My mother saved an immense amount of stuff. That’s something of a burden: What to do with it all? But it’s also a gift. Because she died of cancer in 1992, at 53, when I was just 15. And yet she still finds ways to speak to me, through the things she left behind. One…
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The pain woke the 52-year-old physician from a dead sleep. It was as if all the muscles in his right leg, from those in the buttock down his thigh to the very bottom of his calf, were on fire. He shifted slightly to see if he could find a more comfortable position. There was a…
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Excessive weight gain during pregnancy may be associated with an increased risk for childhood asthma and allergy. Chinese researchers studied 15,145 mother-child pairs in Shanghai, tracking gestational weight gain and childhood health over an average of almost eight years. The study is in JAMA Network Open. They found that compared with mothers who gained the…
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In this age of trolls and bots and digital impostors, words like “crank” and “bully” seem impossibly antiquated, like labels from the black-and-white TV era. “Scoundrel” almost qualifies as a term of endearment — culturally insensitive, for the purveyors of disinformation who parade with grim delight in the virtual public square. A more precise language…
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A study on the effectiveness of multiple treatments, including laboratory-made antibodies, at preventing mild COVID-19 from advancing to severe illness in the outpatient setting is underway by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). The clinical trial is enrolling patients at Harris Health System’s Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital. UTHealth is…
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Human white blood cells, known as leukocytes, swim using a newly described mechanism called molecular paddling, researchers report in the September 15th issue of Biophysical Journal. This microswimming mechanism could explain how both immune cells and cancer cells migrate in various fluid-filled niches in the body, for good or for harm. «The capacity of living…
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September 15, 2020 — Digital phenotyping approaches that collect and analyze Smartphone-user data on locations, activities, and even feelings — combined with machine learning to recognize patterns and make predictions from the data — have emerged as promising tools for monitoring patients with psychosis spectrum illnesses, according to a report in the September/October issue of…
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ROCHESTER, Minn. — What causes some people to develop chronic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, cancer and metabolic syndrome while others stay healthy? A major clue could be found in their gut microbiome — the trillions of microbes living inside the digestive system that regulate various bodily functions. To utilize the huge population of tiny…
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PHILADELPHIA — Our bodies frequently heal wounds, like a cut or a scrape, on their own. However patients with diabetes, vascular disease, and skin disorders, sometimes have difficulty healing. This can lead to chronic wounds, which can severely impact quality of life. The management of chronic wounds is a major cost to healthcare systems, with…
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As anxiety and depression rise in the country, primary care clinics, especially in rural areas, are facing increased patient needs. One way to address this is to bolster healthcare providers’ ability to diagnose and treat patients with common mental health disorders. Researchers at UW Medicine found that primary-care physicians and rural clinic staff felt more…
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