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FRIDAY, June 18, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Fish oil supplements are often touted as good for your heart health, but a new study finds they may also help fight depression."Using a combination of laboratory and patient research, our study has provided exciting new insight into how omega-3 fatty acids bring about anti-inflammatory effects that improve depression," said lead author Alessandra Borsini, a postdoctoral neuroscientist at King's College London.Borsini said it's been known that omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids have anti-depressant and anti-inflammatory effects, but exactly how that happens has been unclear. "Our study has helped shine a light on the molecular mechanisms involved in this relationship, which can inform the development of potential new treatments for depression...

FRIDAY, June 18, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Black COVID-19 patients in the United States are more likely to die than white patients, but there would be 10% fewer deaths among Black patients if they could get the same level of hospital care as white people, according to new research. "Our study reveals that Black patients have worse outcomes largely because they tend to go to worse-performing hospitals," said study co-author Dr. David Asch. He is executive director of Penn Medicine's Center for Health Care Innovation. "Because patients tend to go to hospitals near where they live, these new findings tell a story of racial residential segregation and reflect our country's racial history that has been highlighted by the pandemic," Asch said in a University of Pennsylvania School of...

FRIDAY, June 18, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Giving COVID-19 survivors' blood plasma to blood cancer patients hospitalized with COVID-19 significantly improves their chances of survival, a new study finds."These results suggest that convalescent plasma may not only help COVID-19 patients with blood cancers whose immune systems are compromised, it may also help patients with other illnesses who have weakened antibody responses to this virus or to the vaccines," said study co-first author Dr. Jeffrey Henderson. He is an associate professor of medicine and of molecular microbiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis."The data also emphasize the value of an antibody therapy such as convalescent plasma as a virus-directed treatment option for hospitalized COVID-19...

FRIDAY, June 18, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Postpartum depression strikes fathers of premature babies more often than previously thought, and it can linger longer in fathers than in mothers, a new study finds. The researchers screened for depression in 431 parents of premature infants in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and identified depression symptoms in 33% of mothers and 17% of fathers. After the babies were brought home, there was a more than 10-fold drop in depression screening scores among mothers, but scores tended to remain the same in fathers, according to researchers at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.Postpartum depression in new mothers is well recognized and known to worsen if the baby requires intensive care, but depression in new fathers...