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WEDNESDAY, July 5, 2023 (HealthDay News) – While a little more than half of American adults think they’ve had COVID-19, the reality is about 77.5% have been infected at least once, new government data shows.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released final estimates for people ages 16 and up for 2022.About 96.7% of adults had antibodies to the virus either from infection, vaccination or a combination of the two, the CDC reported. But U.S. Census data shows that only 54.9% of Americans think they have had COVID.Estimates for children were previously released, using data from commercial testing laboratories, in which nine of 10 people under age 18 had been infected, CBS News reported. While young adults and teens had the highest percentage of prior infection at...

WEDNESDAY, July 5, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Youth who are both LGBTQ+ and either Black or Hispanic and live in U.S. states that have discriminatory policies are more likely to have depression than their counterparts in states that are more affirming to gender and sexual identity, new research finds. “This study provides scientific evidence to what many queer and trans people of color in the U.S. are experiencing day to day,” said study co-author Tyler Harvey, program administrator of the Yale School of Medicine’s SEICHE Center for Health and Justice. “Queer and trans youth living in states such as Florida that are passing anti-LGBTQ+ legislation know this to be true: Their surroundings are influencing their mental health," Harvey said in a school news release.When controlling...

WEDNESDAY, July 5, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Older American adults who live in warmer regions are more likely to have serious vision impairment than those who live in cooler places, new research finds.Living with average temperatures of 60 degrees Fahrenheit or above -- think South Florida, for example -- created much higher odds of blindness or trouble seeing even with glasses, according to a new study of 1.7 million people. “This link between vision impairment and average county temperature is very worrying if future research determines that the association is causal," said co-author Esme Fuller-Thomson, director of the University of Toronto’s Institute of Life Course and Aging. “With climate change, we are expecting a rise in global temperatures. It will be important to...

WEDNESDAY, July 5, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- A severe spinal cord injury is traumatic enough, but new research now shows that trauma can trigger an immune deficiency that puts patients at risk for developing life-threatening infections. A new study from a team of international researchers sheds light on spinal cord injury-induced immune deficiency syndrome, which was initially discovered in experimental models.“Infections and subsequent sepsis are the main cause of death after spinal-cord injury,” said study co-author Dr. Jan Schwab, a professor of neurology and neurosciences at the Ohio State College of Medicine.“Our study provides evidence for an immune deficiency that sets spinal cord-injured patients up to develop infections," Schwab said in a university news release. He is...