Latest Health News

MONDAY, Oct. 5, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- If your husband or wife is hospitalized in intensive care, you're more likely to have a heart attack or other serious heart problem in the next few weeks, a new study warns. "Spouses of ICU patients should pay attention to their own physical health, especially in terms of cardiovascular disease," said senior author Dr. Hiroyuki Ohbe, a Ph.D. student in the School of Public Health at the University of Tokyo. Researchers analyzed data from a large Japanese database to compare more than 7,800 spouses of patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) for more than two days with a random group of more than 31,000 others. The average age of the spouses was 54 and 65% were women. Compared to others, those with a spouse in the ICU had increased...

MONDAY, Oct. 5, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- The common cold can make you miserable, but it might also help protect you against COVID-19, a new study suggests. The researchers added that people who've had COVID-19 may be immune to it for a long time, possibly even the rest of their lives. The research focused on memory B cells, long-lasting immune cells that detect pathogens, produce antibodies to destroy them, and remember them for the future. The study authors compared blood samples from 26 people who were recovering from mild to moderate COVID-19 and 21 healthy people whose samples were collected six to 10 years ago, long before they could have been exposed to COVID-19. They found that B cells that attacked previous cold-causing coronaviruses appeared to also recognize the...

MONDAY, Oct. 5, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- The homemade cloth masks recommended for slowing the spread of COVID-19 seem to expel invisible cotton fibers into the air as people talk, cough or even breathe -- underscoring the importance of regularly washing them, researchers say. In experiments, researchers found that medical-grade masks -- surgical and N95 -- blocked most exhaled "particles" from the wearer's mouth. But the results with cloth masks, fashioned from T-shirt material, were surprising. People actually emitted more invisible particles while wearing a cloth mask than with no mask at all. And that, researchers said, was because the masks released microscopic cotton fibers. There's no proof at this point that the fibers can carry infectious viral particles. And experts...

MONDAY, Oct. 5, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- President Donald Trump's doctors delivered an update of his condition on Sunday that suggested he might have more than just a mild case of COVID-19. Based on the doctors' accounts, Trump's symptoms quickly escalated after he announced early Friday morning that he had tested positive for the coronavirus, The New York Times reported. He was taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center Friday evening. Trump experienced a "high fever" on Friday, and there were two occasions when his blood oxygen levels dropped, on Friday and again on Saturday, the Times reported. Trump's oxygen saturation level was 93% at one point, his doctors said. Ninety-five percent is considered the lower limit of the normal range. Many medical experts consider...