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COVID-19 Deaths and Incredible WHO Estimates
Alan Reynolds“Death Toll Hits 9 as Outbreak Spreads, ” was the scaryWall Street Journalheadline in print before it was toned downonline. COVID-19 deaths at a nursing home and hospital in Washington state were unrelated to the virusspreading“across the U.S.” The facts tell us much more about the exceptionally high risks of fatal infection from COVID-19 (or pneumonia or flu) among elderly people living close together in nursing homes or hospitals, many of them already sick.The ongoing COPD-19 outbreak in Kirkland Washington at the Life Care nursing home and Evergreen hospital represents high ‐risk...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 4, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Alan Reynolds Source Type: blogs

Are these Wellens' waves?
In conclusion, the presence of negative T waves in both leads III and V1 allows PE to be differentiated simply but accurately from ACS in patients with negative T waves in the precordial leads. "Witting et al. looked at consecutive patients with PE, ACS, or neither. They found that only 11% of PE had 1 mm T-wave inversions in both lead III and lead V1, vs. 4.6% of controls. This does not contradict the conclusions of Kosuge et al., who studied a select population of patients who were known to haveeither PE or ACS -- that is, all were indeed ill. Of those select patients, ...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - February 27, 2020 Category: Cardiology Authors: Steve Smith Source Type: blogs

Back Pain Treatment Under the Watchful Eye of Your SmartPhone Camera | Konstantine Mehl, Kaia Health
By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH With a holistic mind-body approach to treating chronic back pain and COPD, Kaia Health is a digital therapeutics startup gaining a lot of attention from some really big players, including Optum Ventures (the venture arm of U.S. health insurance giant United Healthcare) which recently made an $8M follow-on investment to the startup’s Series A. What makes Kaia standout in a crowded field of digital health solutions focused on chronic pain? CEO Konstantin Mehl points to their proprietary tech, which uses a smartphone camera to provide real-time corrections to patients as they complete their...
Source: The Health Care Blog - February 26, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Health Tech Health Technology Jessica DaMassa Start-Ups WTF Health COPD Kaia Health Source Type: blogs

VOCSN 5-in-1 Portable Ventilator: Interview with Chris Kiple, CEO of Ventec
Ventilators are used by patients who lose lung function due to complications from a variety of diseases such as spinal cord injuries, COPD, stroke, pneumonia, and ALS. In addition to dealing with a debilitating situation, patients tend to be hooked to several machines that perform mechanical ventilation, oxygen delivery, cough assist, suction, and nebulization. This typically involves wires running all around, multiple software, and hardware equipment that makes it difficult for caregivers to operate the machines and provide quality care. Ventec Life Systems simplifies this experience by offering an integrated ventilator s...
Source: Medgadget - February 19, 2020 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Rukmani Sridharan Tags: Cardiology Critical Care Exclusive Medicine Pediatrics Rehab Source Type: blogs

Good news for those with type 2 diabetes: Healthy lifestyle matters
Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a metabolic disorder of insulin resistance — a reduced sensitivity to the action of insulin — which leads to high blood sugar, or hyperglycemia. Approximately 12% of American adults have T2D, and more than one-third of Americans have prediabetes, a precursor to T2D. This is a major public health concern, as T2D dramatically increases risk for heart disease, including heart attacks, atrial fibrillation, and heart failure. The development and progression of T2D is affected by many factors. Some, such as a person’s race/ethnicity, age, and gender cannot be modified. Others, including body weight...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - February 17, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Alyson Kelley-Hedgepeth, MD Tags: Diabetes Exercise and Fitness Healthy Eating Heart Health Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, February 10th 2020
In conclusion, the concept of an epigenetic clock is compelling, but caution should be taken in interpreting associations with age acceleration. Association tests of age acceleration should include age as a covariate. A Discussion of Recent Work on Allotopic Expression of Mitochondrial Genes at the SENS Research Foundation https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2020/02/a-discussion-of-recent-work-on-allotopic-expression-of-mitochondrial-genes-at-the-sens-research-foundation/ A paper published last month outlines recent progress on allotopic expression of mitochondrial genes carried out by the SENS Research...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 9, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

A Mechanism by which Chronic Inflammation Spurs Cancer Metastasis
Chronic inflammation is a risk factor for cancer and cancer mortality. There are numerous reasons as to why this might be the case, some much more proven and settled than others, but the research here is focused on metastasis, the spread of cancerous cells throughout the body. Since cancer mortality is largely determined by whether or not a tumor progresses to the point of metastasis, we should not be surprised that researchers can identify mechanisms linking inflammation with metastasis. Dysregulated inflammation is recognized as one of the hallmarks of cancer and is involved in tumor initiation, progression, an...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 5, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

The Social Context and Vulnerabilities that Challenge Health Care in the San Joaquin Valley of California
By ALYA AHMAD, MD Call it what you want, white privilege and health disparity appear to be two sides of the same coin. We used to consider ethnic or genetic variants as risk factors, prognostic to health conditions. However, the social determinants of health (SDOH) have increasingly become more relevant as causes of disease prevalence and complexity in health care. As a pediatric hospitalist in the San Joaquin Valley region, I encounter these social determinants daily. They were particularly evident as I treated a 12-year old Hispanic boy who was admitted with a ruptured appendix and developed a complicated abscess,...
Source: The Health Care Blog - February 4, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Health disparities Medical Practice Patients Alya Ahmad California health disparity health equity San Joaquin Valley SDoH Social Determinants of Health Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, February 3rd 2020
In conclusion, this study suggests that epigenetic age acceleration is significantly associated with lung function in women older than 50 years. We hypothesised that this could be due to menopause. However, we have observed that menopause has minimal effect and therefore there is possibility of other unknown physiological factors at older age in females mediating the epigenetic age acceleration effect on lung function. While, it is still unknown what exactly epigenetic aging from DNA methylation measures, this study suggests it can be utilised as one of the important factors to assess women's lung health in old age. DNA me...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 2, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Disrupting How We Detect Asthma & Hypertension | Edward Allegra, BioLum Sciences
BY JESSICA DAMASSA BioLum Sciences is introducing new chemistry that has the potential to completely change the way we test for respiratory illnesses, like asthma, and analyze blood samples to identify hypertension. CEO Edward Allegra talks through the science behind both their breath and blood tests, both of which are patent-pending and have the ability to completely bend the cost-curve when it comes to identifying and monitoring these two common chronic conditions. What’s next for the early-stage health startup? A range of applications to detect everything from COPD to lung cancer and more. Filmed at Bayer G...
Source: The Health Care Blog - January 28, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Grishma Reddy Tags: Health Tech Jessica DaMassa WTF Health Asthma Bayer G4A Bayer G4A Signing Day BioLum BioLum Sciences Edward Allegra Hypertension Source Type: blogs

Premature Menopause Correlates with Greater Later Incidence of Chronic Disease
Undergoing earlier menopause is a sign of a greater burden of age-related damage and dysfunction, so it should not be surprising to see that this correlates with a greater incidence of chronic disease in the years thereafter. People with a greater burden of cell and tissue damage tend to exhibit all of the manifestations of aging earlier than their less damaged peers. These variations in damage burden and consequences from individual to individual are near all the results of lifestyle choices, particularly smoking, weight, and exercise, and environmental factors such as exposure to chronic viral infection. Genetics plays o...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 27, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Coronavirus FAQ
What is a coronavirus? Coronaviruses are a group of viruses that cause diseases in mammals, including humans, and birds. Why are they called coronaviruses? The name derives from the fact that the viral capsule has a “halo” or “crown” surrounding it. What do coronaviruses do? In humans, the virus infects the airways giving rise to flu-like symptoms, a runny nose, cough, sore throat and fever, these are usually mild, but in rare cases can be lethal. Is there a vaccine against coronaviruses? No. Are there any drugs to block or treat infection? No. When were coronaviruses first discovered? In the 1960s ...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - January 24, 2020 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Sciencebase Source Type: blogs

Daughter Upset About Mom's Wish for Hospice Care
Photo credit Chrstian Newman Dear Carol: My mom is 85 and has lived with COPD, diabetes and heart disease for the last 10 years, but she’s been a fighter. She’s always said that she didn’t want extreme measures to keep her alive when her time to go was obvious, and I agreed, but now that the end seems close, I think that she should fight longer. She qualifies for hospice, but hospice means that she has to stop the medications that are keeping her alive. Mom says that she’s fought long enough and she’s done with that. She just wants comfort for as long as she has left. It’s true that I hate the thought of ...
Source: Minding Our Elders - January 17, 2020 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs

Atrial fibrillation? Multifocal Atrial Tachycardia? Don't look at computer read until AFTER you interpret!
This 60-something with h/o COPD and HFrEF (EF 25%) presented with SOB and chest pain.Here is the ECG:What do you think?Computer interpretation is below.Here is the computer interpretation:ATRIAL FIBRILLATION WITH RAPID VENTRICULAR RESPONSE WITH ABERRANT CONDUCTION OR VENTRICULAR PREMATURE COMPLEXESLEFT AXIS DEVIATION [QRS AXIS beyone -30]NONSPECIFIC ST and T-WAVE ABNORMALITYThe over-reading physician confirmed this diagnosis, which is incorrect. It isnot atrial fibrillation.The rhythm is indeed irregularly irregular, so atrial fibrillation must be considered.There are 5 other rhythms that areirregularl...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - January 4, 2020 Category: Cardiology Authors: Steve Smith Source Type: blogs

Chronic Disease Drugs are Big Business, Antibiotics are Not
By HANS DUVEFELT, MD I have noticed several articles describing how antibiotic development has bankrupted some pharmaceutical companies because there isn’t enough potential profit in a ten day course to treat multi-resistant superbug infections. Chronic disease treatments, on the other hand, appear to be extremely profitable. A single month’s treatment with the newer diabetes drugs, COPD inhalers or blood thinners costs over $500, which means well over $50,000 over an effective ten year patent for each one of an ever increasing number of chronically ill patients. Imagine if the same bureaucratic processes insu...
Source: The Health Care Blog - January 3, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Medical Practice Physicians chronic disease Hans Duvefelt Pharma primary care Source Type: blogs