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TUESDAY, April 12, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Immune system-triggered inflammation is the likely reason for the loss of smell reported by many COVID-19 patients, a new study finds."As a neuropathologist, I wondered why smell loss is a very common symptom with COVID-19 but not with other respiratory diseases," said lead study author Dr. Cheng-Ying Ho. She is an associate professor of pathology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. "So, we decided to dig deeply into the mechanics of smell to see what actually occurs at the cellular level when SARS-CoV-2 invades the body," Ho said.For the study, her team analyzed tissue from the olfactory bulb in 37 people who died of various causes. Located at the base of the brain, the olfactory bulb transmits nerve impulses...

TUESDAY, April 12, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Even as the COVID-19 pandemic kept people isolated at home, sexually transmitted disease (STDs) cases increased across the United States.Although cases fell in the pandemic's early months, infections rose again by the end of 2020, with gonorrhea, syphilis and congenital syphilis surpassing 2019 levels, according to a new U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. "STDs have been increasing now for maybe seven years in a row," said Dr. Leandro Mena, director of the CDC's Division of STD Prevention."These increases have roots in a decrease in funding public health, which has affected health departments' ability to provide screening, treatment, prevention and partner services," he added.Increased substance use, which is linked to...

TUESDAY, April 12, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Drug overdose deaths among America's teens have skyrocketed during the pandemic, and not because drug use is more common, researchers report.In 2020, overdose deaths among adolescents nearly doubled, compared with 10 years before the pandemic. They rose another 20% in the first six months of 2021, a new study finds."Teen drug use rates are at historic lows, so this is really because drug use is becoming more dangerous," said lead researcher Joseph Friedman, an addiction researcher at University of California, Los Angeles. "There's really been a spread of counterfeit pills that look like prescription pills, but, in fact, they're made in underground labs and sold on the illicit market, and they contain illicit fentanyl," he said.The majority of...

TUESDAY, April 12, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Certain personality traits may make older adults more or less vulnerable to waning memory and thinking skills, a new study suggests.The study, of nearly 2,000 older adults, found that those high on the "conscientious" scale — organized, self-disciplined and productive — were less likely to develop mild cognitive impairment. That refers to subtler problems with memory and other mental skills that sometimes precede dementia.On the other end of the spectrum were older folks high in neuroticism — a tendency to be anxious, moody and vulnerable to stress. They had an increased risk of developing mild cognitive impairment, versus people low on the neuroticism scale.The findings, published April 11 in the Journal of Personality and Social...