Wellness

Assessment of neutrophil extracellular traps in coronary thrombus of case series of patients with COVID-19

What The Study Did: Severe COVID-19 is characterized by the intense formation of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs), leading to the blockage of microvessels, as shown in pulmonary samples. The occurrence of ST-elevated myocardial infarction (STEMI) is a serious cardiac manifestation of COVID-19; the intrinsic mechanism of coronary thrombosis appears to still be unknown. This case series…

Patient characteristics associated with telemedicine access during COVID-19 pandemic

What The Study Did: This study identified racial/ ethnic, sex, age, language, and socioeconomic differences in accessing telemedicine for primary care and specialty ambulatory care; if not addressed, these differences may compound existing inequities in care among vulnerable populations. Authors: Srinath Adusumalli, M.D., M.Sc., of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, is the corresponding author.…

Polysaccharides from red algae affect mice immune systems, say FEFU scientists

Carrageenans, biologically active polysaccharides isolated from red algae and widely used in the food industry as stabilizers, thickeners, or jelly agents have an express effect on the immune systems of mice, a study reports. The research was carried out by scientists from the School of Biomedicine of Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU), Far Eastern Branch…

H. Jack Geiger, Doctor Who Fought Social Ills, Dies at 95

Drawing physicians out of the clinic and into the political fray “was a really signal event,” said Dr. Robert Gould, a pathologist in San Francisco and president of the Bay Area chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility. In an email for this obituary sent in 2012, Dr. Geiger said he was driven in part by…

Small Number of Covid Patients Develop Severe Psychotic Symptoms

Brain scans, spinal fluid analyses and other tests didn’t find any brain infection, said Dr. Gabbay, whose hospital has treated two patients with post-Covid psychosis: a 49-year-old man who heard voices and believed he was the devil and a 34-year-old woman who began carrying a knife, disrobing in front of strangers and putting hand sanitizer…

Don’t Let the Pandemic Stop Your Shots

Experts fear that vaccination rates may have fallen further during the pandemic, as they have among children, if older people wary of going to doctors’ offices or pharmacies skipped shots. Financial and bureaucratic obstacles also thwart vaccination efforts. Medicare Part B covers three vaccines completely: influenza, pneumococcus and, when indicated, hepatitis B. The Tdap and…

Soothing Anxiety and Stress: Advice From the Year in Well

For many of us, 2020 was an exceptionally stressful year, dominated by fears about the coronavirus pandemic. Even with the vaccine on the horizon, we’re likely to need some stress management strategies to carry us into 2021. There’s lots of advice in this guide by Tara Parker-Pope, How to Be Better at Stress. Stress doesn’t…

The Risks of Using Steroids for Respiratory Infections

In an interview, Dr. Dvorin said that although steroids may make people euphoric, they can also “make some people feel pretty bad by causing anxiety, jitteriness and manic-like behavior.” In people with pre-existing psychosis, short-term steroid shots can trigger a psychotic episode, Dr. McCoul said. Drs. Dvorin and Ebell wrote, “Physicians might assume that short-term…

Her Stomach Hurt Unbearably. Her Doctors Were Baffled.

She called her mother. What did birth-control pills do to you? she asked. It was terrible, her mother told her, and it took months to figure out. The first attack was just days before her wedding. She started on birth-control pills weeks earlier so she wouldn’t have to worry about becoming pregnant on the honeymoon.…

Music-induced emotions can be predicted from brain scans

Researchers at the University of Turku have discovered what type of neural mechanisms are the basis for emotional responses to music. Altogether 102 research subjects listened to music that evokes emotions while their brain function was scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The study was carried out in the national PET Centre. The researchers…