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THURSDAY, March 24, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Men are more likely than women to be offered surgery to ease carpal tunnel syndrome, but a small new study from one hospital suggests that gender may have nothing to do with the disparity. Instead, the difference may exist because the condition tends to be more severe in men, the researchers said.Carpal tunnel syndrome occurs when the median nerve in the wrist is compressed due to trauma, arthritis or inflammation of wrist tendons, resulting in numbness, weakness and tingling in the hand and arm.Patients with mild symptoms are typically given nonsurgical treatments such as bracing or steroid injections, while those with severe symptoms are often offered minimally invasive surgery called carpal tunnel release, which relieves pressure on the...

THURSDAY, March 24, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Lying facedown may improve breathing in COVID-19 patients who are awake, but many can't stay in a prone position long enough to reap the benefit, a new study finds.Prone positioning is standard for patients with severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), because it encourages a larger part of the lung to expand, so patients can take bigger breaths. However, these patients are typically sedated and on a ventilator.Reports that prone positioning may also help COVID-19 patients who are awake have led to its widespread use, but a number of studies have yielded conflicting results.To learn more, researchers assessed 248 awake COVID-19 patients admitted to 15 hospitals in Canada and the United States from May 2020 until May 2021. The...

THURSDAY, March 24, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Even though medication is considered the most effective therapy for opioid addiction, many Americans who need it don't receive it, a new study finds."Evidence supporting the effectiveness of medication for opioid use disorder — such as methadone, buprenorphine or naltrexone — is unequivocal, but most people who needed [opioid addiction] treatment in the U.S. did not receive this gold standard treatment," said study lead author Pia Mauro. She is an assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, in New York City.The United States is in the midst of an opioid crisis, with scores of Americans dependent on narcotic pain relievers, including heroin and synthetic opioids. For the study, Mauro's team...

WEDNESDAY, March 23, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Your 30s can be a magical time filled with career strides, vacations you can actually afford, love, marriage and even a growing family of your own.It’s likely not the decade where you begin to fret about your risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease in the future. But maybe it should be. This is the main takeaway from new research based on data from the multi-generational Framingham Heart Study.Investigators found that folks who developed Alzheimer’s disease later in life were more likely to have had lower levels of high density (HDL) or "good" cholesterol and higher levels of dangerous blood fats called triglycerides as early as age 35 compared with folks who didn't go on to develop dementia."High cholesterol and blood sugar and...