Latest Health News

TUESDAY, Feb. 16, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- When New York City was the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic last spring in the United States, nearby Mount Sinai South Nassau hospital was treating more than 400 COVID-19 patients at one time, remembers Dr. Aaron Glatt.Infectious disease experts had warned for years about the potential for another pandemic, yet the scale of this pandemic was unprecedented according to Glatt, who is chief of infectious diseases and an epidemiologist at the hospital.Since then, health experts have provided guidance on wearing masks, washing hands and maintaining social distance, while many businesses and schools have gone virtual to stop the disease's spread.So much has changed, but has the pandemic permanently changed...

TUESDAY, Feb. 16, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- The toll of America's obesity epidemic is showing up in younger women, as a new study shows that deaths from heart disease in this unlikely group have increased in the past decade.The likely culprits along with obesity? Type 2 diabetes, along with diseases of pregnancy, such as preeclampsia and preterm delivery, researchers said."Cardiovascular disease mortality is going up in younger women, and if it continues at this rate, it may overtake cancer as the leading cause of death in young women," said senior researcher Dr. Erin Michos, an associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.Although heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, cancer has been the main cause of death among young...

TUESDAY, Feb. 16, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- U.S. nursing homes have been hard-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the toll on Black and Hispanic residents has been especially harsh, a new study confirms.Researchers found that COVID-19 death rates were more than three times higher at U.S. nursing homes with the highest proportions of Black and Hispanic residents, compared to those with mostly white residents.The study, of more than 13,000 nursing homes nationwide, is not the first to document such racial disparities.But it went farther into the pandemic -- mid-September 2020 -- and tried to dig for factors to account for the racial divide, said researcher Rebecca Gorges, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago.Her team identified two broad patterns that seemed critical: Nursing...

TUESDAY, Feb. 16, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Getting bitten by a dog or wild animal is frightening, especially for kids, but a new study may help relieve some of the worry about catching rabies.The rabies prevention treatment KEDRAB is safe and effective for patients 17 and younger, a groundbreaking pediatric clinical trial has shown.The trial included 30 kids with suspected or confirmed rabies exposure who were treated with KEDRAB (Rabies Immune Globulin [Human]) and followed for 84 days.KEDRAB was put into and around detectable wounds and/or given intramuscularly along with the first of a four-dose series of rabies vaccine.None of the patients developed an active rabies infection, and there were no deaths or serious side effects, the researchers reported. Seven in 10 did have mild side...