Mink, like people, often die from infection with the virus, and nobody knows why. “This is a key thing,” Dr. Perlman said. “Why do people get sick? Why do we react so differently to these viruses.” He said he had thought about studying mink, but the challenges, involving their genetic diversity and the lack of…
Until recently, the federal government did not require hospitals to report how many doses they had given to patients, although it will begin to do so starting Jan. 8. There is also no single hotline or website to help patients locate a provider in their area who is offering the treatments. Dr. Skovronsky said that…
Two new antibody treatments have shown promise in keeping high-risk Covid-19 patients out of the hospital. But despite getting a publicity boost from President Trump, who received the Regeneron treatment in October and praised it as a “cure,” the drugs have not been widely used since being authorized for emergency use last month by the…
Another group began exercising moderately for longer sessions of 50 minutes twice a week. And the third group started a program of twice-weekly high-intensity interval training, or H.I.I.T., during which they cycled or jogged at a strenuous pace for four minutes, followed by four minutes of rest, with that sequence repeated four times. Almost everyone…
‘Not detected’ doesn’t mean it’s not there Many coronavirus test results already say “detected” or “not detected” as their default readout, a distinction that several experts call more useful. “‘Not detected’ really points to the moment,” said Dr. Valerie Fitzhugh, a pathologist at Rutgers University. “It wasn’t detected today. That doesn’t mean I won’t have…
If your dog has diabetes, you may be at higher risk of developing the disease yourself. Those are the findings of a new study in BMJ that examined pet insurance data in Sweden along with medical records from the Swedish National Patient Register. Researchers followed 208,980 dog owners and 123,566 cat owners in Sweden for…
Sweetened drinks are not generally considered healthy for anyone, but they may be particularly harmful for the elderly. Researchers report that consumption of both sugar-sweetened and artificially sweetened drinks is associated with an increased risk for frailty in women over 60. The scientists defined frailty as meeting at least three of five criteria: fatigue, reduced…
Serotonin is a neurochemical that plays a critical role in the way the brain controls our thoughts and feelings. For example, many antidepressants are designed to alter serotonin signals sent between neurons. In an article in Cell, National Institutes of Health-funded researchers described how they used advanced genetic engineering techniques to transform a bacterial protein…
SETD2 is a protein well known as a chromatin remodeler, one that helps turn genes on or off by modifying histone proteins in the nucleus of the cell. When researchers discovered that SETD2 is mutated or lost in several cancer types, most commonly a type of kidney cancer called clear-cell renal cell carcinoma, all eyes…
COVID-19 antibodies preferentially target a different part of the virus in mild cases of COVID-19 than they do in severe cases, and wane significantly within several months of infection, according to a new study by researchers at Stanford Medicine. The findings identify new links between the course of the disease and a patient’s immune response.…