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FRIDAY, July 30, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- The Cape Cod resort town of Provincetown draws big crowds every summer. In July, those largely vaccinated crowds -- packed into bars, restaurants and private homes -- were the genesis of an outbreak of the Delta variant that could be a sobering model for the nation.New data on the outbreak, released Friday, shows there were a known total of 469 COVID-19 cases "associated with multiple summer events" among Provincetown revelers. Three-quarters (74%) of those cases occurred among people who'd gotten their COVID vaccinations an average of almost three months before.In 89% of those cases, the highly contagious Delta variant was implicated, concluded a team led by Dr. Catherine Brown of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. There was some...

FRIDAY, July 30, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Death rates from Alzheimer's disease are particularly high in the rural United States, a preliminary study finds, highlighting a need for health care resources in traditionally under-served areas.Researchers discovered that over the past two decades, rural areas in the Southeast have seen the highest death rates from Alzheimer's, at 274 per 100,000 people. That's about twice the rate as seen in urban areas of the mid-Atlantic region, which had the lowest numbers.The study could not pinpoint the reasons why, but there are some likely culprits, according to senior researcher Dr. Ambar Kulshreshtha of Emory University in Atlanta."We know rural areas suffer a greater burden of other medical conditions," he explained.The Southeast, Kulshreshtha...

FRIDAY, July 30, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Teens have a far greater risk of heart inflammation from COVID-19 than from the vaccines that protect against it, new research shows."Comparative risk can complicate decisions for parents in such highly charged health debates," said lead author Mendel Singer, vice chair for education at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland. "But our study shows that for parents concerned for their teens about myocarditis/pericarditis [heart inflammation], the safer choice is vaccination," he said in a university news release.Singer and his colleagues compared health records of 7,300 girls and 6,800 boys (ages: 12-17) nationwide who were diagnosed with COVID in the United States to the same number in that age group who had adverse...

FRIDAY, July 30, 2021 (American Heart Association News) -- Dementia is a thief. It steals a person's memory, their ability to reason, to live independently.As people age and face more medical challenges, it also robs them of something even more basic to survival – the ability to participate in their own recovery, especially from major events such as heart attacks. And that can limit the treatments they receive."It interferes with adhering to a medical treatment plan, unless there is someone there to support them," said Dr. Karen Alexander, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina.Studies show people with dementia – and even those with mild cognitive impairments – are less likely than those with no cognitive loss to...