What you need to know about COVID-19 if you have diabetes
Preliminary data from China suggest that people with diabetes and other preexisting conditions are more likely to experience serious complications and death from COVID-19 than people without diabetes and other conditions.
But COVID-19 and the coronavirus that causes it are new, and researchers are still investigating how they impact immunity. We also know that if a person has diabetes and gets influenza or another infection, they can experience worse health outcomes. The question is why.
High blood sugars can interfere with white blood cells’ ability to fight infection. So there’s a possibility that people with high bl...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - April 17, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Robert Gabbay, MD, PhD, FACP Tags: Diabetes Health Source Type: blogs
CRISPR-Based Test to Diagnose COVID-19 in Less than One Hour
Transmission electron micrograph of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Image credit: NIAID
With the COVID-19 pandemic growing globally, new ways of detecting the infection is the need of the hour. University of California, San Francisco researchers have recently published a paper in Nature Biotechnology outlining their approach to diagnose COVID-19 infections from respiratory swabs using CRISPR.
The test, called the SARS-CoV2 DETECTR assay, checks for the presence of two specific regions in the novel coronavirus – one is found in all ‘SARS-like’ coronaviruses and one is unique to SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-...
Source: Medgadget - April 17, 2020 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Rukmani Sridharan Tags: Genetics Medicine Public Health Source Type: blogs
Neglected Diseases – Neglected Once Again
written by Dr. Stephen A. Berger
For several years, the World Health Organization has been following a group of twenty-or-so Neglected Tropical Diseases. In the Developed World, these conditions are largely unknown to the general public, and even to physicians working in fields outside of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases. In only three months, the list of neglected diseases has grown to include more than 360 infectious conditions – all because of a single new viral disease called COVID-19.
As of this morning, 287 cases of COVID-19 had been reported in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) resulting in 23 deaths. H...
Source: GIDEON blog - April 17, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Kristina Symes Tags: Diagnosis Epidemiology Outbreaks Source Type: blogs
COVID-19 Podcast: Mom Driven, Doctor Aligned & HeyMama Join Forces
Transcript
[00:00:00] Agatha: Hi! It’s Agatha Luczo. Welcome to “Mom Driven, Dr. Aligned”. Dr. Alan Greene and I were just on with the HeyMama Community doing a Q&A about COVID-19. Dr. Greene gave us such amazing advice and tips about how to deal with immunity health and how to take care of ourselves during this time. And some advice I haven’t heard anywhere else. I’m excited to bring all of the conversation to our family and friends.
[00:00:36] Dr. Greene: Wonderful to get to be with the HeyMama Community. I’ve gotten a bunch of questions already ...
Source: Conversations with Dr Greene - April 16, 2020 Category: Child Development Authors: Alan Greene MD Tags: Dr. Greene's Blog Uncategorized COVID COVID-19 Parenting Source Type: blogs
Research Provides No Basis for Pandemic Travel Bans
CONCLUSIONThe pre ‐COVID‐19 research is unanimous that governments cannot expect to rely on travel restrictions to prevent the spread of pandemics similar to influenza. Travel restrictions do not prevent the spread of disease and may only delay it for a few days or weeks if implemented prior to the interna tional transmission of the disease. The Trump administration’s travel restrictions waited until after the virus had already entered the United States, and they exempted many travelers from China, not to mention the rest of the world.[30]The research shows that the Trump administration should have known that ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 15, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: David J. Bier Source Type: blogs
No Relationship Between Notifiable Diseases and Immigrant Populations
Alex Nowrasteh andAndrew C. ForresterThe international spread of the SARS ‐CoV‐2 virus that causes the disease COVID-19 has prompted many governments to close their borders. Immigration policy plays an important role in limiting the international spread of contagious diseases.Prior to the COVID-19 crisis,several commentators were concerned that immigrants – especially illegal immigrants – were spreading serious diseases in the United States. This blog post is the first in a series to answer the question of whether immigrants spread serious notifiable diseases other than COVID-19 in the United States. This ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 13, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Alex Nowrasteh, Andrew C. Forrester Source Type: blogs
Should fourth-year medical students graduate early?
Graduating medical students early is not a completely novel concept. During WWII, there was a significant physician shortage, and various medical schools initiated a 3-year accelerated MD program to produce more physicians. These programs were eventually discontinued in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 1918, the influenza pandemic created a similar situation. Third- and […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 13, 2020 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/nitin-agrawal" rel="tag" > Nitin Agrawal < /a > < /span > Tags: Conditions COVID-19 coronavirus Infectious Disease Medical school Source Type: blogs
Drugs for COVID-19: A Publishing Epidemic
As of April 9, PubMed listed 2,868 scientific publications which incorporate the word “COVID”. 323 of these (11.3%) were related to drugs under study for treatment of the disease. No fewer than thirty-one such drugs had been proposed since this pandemic first appeared on the planet four months earlier.
Graph 1 depicts the cumulative numbers of COVID-19 infection (per 100,000 global population) and introductions of relevant drugs into the Literature during February 14 to April 3. Note that both increased by a factor of approximately 16-fold during this period.
In a...
Source: GIDEON blog - April 12, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Uri Blackman Tags: Epidemiology Graphs Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, April 13th 2020
This study is par for the course, looking at Japanese Olympic participants. Interestingly, it hints at the upper end of the dose-response curve for physical activity, in that a longer career as a professional athlete may be detrimental in comparison to lesser degrees of exercise and training.
From this large, retrospective cohort study targeting 3546 Japanese Olympic athletes, we observed significant lower mortality among Olympians compared with the Japanese general population. The overall standardised mortality ratio (SMR) was 0.29. The results were consistent with previous studies conducted in other non-Asian co...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 12, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
How the lack of coronavirus testing impacts primary care
My first possible COVID-19 case came nearly three weeks ago, before there were any cases in our city. He was a healthcare professional who presented with fever, sore throat, and cough. We did the usual strep and influenza testing, both negative, but I thought that he looked different. He had some diarrhea, stomach pain, and […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 10, 2020 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/rob-lamberts" rel="tag" > Rob Lamberts, MD < /a > < /span > Tags: Conditions COVID-19 coronavirus Infectious Disease Source Type: blogs
Allergies? Common cold? Flu? Or COVID-19?
With so many of us wrestling with fears and unknowns surrounding the coronavirus pandemic, every throat tickle, nose drip, or cough is suspect: do I have coronavirus? By now, we all know that COVID-19, the illness caused by coronavirus, can cause severe, life-threatening symptoms, although the majority of people who have it will experience a mild to moderate version.
Of course, it is spring, so many people may be experiencing their annual springtime tree pollen allergies. Colds also remain common, just as was true before the coronavirus. And although influenza season is coming to an end, perhaps you’ve wondered if some o...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - April 9, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Anna R. Wolfson, MD Tags: Allergies Cold and Flu Health Infectious diseases Source Type: blogs
Don ’ t panic. Prepare
Dr.Tracey McNamara on West Nile Fever and COVID-19
As interviewed by Edward Borton, GIDEON
What was the experience of discovering a new virus outbreak on your doorstep?
When New York City announced that people were dying of unusual encephalitis, I was struck by the timing and proximity between this event and an outbreak of crow deaths. Upon ruling out all known viruses that cause inflammation of the brain in birds, in the United States: exotic Newcastle, avian influenza, and Eastern Equine encephalitis (EEE), I knew this was something new.
It wasn’t until I picked up the phone and called the U.S. Army and sai...
Source: GIDEON blog - April 8, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Kristina Symes Tags: Epidemiology Events Outbreaks Tips Source Type: blogs
Rejuvenation of Immune Function is One of the More Important Outcomes to Engineer through the Treatment of Aging
One would hope that it does not require an ongoing pandemic and related hysteria to point out that old people have poorly functioning immune systems, and thus suffer disproportionately the burden of infectious disease. But perhaps it does. The 2017-2018 seasonal influenza, a modestly more severe occurrence of something that happens every year, killed something like 60,000 people in the US alone, with little notice or comment. There is nothing so terrible that it won't be accepted - ignored, even - if it is normal.
Floodgates of funding for infectious disease research and development have been opened in response to C...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 6, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Immunity passports: How to eventually climb out of the COVID-19 pandemic
During the influenza epidemic of 1918-1920, my great-grandfather, Ralph Norton Mitchell, was in the military. He helped stack the corpses of those who had died from the infection. I shudder to think about what type of personal protective equipment he used. However, his survival reminds me of a feature of all epidemics–some individuals have or […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 2, 2020 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/david-m-mitchell" rel="tag" > David M. Mitchell, MD, PhD < /a > < /span > Tags: Conditions COVID-19 coronavirus Infectious Disease Source Type: blogs
Thought experiment
Please don ' t get me wrong. I ' ve seen other people try to put our present crisis in context, or discuss the costs vs. the benefits of certain actions, and be widely condemned for insensitivity or even sociopathy. I remember after the 9/11 attack, when people who tried to explain the motivations or sociological origins of Al Qaeda and similar movements faced the same sort of criticism. You weren ' t allowed to think about the problem, people weren ' t ready for any sort of moral confusion. In what I am about to say, I am not arguing against saving lives, on the contrary. I ' m just trying to explain something about where...
Source: Stayin' Alive - April 1, 2020 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
