Culture
WASHINGTON, D.C. - September 21, 2020 - Although people of any age can become infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, elderly patients face a higher risk of severity and death than younger patients. New research comparing the immune response among age groups, published this week in mBio, an open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, may help explain why. Older patients with the disease have lower frequencies of the immune cells needed to expel the virus from the body, the researchers found.
Intolerances to chemicals, foods and drugs impact 8%-33% of individuals, studies suggest, yet few people are screened for it at their doctors’ offices.
Boston, Mass. - As electronic medical records (EMR) become ubiquitous in health care settings, scientists are increasingly turning to electronic-based recruitment methods to encourage participation in clinical trials. However, little is known about how this use of technology compares to more traditional clinical trial recruitment strategies, and some researchers worry that an overreliance on technology has the potential to exclude an eligible and interested diverse participant population.
BOSTON - New research suggests when the COVID-19 pandemic is slowing, low-cost, recurring screening of asymptomatic people - at an expense of approximately $3 or less per test every two weeks - could decrease COVID-19 infections and deaths and be cost-effective. When the pandemic is surging, screening can be cost-effective when done more often, even if tests costs are higher. The report - led by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) - was recently published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
It is well understood that mortality rates increase with age. Whether you live in Tokyo, rural Tennessee or the forests of Papua, New Guinea, the older you are, the more likely you are to succumb to any number of different ailments.
But how, exactly, do our bodies weather with age, and to what extent do people around the word experience physiological aging differently?
The reactive and piecemeal approach historically used to manage beaches in Hawai'i has failed to protect them. If policies are not changed, as much as 40% of all beaches on O'ahu, Hawai'i could be lost before mid-century, according to a new study by researchers in the Coastal Geology Group at the University of Hawai'i (UH) at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST).
A study of approximately 200,000 blood samples from the UK Biobank has identified more than 2,000 undiagnosed cases of type 2 diabetes. The study, presented at this year's Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), also shows that, because UK Biobank data is not reported back to participants, patients found to have undiagnosed diabetes waited on average more than two years for a clinical diagnosis, and around a quarter remained undiagnosed five years later.
DURHAM, N.C. -- Close bonds with the opposite sex can have non-romantic benefits. And not just for people, but for our primate cousins, too.
Drawing on 35 years of data, a new study of more than 540 baboons in Amboseli National Park in Kenya finds that male baboons that have close female friends have higher rates of survival than those who don't.
DURHAM , N.C. -- Many humans live to see their 70s and 80s, some even reach 100 years old. But life is much shorter for our closest animal relatives. Chimpanzees, for example, rarely make it past age 50, despite sharing almost 99% of our genetic code.
While advances in medicine and nutrition in the last 200 years have added years to human lifespans, a new study suggests there could be a more ancient explanation why humans are the long-lived primate.
Indigenous self-determination, leadership and knowledge have helped protect Indigenous communities in Canada during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, and these principles should be incorporated into public health in future, argue the authors of a commentary in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal)
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College students with physical and cognitive disabilities use illicit drugs more, and have a higher prevalence of drug use disorder, than their non-disabled peers, according to a Rutgers study.
The study, published in the journal Disability and Health Journal, gives new understanding to the risk factors for substance use in students with disabilities and will help develop more effective prevention and treatment strategies.
Why does the mouse sleep five times longer than the elephant? Why do babies sleep longer than adults? If these sound like riddles, that's because they have been. Sleep, in spite of its ubiquity, holds mysteries that have perplexed scientists for decades.
Prolonged sleep deprivation can lead to severe health problems in humans and other animals. But why is sleep so vital to our health? A UCLA-led team of scientists has answered this question and shown for the first time that a dramatic change in the purpose of sleep occurs at the age of about 2-and-a-half.
Before that age, the brain grows very rapidly. During REM sleep, when vivid dreams occur, the young brain is busy building and strengthening synapses -- the structures that connect neurons to one another and allow them to communicate.
The removal of one gene renders poxviruses - a lethal family of viral infections that are known to spread from animals to humans - harmless, a new study in the journal Science Advances reports.
During this ground-breaking study, scientists from the Spanish National Research Council and the University of Surrey investigated the immune response of cells to poxviruses. Poxviruses, such as cowpox and monkeypox, can spread to humans from infected animals, causing skin lesions, fever, swollen lymph nodes and even death.
East Hanover, NJ. September 18, 2020. Researchers at Kessler Foundation authored a new article, "Employment after spinal cord injury," (DOI: 10.1007/s40141-020-00266-4), published by Current Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Reports on May 24, 2020. Authored by John O'Neill, PhD, and Trevor Dyson-Hudson, MD, the article highlights evidence-based practices in vocational rehabilitation. It is featured in SpringerLink's Collection on Topics in Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation.