Month: August 2020

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Aug 31 2020 COVID-19 is disrupting just about every student’s 2020 education, but medical students have it particularly hard right now. “It’s a nightmare scenario for the class of 2021,” said Jake Berg, a fourth-year student at the Kentucky College of Osteopathic Medicine in Pikeville. In March, students were abruptly pulled

Aug 31 2020 WHO has been made aware of multiple, recent reports of eye injury, including blindness, with the use of chlorhexidine gluconate 7.1%, in nine countries in sub Saharan Africa. Chlorhexidine gluconate (CHX), available as an aqueous solution or as a gel (delivering 4% chlorhexidine), is used in umbilical cord care, and is listed

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Aug 26 2020 A team led by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has taken an important step forward in the goal of developing a potential treatment for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), the most common form of chronic liver disease. There are currently no approved medications for NAFLD, but in

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Aug 28 2020 The data of 61,751 pregnant women, out of approximately 100,000 collected by the Japan Environment and Children’s Study analyzed the association between the maternal usage of insecticides and insect repellents during pregnancy and neonatal hyperbilirubinemia. The Koshin Unit Center at Shinshu University played a central role in this

Artificial intelligence, or “supervised machine learning,” could help identify which well-appearing infants with fever, who are 60 days old or younger, are at low risk for a serious bacterial infection, according to a study published in Pediatrics. Accurate risk determination could reduce unnecessary lumbar puncture, antibiotics and hospitalizations for these infants, as well as decreasing

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Aug 28 2020 Infants from households reporting very low “food security,” a measure of access to adequate and healthy meals, tend to weigh more than those from households with relatively high food security, suggests a new study led by a researcher at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The study

An artificial pancreas originally developed at the University of Virginia Center for Diabetes Technology safely and effectively manages blood sugar levels in children ages 6 to 13 with type 1 diabetes, a national clinical trial has found. Data from this and other studies has prompted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve the device

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Aug 27 2020 Preventing unplanned pregnancies in adolescents with effective and easy-to-use contraception is key to ensuring that adolescents do not become parents before they are ready. Adolescents view their health care providers as trusted sources of medical information. Thus, providers are tasked with providing adolescent patients with comprehensive, age-appropriate and

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Aug 27 2020 A drug used to treat gout, probenecid, may improve heart function in individuals with a particular heart defect, according to results from a small pilot study run by a University of Cincinnati researcher. Jack Rubinstein, MD, associate professor in the UC College of Medicine and UC Health cardiologist,

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Aug 26 2020 In one out of 100,000 infants, a mutation in the GALC gene causes an incurable, always fatal disorder known as infantile Krabbe disease, or globoid cell leukodystrophy. Most children with the condition die before they turn 2. A parallel condition also naturally affects dogs, who typically show symptoms

A new study released this week by Ethiopian researchers shows that children who are born at higher altitudes, such as 1,500m (4,921 ft) above sea level, are more at risk of being smaller at birth and have a stunted growth compared to their counterparts born at lower altitudes. The research is published in the latest

A new study shows that caffeine consumption by pregnant mothers could harm the fetus and baby. The new study titled, “Maternal caffeine consumption and pregnancy outcomes: a narrative review with implications for advice to mothers and mothers-to-be,” was published in the latest issue of the journal British Medical Journal Evidence Based Medicine. What was the

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Aug 24 2020 University Hospitals announced today plans to participate as a study site for the Phase 2/3 global study sponsored by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE of an investigational vaccine, BNT162b2, against SARS-CoV-2. UH’s study site is one of approximately 120 clinical investigational sites around the world that will collectively

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Aug 24 2020 Residing at higher altitude is associated with greater rates of stunting, even for children living in “ideal-home environments” according to a new study from researchers at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and Addis Ababa University. The study provides new insight in the relationship between altitude and

A pregnant mother who tested positive for COVID-19 transmitted the virus causing the disease to her prematurely born baby, UT Southwestern physicians report. Both were treated and recovered. The case, detailed in an article published last month in The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, adds to a growing body of evidence that the SARS-CoV-2 virus can

With the onset of COVID-19 in China, the government placed drastic restrictions on travel and work. This action led to a huge reduction in the number of vehicular movements and factories running. Now, a recent study published in the journal Science of The Total Environment in August 2020 shows this change had an unintended benefit