Discussions of “climate change” or “global warming” tend to focus on increasing temperatures in summer, especially the current run of severe heat waves. The 85-page summary of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report mentions “winter” only once, the surname of one of the authors, but the adverse health effects of cold winters have long been recognized. Can the health benefits of warmer winters compensate for the damaging effects of hotter summers?
Disease
Tori Bowie, a 2016 US Olympian, died from complications of childbirth; Serena Williams experienced a pulmonary embolism after delivery that was initially ignored. According to the World in Data, US maternal mortality per 100,000 live births lies “comfortably” less than in Grenada but more than in Latvia or Puerto Rico. Let’s get behind the headlines, and delve deeper into a “preventable” problem.
It is a palliative care initiative in which clinicians inquire about and implement final wishes for patients who are expected to die imminently. The staff recognize that in their final hours, most people have fears, regrets, and maybe a last, often simple wish.
As the COVID pandemic moves further into our rearview mirrors, questions have been raised about a more prolonged manifestation of COVID, Long COVID. Now, there seems to be a concern about more prolonged symptoms from the COVID vaccines; we can call it Long Vax. What do we know and don’t know?
“…body mass index, BMI, then, is a continuation of white supremacist embodiment norms, racializing fat phobia under the guise of clinical authority.” Quite an opening from an article in the AMA’s new Journal of Ethics. Stripped of its rhetoric, could it be true?
Long COVID remains chimeric, more a litany of symptoms than a clearcut “disease.” Perhaps a clustering of symptoms might reveal the underlying picture. Researchers using lots of data and statistical analysis identify some patterns.
For the most part, our genetic heritage is a “crap shoot” mixture of mom and dad. But the DNA of the engines powering our bodies, mitochondria, are inherited only from mom, which makes for some biological differences, including the Mother’s Curse.
Time with your doctor is limited. Here are some ways to get the most out of your appointment and make your healthcare expenditure in time and money more cost-effective.
The use of cigarettes has declined in the U.S. over the past decades. A hypothesis has emerged suggesting that those remaining smokers are “nicotine hardened,” that they are the "intractables" with significant nicotine dependence. A new JAMA Network Open study tests that theory.
Clean air has long been recognized as a requisite for mammalian survival. In fact, the National Library of Medicine lists over 8,000 publications citing this, including the terms “air pollution” and “mortality.” How have U.S. mortality rates and life expectancies changed during recent decades of improving ambient air quality?
In the last few weeks, there have been two articles on the benefit of supplements, specifically multivitamins and flavonols (extracted from cocoa), on improving memory. The media mentioned the multivitamins; the flavanols garnered no attention. What did the studies report?
Remember herd immunity, the early aspirational goal of our COVID strategy? It has arrived, at least according to some recent findings of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWR).