ALL ABOUT HEALTH -

11Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

Marijuana Users Need More ER, Hospital Care

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Just because marijuana is legal for recreational or medical use where you live doesn’t necessarily mean it’s safe. In fact, a study suggests that people who use cannabis may be more likely to experience serious health problems than individuals who abstain.Some individuals may perceive that cannabis has some health benefits and is otherwise benign,” lead study author Nicholas Vozoris, MD, a respirologist and associate professor at the University of Toronto, said in a statement.“Our research highlights to those using — or considering — cannabis, that this behavior is associated with important negative health events,” Dr. Vozoris said.Cannabis smoke can irritate the lungs and throat, cause inflammation in the airways, and exacerbate chronic breathing disorders, according to the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). Marijuana has also been linked to impaired…

11Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

988: Are We Ready for Mental Health’s New Emergency Hotline Debut?

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America’s new mental health emergency hotline, 988, is just weeks away from launching across the United States.Starting July 16, people in the United States can call or text this universal three-digit number to connect with the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline — which is funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).Once launched, 988 will become an easier-to-remember way to access the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline; but the old number — 800-273-TALK (8255) — will still be in service and will direct callers to the Lifeline’s call center, too.“Having an easy-to-remember number is going to be lifesaving. It’s about making sure a mental health crisis gets a mental health response,” says Hannah Wesolowski, the chief advocacy officer at the National…

11Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

What Is the Yuzpe Method of Emergency Contraception?

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If you’re worried about an unintended pregnancy immediately after unprotected sex, you can safely use existing birth control pills as emergency contraception (EC) right away, several reproductive health experts say.In what's known as the Yuzpe method, you take two doses (pills) of a combination estrogen and progestin oral contraceptive, 12 hours apart, says Michele Bosworth, MD. She coauthored an article about the practice published in 2014 in the journal American Family Physician while working for the department of family medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center. “This is a convenient method for patients to use pills they already have,” she says.Both doses of pills should be taken as soon as possible, ideally within 72 hours (three days) of unprotected sex, and no later than 120 hours (5 days) after unprotected…

11Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

Americans Gain the Most Weight While Still in Their Twenties

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A study that examined the long-term weight gain of more than 13,800 U.S. adults found that on average, people gained about 17 pounds between their twenties and thirties. Adult women gain about twice as much weight as men, with the average female gaining about 12 pounds a decade, according to the findings published in the Journal of Obesity.“The U.S. obesity epidemic is not slowing down,” says lead author Larry Tucker, PhD, professor in exercise sciences at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. “These results leave no doubt that 10-year weight gain is a serious problem within the U.S. adult population,” he says. That’s because long-term weight gain drives overweight and obesity, and obesity is replacing smoking as the most serious preventable cause of premature death and disease in America, says…

11Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

Man Infected With Brain-Eating Amoeba After Visiting Iowa Beach

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A Missouri man has been confirmed to have a rare life-threatening infection of the brain, which health authorities believe he acquired while swimming at the Lake of Three Fires State Park in Taylor County, Iowa. As a precautionary response, the beach that provides access to the lake will be closed temporarily to swimmers, the Iowa Department of Public Health said Friday.Naegleria fowleri, commonly called a “brain-eating amoeba,” is a microscopic single-celled free-living amoeba that can causes an infection of the brain called primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). PAM destroys brain tissue and causes severe brain swelling and death in most cases.“Fortunately, PAM is quite rare,” says William Schaffner, MD, professor of medicine, in the division of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University…

10Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

FDA Receives the First Application for an Over-the-Counter Birth Control Pill

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Pills for women to prevent pregnancy have been available for more than 60 years in the United States. On Monday, HRA Pharma submitted an application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its over-the-counter (OTC) birth control pill. If approved, it would be the first-ever daily birth control pill available OTC, without a prescription, in the United States.“More than 60 years ago, prescription birth control pills in the U.S. empowered women to plan if and when they want to get pregnant,” said Frédérique Welgryn, the chief strategic operations and innovation officer at HRA Pharma, in a press release. “Moving a safe and effective prescription birth control pill to OTC will help even more women and people access contraception without facing unnecessary barriers.”A nonprescription birth control pill has received…

10Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

Less Than 1 in 15 People in the U.S. Have Good Cardiometabolic Health

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Less than 7 percent of adult Americans — about 1 out of every 15 people — have good cardiometabolic health, according to new research that looked at heart health trends and disparities. Cardiometabolic health includes several risk factors including type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance, cardiovascular disease, cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, and overweight and obesity.“It’s deeply problematic that in the United States, one of the wealthiest nations in the world, fewer than 1 in 15 adults have optimal cardiometabolic health,” says Meghan O’Hearn, a doctoral candidate at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University in Boston and lead author of the study, which was published in the July 12 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Researchers also found “striking disparities” in…

10Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

More Than 1 in 7 Kindergartners Are Obese, Study Finds

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A growing number of American children are putting on excess weight at very young ages, a new study has found.In 1998, 72.9 percent of kids entered kindergarten at a healthy weight, based on their body mass index (BMI), while 15.1 percent were overweight and 12 percent were obese.More than a decade later, the proportion of kids who were overweight when they entered kindergarten was essentially unchanged. But the proportion of obese kindergartners climbed to 15.3 percent, and the proportion of kids with a healthy BMI declined to 69 percent, according to the study results, published July 5 in Pediatrics.“These worrying data indicate that the childhood obesity epidemic in the United States continues to grow and get more serious,” said the senior study author, K.M. Venkat Narayan, MD, of Emory University…

10Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

2-Step Gene Sequencing Shows Who May Respond to Cancer Immunotherapy

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The promise of so-called immune checkpoint inhibitors and other targeted immunotherapies for cancer is that they can destroy some hard-to-treat tumors much more effectively than old-school chemotherapy.But there’s a big problem with immunotherapies, too. These drugs, which train the immune system to find and kill cancer cells, work only in a small subset of patients, and it’s really hard to determine in advance who will benefit.Right now, doctors often look at several biomarkers, like age, tumor type, and the number of mutations found in cancer cells, to predict who might benefit from immunotherapy. Looking at mutations on a few hundred genes is the main way to determine if patients might benefit from immune checkpoint inhibitors, which per the American Cancer Society target “checkpoint” proteins on immune cells that can switch…

10Mar 2023 by Janice Holland

BA.4 and BA.5 Have Become Dominant Omicron Subvariants in the U.S.

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On July 5, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that two new subvariants of omicron, BA.4 and BA.5, have become the dominant strains of the COVID-19 coronavirus in all parts of the United States.BA.5 currently makes up 54 percent of new cases, with its sister subvariant, BA.4, accounting for about 16 percent of recent infections.In Europe, BA.4 and BA.5 are driving a summertime COVID-19 surge. Analysis of data by The New York Times showed that infections climbed to 57 cases a day per 100,000 people (as of July 6) from 33 cases a day per 100,000 people just two weeks earlier.In a media briefing on July 6, Dr. Michael Ryan, MPH, the executive director of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Program, said that many European countries…