Answer to Case 585
Answer toParasite Case of the Week 585: Hard tick,Ixodes scapularis,unengorged adult female with intact mouth parts.As several of you mentioned, it would be important to know the location for where this tick was obtained. This particular tick was obtained in Florida, although similar-appearing ticks are found on the west coast of the United States (Ixodes pacificus) and Europe (Ixodes ricinus). All three of these ticks serve as the vector for members of theBorrelia burgdorferisensu lato species complex that cause human Lyme disease (Lyme borreliosis).There are a couple of features which can get you to the genus level prett...
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - March 28, 2020 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
A 40-something with chest pain. Is this inferior MI?
This was sent by a Saleh Hatem, an avid reader of the blog.The patient presented with chest pain:There is a narrow complex tachycardia.Is there inferior ST Elevation?Here was my interpretation:What appears to be ST Elevation in inferior leads is really a P-wave that is contiguous with the QRS. (The next bump over is a T-wave that looks like a P-wave!).Since the P-wave is not inverted, it is NOT retrograde, and therefore it is a native sinus beat. This sinus beat does conduct, but there is severely prolonged PR interval (severe first degree AV block), with a PR interval of over 400 ms.So: Sinus tachycardia with severe...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - March 3, 2020 Category: Cardiology Authors: Steve Smith Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, February 24th 2020
In conclusion, taller body height at the entry to adulthood, supposed to be a marker of early-life environment, is associated with lower risk of dementia diagnosis later in life. The association persisted when adjusted for educational level and intelligence test scores in young adulthood, suggesting that height is not just acting as an indicator of cognitive reserve.
A Comparison of Biological Age Measurement Approaches
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2020/02/a-comparison-of-biological-age-measurement-approaches/
Researchers here assess the performance of a range of approaches to measuring biologica...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 23, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Evidence for Bacterial DNA to Promote Tau Aggregation in Neurodegeneration
The field of Alzheimer's disease research is in the midst of a slow-moving and consequential debate over the role of infection in the development of the condition. The fundamental question is this: in the absence of genetic variants that raise risk, why do only some people progress to full blown Alzheimer's disease? The presence - in only some people - of sufficient degrees of persistent infection is one possible answer to that question. Candidates include herpesviruses, oral bacteria such as P. gingivalis, lyme disease spirochetes, and others.
Alzheimer's is a condition characterized by amyloid-β aggregation in it...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 21, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Credit Card Sized Diagnostic Lab Plugs into Smartphone
Researchers at the University of Cincinnati have developed a tiny portable diagnostic device that can detect the presence of specific pathogens in a saliva sample, and relay the results to a doctor when plugged into a smartphone. The device can potentially diagnose a wide array of diseases, including malaria, HIV and Lyme disease, and could be useful for point-of-care testing and even self-testing. A custom app can relay the results of tests to one’s doctor for nearly instant diagnostic results.
The technology includes single-use plastic chips that a user places in their mouth to load a saliva sample before pluggi...
Source: Medgadget - February 7, 2020 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Diagnostics Pathology Psychiatry Source Type: blogs
Microfluidic Device for Rapid Lyme Disease Diagnosis
Researchers at Columbia University have developed a microfluidic device that can diagnose Lyme disease in as little as 15 minutes. The device is particularly accurate in identifying antibody biomarkers that are present during early stage Lyme disease, raising hopes that it could be useful in detecting cases of early infection in a doctor’s office, leading to timely treatment.
Lyme
disease, which is spread by infected ticks, is incredibly common. Approximately
300,000 Americans are diagnosed with the disease each year, and if left
untreated it can result in serious neurological and cardiac symptoms. The
disease is diff...
Source: Medgadget - October 14, 2019 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Diagnostics Medicine Neurology Pathology Public Health Source Type: blogs
Chronic Lyme arthritis: A mystery solved?
In 1975, researchers from Yale investigated an epidemic of 51 patients with arthritis who lived near the woodsy town of Lyme, Connecticut. The most common symptom was recurrent attacks of knee swelling. A few had pain in other joints, such as the wrist or ankle. Many had fever, fatigue, and headache. Some remembered a round skin rash before the onset of knee swelling.
We now know that Lyme disease is an infection acquired from tick bites, caused by a spiral bacterium named Borrelia burgdorferi. After a tick bite, Borrelia bacteria wriggle through the skin away from the bite site. This leads to a circular red rash, known as...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - October 3, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Ross, MD, FIDSA Tags: Arthritis Bones and joints Infectious diseases Source Type: blogs
New Definition for DTC Lab Testing Prompted by EverlyWell Business Model
A recent article in Dark Daily convinced me that we need a new definition for direct-to-consumer (DTC) lab testing which has also been called direct-access-testing (DAT) (see:Direct-to-Consumer Lab Test Start-Up EverlyWell Puts Clinical Laboratory Tests on Shelves at CVS and Target). Below is an excerpt from the article:....Julia Taylor Cheek, Founder and CEO ofEverlyWell, a well-financed digital health company based in Austin —hopes to build a... disruptive business in the clinical laboratory industry....Cheek is talking about the same primary business strategy of letting consumers purchase their own lab tests....The co...
Source: Lab Soft News - July 17, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Clinical Lab Industry News Clinical Lab Testing Diagnostics Direct Access Testing (DAT) Healthcare Innovations Lab Industry Trends Lab Processes and Procedures Medical Consumerism Medical Research Reference Laboratories Test Kits and H Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, June 24th 2019
This study sought to investigate what could be learned from how these men have fared. The men were born in 1925-1928 and similar health-related data from questionnaires, physical examination, and blood samples are available for all surveys. Survival curves over various variable strata were applied to evaluate the impact of individual risk factors and combinations of risk factors on all-cause deaths. At the end of 2018, 118 (16.0%) of the men had reached 90 years of age.
Smoking in 1974 was the strongest single risk factor associated with survival, with observed percentages of men reaching 90 years being 26.3, 25.7, ...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 23, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Infection Induced Systemic Inflammation as a Contributing Cause of Alzheimer's Disease
The big question regarding Alzheimer's disease has always been why only some people suffer this form of dementia. While being overweight clearly increases the risk of dementia, and it is easy to argue that this is because of the chronic inflammation generated by visceral fat tissue, not every overweight individual progresses to the point of Alzheimer's disease. Some people who are not overweight suffer Alzheimer's disease. The condition starts with rising levels of amyloid-β aggregates forming in the brain, thought to be a progressive process occurring over a decade or more prior to any clinical symptoms, but why does thi...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 20, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
What Was the Cause of the Excruciating Pain in His Shoulders and Hips? - The New York Times
As the physician prepared to leave the exam room, the patient's wife spoke up:"Doctor, my husband won't tell you this, but he is suffering," the woman said, her voice cracking. Dr. Timothy Quan, a rheumatologist in central Connecticut, looked at the 69-year-old man he'd been caring for over the past several months. The man gave a brisk nod. It was true. The past few weeks had been a nightmare of pain.Six months earlier, the patient woke up with a sore, swollen right hand. He figured he must have injured it a few days before when he cleared out a pile of wood in his backyard. He mentioned it to his pri...
Source: Psychology of Pain - June 5, 2019 Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs
3D Printed ELISA Pipette Tips for Low Cost Medical Testing
Researchers at the University of Connecticut have developed a 3D printed enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) device, which fits onto a normal pipette and substantially reduces the time and cost of this common medical test. The device could allow for medical testing in remote or low-resource regions, where such tests would otherwise be unavailable.
ELISA tests are routinely used to measure protein levels in biological samples – this includes antibodies, and a variety of pathogenic molecules. The test can reveal the presence of numerous diseases, including some cancers, HIV, and Lyme disease. However, performing the ...
Source: Medgadget - May 23, 2019 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Genetics Materials Medicine Pathology Source Type: blogs
‘ At Least You Don ’ t Have … ’ How to Be Supportive of Someone with Chronic Illness
I was speaking with someone recently who has a series of chronic and painful conditions; some of which are noticeable and some ‘invisible’. What is particularly distressful is that people sometimes say to her, “At least you don’t have cancer.” How dismissive is that? I know they are trying to help her feel better about what she does have and perhaps even attempt to minimize the impact, but it is not compassionate or helpful.
There are diagnoses such as fibromyalgia, lupus, diabetes, arthritis or neuropathy which some people have to navigate. It might mean taking naps on an as-needed basis, en...
Source: World of Psychology - May 15, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Edie Weinstein, MSW, LSW Tags: Chronic Pain Health-related Inspiration & Hope Personal Arthritis Chronic Illness Diabetes Fibromyalgia Lupus Lyme disease neuropathy peer support Source Type: blogs
Tick-Borne Diseases of Norway
Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) is one of eight zoonoses carried by ticks in Norway (the others are Anaplasmosis, Babesiosis, Louping ill, Lyme borreliosis, Relapsing fever, Rickettsial spotted fever and Tularemia). As displayed in the following graphs, rates of human TBE are considerably lower than those of other tick-borne diseases in Norway, and below TBE rates reported by neighboring countries. [1-3]
References:
Berger S. Infectious Diseases of Norway, 2019. 387 pages , 138 graphs , 858 references. Gideon e-books, https://www.gideononline.com/ebooks/country/infectious-diseases-of-norway/
Berger S. Ti...
Source: GIDEON blog - April 1, 2019 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Dr. Stephen Berger Tags: Ebooks Epidemiology Graphs ProMED Source Type: blogs
Should Mental Health Determine Pain Treatment Options?
Patients with a mental health condition might have a hard time accessing opioids for pain relief, while patients with unexplained pain are often referred to psychiatric care, which does little to alleviate their symptoms. Finding treatment can be frustrating and humiliating.
Four years ago, Dez Nelson’s pain management clinic demanded that she complete a visit with a psychologist. Nelson was surprised, since she had no history of mental illness, but she didn’t feel that she could push back on the request.
“Of course I said okay — I didn’t want to lose my treatment,” Nelson told The Fix. “I was not happy about...
Source: World of Psychology - March 26, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Psych Central Guest Author Tags: Addiction Disorders Health-related Medications Mental Health and Wellness Publishers Substance Abuse The Fix Treatment Chronic Pain mental health and pain Opioids Pain Management pain management clinic Pain Relief pain treatm Source Type: blogs
