Health - Resources and discussion for everything health-related

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says a glitch in its bird flu test hasn’t harmed the agency’s outbreak response. But it has ignited scrutiny of its go-it-alone approach in testing for emerging pathogens.

The agency has quietly worked since April to resolve a nagging issue with the test it developed, even as the virus swept through dairy farms and chicken houses across the country and infected at least 13 farmworkers this year.

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/14957202

> Mental health inequities are projected to cost the U.S. $14 trillion between now and 2040, according to a new study from the School of Global Health at Meharry Medical College and the Deloitte Health Equity Institute. > > The analysis concluded that unaddressed mental health conditions create a significant economic burden for the country and that eliminating inequities in treatment could lead to significant savings on health care.

West Virginia is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review rulings that found the state’s refusal to cover certain health care for transgender people with government-sponsored insurance is discriminatory, Republican Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said Thursday.

Dementia patients at Kaiser Permanente and UCSF Health have increasingly utilized telehealth services. A study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine revealed a significant rise in telehealth usage among these patients, who often face travel difficulties due to complex medical issues. The study compared data from 2019-2020 to 2021-2022, showing a drop in in-person visits and an increase in hybrid and telehealth-only care. Kaiser Permanente primarily used phone visits and offered "virtual rooming," while UCSF favored video visits and provided tech support in patients' preferred languages.

For the regular boozer it is a source of great comfort: the fat pile of studies that say a daily tipple is better for a longer life than avoiding alcohol completely.

But a new analysis challenges the thinking and blames the rosy message on flawed research that compares drinkers with people who are sick and sober.

Scientists in Canada delved into 107 published studies on people’s drinking habits and how long they lived. In most cases, they found that drinkers were compared with people who abstained or consumed very little alcohol, without taking into account that some had cut down or quit through ill health.

The finding means that amid the abstainers and occasional drinkers are a significant number of sick people, bringing the group’s average health down, and making light to moderate drinkers look better off in comparison.

I love stories like these: scientists and the NIH working to create a cure for an unprofitable disease, just because it would make the world a better place. And in the interim, making new discoveries that might potentially benefit society at large.

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/14912977

> Toxic “forever chemicals” are increasingly appearing in U.S. pesticides — contaminating waterways and posing a possible threat to human health, a new study has found. > > Pesticides containing these compounds, called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), are used widely nationwide on staple foods, such as corn, wheat, kale, spinach, apples and strawberries, according to the study, published Wednesday in Environmental Health Perspectives. > >

Pancreatic cancer turns off one of our most important genes in order to be able to grow and spread, new research published in the journal Gastro Hep Advances has found.

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/14910704

> AFib patients using wearable devices are more likely to engage in high rates of symptom monitoring and experience anxiety than non-users, a study shows.

Giving cash to poor people could result in fewer emergency department visits, a new study suggests.

The study published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association looked at almost 2,900 low-income people who applied for a lottery in the Boston suburb of Chelsea, Massachusetts. Nearly 1,750 of them got up to $400 per month from November 2020 to August 2021.

The researchers then looked at health records and found that those who received the money had 27% fewer visits an emergency room in the nine-month period compared with those who didn’t receive the monthly payments.

“We can trust the poor with money,” said co-author Dr. Sumit Agarwal, a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “There’s this narrative out there that you give people cash and they spend it on drugs and alcohol. I think we’re one of the first studies to really rigorously and empirically show that’s not the case.”

Generic version of a drug already on the market, which can suppress and prevent HIV, would still yield 30% profit if the current price was slashed, researchers say

A new drug described as “the closest we have ever been to an HIV vaccine” could cost $40 (£31) a year for every patient, a thousand times less than its current price, new research suggests.

Lenacapavir, sold as Sunlenca by US pharmaceutical giant Gilead, currently costs $42,250 for the first year. The company is being urged to make it available at a thousand times less than that price worldwide.

UNAids said it could “herald a breakthrough for HIV prevention” if the drug was available “rapidly and affordably”.

Given by injection every six months, lenacapavir can prevent infection and suppress HIV in people who are already infected.

In a study presented at the 25th international Aids conference in Munich on Tuesday, experts calculated that the minimum price for mass production of a generic version, based on the costs of lenacapavir’s ingredients and manufacturing, and allowing for 30% profit, was $40 a year, assuming 10 million people used it annually. In the long-term, 60 million people would probably need to take the drug preventatively to lower HIV levels significantly, they said.

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Direct and indirect exposures to gun violence, like hearing gunshots near the home or the slaying of friends or classmates, can lead to “lifetime suicidal ideation and behavior” among Black adults, a February study conducted by researchers from Rutgers University and published in Jama Network Open, a journal from the American Medical Association, shows.

“Gun violence exposure, whether direct or living in a community where it happens, has implications for long-term stress and trauma,” said Daniel Semenza, the study’s lead researcher. “It does damage to some of the body’s most important systems.”

Suicide deaths in the US have steadily risen in the past two decades. Most of these deaths are by gun. Suicide deaths increased from 30,622 in 2001 to a peak of 48,344 in 2018, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They took a brief dip in 2019 and 2020 before nearly returning to their peak, with 48,183 deaths in 2021, the last year for which the CDC has released data.

Nearly 1 of every 5 uninsured working-age adults across the 10 states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act are, according to a new analysis, stuck in a health care limbo known as a “coverage gap.” That means they earn too much money to receive Medicaid but not enough to qualify for financial help to purchase their own plan on the marketplace.

Pharmacist Mark Mikhael has lost 50 pounds over the past 12 months. He no longer has diabetes and finds himself “at my ideal body weight,” with his cholesterol below 200 for the first time in 20 years. “I feel fantastic,” he said.

Like millions of others, Mikhael credits the new class of weight loss drugs. But he isn’t using brand-name Wegovy or Zepbound. Mikhael, CEO of Orlando, Florida-based Olympia Pharmaceuticals, has been getting by with his own supply: injecting himself with copies of the drugs formulated by his company.

He’s far from alone. Mikhael and other industry officials estimate that several large compounding pharmacies like his are provisioning up to 2 million American patients with regular doses of semaglutide, the scientific name for Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy, Ozempic, and Rybelsus formulations, or tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Eli Lilly’s Zepbound and Mounjaro.

A drug that could extend women’s fertility by five years – and help them live longer in better health – is safe for a young, healthy population, according to early results of a study.

The research into repurposing the immunosuppressant rapamycin has been hailed a “paradigm shift” in how menopause is studied.

The Validating Benefits of Rapamycin for Reproductive Aging Treatment (Vibrant) study is designed to measure whether the drug can slow ovaries ageing, thereby delaying menopause, extending fertility and reducing the risk of age-related diseases.

The study, which will eventually include more than 1,000 women, now has 34 participants aged up to 35, with more women joining every day.

“Patients with lower incomes, those who did not graduate from college and those who are Hispanic and non-white had worse patient-reported outcomes following surgery for [multiligament knee injury] MLKI,” Isabel Chalem, BS, of NYU Langone Health, said in her presentation.

Nearly 7 million seniors, or about 1 in 11 Americans aged 60 and older, faced hunger in 2022, according to a new report by Feeding America. The report revealed that 6.9 million seniors were food-insecure in 2022, with another 4.9 million older adults aged 50 to 59 also experiencing food insecurity. This represents a 25% increase from the previous year.

The prevalence of cancer survivors in the United States has risen in recent years and is projected to increase more in years to come, according to research published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The researchers estimated that, as of January 1, 2022, the prevalence of cancer survivors in the US was 18.1 million. The team noted that this is a nearly 4-fold increase in cancer survivors since the mid-1970s.

Medicare Advantage beneficiaries are less likely to receive intensive treatments or burdensome transfers during the last six months of life compared to those in traditional Medicare, according to a study in JAMA Health Forum. MA enrollees are more likely to receive hospice care and less likely to receive facility-based care post-hospital discharge. Researchers attribute these trends to MA's cost-control focus, while fee-for-service Medicare incentivizes more aggressive treatment. "Financial incentives in Medicare Advantage, the managed care alternative to traditional Medicare, were designed to reduce overutilization," the authors wrote.

Report finds ‘clear distinctions’ in US women’s health outcomes, which can be linked to states’ abortion laws

Women’s health is in a “perilous” place with deep and growing inequalities across regions of the US, a new report from the Commonwealth Fund has found. The report ranks states based on 32 indicators, ranging from insurance coverage to breast and cervical cancer to Covid-19.

Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont ranked at the top across a range of health issues. South-eastern states – most of which now have near-total abortion bans – ranked at the bottom on a wide range of women’s health indicators.

“Where you live matters to your health and healthcare,” said Dr Joseph Betancourt, president of the Commonwealth Fund. “This is having a disproportionate effect on women of color and women with low incomes.”

The goal of the report was to contribute to policies, “guaranteeing all women across the US can have access to quality affordable care – no matter where they live”.

People living in areas with the highest levels of socioeconomic deprivation have more coronary inflammation identified on coronary CT angiography (CCTA) than those living in the least deprived areas, an analysis of the Oxford Risk Factors and Noninvasive Imaging (ORFAN) study shows.

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/14790838

> New research into the 'exomes' of over 44,000 people uncovered many with cancer-causing genes that were otherwise not detected > > The mutations were linked to heightened risks for colon, breast and ovarian cancers > > People from minority groups may be especially prone to missing out on quality genetic screening