Is COVID-19 a Seasonal Virus Yet?
The most common respiratory viruses that cause flu, colds, and RSV tend to cluster in the fall and winter months. Though that means months of elevated risk for sickness, “cold and flu season” is a convenient time for public-health officials to remind people to get vaccinated and wash their hands more frequently.
Experts had hoped that COVID-19 would follow that same pattern, but so far, that’s not the case.
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COVID-19 occurs in every season
Both flu and RSV tend to plummet to near negligible levels in spring and summer before surging again in the fall ...
Source: TIME: Health - March 6, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Alice Park Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 healthscienceclimate Source Type: news
What Happened When a Man Got 217 COVID-19 Vaccines
COVID-19 vaccines have been key to controlling the pandemic, but researchers in Germany report on one man who took the vaccination message to the extreme.
The subject of the research published in Lancet Infectious Diseases is a 62-year-old man from Magdeburg, Germany who claims to have received 217 COVID-19 vaccinations within about 2.5 years. (German prosecutors confirmed he received 130 shots in nine months during an investigation into fraud; ultimately, they did not file criminal charges.)
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It’s not clear why the man wanted so many vaccinations or how he obtained...
Source: TIME: Health - March 6, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Alice Park Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 Source Type: news
Researchers Are Using AI to Find New Alzheimer ’ s Risk Factors
Brain experts have a pretty good handle on some of the major risk factors that contribute to Alzheimer’s—from a person’s genes to their physical activity levels, how much formal education they’ve received, and how socially engaged they are.
But one promise of AI in medicine is that it can spot less obvious links that humans can’t always see. Could AI help uncover conditions linked to Alzheimer’s that have so far been overlooked?
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To find out, Marina Sirota and her team at University of California San Francisco (UCSF) ran a machine-lear...
Source: TIME: Health - March 5, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Alice Park Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate Source Type: news
The First Over-the-Counter Birth Control Pill Is Here
The first birth control pill that people can buy without a prescription, called Opill, is shipping to stores this week.
Perrigo, the Ireland-based company that makes Opill, said the pills should be available to purchase at retail pharmacies and online by the end of March. The pills are designed to be taken daily at about the same time each day, and they will be sold in one-month packs for $19.99 and three-month packs for $49.99.
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A spokesperson for CVS, one pharmacy that will be stocking the pill, said the pills will be in more than 7,500 of its stores nationwide and will ...
Source: TIME: Health - March 4, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Alice Park Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate Source Type: news
Trader Joe ’ s Soup Dumplings Recalled For Possibly Containing Plastic
NEW YORK — More than 61,000 pounds of steamed chicken soup dumplings sold at Trader Joe’s are being recalled for possibly containing hard plastic, U.S. regulators announced Saturday.
The Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service noted that the now-recalled dumplings, which are produced by the California-based CJ Foods Manufacturing Beaumont Corp., may be contaminated with foreign materials—“specifically hard plastic from a permanent marker pen.”
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The recall arrives after consumers reported finding hard plastic in the Tr...
Source: TIME: Health - March 4, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Associated Press Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate wire Source Type: news
Zyn Is the New Vaping
Not so long ago, Juul was seen as the new Marlboro. Smoking wasn’t that cool anymore—rates had plummeted among U.S. adults and teens—but then came Juul, a sleek, addictive product with flashy advertising tactics that took off like wildfire. It soon became clear that e-cigarettes were hooking teens who otherwise wouldn’t have gone near nicotine.
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Now, Juul is out and Zyn is in. It’s even more discreet than Juul, with no plumes of vapor. A user simply tucks a small pouch of nicotine, additives, and flavorings under their lip for up to an hour. Over...
Source: TIME: Health - March 4, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Jamie Ducharme Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate Source Type: news
Yogurt Can Now Claim It May Reduce the Risk of Diabetes
Yogurt sold in the U.S. can make claims that the food may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, based on limited evidence, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Friday.
The agency agreed that there is some evidence, but not significant scientific agreement, that eating at least 2 cups of yogurt per week may reduce the chance of developing the disease that affects about 36 million Americans.
FDA has allowed qualified health claims—a claim that lacks full scientific support but is allowed as long as there are disclaimers to keep from misleading consumers—for dietary supplements since 2000 and foods since...
Source: TIME: Health - March 2, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: JONEL ALECCIA/AP Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate wire Source Type: news
RSV Vaccine May Be Linked to a Slightly Higher Risk of Guillain-Barre Syndrome
NEW YORK — Health officials are investigating whether there’s a link between two new RSV vaccines and cases of a rare nervous system disorder in older U.S. adults.
The inquiry is based on fewer than two dozen cases seen among more than 9.5 million vaccine recipients, health officials said Thursday. And the available information is too limited to establish whether the shots caused the illnesses, they added.
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But the numbers are higher than expected and officials are gathering more information to determine if the vaccines are causing the problem. The data was pre...
Source: TIME: Health - March 2, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Mike Stobbe/AP Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate wire Source Type: news
CVS and Walgreens to Begin Offering Abortion Pills in March
CVS and Walgreens will begin dispensing the abortion pill mifepristone this March, the companies confirmed to TIME.
The pharmacies received a certification to offer mifepristone—which is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to terminate a pregnancy through 10 weeks of gestation, and is often used with misoprostol—to customers with a prescription in compliance with federal and state laws. The news was first reported by the New York Times.
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Walgreens said that it will start to dispense mifepristone within a week at select locations in New...
Source: TIME: Health - March 1, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Solcyré Burga Tags: Uncategorized News News Desk Source Type: news
Norovirus Cases Are Rising. Here ’ s What to Know
Cases of norovirus, a nasty stomach bug that spreads easily, are climbing in the Northeastern U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday.
Nationwide, about 12% of most recent norovirus tests sent to the CDC were positive, but the proportion was about 16% in the Northeast, the agency said. That compares with nearly 10% of norovirus tests in the Midwest and South and nearly 13% in the West.
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Characterized by the sudden onset of vomiting, diarrhea, and general feelings of misery, norovirus outbreaks are notorious on cruise ships, nursing homes...
Source: TIME: Health - March 1, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: JoNel Aleccia/AP Tags: Uncategorized wire Source Type: news
The Hidden Health Costs of Climate Change
Climate change kills. Since 2000, nearly four million people worldwide have lost their lives due to floods, wildfires, heat waves, droughts, and other extreme weather events that have been linked to a steadily warming planet, according to a recent estimate in the journal Nature. That sweeping number can make it hard for any of us to grasp how the problem is touching health in our own small part of the world. Now, a new study in Nature Medicine provides some of that granular insight for people living in the U.S., exploring how climate-linked disasters affect visits to hospital emergency departments in counties nationwide, a...
Source: TIME: Health - March 1, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Jeffrey Kluger Tags: Uncategorized climate change healthscienceclimate Source Type: news
Why Older Adults Need Another COVID-19 Shot
Older adults should get the COVID-19 vaccine more frequently than previously recommended, according to new guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Health officials are urging people ages 65 and older to receive another vaccine dose in the spring, or at least four months after their most recent dose.
CDC director Dr. Mandy Cohen announced the decision after a CDC advisory committee, which is made up of independent vaccine and infectious disease experts, voted 11-1 to make the change. “An additional vaccine dose can provide added protection that may have decreased over time for thos...
Source: TIME: Health - February 29, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Alice Park Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 healthscienceclimate Source Type: news
9 Things Therapists Do When They Feel Lonely
True friendships can take years to develop—which isn’t exactly comforting to the 1 in 3 U.S. adults who say they are lonely right now. But you don’t need to wait for a new BFF to feel better. Small acts can help give you immediate relief from loneliness, experts say. We asked therapists what low-effort steps they take in their own lives when isolation starts to creep in.
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Join an easy group class
When Courtney Morgan, a therapist in Louisville, Ky., wants to be around like-minded people without having to try too hard, she goes to a yoga class. “Some...
Source: TIME: Health - February 29, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Angela Haupt Tags: Uncategorized Evergreen healthscienceclimate Source Type: news
Why Measles Cases Are Rising Right Now
Last year, cases of measles—a serious, vaccine-preventable disease that’s highly contagious—jumped by 79% around the world. Most of them were in children. That trend is continuing this year, threatening to reverse an impressive 73% drop in measles deaths worldwide from 2000 to 2018.
Cases in the U.S. are climbing, too. In just the first two months of 2024, 35 cases have already been reported in 15 states including California, Minnesota, Florida, New York, and Louisiana; in 2023, 58 cases were reported over the entire year.
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Why are measles cases taking ...
Source: TIME: Health - February 28, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Alice Park Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate Source Type: news
Wendy Williams Documentary Producers Say They Were Unaware of Her Dementia While Filming Most Scenes
The objective, said Hanson, was to document a woman making changes in her life, facing obstacles, and coming out the other side. Williams’ self-titled daytime talk show ended in 2022 because of ongoing health issues with Graves’ disease that kept her from filming. Sherri Shepherd, a guest host for Williams, was given her own show.
“We thought we were going to film a woman at a real turning point in her life, embarking on a new career with Wendy doing a podcast … recovering from a very difficult divorce,” said Hanson. “Once we started filming, it really went into a very diffe...
Source: TIME: Health - February 27, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Associated Press Tags: Uncategorized News Desk wire Source Type: news
