for half of all commercial health insurance plans, require patients to pay for all care out of pocket until a plan's deductible is reached. Only after the deductible is reached (typically $1,300 for an individual and $2,600 for a family) does insurance begin to cover medical costs. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-diabetes-patients-high-deductible-health-medications.html

A new study shows that people who eat a diet that includes at least half a serving per day of foods high in flavonoids like strawberries, oranges, peppers and apples may have a 20% lower risk of cognitive decline. The research is published in the July 28, 2021, online issue of Neurology. The study looked at several types of flavonoids, and found that flavones and anthocyanins may have the most protective effect. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-adding-plate-cognitive-decline.html

People with larger waistlines, high blood pressure and other risk factors that make up metabolic syndrome may be at higher risk for having a second stroke and even dying than people who do not have metabolic syndrome, according to a meta-analysis published in the July 28, 2021, online issue of Neurology. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-metabolic-syndrome-linked-death.html

Japanese officials sounded the alarm Thursday after Tokyo reported record-breaking coronavirus cases for two straight days with the Olympics well underway. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-tokyo-alarmed-cases-highs.html

Europe's famed summer holiday season is in full swing, but efforts to inoculate people against the coronavirus are not taking a break. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-europe-vacation-vaccinations.html

China Thursday reported small coronavirus outbreaks driven by the Delta variant in three provinces as a cluster linked to an eastern airport spreads despite mass testing and a vaccination drive. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-delta-variant-virus-china-provinces.html

U.S. regulators took action Wednesday that will make it easier to get a cheaper, near-copy of a brand-name insulin at the drugstore. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-fda-automatic-swap-brand-name-insulin.html

Federal health regulators on Wednesday again extended the expiration dates on Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine, providing health workers with six more weeks to use millions of doses of the shot. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-expiration-dates-jj-covid-vaccine.html

Phil Zeitler, MD, Ph.D., has been treating youth with type 2 diabetes for more than 20 years. He and a team of researchers published a paper today on the TODAY2 study in the New England Journal of Medicine on the long-term complications of type 2 diabetes. (TODAY stands for Treatment Options for type 2 Diabetes in Adolescents and Youth. The first phase of the study took place from 2004—2011; phase two from 2011—2020. Both studies involved more than 550 participants from across the country.) source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-reveals-long-term-complications-youth-onset-diabetes.html

A new study suggests that the effectiveness of countries' strategic responses to the COVID-19 pandemic may be adversely affected by the limitations of current tools used to measure the barriers and facilitators to courses of action. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-macro-strategic-responses-covid-pandemic.html

The polio juggernaut, which has skidded past eradication deadline after deadline, seems to have finally run out of fuel, suggests an investigation published by The BMJ today. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-billion-dollar-crusade-eradicate-polio.html

Removing a protein that is often overexpressed in a rare and aggressive subtype of leukemia can help to slow the cancer's development and significantly increase the likelihood of survival, according to a study in mice led by scientists at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-rna-binding-protein-survival-aggressive-leukemia.html

A meta-analysis of nearly 200,000 men revealed 22 new genetic locations that could be susceptible to inherited testicular germ cell tumors (TGCT)—a 40 percent increase in the number of regions known to be associated with the cancer. The new findings, published online in Nature Communications, could help doctors understand which men are at the highest risk of developing the disease and signal them to screen those patients. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-consortium-genetic-markers-inherited-testicular.html

Immunology and bioinformatics researchers from The University of Queensland have identified a powerful tool for analysing large patient datasets. Their work could lead to better patient stratification, and the precise and quicker adoption of targeted therapies. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-powerful-tool-large-patient-datasets.html

Promoting health equity in immunization rates for the new vaccines against COVID-19 during the pandemic is critical, as individuals from racial and ethnic minority groups and adults living in low-income communities are disproportionately affected by COVID-19, as well as influenza and other vaccine-preventable diseases, according to investigators. Concerted efforts are urgently needed to achieve equity in immunization rates, reports a new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-highlights-urgent-vaccine-confidence-racial.html

Using lab-created tissue to heal or replace damaged organs is one of the great visions for the future of medicine. Synthetic materials could be suitable as scaffolding for tissue because, unlike natural tissues, they remain stable in the organism long enough for the body to form new natural structures. A fundamental requirement for functional tissue is that blood vessels must be able to grow in them and connect to the organism's vascular system, so that the tissue is properly supplied with oxygen and nutrients. However, until now, almost nothing has been known about which material properties promote the growth of blood vessels. A team headed by biomedical engineer Dr. Britta Trappmann from the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Münster, Germany, has developed a cell culture system in which, for the first time, a functional blood vessel system is able to grow within a framework made of synthetic materials. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-synthetic-tiss...

Researchers are learning more about the relationship between the microbiome and cancer. But many questions remain, especially when it comes to the role of the microbiome in breast tissue and whether it contributes to the development of invasive breast cancer. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-relationship-microbiome-breast-cancer.html

Imagine suffering a painful and debilitating medical condition for years, but those around you tell you it's normal. When you finally decide to visit a doctor, they don't take you seriously. This is the experience of many women with endometriosis, according to the results of a recent focus group study. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-endometriosis-hampered-lack-knowledge-doctors.html

When researchers at FIU's Center for Children and Families conducted a study to look at the impact of COVID-19 on mental health and substance use among teens, they expected substance use would increase. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-vaping-substance-teens-covid-lockdown.html

Russia was the first country to register a COVID vaccine, with its health ministry giving emergency approval to the Sputnik V vaccine in August 2020. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-evidence-russia-sputnik-covid-vaccine.html

Clinicians should not take race into account when diagnosing anemia in pregnant patients and pursuing interventions, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. While national guidelines define anemia (low iron levels) differently depending on whether a pregnant patient is Black because lower iron levels are more common among Black women, the researchers found Black patients with no diagnosed anemia during pregnancy were more likely to have anemia at time of delivery compared to non-Black patients. The results suggest that, in order to intervene early and decrease risk of poor health outcomes and a need for blood transfusions during delivery, Black and non-Black pregnant patients should be treated with the same thresholds when evaluated for anemia. The findings are published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-anemia-pregnancy-delivery.html

More than half the population of Germany is now fully vaccinated, Health Minister Jens Spahn said Wednesday, but concerns are growing about a slowdown in uptake. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-german-population-fully-vaccinated.html

Tokyo reported 3,177 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, setting an all-time high and exceeding 3,000 for the first time days after the start of the Olympics. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-tokyo-virus-days-olympics.html

Survival rates after a heart transplant are unaffected if the organ donor had used illicit drugs or died due to an overdose, a fact that is increasing the availability of hearts due to the rise in drug overdose deaths in the U.S., according to two new unrelated research studies published today in two of the American Heart Association's scientific journals. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-hearts-donors-illicit-drugs-overdosed.html

How do we decide whether or not an activity which requires work is 'worth the effort'? Researchers at the University of Birmingham & University of Oxford have shown that the willingness to work is not static, and depends upon the fluctuating rhythms of fatigue. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-brain-fatigue.html

A protein that helps regulate calcium signaling within heart cells could play a key role in preventing chronic heart failure, according to an international study led by University of Utah Health scientists. The researchers say disruption in the signaling pathway for this protein, VDAC2, causes severe impairment of heart cell contraction, making it harder for the heart to deliver blood to the body. The finding suggests that drugs and other therapeutic treatments targeting VDAC2 could eventually help alleviate heart failure. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-heart-cell-protein-treatments-failure.html

A study published today by Nationwide Children's Hospital researchers found that although the circumstances around any suicide death are complex, there are often shared characteristics and experiences among young children who die by suicide. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-mental-health-traumatic-events-common.html

Heart disease has long been the leading cause of death globally. One reason is that the heart has poor regenerative properties, causing damage to accumulate. Scientists have speculated that understanding how the heart grows from the embryo will lead to new medical treatments. To model the development of heart cells, a new study in Stem Cell Reports by CiRA researchers uses human iPS cells to show the importance of three genes: HAND1, HAND2 and LEF1. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-genes-heart-cell-growth.html

President Alejandro Giammattei announced Tuesday that Guatemala has canceled its order of a second batch of eight million Russian-made COVID-19 vaccines due to a delivery delay of a previous order. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-guatemala-cancels-russian-vaccines.html

The White House is strongly considering requiring federal employees to show proof they've been vaccinated against the coronavirus or otherwise submit to regular testing and wear a mask—a potentially major shift in policy that reflects growing concerns about the spread of the more infectious delta variant. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-white-house-vaccine-mandate-federal.html

Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike on Wednesday urged younger people to cooperate with measures to bring down the high number of infections and get vaccinated, saying their activities are key to slowing the surge during the Olympics. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-tokyo-governor-urges-youth-vaccinated.html

Healthy lifestyle factors such as abstinence from smoking and drinking, low body mass index, and exercise correlated with decreased cancer incidence, even in individuals with a high genetic risk, according to results of a study published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-healthy-lifestyle-mitigate-high-genetic.html

Millions of Sydney residents will spend another month in lockdown, authorities announced Wednesday, citing a still-fast-growing coronavirus outbreak and stubbornly low vaccination rates. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-sydney-lockdown-weeks-virus-outbreak.html

A University of Alberta research lab has helped identify a genetic variant that increases the risk of hearing loss in children with cancer who are treated with the widely used drug cisplatin. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-genetic-variant-linked-loss-children.html

Relaxing COVID-19 restrictions could pave the way for new vaccine-resistant virus mutations—according to researchers at the University of East Anglia and the Earlham Institute. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-covid-restrictions-pave-vaccine-resistance.html

Weight loss is given insufficient priority in the management of heart patients despite the benefits, according to a study published today in European Heart Journal—Quality of Care and Clinical Outcomes. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-heart-patients-weight.html

Inflammation and blood clotting seen in very severe cases of COVID-19 may be caused by the antibodies sent to fight the disease activating unnecessary platelet activity in the lungs. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-blood-clots-people-severe-covid-.html

Women often struggle with managing their weight and other health risk factors, such as high cholesterol, once they transition through menopause. A new study suggests that dancing may effectively lower cholesterol levels, improve fitness and body composition and in the process, improve self-esteem. Study results are published online today in Menopause. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-postmenopausal-women-health.html

What can the fruit fly teach us about taste and how chemicals cause our taste buds to recognize sweet, sour, bitter, umami, and salty tastes? Quite a lot, according to University of California, Riverside, researchers who have published a study exploring the insect's sense of taste. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-fruit-reveals-function-neurons.html

If you're mowing the lawn and your spouse asks you to "cut it a little shorter," any discrepancy resulting from your different interpretations of "little" is harmless. In an operating room, however, it can mean the difference, if not between life and death, then between successful healing and injurious failure. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-medical-errors-surgery-inexact-language.html

A team of international scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) in Singapore, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has developed a simple method of extracting tiny biological particles from a person's blood and use them as biomarkers to assess the health of their blood vessels. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-vascular-inflammation-diabetes-patients.html

A mother's mental health may play a larger role in a child's toothbrushing habits than previously thought. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-good-toothbrushing-habits-children-linked.html

Indigenous Australians experience poorer health outcomes than non-Indigenous Australians. They are sick more often, die younger and are at higher risk of serious health complications, including heart disease. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-role-aboriginal-english-indigenous-health.html

With governments worldwide under pressure to ease pandemic restrictions as vaccination rates rise and impatience with border restrictions grows, new threats become clearer. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-covid-easing-pandemic-restrictions.html

New research conducted in monkeys reveals that T cells are not critical for the recovery of primates from acute COVID-19 infections. T cell depletion does not induce severe disease, and T cells do not account for the natural resistance of rhesus macaques to severe COVID-19. Furthermore, strongly T cell-depleted macaques still develop potent memory responses to a second infection. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-cell-response-critical-immune-memory.html

Many heart failure diagnoses may be missed in a primary care setting. Women, Black adults and individuals with lower net worth are significantly more likely to be diagnosed with heart failure in an acute care setting such as the emergency room or during a hospitalization, even if they reported symptoms of heart failure during a routine, outpatient health care appointment during the previous six months, according to new research published today in Circulation: Heart Failure. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-heart-failure-primary-women-black.html

COVID-19 cases are rapidly on the rise across the United States. And even fully vaccinated individuals are testing positive. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-vaccinated-people-breakthrough-covid-infections.html

Despite assurances from Prime Minister Scott Morrison that Australia was at "the front of the queue" for COVID-19 vaccines, Australia's rate of vaccination ranks last in the OECD. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-australia-fickleness-covid-vaccines-perpetuating.html

T cells rely on surface proteins called T cell receptors (TCRs) to bind to and destroy viruses, cancer cells, and other invaders in the body. T cells that infiltrate tumors, however, can have varied, sometimes ineffective responses. How the molecular structure and function of TCRs correlates with T cell behavior is not fully understood. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-immune-cells-melanoma.html

Everything that happens in the brain is a result of neurons sending and receiving signals in complex networks that are not completely understood by scientists. These networks are what allow us to pick up a cup of coffee, laugh at a joke or stand up from a chair. When some neurons do not send and receive and signals properly, it can lead to problems such as epilepsy, depression, addiction and chronic pain. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-tiny-wireless-device-illuminates-neuron.html

In the United States, just shy of half of all adults are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and an additional 7.6 percent are at least partially vaccinated—a considerable feat, given the relatively short time (about six months) that inoculations have been widely available. However, the figures leave out an important demographic: So far, the federal Food and Drug Administration has not authorized any vaccine for children under 12 years old. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-children-vaccinated-parents.html

Researchers at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine have identified a receptor protein found in adipose tissue that may play a role in controlling blood sugar and could offer an important therapeutic pathway for tackling diabetes and obesity. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-receptor-protein-adipose-tissue-role.html

Machine learning can accurately predict cardiovascular disease and guide treatment—but models that incorporate social determinants of health better capture risk and outcomes for diverse groups, finds a new study by researchers at New York University's School of Global Public Health and Tandon School of Engineering. The article, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, also points to opportunities to improve how social and environmental variables are factored into machine learning algorithms. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-machine-cardiovascular-disease-social-environmental.html

Cell-free DNA (cfDNA) shed into the blood was discovered in the late 1940s but with rapid advances in genomics and computational analytics in just the past few years, researchers at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center now believe that studying tags, or modifications to this type of DNA, may lead to a better understanding of how to assess, and possibly modulate, treatment approaches for cancer and other diseases. Their perspective, drawn from a review of studies to date, appears July 27 in Frontiers in Genetics. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-dna-tags-enable-blood-based-cancer.html

Formal volunteering in later life is beneficial for both physical and psychological well-being. However, research has shown that older adults with key advantages, such as wealth, are more likely to volunteer and reap its benefits. In a new study appearing in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, investigators found that lower-wealth volunteers may experience even greater health gains than higher-wealth volunteers. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-lower-wealth-volunteers-greater-health-gains.html

Paid sick leave is one of the most powerful tools for preventing the spread of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases and ensuring all workers can access treatment—yet tens of millions of workers across the U.S. lack coverage. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-sick-policies-widen-racial-inequalities.html

A new analysis from the STAMPEDE trial shows that over the course of five years, patients who had bariatric and metabolic surgery to treat uncontrolled type 2 diabetes reported greater physical health, more energy, less body pain, and less negative effects of diabetes in their daily lives, compared with patients who had medical therapy alone for their diabetes. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-patients-long-term-favorable-effects-weight.html

Melbourne's coronavirus lockdown will be lifted late Tuesday, as authorities signalled a Delta variant outbreak in Australia's second-biggest city had been contained. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-melbourne-virus-lockdown-delta-outbreak.html

When cancer patients stop smoking, they heal faster, experience fewer side effects from treatment and lower their chances of tumors returning. Now, top cancer hospitals are helping patients quit as evidence mounts that it's never too late. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-late-cancer-centers-patients.html

Australia's second-most populous city Melbourne will end its fifth lockdown on Tuesday with the Victoria state government declaring it had beaten an outbreak of the highly contagious COVID-19 delta variant for a second time. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-australian-city-melbourne-5th-covid-.html

Moderna said Monday it plans to expand the size of its COVID-19 vaccine study in younger children to better detect rare side effects, such as a type of heart inflammation recently flagged by U.S. health authorities. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-moderna-kids-vaccine-safety.html

For the first time, researchers have used machine learning to successfully measure attachment in children—the vital human bond that humans first develop as infants to their caregivers. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-machine-successfully-children.html

For decades, a key brain area called the mesencephalic locomotor region has been thought to merely regulate locomotion. Now, researchers in Silvia Arber's group have shown that the region is involved in much more than walking, as it contains distinct populations of neurons that control different body movements. The findings could help to improve certain therapies for Parkinson's disease, a neurodegenerative condition that leads to tremor, stiffness, and problems controlling different movements. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-key-brain-region-involved-locomotion.html

Total antibody levels appear to start declining from as early as six weeks after complete vaccination and can reduce by more than 50% over 10 weeks, according to new data from UCL's Virus Watch study. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-vaccine-antibody-wane-months.html

A federal rule that requires health care providers to offer patients free, convenient and secure electronic access to their personal medical records went into effect earlier this year. However, providing patients with access to clinician notes, test results, progress documentation and other records doesn't automatically equip them to understand those records or make appropriate health decisions based on what they read. "Medicalese" can trip up even the most highly educated layperson, and studies have shown that low health literacy is associated with poor health outcomes. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-artificial-intelligence-tool-patient-health.html

When physicians and insurers haggle over reimbursement payments, health care providers lose revenue due to extra administrative burdens—an issue that is particularly acute with Medicaid, a key part of the social safety net that serves many low-income families. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-doctors-haggle-medicaid-patients-price.html

Since its emergence in late 2019, SARS-CoV-2 has caused illness (COVID-19) and death in all countries in the world. The restrictions put in place to reduce the spread of this virus have devastated economies and livelihoods the world over. By the end of June 2021, the World Health Organisation estimated that there had been 180.4 million cases of COVID-19 and 3.9 million associated deaths globally. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-covid-children-south-african-path.html

Researchers from the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute have developed two tests that can detect the presence of glioma, a type of brain tumor, in patient urine or blood plasma. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-scientists-brain-tumours-simple-urine.html

A test being developed in Queensland could help to reduce the high mortality rate from ovarian cancer by dramatically improving the accuracy of early detection. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-accuracy-early-ovarian-cancer.html

The Delta variant is likely to become the most dominant strain globally. What does that mean for current and future variants? Natural selection has shaped the evolution of all living things on our planet, including viruses. While mutations emerge in viruses, some mutations have little impact while others outcompete other variants and persist, such as the SARS-CoV-2 variant, Delta—classified a variant of concern (VOC) by the World Health Organization (WHO). source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-sars-cov-delta-variant.html

A targeted virtual health intervention was effective for reducing fear of recurrence among breast cancer survivors, according to a clinical trial published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-virtual-intervention-breast-cancer-recurrence.html

The surgeons in the Esophageal and Airway Treatment Center at Boston Children's Hospital are pioneers in developing and refining innovative surgical approaches to long-gap esophageal atresia, a condition in which a child's esophagus develops in two separate segments that can't be easily connected with surgery. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-refining-surgical-treatment-long-gap-esophageal.html

South African pharmaceutical company Aspen said Monday it was releasing its first batch of African-produced COVID-19 vaccines under a licensing deal with the US giant Johnson & Johnson. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-safrica-aspen-batch-johnson-vaccine.html