Latest Health News

13Dec
2021

AHA News: Seattle Nonprofit Offers Chance at a Good Life and Good Health After Prison

AHA News: Seattle Nonprofit Offers Chance at a Good Life and Good Health After PrisonMONDAY, Dec. 13, 2021 (American Heart Association News) -- After four years in a Washington state prison for first-degree burglary, Chelsey Johnson learned she was eligible for a work-release program that would shave the final year off her sentence.She was excited by the prospect, but also scared. Then 31, she had spent half her life either doing drugs or doing time."I knew I needed to make massive changes," Johnson said. "The whole time in prison I didn't get into any trouble. I got my GED and graduated from their college program. But I'd never done anything on my own before."She turned to Carolyn Presnell, a fellow inmate she befriended who was released shortly after Johnson arrived.At that time in 2019, Presnell was a house manager with Weld Seattle. The nonprofit operates a sober...

British Studies Show Vaccines Weaken Against Omicron,...

13 December 2021
British Studies Show Vaccines Weaken Against Omicron, But Boosters HelpMONDAY, Dec. 13, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- The ability of two-dose COVID-19 vaccines to protect against symptomatic infection by the Omicron variant falls significantly short, but a booster shot provides considerable protection, according to the first real-world study of how effective vaccines are against the rapidly spreading new form of the coronavirus.Four months after their second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, people had only about 35% protection against symptomatic infection by Omicron, which is significantly lower than against the Delta variant, British government scientists said.But a third dose of the vaccine boosted that level of protection to about 75%, according to the study published Friday, The New York Times reported.Several months after vaccination, two doses of...

Months After New Rule, More Than Half of U.S. Hospitals...

13 December 2021
Months After New Rule, More Than Half of U.S. Hospitals Still Don`t Disclose Prices OnlineMONDAY, Dec. 13, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Big "surprise" medical bills may still be a problem for Americans.According to a new study, more than half of U.S. hospitals haven't complied with recent regulations requiring that they disclose their prices online for all services, to help prevent unexpected bills for patients.About 55% of hospitals have yet to comply with the Hospital Price Transparency Final Rule, which went into effect at the beginning of 2021, researchers report.Failure to comply appears to occur in clusters, the new report found. Hospitals were more than 40% more likely to comply if all other medical centers in their regional market had already posted their prices, the findings showed.The financial health of a hospital was also strongly associated with whether or not they...

T-Shirt Study Shows Importance of Mom's Smell to Bond...

13 December 2021
T-Shirt Study Shows Importance of Mom`s Smell to Bond With BabyMONDAY, Dec. 13, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- The sound of mom's voice can soothe a fussy baby like nothing else, but now new research suggests that an infant is also calmed by the scent of its mother.Prior animal studies had already shown that olfaction -- smell -- "is very important, that mother's smell is very critical for attachment," noted study author Ruth Feldman. "Young recognize mother by her smell, and mother and habitat and the whole sense of safety and placement and fear conditioning is related to olfactory cues. And we know what it does in the brain." Feldman directs Reichman University's Center for Developmental Social Neuroscience, in Israel.In this study, her group wanted to combine two areas of research, looking at both brain-to-brain communication and maternal chemical...

Poor Outcome More Likely When Patient Is Female, Surgeon Is Male: Study

13 December 2021
Poor Outcome More Likely When Patient Is Female, Surgeon Is Male: StudyMONDAY, Dec. 13, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- You can’t always choose who operates on you, especially in an emergency, but the sex of your surgeon shouldn’t matter, should it?It just may, according to a Canadian study of 1.3 million people.It reported that women who underwent common elective or emergency surgeries with male surgeons had a 15% higher chance of dying, experiencing a major complication, and/or being readmitted to the hospital within 30 days than they did if a woman performed their surgery. In contrast, men experience similarly good outcomes regardless of their surgeon’s sex, the study showed.Exactly why such "sex discordance" exists is not fully understood yet, and the study wasn’t designed to answer this question.“We hypothesize, based on prior work regarding...

New Drug a Good Treatment Option for Severe Asthma in Kids

13 December 2021
New Drug a Good Treatment Option for Severe Asthma in Kids MONDAY, Dec. 13, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Parents of children with moderate-to-severe asthma may have a much-needed treatment option: A new trial finds that an injected monoclonal antibody drug called dupilumab significantly reduces a child's odds of serious asthma attacks and improves lung function.“We were not surprised, because dupilumab was very effective in clinical trials in adults and adolescents, but we were delighted with the results and the hope they bring to children and their families," said trial lead investigator Dr. Leonard Bacharier. He's an asthma specialist at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital, part of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn. One expert who wasn't connected to the trial was encouraged by the findings, calling them "very...

'Baby Talk' Is Really Helping Baby Learn

13 December 2021
`Baby Talk` Is Really Helping Baby LearnMONDAY, Dec. 13, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- You may feel silly doing it, but baby talk helps your infant learn the basics of human language, a new study suggests.By mimicking the sound of a smaller vocal tract, baby talk guides babies on how words should sound coming out of their own mouths, the researchers explained."It seems to stimulate motor production of speech, not just the perception of speech," said study author Matthew Masapollo, an assistant professor in the University of Florida's Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences. "It's not just goo-goo ga-ga," he said in a university news release.In this study, Masapollo and his colleagues changed the frequency of sounds to mimic either an infant or adult vocal tract, and assessed infants' reactions.Babies who were 6 to 8...

Certain Meds Raise Odds for Delirium After Surgery

13 December 2021
Certain Meds Raise Odds for Delirium After SurgeryMONDAY, Dec. 13, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Older adults have a higher risk of delirium after hip and knee surgery if they're taking anxiety, depression or insomnia drugs, researchers say."Our findings show that different classes of medicine are riskier than others when it comes to causing delirium after surgery, and the older the patients are, the greater the risk," said lead study author Gizat Kassie. He is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of South Australia in Adelaide.For the study, Kassie and his team analyzed data from nearly 10,500 patients aged 65 and older who had knee or hip surgery in the past 20 years. Of those, about one-quarter experienced delirium after surgery.Those taking nitrazepam — a benzodiazepine drug used to treat anxiety and insomnia — and...

What Does 'Long COVID' Look Like in Kids?

MONDAY, Dec. 13, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Long COVID can be tough to diagnose in children, but there are a number of things to look for.“Many children don’t have any symptoms when they have a...

Many Home Health Care Workers in Poor Health Themselves

MONDAY, Dec. 13, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- They take care of others, but many U.S. home health care workers say they're not in good shape themselves, a new study finds. Researchers analyzed...
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