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FRIDAY, June 11, 2021 (American Heart Association News) -- Mike Lane's heart journey began as a newborn – when his skin turned blue.He was 2 days old when a cardiologist realized the reason. He was born with several congenital heart defects, including a missing ventricular septum, a narrowing of the pulmonary artery called stenosis, and a faulty pulmonary artery valve. In the coming weeks and months, even the most minor activity exhausted him so much that "we tried to keep him calm, so he wouldn't cry," said his grandmother, Norma Lane, a nurse.Ten months later, doctors opened his chest and attempted to repair the defects. They were unable to repair all of them.Throughout his early years, the problems continued to sap Mike's energy, making it tough for him to keep up with his peers....

FRIDAY, June 11, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- If you're obese, you're far more likely to have long-lasting health issues if you get COVID-19 and survive, a new study warns.You are more likely than patients who aren't obese to be hospitalized. You're more likely wind up in the intensive care unit, need to be put on a ventilator and suffer from long-haul COVID than patients who aren't obese, researchers reported."About 40% of COVID-19 survivors may experience chronic complications of COVID-19, and the risk of having these complications is about 30% higher in patients with obesity," said lead researcher Dr. Ali Aminian, director of the Bariatric and Metabolic Institute at the Cleveland Clinic.These striking figures are yet another reason why everyone -- especially people who are obese --...

FRIDAY, June 11, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- As the number of people fully immunized against COVID-19 rises into the hundreds of millions, immunologists and infectious disease experts now are pondering a new question in the unfolding pandemic.Namely, how long will vaccine immunity last, and will people who've gotten the jab need booster shots to maintain their protection?It's an important question, as waning immunity in the face of more powerful COVID-19 variants could cause future infection surges and, in worst-case scenarios, a full-blown return of quarantines and lockdowns, experts say.A person's immunity always drops to some degree following immunization or natural infection, said Dr. Greg Poland, director of the Vaccine Research Group at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. But will...

FRIDAY, June 11, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- There is no such thing as healthy obesity, a Scottish study reports.A normal metabolic profile doesn't mean an obese person is actually healthy, because he or she still has an increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, stroke and respiratory illness, University of Glasgow researchers explained."The term 'metabolically healthy obesity' should be avoided in clinical medicine as it is misleading, and different strategies for defining risk should be explored," wrote researchers led by Frederick Ho, a research associate at the university's Institute of Health and Wellbeing. The study was published June 10 in the journal Diabetologia.For the study, Ho and his colleagues analyzed data from more than 381,000 people in the United Kingdom who were...