Category: Clinical Considerations
If bird flu sparks a human pandemic, your past immunity could help
Nature Older populations might be more protected than younger ones because of exposure to ‘matched’ strains during childhood, but an H5N1 pandemic is likely to take a major toll all the same. As the H5N1 bird-flu virus spreads relentlessly in animals around the world, researchers seeking to understand how a human H5N1 pandemic might unfold have turned to a […]
Jul 10, 2024
This May Be the Most Overlooked Covid Symptom
NYTimes Gastrointestinal issues are a common but often unrecognized sign of infection. In January 2020, a man who would become known as the first documented Covid-19 patient in the United States arrived at an urgent care clinic. Two of his symptoms, a cough and a fever, were among those that would become known as the telltale symptoms […]
Jul 10, 2024
Pandemic Lockdowns Might Have Prevented Wheeze in a Generation of Babies
MedPageToday The COVID-19 pandemic had an upside for lockdown babies: substantially less wheezing and bronchiolitis, according to an Italian retrospective cohort study. One or more wheezing episode by age 30 months was observed in 44% fewer babies born while stay-at-home orders were in effect compared with of those born during the same months in 2016 […]
Jul 9, 2024
Mini-Strokes, Gut Problems: Scientists See Links to an Old Bout of Covid
WSJ Feeling ill? The cause might be years old. Scientists suspect that one culprit behind your new illness might be the infection you got a couple of years ago. The link between new health problems and your past health history appears to be particularly prevalent with Covid. A new Nature Medicine study found that health problems stemming […]
Jul 2, 2024
Cannabis Use Tied to Increased Risk of Severe COVID
Med Page Today Hospitalization risk 80% higher versus nonusers. Cannabis use was significantly associated with a greater risk of severe outcomes following a COVID-19 infection, according to a retrospective study that spanned the first 2 years of the pandemic. Among more than 70,000 patients with a documented case of COVID at a large medical center […]
Jun 26, 2024
Why Bird Flu Is Infecting People’s Eyes
Scientific American Three U.S. dairy workers have been infected with H5N1 after contact with sick cows, and all of them developed eye symptoms. Bird flu has been behaving very strangely lately. A strain of the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (H5N1) has been spreading in dairy cows in at least nine U.S. states. Infected cows have very high […]
Jun 4, 2024
Severe COVID-19 Lung Disease Linked to Ferroptosis
Genetic Engineering and Biotech News Over the past few years, researchers have uncovered countless details about how SARS-CoV-2 causes COVID-19. However, the mechanisms underlying how SARS-CoV-2 infection causes severe pulmonary manifestations remain poorly understood. This, in turn, limits treatment options. In some severe cases of COVID-19, the lungs undergo extreme damage, resulting in a range […]
May 21, 2024
What do we know about covid-19’s effects on the brain?
BMJ What are the neurological symptoms of covid-19? Covid may be primarily a respiratory infection, but a common symptom is “brain fog”—problems with memory or concentration—which can persist for weeks or months as part of long covid.1 And it’s not the only neurological effect. Giovanni Schifitto, professor of neurology at the University of Rochester Medical School […]
May 15, 2024
Griffith University researchers to trial naltrexone on long COVID patients
ABC.net Jayden Donald went from a fit and healthy teenager who rode his horses almost every day, to being so sick he could hardly sit up after his second bout of COVID-19. A year later, the 19-year-old talented equestrian has only recently returned to university and to the competitive dressage arena after being diagnosed with […]
May 7, 2024
Long COVID May Have Long-Term Impact on Surgery
American College of Surgeons More than 77% of people in the US had been infected with SARS-CoV-2 as of 2022.1 Of these, approximately 30% of survivors report having persistent symptoms classified as long COVID2 and 11% describe persistent symptoms at 6 months.3 Patients frequently complain of brain fog, cognitive difficulties, and other neurologic sequelae as the primary […]
May 7, 2024