Body
WHO Peter Libby, MD, cardiovascular medicine specialist at Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Mallinckrodt Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School; author of a new review paper published in Nature.
WHAT Atherosclerosis -- hardening of the arteries -- is now involved in the majority of deaths worldwide, and advances in our understanding of the biology of the disease are changing traditional views and opening up new avenues for treatment.
Two of the COVID-19 vaccines currently approved in the United States require two doses, administered three to four weeks apart, however, there are few data indicating how best to minimize new infections and hospitalizations with limited vaccine supply and distribution capacity. A study published on 21st April, 2021 in the open access journal PLOS Biology by Seyed Moghadas at York University in Toronto, Canada, and colleagues suggests that delaying the second dose could improve the effectiveness of vaccine programs.
Boston, MA - In a worldwide survey, pregnant and postpartum women reported high levels of depression, anxiety, loneliness, and post-traumatic stress during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Such high levels of distress may have potential implications for women and for fetal and child health and development, according to the study.
The study will be published online in PLOS ONE on April 21, 2021.
Plenty of people struggle to make sense of a multitude of converging voices in a crowded room. Commonly known as the "cocktail party effect," people with hearing loss find it's especially difficult to understand speech in a noisy environment.
New research suggests that, for some listeners, this may have less to do with actually discerning sounds. Instead, it may be a processing problem in which two ears blend different sounds together - a condition known as binaural pitch fusion.
By targeting a receptor in the brains of mice, researchers have successfully altered feeding and anxiety-like behaviors linked to anorexia. Although more work is needed in humans, their study suggests that fine-tuning the receptor's activity could help change feeding habits and promote weight gain in patients with eating disorders. Anorexia and other eating disorders affect at least 28 million Americans and cause more than 10,000 deaths in the U.S. each year, according to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders.
Study of 30,000 adults living with HIV receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Latin America and the Caribbean finds life expectancy has increased to within 10 years of the general population in these countries over the last two decades.
Disparities in life expectancy due to demographic and clinical factors at the point participants began ART (including sexual HIV transmission risk, low CD4 cell count, and history of tuberculosis) highlight an ongoing need to reach vulnerable populations in the region.
With roughly 80% of jobs being sedentary, often requiring several hours of sitting stooped in front of a computer screen, neck pain is a growing occupational hazard. Smartphones and other devices have also caused people to bend their necks for prolonged periods. But is bad posture solely to blame?
In a recent study, researchers at Texas A&M University have found that while poor neck and head postures are indeed the primary determinants of neck pain, body mass index, age and the time of the day also influence the neck's ability to perform sustained or repeated movements.
BOSTON - New research from Boston Medical Center identifies elevated mortality risk for women with back pain when compared to women without back pain. Back pain was not associated with mortality among men indicating long-term consequences of back pain may differ by sex. The overall findings suggest that mild back pain (pain that does not keep a person from exercising or doing daily activities) is unlikely to impact the length of one's life, but risk of mortality was increased among adults with more severe back pain.
Leesburg, VA, April 20, 2021--An award-winning Scientific Electronic Exhibit to be presented at the ARRS 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting found no statistically significant threshold for increased renal transplant biopsy risk based on systolic (SBP), diastolic (DBP), or mean arterial (MAP) blood pressure alone.
"When these metrics are combined," first author Winston Wang of the Mayo Clinic Arizona cautioned, "the risk of complication is significantly higher when the SBP is >= 180 mm Hg, DBP is >= 95 mm Hg, and MAP is >= 116 mm Hg."
Professor Bin He's team at Carnegie Mellon University, in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic, has discovered that fast oscillations in scalp-recorded electroencephalography can pinpoint brain tissues responsible for epileptic seizures.
Severe cases of COVID-19 can involve extensive inflammation in the body, and clinicians have wondered if this state is similar to what are called cytokine storm syndromes, in which the immune system produces too many inflammatory signals that can sometimes lead to organ failure and death. A new study published in Arthritis & Rheumatology indicates that different markers in the blood clearly differentiate excessive inflammation in critical COVID-19 from cytokine storm syndromes.
A new study published in Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica found that taking a particular probiotic strain improves iron levels in healthy pregnant women and may therefore help to prevent iron deficiency.
After undergoing treatment for cancer, patients may worry that the disease will recur. An analysis of published studies indicates that fear of cancer recurrence may lead to an increased use of healthcare resources--such as more visits to see physicians and greater use of medications--by cancer survivors.
A Wireless Sensor Network--a set of sensor nodes placed in different locations that sense their surroundings and transmit sensed data--can have a range of applications related to the environment, healthcare, transportation, security, and other areas. An analysis of published research provides an overview of the ability of "mobile elements" to improve terrestrial and underwater Wireless Sensor Networks.
CLEVELAND, Ohio (April 21, 2021)--The importance of getting a good night's sleep cannot be overstated. Lack of sleep can lead to a number of health problems and affect a woman's overall quality of life. A new study suggests that insufficient quality sleep also may lead to problems in the bedroom in the form of female sexual dysfunction. Study results are published online today in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS).