Latest Health News

WEDNESDAY, June 24, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- There's new evidence that a 2,000-year-old medicine might offer hope against a modern scourge: COVID-19. The medication, called colchicine, is an anti-inflammatory taken as a pill. It's long been prescribed for gout, a form of arthritis, and its history goes back centuries. The drug was first sourced from the autumn crocus flower. Doctors also sometimes use colchicine to treat pericarditis, where the sac around the heart becomes inflamed. Now, a team of Greek researchers reporting Wednesday in JAMA Network Open said their small trial suggests colchicine may indeed help curb severe COVID-19. The trial involved 105 Greek patients hospitalized in April with COVID-19. Besides receiving standard antibiotics and antivirals (but not...

WEDNESDAY, June 24, 2020 (American Heart Association News) -- With the arrival of warm weather, and as states begin to loosen months of lockdown restrictions from the coronavirus pandemic, it's only natural that people are itching to get outside. But what summer activities are safe during a pandemic? And with many air-conditioned movie theaters, libraries, restaurants and malls closed or limiting the number of visitors, where can people go to cool down? In Los Angeles, Phoenix and other communities known for their scorching summer heat, a limited number of cooling centers remain open, although capacity may be limited because of social distancing requirements. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises those without access to air-conditioned environments to take a cool...

WEDNESDAY, June 24, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Americans continue to look to the medicine cabinet for pain relief, with 1 in 10 using some type of prescription painkiller, a new U.S. government report says. But use of prescription opioid painkillers leveled off from 2015 to 2018, while prescriptions for nonopioid pain meds rose, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This survey and other research is showing that pain management is becoming safer, said Dr. Ajay Wasan, president of the American Academy of Pain Medicine. "It is becoming less reliant on opioids, and physicians are prescribing much more responsibly," said Wasan, who is co-director of the Center for Innovation in Pain Care at the University of Pittsburgh. Between 2015 and 2018,...

WEDNESDAY, June 24, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Blood plasma transfusions from people who have developed antibodies to the new coronavirus appear to be safe for many COVID-19 patients, a large study suggests. The experimental treatment -- called convalescent plasma therapy -- is popular because no drug has been approved specifically to treat coronavirus infection. A week after 20,000 COVID-19 patients deemed at risk for progressing to a severe or life-threatening condition received plasma therapy, their risk of death dropped to 9%, compared to 12% in a previous study, Mayo Clinic researchers reported. Fewer than 1% had serious side effects, the researchers added. The study included men and women, and significant numbers of patients who were Black, Hispanic or Asian. "We're...