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Category: health – Page 17

Lack of soap most reported barrier to effective hand hygiene in shared community spaces

A lack of soap is the most often reported barrier to effective hand hygiene—key to curbing the spread of infection—in shared community spaces, such as households, schools, and public places, finds a systematic review of the available research, published in the open access journal BMJ Global Health.

It found that the barriers most often reported concerned physical opportunity, such as the availability of soap, and lack of motivation— not prioritized, or not habitual practice, for example. On the other hand, the enablers most often reported being aligned with motivation in the form of habitual practice and perceived health risk.

A further systematic review found that most of the reported efforts to improve handwashing didn’t always address identified barriers or enablers to ensure behavioral sustainability, nor did they fully consider the fundamental resources needed for hand hygiene, such as soap, water, and handwashing facilities.

New study sheds light on how exercise helps lose weight

Researchers have provided new insights into how exercise helps lose weight. They discovered a mechanism by which the compound Lac-Phe, which is produced during exercise, reduces appetite in mice, leading to weight loss. The findings appeared in Nature Metabolism.

“Regular exercise is considered a powerful way to lose weight and to protect from obesity-associated diseases, such as diabetes or heart conditions,” said co-corresponding author Dr. Yang He, assistant professor of pediatrics—neurology at Baylor and investigator at the Duncan NRI. “Exercise helps lose weight by increasing the amount of energy the body uses; however, it is likely that other mechanisms are also involved.”

The researchers previously discovered that Lac-Phe is the most increased metabolite—a product of the body’s metabolism—in blood after intense exercise, not just in mice but also in humans and racehorses. The team’s previous work showed that giving Lac-Phe to obese mice reduced how much they ate and helped them lose weight without . But until now, scientists didn’t fully understand how Lac-Phe works to suppress .

‘Virtual clinical trials’ may predict success of heart failure drugs

Mayo Clinic researchers have developed a new way to predict whether existing drugs could be repurposed to treat heart failure, one of the world’s most pressing health challenges. By combining advanced computer modeling with real-world patient data, the team has created “virtual clinical trials” that may facilitate the discovery of effective therapies while reducing the time, cost, and risk of failed studies.

“We’ve shown that with our framework, we can predict the clinical effect of a drug without a . We can say with high confidence if a drug is likely to succeed or not,” says Nansu Zong, Ph.D., a biomedical informatician at Mayo Clinic and lead author of the study, which was published in npj Digital Medicine.

Patients in least developed countries three times more likely to die after abdominal trauma surgery, study reveals

Mortality after emergency abdominal surgery is more than three times higher in the least developed countries compared to the most developed. Yet among those who undergo surgery, injuries tend to be less severe—raising concerns that those most critically injured are not even reaching the operating theater.

A study published in The Lancet Global Health has revealed stark global inequalities in survival after emergency for traumatic injuries. The research found that patients in the world’s least developed countries face a substantially higher risk of dying within 30 days of surgery than those in the most developed nations, as ranked by the United Nations Human Development Index (HDI).

Although overall mortality rates appeared similar across settings at 11%, risk-adjusted analysis showed that patients in the lowest-HDI countries faced more than three times the risk of death compared with those in the highest-HDI group, while the risk in middle-HDI countries was nearly double.

Avatars for Astronaut Health to Fly on NASA’s Artemis II

NASA announced a trailblazing experiment that aims to take personalized medicine to new heights. The experiment is part of a strategic plan to gather valuable scientific data during the Artemis II mission, enabling NASA to “know before we go” back to the lunar surface and on to Mars.

The AVATAR (A Virtual Astronaut Tissue Analog Response) investigation will use organ-on-a-chip devices, or organ chips, to study the effects of deep space radiation and microgravity on human health. The chips will contain cells from Artemis II astronauts and fly side-by-side with crew on their approximately 10-day journey around the Moon. This research, combined with other studies on the health and performance of Artemis II astronauts, will give NASA insight into how to best protect astronauts as exploration expands to the surface of the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

Cannabis use associated with quadrupled risk of developing type 2 diabetes, finds study of over 4 million adults

Cannabis use is linked to an almost quadrupling in the risk of developing diabetes, according to an analysis of real-world data from over 4 million adults, being presented at the Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) held in Vienna, Austria (15–19 Sept).

Cannabis use is increasing globally with an estimated 219 million users (4.3% of the global adult population) in 2021, but its long-term metabolic effects remain unknown. While some studies have suggested potential anti-inflammatory or weight management properties, others have raised concerns regarding glucose metabolism and , and the magnitude of the risk of developing diabetes hasn’t been clear.

To strengthen the evidence base, Dr. Ibrahim Kamel from the Boston Medical Center, Massachusetts, U.S. and colleagues analyzed from 54 health care organizations (TriNetX Research Network, with centers from across U.S. and Europe) to identify 96,795 outpatients (aged between 18 and 50 years, 52.5% female) with cannabis-related diagnoses (ranging from occasional use to dependence, including cases of intoxication and withdrawal) between 2010 and 2018.

Color-changing strip enables affordable nanoplastic analysis using ordinary microscope

A joint team from the University of Stuttgart in Germany and the University of Melbourne in Australia has developed a new method for the straightforward analysis of tiny nanoplastic particles in environmental samples. One needs only an ordinary optical microscope and a newly developed test strip—the optical sieve. The research results have now been published in Nature Photonics.

“The test strip can serve as a simple analysis tool in environmental and health research,” explains Prof. Harald Giessen, Head of the 4th Physics Institute of the University of Stuttgart. “In the near future, we will be working toward analyzing concentrations directly on site. But our new method could also be used to test blood or tissue for nanoplastic particles.”

Plastic waste is one of the central and acute global problems of the 21st century. It not only pollutes oceans, rivers, and beaches but has also been detected in living organisms in the form of microplastics. Until now, environmental scientists have focused their attention on larger plastic residues.

Mini microscope enables real-time 3D brain imaging in freely moving mice

Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have created a miniaturized microscope for real-time, high-resolution, noninvasive imaging of brain activity in mice. The device is a significant step toward revolutionizing how neuroscientists study the brain.

“What we are doing is creating technology to image brain activity in freely moving and behaving mice to open up the behavior paradigm,” said Weijian Yang, professor of electrical and computer engineering. “The goal is to create a device capable of enabling research into brain activity and behavior in mice in real time—to see how brain activity drives behavior or perception.”

The microscope will advance insights into how the brain works, which is expected to benefit human health by empowering the development of new and improved therapeutic strategies for brain disorders.

New aortic repair device improves patient survival and recovery

King George, Albert Einstein, John Ritter, Richard Holbrooke, George C Scott, Lucille Ball, Betty Garrett, Walter Huston, Humphrey Lyttleton, Marilyn Chambers, and Michael Rennie all died from the same thing, Aortic dissection however the FDA recently approved AMDS Hybrid Prosthesis is helping change that by greatly inproving survival and recovery rates. UI Health Care is the first in Iowa to implant a patient with the recently approved AMDS Hybrid Prosthesis.

Patients who experience a specific type of aortic tear now have a new treatment option available at UI Health Care. The AMDS Hybrid Prosthesis, the world’s first aortic arch remodeling device, was recently approved for DeBakey Type 1 aortic dissection patients.

DeBakey Type 1 aortic dissection is a tear in the inner layer of the wall of the aorta—the main artery that carries oxygen-rich blood to the rest of the body. An aortic dissection causes blood to flow between the wall layers, which slows or stops normal blood flow and can lead to a complete rupture of the aorta. The condition is emergent, life-threatening, and requires immediate surgical repair.

The current treatment option involves removing a portion of the damaged aorta and grafting a synthetic tube in its place. These procedures are successful but often fail to treat the remainder of the diseased aorta, which can result in complications and the need for additional procedures in the future.

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