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FRIDAY, July 9, 2021 (Healthday News) -- No spectators will be allowed at the Olympic Games in Tokyo when they begin in two weeks, organizers announced Thursday.The decision came after a new state of emergency was declared in the city due to a sudden surge in coronavirus cases, The New York Times reported.Last month, officials said they would allow domestic spectators, despite public fears that the Games would worsen the city's coronavirus situation.In related news, Olympic officials decided this week to eliminate nearly all running during the final leg of the Olympic torch's journey through Japan. Instead, the torch's two-week trip through Tokyo and its suburbs will feature a series of ceremonies that will be closed to the public, the Times reported.The announcement that there would...

FRIDAY, July 9, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Millions of American adults haven't seen a dentist in at least a year, a new U.S. government health survey reveals.In 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic made dental visits difficult, a third of adults under 65 hadn't had a dental exam or cleaning in the past 12 months, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.And the problem was worse in rural America, the National Health Interview Survey showed. The authors suspect the reason is easy to explain. "It was beyond the scope of study, but we kind of assumed there are fewer health care providers in the rural areas, compared to urban areas, so there's less access to dental care in rural areas," said study co-author Robin Cohen, a statistician at CDC's...

FRIDAY, July 9, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- One of the big issues in prostate cancer care is overdiagnosis — men who are treated for low-risk, slow-growing tumors that might be better left monitored and untreated. Now, research out of Sweden suggests that having patients undergo MRI screening, along with targeted biopsies, could reduce the number of prostate cancer overdiagnoses by half.The new approach can detect just as many clinically significant tumors as current methods, but reduces unnecessary biopsies and the identification of minor low-risk tumors, according to the study presented July 9 at the European Association of Urology Congress. The findings were published simultaneously in the New England Journal of Medicine.The findings show that "modern methods for prostate cancer...

FRIDAY, July 9, 2021 (HealthDay News) – The air people breathe – and how much pollution is in it – may make a difference in their outcomes when infected with COVID-19, a new study finds. Researchers found that living in more polluted areas -- including near sewage water dischargers and in close proximity to heavy traffic -- was linked with a greater likelihood of being admitted to the intensive care unit and more likelihood of needing mechanical ventilation after infection with SARS-CoV-2."The key takeaway is that living in a more polluted neighborhood is an independent risk factor for severity of COVID-19 disease," said study author Dr. Anita Shallal, from the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. According to the American Lung Association, Detroit is the 12th most polluted city in...