Jason Lee

High-risk patients who need defibrillators to prevent cardiac arrest can experience fewer complications with a type of device implanted under the skin, a Canadian study has found. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-cardiac-defibrillator-safer-patients.html

Nine young children from Alabama affected by a mysterious hepatitis (inflammation of the liver) all tested positive for a common pathogen called adenovirus 41, a study by the US health agency said Friday. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-virus-mystery-child-hepatitis-cases.html

Beijing residents will need clear COVID tests to enter public spaces, officials said Saturday, announcing fresh virus controls at the start of a Labour Day holiday muted by creeping infections in the capital. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-beijing-tightens-covid-restrictions-holiday.html

Researchers at the Kennedy Institute, University of Oxford, led by Professor Jagdeep Nanchahal have demonstrated the efficacy of the anti-TNF drug adalimumab for patients with early stage Dupuytren's disease. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-breakthrough-treatment-dupuytren-disease.html

Many female athletes struggle with body image, and it can put their physical and mental health at risk. source https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/features/female-athletes-body-image?src=RSS_PUBLIC

An international team of researchers has found that some tumor cells are able to set off a caspase-activated DNAse (CAD) that promotes breaks in DNA strands after exposure to genotoxic treatments. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group suggests the broken strands help the tumors overcome the treatment by preventing their own cell death. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-tumor-cells-dna-death-due.html

Cardiac surgery patients may experience different levels of disruption to their body producing life-saving hormones during their operations, a new study reveals. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-hormone-response-surgical-disruption-cardiac.html

China must press ahead with its "magic weapon" zero-COVID strategy, health officials said Friday, despite mounting economic costs and more signs of public frustration in locked-down Shanghai. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-china-zero-covid-strategy-frustrations.html

South Korea will ease its outdoor mask mandate starting next week as COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations continue to decline. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-south-korea-outdoor-mask-mandate.html

Black and Hispanic Americans remain far more cautious in their approach to COVID-19 than white Americans, recent polls show, reflecting diverging preferences on how to deal with the pandemic as federal, state and local restrictions fall by the wayside. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-racial-covid-restrictions-ease.html

Research led by King's College London and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust has analyzed factors associated with self-harm in over 111,000 adolescents aged 11-17 years old. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-autism-adhd-school-absence-factors.html

More and more mutations clutter up our DNA as we age. Mostly, these don't cause problems. But sometimes, a switch will flip, and a mutated cell turns cancerous. Can we see this shift in time to prevent or treat cancer before it starts? source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-genetic-patients-esophageal-cancer.html

Despite recent progress, the world is at risk of failing to meet child and adolescent health targets, with more than 8.6 million deaths among children and adolescents (aged 0-20 years) recorded in 2019. Comprehensive, coordinated care that begins at preconception and lasts through adulthood is urgently needed to reduce childhood mortality and improve child and adolescent health, according to a new Series published in The Lancet. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-global-child-adolescent-health-jeopardy.html

Shanghai authorities said new COVID-19 testing over the next few days will determine which neighborhoods can safely start reopening, as residents in Beijing watched carefully for word for whether the capital will lock down. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-shanghai-reopening-beijing-stocks.html

As COVID-19 reaches record levels in the UK, health experts are calling for a focus on children's physical fitness as new research reveals concerning changes to children's health and physical fitness following the pandemic. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-hype-kids-health-post-lockdowns.html

About one-fifth of often deadly head and neck cancers harbor genetic mutations in a pathway that is key to normal cell growth, and scientists report those mutations, which enable abnormal cancer cell growth, can also make the cancer vulnerable. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-gene-mutations-contribute-neck-cancer.html

In developing countries, people with substance-abuse issues can sometimes face shame and find it difficult to get help. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-machine-stigma-substance-abuse-countries.html

New data published today in the American Journal of Infection Control (AJIC) highlight major barriers impacting healthcare workers' ability to perform successful central line-associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI) surveillance among patients receiving home infusion therapy. The study, funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), also describes facilitators, strategies, and suggestions for improving CLABSI surveillance to better track and monitor infection rates. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-barriers-successful-bloodstream-infection-surveillance.html

A team of Yale-led researchers can now quantify the factors causing changes in the DNA that contribute most to cancer growth in tumors of most major tumor types. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-cancer.html

A global study on countries' responses to the pandemic finds there have been worse mental health trajectories in countries that attempted to control COVID-19 transmission with stricter public health restrictions, such as Canada, than those which tried to suppress or eliminate COVID-19 transmission. Findings of the international research team, led by Simon Fraser University psychology associate professor Lara Aknin, have been published in The Lancet Public Health. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-countries-pandemic-impacts-mental-health.html

Between the challenges of everyday life and more than two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, kids face more pressure and distraction than ever before, a combination of factors that has led to a mental health crisis among children in the United States. That crisis means that, more than ever, caregivers need to be equipped to talk daily to their children about thoughts, feelings and emotions, which in turn can help caregivers better support children if they have a mental health concern. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-sleeves-survey-reveals-parents-mental.html

Scheele’s Green, named for the Swedish chemist who invented it in 1778, was everywhere in Victorian England, from the walls of Buckingham Palace to the factories where child laborers painted the leaves of fake foliage. And it was deadly. source https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/features/scheeles-green?src=RSS_PUBLIC

Exposure to a class of widely used synthetic chemicals is connected to liver damage according to a new study conducted by researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC and published April 27th, 2022, in Environmental Health Perspectives.  source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-synthetic-chemicals-pfas-linked-liver.html

A core aspect of fairness is the ability to divide resources impartially among others. Previous research has shown that fair sharing behavior is a skill typically learned between the ages of four and six. However, little is known about the cognitive building blocks that develop these skills. Researchers at Harvard University, Boston College and the University of California, Irvine, examined children's fair sharing behavior in relation to number knowledge, working memory, and cognitive control. A new study published in Child Development showed that symbolic counting skills were the single biggest predictor of children's fair sharing behavior and that prompting children to count also improved this behavior. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-behavior-young-children-skills.html

Researchers have developed a better way to support end-of-life planning in long-term care homes, according to a recent study. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-approach-advance-canadian-long-term-residents.html

Obesity gaps are larger between segregated schools and smaller in racially-integrated schools among child populations, according to a new study in Obesity journal. This is the first study to examine childhood obesity disparities specifically within integrated schools to begin to elucidate the role of school segregation in the racial/ethnic patterning of obesity among youth. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-school-segregation-contributor-racialethnic-childhood.html

Fatigue, breathlessness and other symptoms that persist after COVID-19 can be improved by a six-week virtual exercise program, an Irish study being presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Lisbon, Portugal (23-26 April) suggests. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-fatigue-breathlessness-weeks-virtual-sessions.html

Immigrants to Denmark and their descendants hospitalized with COVID-19 are 46% less likely to die from COVID-19 than Danish-born residents, according to a year-long nationwide study investigating COVID-related death and use of mechanical ventilation in all adults hospitalized with COVID-19 in Denmark between February 2020 and March 2021, to be presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Lisbon, Portugal (23-26 April). source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-immigrants-denmark-hospitalized-covid-die.html

One way exercise can counter the damage of diabetes is by enabling activation of a natural system we have to grow new blood vessels when existing ones are ravaged by this disease, scientists report. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-evidence-counter-diabetes.html

Unvaccinated people threaten the safety of the vaccinated even when SARS-CoV-2 vaccination rates are high, according to a new modeling study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-unvaccinated-people-sars-cov-vaccinated-vaccination.html

Among women who identified as Black/African American or Hispanic/Latina, those with low blood levels of vitamin D were more likely to develop breast cancer than those with adequate levels. In the study published by Wiley online in Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the link between low vitamin D and breast cancer was particularly evident among Hispanic/Latina women. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-black-hispanic-women-vitamin-d.html

Among those hospitalized during the pandemic, both COVID-19 patients and those tested for SARS-COV-2 but negative, had higher rates of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections compared to patients hospitalized before the pandemic, according to a study evaluating the pandemic's impact on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in 271 hospitals across the U.S., to be presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Lisbon, Portugal (23-26 April). source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-covid-pandemic-antimicrobial-resistance.html

Even when COVID-19 vaccines fail to prevent hospitalization, they appear to significantly lower the risk of being admitted to intensive care and dying compared to patients who are unvaccinated, according to a time-matched cohort study of over 20,000 adults hospitalized in Ontario between January 2021 and January 2022, being presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Lisbon, Portugal (23-26 April). The study is by Alicia Grima and Kiera Murison from the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada and colleagues. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-partially-vaccinated-individuals-hospitalized-covid-.html

New research to be presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Lisbon, Portugal (23-26 April), suggests that pregnant women are at markedly greater risk of severe illness if they contract COVID-19 than non-pregnant women of child-bearing age. The findings are independent of key risk factors including age, underlying illnesses, vaccination status, and infecting variant. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-pregnant-women-covid-greater-hospitalization.html

New research presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Lisbon, Portugal, (23-26 April) found that most women who catch COVID-19 when pregnant pass antibodies to their unborn babies. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-women-covid-pregnant-antibodies-unborn.html

Chickenpox in childhood results in £24 million in lost income and productivity every year in the UK, although the true cost is likely to be higher, according to new research to be presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Lisbon, Portugal (23-26 April). The study is by Associate Professorial Research Fellow Raphael Wittenberg and colleagues from the Care Policy and Evaluation Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), UK. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-true-chickenpox-million-lost-productivity.html

The World Health Organization says at least one death has been reported in connection with a mysterious liver disease outbreak affecting children in Europe and the United States. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-child-died-mystery-liver-disease.html

COVID-19 vaccinations are at a critical juncture as companies test whether new approaches like combination shots or nasal drops can keep up with a mutating coronavirus—even though it's not clear if changes are needed. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-covid-shots.html

Israel has lifted an indoor mask mandate in place for nearly a year as the country's new cases of coronavirus continue to drop. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-israel-indoor-mask-mandate-coronavirus.html

Nearly 2,000 homeless people died in Los Angeles County during the first year of the pandemic, an increase of 56% from the previous year, driven mainly by drug overdoses, authorities said. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-overdoses-covid-spike-la-homeless.html

Lack of glove changes at COVID-19 testing centers in Belgium led to major cross-contamination of samples and a high rate of false positive results, research being presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Lisbon, Portugal, (23-26 April) has found. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-lack-glove-covid-centers-major.html

A new UK study of more than 2,000 patients after hospitalization with COVID-19 presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2022, Lisbon 23-26), and published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine shows that, one year after having COVID-19, only around one in four patients feel fully well again. The study is led by Professor Christopher Brightling, Dr. Rachael Evans, and Professor Louise Wain, National Institute for Health Research Leicester Biomedical Research Center, University of Leicester, UK and colleagues. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-patients-hospitalization-covid-fully-recovered.html

A new study on Chile's national COVID-19 vaccination program, to be presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2022, Lisbon 23-26), and published in The Lancet Global Health, shows that giving a different type of vaccine (heterologous) for the third or 'booster' dose than was received for the first two doses, leads to better vaccine performance than using the same (homologous) inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine for all three doses. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-mix-and-match-approach-covid-booster-vaccination.html

High levels of respiratory pathogens are present in the air of nurseries, schools, nursing homes and other indoor settings during winter, according to new research being presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Lisbon, Portugal, (23-26 April). source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-high-respiratory-pathogens-air-nurseries.html

A third of healthcare workers took sick leave after being vaccinated against COVID-19, a German study presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Lisbon, Portugal, (23-26 April) has found. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-healthcare-workers-sick-covid-vaccination.html

New research to be presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Lisbon, Portugal (23-26 April), suggests that disease-causing amoebas that live on organic leafy vegetables can shelter human pathogens like Pseudomonas, Salmonella, and Helicobacter and are a potential risk to public health. The study is by Dr. Yolanda Moreno and colleagues from Universitat Politècnica de València in Spain. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-preliminary-vegetables-contaminated-wide-range.html

New research being presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Lisbon, Portugal, (23-26 April), has identified the third day of hospitalization as a tipping point in the progression of disease among symptomatic patients admitted for COVID-19 pneumonia. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-day-hospital-severity-covid-pneumonia.html

A study released April 22 in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine shows that a booster dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine provides strong protection, roughly 80% to 90%, in the first few months against hospital admissions and emergency department visits caused by the delta and omicron variants. However, against omicron, this protection wanes over time—even after a third dose. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-pfizer-covid-dose-vaccine-hospitalization.html

Patients diagnosed with a type of brain tumor survived for longer when they were treated aggressively with surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. But far from suggesting that more treatment always leads to better survival, the study by UC San Francisco underscores the critical role of genomic profiling in diagnosing and grading brain tumors. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-genomic-sequencing-diagnosis-treatment-patients.html

Adults (aged 18 or older) hospitalized with COVID-19 are at higher risk of complications and death than those with influenza, despite being younger and having fewer chronic illnesses, according to a retrospective cohort study conducted at the Hospital del Mar in Barcelona. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-patients-hospitalized-covid-die-seasonal.html

The longest known COVID-19 infection is described by UK researchers at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Lisbon, Portugal, (23-26 April). source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-longest-covid-infection505-daysdescribed-uk.html

New research to be presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Lisbon, Portugal, (23-26 April), has shown that a longer interval between primary COVID-19 vaccine doses can boost antibody production up to nine-fold. The study is available as a preprint. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-longer-interval-covid-vaccines-antibodies.html

New research to be presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Lisbon, Portugal (23-26 April), suggests that shorter telomeres, a feature of aging, may influence the severity of COVID-19 and the risk of dying from the disease, particularly in women. The study is by Dr. Ana Virseda-Berdices, María Ángeles Jiménez-Sousa and Amanda Fernández-Rodríguez from the Health Institute Carlos III, Madrid, Spain and colleagues. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-links-telomere-length-death-covid-.html

For the first time, a highly transmissible strain of the antibiotic-resistant superbug MRSA currently plaguing hospitals in Northern Europe has been isolated from hedgehogs in Helsinki. The study by Venla Johansson and colleagues from the University of Helsinki, Finland, is to be presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Lisbon, Portugal (23-26 April). source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-emerging-superbug-mrsa-humans-urban.html

Almost three-quarters of antibiotics prescriptions to patients aged 65 years or older, and two thirds to Black patients, are inappropriate, according to a study analyzing over 7 billion visits to doctor's offices, hospital clinics and emergency departments by US adults and children over 7 years. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-alarmingly-high-inappropriate-antibiotic-older.html

New research being presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Lisbon, Portugal, (23-26 April) and published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases has found that the number of antibiotics prescribed in Australia fell by up to 38% during the COVID-19 pandemic. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-outpatient-antibiotic-australia-fell-covid-.html

Researchers in Spain give details of a 31-year-old woman who caught COVID-19 twice within three weeks, in a case report being presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Lisbon, Portugal (23-26 April). source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-omicron-infection-days-deltathe-shortest.html

People whose brains release more of the neurochemical oxytocin are kinder to others and are more satisfied with their lives. This is the finding of new research, published in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, that also discovered that oxytocin release increases with age, showing why, on average, people are more caring as they get older. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-life-age-neurochemical.html

New research in Advanced NanoBiomed Research indicates that testing an individual's blood can reveal the presence of circulating melanoma cells. Such tests may allow patients to forego invasive skin biopsies to determine whether they have skin cancer. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-blood-skin-cancer.html

New research published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research suggests that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) that are taken to reduce pain may block the beneficial effects of bone-protective drugs called bisphosphonates. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-pain-relievers-impede-bone-drug.html

A new analysis in Birth: Issues in Perinatal Care has identified several factors that influence women's decisions about where to give birth—such as in birth centers, in the home, or in hospitals. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-pregnant-woman-choice-birth.html

A recent randomized controlled trial published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society found that an online decision aid may help older adults decide whether and when to stop driving. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-online-tool-older-adults.html

New Edith Cowan University (ECU) research has identified a crucial link between arthritis and the risk of serious liver disease in people with Australia's most common genetic condition. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-crucial-link-arthritis-liver-disease.html

Checkpoint inhibitors have become important tools in the cancer-fighting arsenal. By blocking proteins that normally restrain the immune response, these drugs can help the immune system destroy cancer cells. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-immune.html

China reported seven more deaths from COVID-19 in Shanghai on Tuesday, after hundreds of thousands of cases in the metropolis during a weeks-long lockdown. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-shanghai-covid-deaths-lockdown.html

Japan's health ministry on Tuesday formally approved Novavax's COVID-19 vaccine, a fourth foreign-developed tool to combat the infections as the country sees signs of a resurgence led by a subvariant of fast-spreading omicron. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-japan-novavax-covid-vaccine.html

New UCLA research finds that 30% of people treated for COVID-19 developed Post Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC), most commonly known as "Long COVID." People with a history of hospitalization, diabetes, and higher body mass index were most likely to develop the condition, while those covered by Medicaid, as opposed to commercial health insurance, or had undergone an organ transplant were less likely to develop it. Surprisingly, ethnicity, older age, and socioeconomic status were not associated with the syndrome even though those characteristics have been linked with severe illness and greater risk of death from COVID-19. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-covid-patients.html

Changes to acetaminophen product labels did not decrease rates of hospitalization for accidental acetaminophen overdoses, according to a new Canadian study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-product-accidental-acetaminophen-overdoses.html

Machine learning techniques can provide an assumption-free analysis of epidemic case data with surprisingly good prediction accuracy and the ability to dynamically incorporate the latest data, a new KAUST study has shown. The proof of concept developed by Yasminah Alali, a student in KAUST's 2021 Saudi Summer Internship (SSI) program, demonstrates a promising alternative approach to conventional parameter-driven mechanistic models that removes human bias and assumptions from analysis and shows the underlying story of the data. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-machine-learning-techniques-evolution-epidemic.html

Scientists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore's (NTU Singapore) Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine) have mapped a novel cellular pathway that shows that saturated fat contributes to the development of diabetes and can worsen the disease, underscoring its role in metabolic diseases. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-scientists-uncover-key-cellular-mechanism.html

Mutation of a gene called ARID2 plays a role in increasing the chance that melanoma, a deadly skin cancer, will turn dangerously metastatic, Mount Sinai researchers report. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-scientists-gene-mutation-aggressive-melanoma.html

A new Michigan Medicine study finds that some children with cerebral palsy and scoliosis do not require pelvic fixation when undergoing growing rod treatment, potentially avoiding several complications. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-children-cerebral-palsy-scoliosis-pelvic.html

India has sharply criticised a forthcoming World Health Organization study which reportedly claims coronavirus killed four million people nationally, the latest analysis suggesting a significant undercount of the pandemic's death toll. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-india-slams-million-covid-deaths.html

Shanghai authorities on Monday reported the first COVID-19 deaths of the latest outbreak in China's most populous and wealthiest city. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-shanghai-1st-deaths-current-covid-.html

Kids can be stubborn when it comes to eating the healthy foods on their plate. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-parents-regularly-kids-dietary-supplement.html

Several businesses in Pennsylvania have filed a lawsuit in state court to overturn the renewed mask mandate scheduled to take place in Philadelphia on Monday. source https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20220417/philadelphia-businesses-sue-to-stop-new-mask-mandate?src=RSS_PUBLIC

Matthew Butler spent 27 years in the Army, but it took a day in jail to convince him his post-traumatic stress disorder was out of control. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-magic-mushrooms-therapy-vets-sway.html

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has continuously mutated since it emerged in late 2019. This rapid evolution poses challenges for vaccines and treatments designed to target the virus. A booster shot is now needed to produce antibodies to fight off the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. And several combinations of antibody treatments approved earlier in the pandemic don't work well against Omicron. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-nasal-antiviral-blocks-sars-cov-infection.html

Health officials in several countries are investigating mysterious cases of severe liver disease in children, and they think it may be related to a kind of virus usually associated with colds. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-mysterious-liver-illness-kids-europe.html

In a work of systematic biology that advances the field, University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers have identified 16 distinct cell populations in a complex area of the midbrain called the ventral tegmental area, or VTA. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-key-brain-region-substance-disorders.html

Gut microbiota by-products circulate in the bloodstream, regulating host physiological processes including immunity, metabolism and brain functions. Scientists from the Institut Pasteur (a partner research organization of Université Paris Cité), Inserm and the CNRS have discovered that hypothalamic neurons in an animal model directly detect variations in bacterial activity and adapt appetite and body temperature accordingly. These findings demonstrate that a direct dialog occurs between the gut microbiota and the brain, a discovery that could lead to new therapeutic approaches for tackling metabolic disorders such as diabetes and obesity. The findings are published in Science. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-decoding-dialog-gut-microbiota-brain.html

In people with immune thrombocytopenia (ITP), the body produces destructive antibodies against platelets in the blood, which increases the risk of bruising, bleeding, hospitalization, death, fatigue, and an impaired quality of life. A drug called rilzabrutinib has generated promising safety and efficacy results in a recent international multi-center phase 1–2 ITP trial led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).  The findings, which are published in the New England Journal of Medicine, pave the way for more advanced clinical trials. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-rilzabrutinib-blood-disorder-phase-clinical.html

In the face of cancer, oncologists face a dual epidemic of overtreatment and undertreatment. Treating the disease often involves harsh chemotherapies and other interventions with extensive side effects. As a result, clinicians might delay treating a growth that looks harmless until it becomes life threatening and too late to treat. Or, they might overly treat a less aggressive cancer with harsh therapies that cause more harm to the patient than benefit. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-genetic-greatest-cancer-death.html

About 18 million children under age five suffer from severe acute malnutrition, and more than 3 million children die from it each year. Treatment with high-calorie supplemental foods and antibiotics can prevent deaths, but these interventions often have limited impact on the long-term effects of severe acute malnutrition, such as persistent stunted growth, disrupted immune function and impaired brain development. Even when treated with standard therapeutic foods, many children continue to have moderate forms of the disease and are at risk of falling back into severe acute malnutrition. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-gut-bacterium-growth-infants-severe.html

A McMaster researcher is part of a team that has developed a more efficient way to screen for vitamin D deficiency that could become a tool in the fight against COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-rapid-reliable-vitamin-d.html

Scientists have identified a single molecule that may explain how bacteria can trigger one of the most severe types of asthma, a discovery that for the first time identifies the "missing link" between exposure to bacterial components and extreme inflammation of the lungs' airways. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-scientists-link-severe-asthma-paving.html

South Korea will remove most pandemic restrictions, including indoor gathering limits, as it slowly wiggles out of an omicron outbreak officials say is stabilizing. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-korea-virus-restrictions-omicron.html

The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday issued an emergency use authorization for what it said is the first device that can detect COVID-19 in breath samples. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-fda-authorizes-1st-covid-infection.html

Female doctors-turned-patients share their insights about why women’s symptoms are so often dismissed – and how to fix it. source https://www.webmd.com/women/features/women-doctors-symptoms-dismissed?src=RSS_PUBLIC

Britain has approved a new coronavirus vaccine by the Austrian-French drugmaker Valneva, the UK regulatory authority MHRA said on Thursday. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-uk-valneva-covid-vaccine.html

Hong Kong will ease some social distancing measures later this month, allowing people to dine in at restaurants in the evening and lifting restrictions on private gatherings, as the number of COVID-19 infections declined in recent weeks. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-hong-kong-ease-covid-restrictions.html

It's a weekend warrior's nightmare. You're playing hoops in the driveway and go up for a lay-up. You land and hear a pop: you've torn your Achilles tendon. Do you have surgery or hope it heals with just a cast and rehab? New research says both options led to similar outcomes about a year later. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-thyself-achilles-tendon-surgery.html

A study conducted by researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides the first assessment of reported COVID-19 exposures over time among U.S. healthcare personnel (HCP) during the global pandemic. Findings from the study, published today in the American Journal of Infection Control (AJIC), suggest that HCPs diagnosed with COVID-19 were most likely to be exposed to SARS-CoV-2 in their workplaces as COVID-19 cases increased in their communities, and offer insights for reducing HCP exposures and risk during future outbreaks. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-cdc-reveal-key-trends-healthcare.html

A marathon runner explains how Crohn’s disease has made her stronger. source https://www.webmd.com/ibd-crohns-disease/crohns-disease/features/always-be-runner-even-days-when-cant-run-mpi?src=RSS_PUBLIC

Sefako Phala MD and Brittany Phala MD discuss how the University of Medicine and Health Sciences helped them make their dreams of becoming a Medical Doctor and matching into Psychiatry come true. We would appreciate you watching our playlist about other Canadian Med Students and their success at UMHS on our playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7_-WDU1Vnt2J4_h9EARzDRi9_a8CWZpy Subscribe for updates: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrk0x4lh5OkYnAHpzgYjcUw?sub_confirmation=1 If you are interested in making your dreams of becoming a Medical Doctor come true, like Doctors Sefako and Brittany Phala, please check out our medical school overview page here: https://www.umhs-sk.org/caribbean-medical-schools source https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TmRPZkBL5Y

While women who enter menopause before age 45 are known to be at higher risk for heart failure, obesity significantly increased heart failure risk among women who experienced late menopause—at age 55 or older, according to new research published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, an open access, peer-reviewed journal of the American Heart Association. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-obesity-significantly-heart-failure-women.html

Sending miniature robots deep inside the human skull to treat brain disorders has long been the stuff of science fiction—but it could soon become reality, according to a California start-up. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-california-start-up-tiny-robots-fantastic.html

Shanghai released 6,000 more people from the central facilities where they were under medical observation to guard against the coronavirus, the government said Wednesday, though the lockdown of most of China's largest city was being maintained in its third week. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-shanghai-virus-lockdown.html

Meningitis vaccines could help improve protection against gonorrhea amid rising cases globally and increasing bacterial resistance to drugs used to treat the infection, according to findings from three linked papers published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-threat-untreatable-gonorrhea-tackled-meningitis.html

Preventing the formation of a sticky, web-like substance that can form in blood vessels after a stroke could protect the brain and lead to better outcomes for patients, studies in mice suggest. The research was reported in the Journal of Clinical Investigation and led by scientists at University of Utah Health. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-web-like-nets-clogging-blood-vessels.html

Early research into the growing electronic sports (esports) industry highlights a need for better coaching to prevent burnout among professional players. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-burnout-video-gaming-pros.html

A new study published in Diabetologia finds that exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—a large and diverse group of industrial chemicals found in many everyday products—is associated with an increased risk of developing diabetes in midlife women. The study is by Dr. Sung Kyun Park and colleagues at the Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-exposure-group-widely-chemicals-diabetes.html

A new study, led by researchers from the University of California, Irvine, identifies a reason for why older adults are significantly more susceptible to infectious diseases than younger people, a critical societal issue most recently exemplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-reveals-rejuvenate-immune-elderly-people.html

A new review of the evidence suggests 52% of the global population are affected by a headache disorder every year, with 14% reporting migraines. The review is published in The Journal of Headache and Pain. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-global-headaches-disorder-impacts-population.html

An Instagram influencer helps other people with Crohn’s and IBD heal themselves source https://www.webmd.com/ibd-crohns-disease/crohns-disease/features/influencer-finding-voice-inspiring-community-self-healers-mpi?src=RSS_PUBLIC

Scientists from the University of Sheffield have discovered a drug already used to treat lung cancer could help to improve survival rates for bladder cancer patients. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-lung-cancer-drug-survival-bladder.html

Joyce Ares had just turned 74 and was feeling fine when she agreed to give a blood sample for research. So she was surprised when the screening test came back positive for signs of cancer. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-cancer-blood.html

Results from early-stage clinical trials show two drugs that target the DNA damage response (DDR) pathway in cancers—ATR inhibitor elimusertib and PARP inhibitor AZD5305—are safe and clinically beneficial in treating patients with advanced solid tumors. Principal investigator Timothy Yap, M.B.B.S., Ph.D., associate professor of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics, today presented new data from the trials at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2022. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-therapies-dna-response-antitumor.html

Clinical trials represent one the largest investments of collective resources in science. These studies, which recruit participants and rigorously evaluate new interventions and therapeutics, aim to advance scientific knowledge and improve patient treatment. Including diverse and representative patient populations in clinical trials is essential to accurately predict how well therapies will work in the real world. For several decades, the United States has taken steps to try to increase enrollment of minority populations in clinical trials, but it's remained unclear if these initiatives have improved representation. A new study led by investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital examined two decades worth of data from over 20,000 clinical trials and looked for changes over time. The team found that less than half of trials reported race/ethnicity data. Among those that did, minorities remained underrepresented, but there were improvements among certain groups over time. Resu...

A variant of the CTLA-4 gene associated with autoimmune disease was found to be more frequent in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients who experienced an exceptionally high response to anti-PD-1 immunotherapy and higher immune-related side effects than in a comparable cohort of lung cancer patients and healthy individuals, according to data presented during the AACR Annual Meeting 2022, held April 8-13. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-lung-cancer-patients-genetic-variant.html

Depending on where some people live in the UK could mean they are denied an NHS treatment which helps patients with medical needs, such as cancer and transgender issues, become parents in the future. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-nhs-patients-requiring-fertility-treatments.html

A chef with Crohn’s disease found the kitchen was the best place to heal and to rediscover his love of food. source https://www.webmd.com/ibd-crohns-disease/crohns-disease/features/chef-kitchen-healed-helped-loved-food-again-mpi?src=RSS_PUBLIC

A new study found that older children and those with high blood markers for inflammation (ferritin) were at highest risk of severe multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) and admission to the intensive care unit (ICU). The research is published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-children-older-higher-covid-related-multisystem.html

Despite efforts to address racial disparities related to cancer, Black Americans are more likely to die from cancer than most other groups. New research suggests that a partial explanation may be higher rates of frailty and functional impairments among older Black patients with cancer. The findings are published by Wiley online in Cancer journal. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-older-black-adults-cancer-higher.html

India began offering booster doses of COVID-19 vaccine to all adults on Sunday but limited free shots at government centers to front-line workers and people over age 60. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-india-covid-booster-shots-adults-1.html

A new chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell product had an acceptable safety profile and showed early signs of efficacy as a monotherapy and in combination with an mRNA vaccine in patients with solid tumors, according to preliminary data from a phase I/II clinical trial presented during the AACR Annual Meeting 2022, held April 8-13. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-car-t-cell-therapy-solid-tumors.html

More than 10 percent of cases of recurrent ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) of the breast were "de novo" tumors that occurred independently of the primary lesion and had distinct genetic alterations, according to data presented during the AACR Annual Meeting 2022, held April 8-13. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-recurrent-non-invasive-breast-tumors-primary.html

Patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treated with the KRAS G12C inhibitor sotorasib (Lumakras) had a two-year overall survival rate of 32.5 percent, according to data from the CodeBreaK 100 clinical trial presented during the AACR Annual Meeting 2022, held April 8-13. source https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-kras-g12c-inhibitor-sotorasib-long-term.html