26Mar 2023 by Janice Holland
Abortion Pills Are Safe Without In-Person Exams

Abortion Pills Are Safe Without In-Person Exams

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Medication abortions are just as safe when women have virtual visits to get prescriptions as when they make in-person appointments, a study found.Abortion pills have been legal in the United States for more than two decades as an option for ending pregnancies up to about 10 weeks’ gestation. But for most of this time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has required women to get these pills prescribed at in-person visits, effectively limiting access.FDA Requirement Temporarily Lifted Due to the PandemicWhen the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the FDA temporarily lifted this requirement, allowing women to get abortion pill prescriptions from telemedicine visits and receive the medications by mail instead of going to a pharmacy. This not only helped women get needed medical care during the pandemic, it also enabled researchers to…
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26Mar 2023 by Janice Holland
Skippy Recalls Thousands of Cases of Peanut Butter

Skippy Recalls Thousands of Cases of Peanut Butter

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Skippy Foods is pulling 9,353 cases, or 161,692 total pounds, of its peanut butter from store shelves because some jars may be contaminated with small pieces of stainless steel from manufacturing equipment.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said that the specific products being voluntarily recalled are:Skippy Reduced Fat Creamy Peanut Butter Spread (40-ounce size with “best if used by” dates of May 4 and May 5, 2023, and UPC code 37600-10520)Skippy Reduced Fat Creamy Peanut Butter Spread Club Pack (two 40-ounce jars sold together with a “best if used by” date of May 5, 2023, and UPC code 37600-10667)Skippy Reduced Fat Super Chunk Peanut Butter Spread (16.3-ounce size with “best if used by” dates of May 6 and 7, 2023, and UPC code 37600-10499)Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter Blended With Plant…
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26Mar 2023 by Janice Holland
Amy Schumer Says She Has Trichotillomania. Here’s What You Need to Know About This Hairpulling Disorder

Amy Schumer Says She Has Trichotillomania. Here’s What You Need to Know About This Hairpulling Disorder

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Amy Schumer has a secret she no longer wants to keep — she’s been living for years with the hairpulling disorder trichotillomania.“I think everybody has a big secret and that’s mine,” Schumer told the Hollywood Reporter in an interview earlier this week. “And I’m proud that my big secret only hurts me, but it’s been what I’ve carried so much shame about for so long.”Schumer has battled with this mental health condition since her teen years, when it got so bad that she needed to wear a wig to cover the bald spots, she said in the interview. She gets real about what trichotillomania looks like in Life & Beth, the new dramedy on Hulu that she created, wrote, and directed. In flashbacks to adolescence, Schumer’s character, Beth, confronts clumps…
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26Mar 2023 by Janice Holland
Air Pollution Is Getting Worse. See How Bad It Is Near You

Air Pollution Is Getting Worse. See How Bad It Is Near You

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There are very few places in the world where you can breathe air clean enough to meet standards set by the World Health Organization, according to a new report.The report by IQAir focused on a type of air pollution called PM2.5 — which is smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter and can include car exhaust and other emissions from burning gasoline, oil, and wood. This is also known as fine particulate matter. It’s associated with a wide range of heart and lung disorders as well as an increased risk of certain cancers.Scientists examined pollution data from air monitoring stations in 6,475 cities and 117 countries, regions, and territories to see how many places had average PM2.5 levels in 2021 that fell below 5 micrograms per cubic meter (mcg/m3) — the…
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25Mar 2023 by Janice Holland
New Heart Failure Guidelines Add 4th Drug to Treatment Regimen

New Heart Failure Guidelines Add 4th Drug to Treatment Regimen

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People with symptomatic heart failure may be able to reduce their risk of premature death by taking a drug originally designed for type 2 diabetes, according to new treatment guidelines from the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association, and the Heart Failure Society of America.Heart failure develops when weakened muscles make it harder for the heart to expand and contract to pump blood through the body. Symptoms can include shortness of breath, a persistent cough, swelling in the feet, legs and abdomen, and fatigue and nausea.The new guidelines, published April 1 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, add a fourth drug to the regimen of medications already recommended to treat symptomatic heart failure patients who pump too little oxygen-rich blood out to the body with each…
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25Mar 2023 by Janice Holland
Erectile Dysfunction Drugs Linked to Vision Loss

Erectile Dysfunction Drugs Linked to Vision Loss

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Older men who regularly use erectile dysfunction drugs may be more likely to develop serious side effects that can lead to vision loss and blindness, a new study suggests.Some isolated case reports and small studies have previously linked erectile dysfunction drugs to serious vision-related side effects. These include retinal detachment, when the retina lifts away from the back of the eye; retinal vascular occlusion, when clots block veins in the eye; and ischemic optic neuropathy, when blood stops flowing to the optic nerve. These conditions can come on suddenly, and lead to permanent vision loss if they aren’t treated quickly.For the new study, researchers wanted to assess the risks seen in these smaller studies by examining a much larger group of men over an average follow-up period of about four…
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25Mar 2023 by Janice Holland
Looking for Happiness at Your Local Park? Go Big, Says Research

Looking for Happiness at Your Local Park? Go Big, Says Research

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As the weather warms up, it’s fitting that a new study has found that a simple walk in the park can boost your spirits and well-being.For the study, published March 30 in PLoS One, researchers combined data from social media and city parks in the 25 largest U.S. cities and found that park visitors experienced a “happiness benefit” that was roughly equivalent to the mood spike people feel on holidays like Thanksgiving or New Year’s Day. The results showed that the bigger the park, the bigger the benefit.“These new findings underscore just how essential nature is for our mental and physical health,” said a coauthor of the study, Taylor Ricketts, PhD, a professor and the director of the Gund Institute for Environment at the University of Vermont in Burlington, in a press…
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25Mar 2023 by Janice Holland
Mental Health Virtual Visits Surge During Pandemic

Mental Health Virtual Visits Surge During Pandemic

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Expanded access to telemedicine visits helped to meet the surging need for mental health care during the coronavirus pandemic, a study of more than 100 million outpatient visits in the United States suggests.For the study, researchers compared trends in outpatient mental health care before the pandemic — from 2016 to 2018 — to what happened in 2020 when stay-at-home orders limited access to care. The number of in-person visits declined 22 percent in March 2020 compared with the same period in pre-pandemic years, followed by plunges of 50 percent in April and 56 percent in May.But starting in April 2020, the total volume of mental health care visits exceeded pre-pandemic levels, driven by gains in telemedicine appointments that more than made up for the loss of in-person encounters, researchers reported…
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25Mar 2023 by Janice Holland
How You Feed Your Pets Can Make Them and You Sick

How You Feed Your Pets Can Make Them and You Sick

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For most of us, food safety habits — like washing our hands before preparing a meal and giving our plate a rinse before placing it in the dishwasher — are second nature. But would it surprise you to know that you should be following those same protocols when feeding and cleaning up after your pet?A new study, published on April 6 in the journal PLoS One, found that most U.S. dog owners don’t know and don’t follow the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines on safe pet food and dish handling. In this case, what you don’t know can hurt you. Contaminated pet food has been the source of multiple outbreaks of bacterial illness among dogs and humans, according to the authors.“Pet owners should know that pet food bowls can…
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