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THURSDAY, Aug. 26, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- The search for the source of the new coronavirus is at an impasse and the window of opportunity to identify the virus' origins is "closing fast," a World Health Organization-appointed team of experts said Wednesday.The investigation is at a "critical juncture" that requires urgent collaboration, but Chinese officials remain reluctant to share some raw data due to what they say are concerns about patient confidentiality, the team wrote in a commentary published Wednesday in the journal Nature."The window of opportunity for conducting this crucial inquiry is closing fast: any delay will render some of the studies biologically impossible," the group of international scientists wrote."Antibodies wane, so collecting further samples and testing...

THURSDAY, Aug. 26, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Even before COVID-19, college could be a challenging experience, but a new study suggests those stresses are much higher for female students. Still, in the face of a continuing pandemic, all students may need interventions to develop healthy coping strategies, the study authors said."They're balancing work, classes, relationships and family — and then now you're throwing COVID on top of that," said study author B. Sue Graves, an associate professor in Florida Atlantic University's department of exercise science and health promotion, in Boca Raton. "Our study was before COVID, but they were stressed enough with those other issues." For the study, the researchers surveyed students who were registered for one of a few different health and...

THURSDAY, Aug. 26, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Women smokers puff fewer cigarettes than men but have more trouble quitting, French researchers report."Our findings highlight the need to provide smoking cessation interventions tailored to the needs of women," said Ingrid Allagbe, a doctoral student at the University of Burgundy, who led the research.The study included nearly 38,000 smokers (about 43% women) aged 18 and older in France who visited smoking cessation services between 2001 and 2018.On average, women smoked 23 cigarettes a day; men, 27. About 56% of women had severe nicotine dependence compared to 60% of men.But 55% of men were able to quit, compared to 52% of the women, the investigators found. The findings were scheduled for presentation at an online meeting of the European...

THURSDAY, Aug. 26, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Mink farms could be breeding grounds for future pandemics in humans, new research suggests.That's because in mink and other carnivorous (meat-eating) animals, three key genes required to detect and respond to infection by pathogens have lost their function. If these genes were working, they would activate inflammatory responses to fight off these disease-causing organisms.But this defect in carnivores' immune system makes these animals likely to be asymptomatic carriers of pathogens.That means that having large numbers of carnivores in one place -- such as a mink farm -- could lead to the formation of undetected "disease reservoirs" that enable pathogens to mutate and become a risk to humans, the researchers explained."We've found that a...