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WEDNESDAY, June 17, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Being lonely may make it harder to quit smoking, a new British study suggests. Using genetic and survey data from hundreds of thousands of people, researchers found that loneliness makes it more likely that someone will smoke. This type of analysis is called Mendelian randomization. "This method has never been applied to this question before and so the results are novel, but also tentative," said co-lead author Robyn Wootton, a senior research associate at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. "We found evidence to suggest that loneliness leads to increased smoking, with people more likely to start smoking, to smoke more cigarettes and to be less likely to quit," Wootton said in a university news release. These data mesh...

WEDNESDAY, June 17, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Tick monitoring and control is lacking in much of the United States despite a steady increase in tick-borne illnesses, such as Lyme disease, a new study finds. In the United States, tick-borne illnesses more than doubled between 2004 and 2018, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For the new study, the researchers surveyed tick management programs across the country. They found that less than half of public health and vector-control agencies do active tick surveillance, and only 12% directly conduct or otherwise support tick-control efforts. Vector-control agencies monitor pests like ticks and mosquitoes that can transmit, or "vector," diseases (like Lyme) to humans. The study was conducted by researchers...

WEDNESDAY, June 17, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- When patients are pushed out of the hospital after hip surgery to make room for others, the odds of dying increase, according to a recent study from Norway. When beds are in short supply, patients are forced out, researchers say. Fridays, the day before holidays and times when hospitals are overbooked are prime times for patients to be discharged, they report. "Patients who are operated on for hip fractures have a higher risk of dying if they are discharged from the hospital early for space reasons," said study co-author Johan Bjørngaard, a professor of public health and nursing at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. Among 60,000 of these patients over 70, 13% died within 60 days of surgery and 27% within...

WEDNESDAY, June 17, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Dr. Teresa Murray Amato rode the subway into Manhattan from Queens the other day and found that summertime and face masks aren't an easy fit. "It was a warm day. I definitely felt it was a little hot," said Amato, director of emergency medicine at Long Island Jewish Forest Hills in Queens, N.Y. Despite her discomfort, Amato resisted the urge to remove her mask -- and she recommends that you do the same. COVID-19 continues to spread even in the humid heat of summer, so it's important to keep wearing masks and maintaining social distancing to prevent transmission, said Dr. Waleed Javaid, director of infection prevention and control at Mount Sinai Downtown in New York City. At least 10 states -- Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Nevada,...