HEALTH & WELLNESS

Natural supplements can be dangerously contaminated, or not even have the specified ingredients

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS

Natural supplements can be dangerously contaminated, or not even have the specified ingredients

More than two-thirds of Americans take dietary supplements. The vast majority of consumers – 84% – are confident the products are safe and effective. They should not be so trusting. I’m a professor of pharmacy practice at the University of Connecticut. As described in my new article in the Annals of Pharmacotherapy, consumers take real risks if they use diet supplements not independently verified by reputable outside labs. What are the risks? Heavy metals, which are known to cause cancer, dementia and brittle bones, contaminate many diet supplements. One study of 121 products revealed 5% of them surpassed the safe daily consumption limit for arsenic. Two percent had excess lead, cadmium and aluminum; and 1% had too much mercury. In June 2019, the Food and Drug Administration seized 300...

Minority patients benefit from having minority doctors, but that’s a hard match to make

2Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS, Journalism

Minority patients benefit from having minority doctors, but that’s a hard match to make

In today’s America, minority patients still have markedly worse health outcomes than white patients. The differences are greatest for black Americans: Compared to white patients, they are two to three times as likely to die of preventable heart disease and stroke. They also have higher rates of cancer, asthma, influenza, pneumonia, diabetes, HIV/AIDS and homicide. For many of them, structural racism and unequal treatment remain a contributing factor to disease and death. I am a physician who studies health disparities and ways to improve health care delivery. My work focuses on people of color, including those who are black and indigenous. Improving health care delivery for these groups of people is a complicated and multi-layered task, but solutions exist. One of them is to increase th...

The secondhand smoke you’re breathing may have come from another state

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS

The secondhand smoke you’re breathing may have come from another state

Scientists estimate that each year in the U.S., outdoor air pollution shortens the lives of about 100,000 people by one to two decades. As it turns out, much of this pollution originates not in a person’s own neighborhood, but up to hundreds or even thousands of miles away in neighboring states. And, absent strong federal regulations, there’s very little Americans can do about it. In a study published on Feb. 12, we used state-of-the-art modeling to estimate the number of air pollution-related deaths that combustion emissions – those from any kind of burning, from cook stoves to car engines to coal power plants – from each state have caused in every other state over the past 14 years. On average, 41% of these air pollution deaths in the U.S. resulted from what we call “secondhand smok...

US workplaces are nowhere near ready to contain a coronavirus outbreak

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19, HEALTH & WELLNESS

US workplaces are nowhere near ready to contain a coronavirus outbreak

The new coronavirus has spread rapidly around the globe since its discovery late last year in China. It has now infected more than 20,000 people worldwide and killed over 400, prompting travel bans, citywide quarantines and mass hysteria. To combat its spread in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has offered some seemingly straightforward advice: “Stay home when you are sick.” That’s easier said than done for the tens of millions of workers in the United States who don’t have paid sick days or who operate in a “tough-it-out” workplace culture. This gap is a big problem when a disease like the coronavirus can be spread with as little as a cough. As someone who researches work, I’ve been wondering: Do these workplace norms and policies help our companies cope...

The Trump administration has made the U.S. less ready for infectious disease outbreaks like coronavirus

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19, HEALTH & WELLNESS

The Trump administration has made the U.S. less ready for infectious disease outbreaks like coronavirus

As coronavirus continues to spread, the Trump administration has declared a public health emergency and imposed quarantines and travel restrictions. However, over the past three years the administration has weakened the offices in charge of preparing for and preventing this kind of outbreak. Two years ago, Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates warned that the world should be “preparing for a pandemic in the same serious way it prepares for war”. Gates, whose foundation has invested heavily in global health, suggested staging simulations, war games and preparedness exercises to simulate how diseases could spread and to identify the best response. Colorized scanning electron micrograph of filamentous Ebola virus particles (blue) budding from an infected cell (yellow-green). NIAID,...

E-cig flavors may be more than alluring; they could cause damage themselves

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS

E-cig flavors may be more than alluring; they could cause damage themselves

Millions of Americans are vaping, and some are getting sick. Since June 2019, 2,711 have been hospitalized and 60 have died due to EVALI (e-cigarette-associated lung injury), the devastating lung disease linked to e-cigarettes. Five million users are middle and high school students. Some are as young as 11, although it’s illegal to sell vaping products to anyone under 21. A vape shop in New York City shows a line of flavorings on Jan. 2, 2020. Mary Altaffer/AP Photo, CC BY-SA Especially for kids, much of the lure is flavor. E-cigarettes offer attractive smells and tastes. Fruit, mint, candy and dessert flavors are the favorites, and studies suggest they ignite the desire to vape. That’s why the Trump administration just banned the sale of those sweet flavors from cartridge-based e-cigs, t...

Lawyers are trying to scare you with Facebook ads

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS

Lawyers are trying to scare you with Facebook ads

Some ads can be more than misleading – they can put your health at risk. Last year, ads paid for by law firms and legal referral companies started cropping up on Facebook. Typically, they linked Truvada and other HIV-prevention drugs with severe bone and kidney damage. But like a lawsuit, these assertions do not always reflect the consensus of the medical community. They also do not take into account the benefit of the drug or how often the side effects occur. On Dec. 30, Facebook said it disabled some of the ads after more than 50 LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS groups signed an open letter to Facebook condemning them for “scaring away at-risk HIV negative people from the leading drug that blocks HIV infections.” Based on our research involving televised drug injury ads, advocacy groups are right ...

Why teen depression rates are rising faster for girls than boys

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS

Why teen depression rates are rising faster for girls than boys

We’re in the middle of a teen mental health crisis – and girls are at its epicenter. Since 2010, depression, self-harm and suicide rates have increased among teen boys. But rates of major depression among teen girls in the U.S. increased even more – from 12% in 2011 to 20% in 2017. In 2015, three times as many 10- to 14-year-old girls were admitted to the emergency room after deliberately harming themselves than in 2010. Meanwhile, the suicide rate for adolescent girls has doubled since 2007. Rates of depression started to tick up just as smartphones became popular, so digital media could be playing a role. The generation of teens born after 1995 – known as iGen or Gen Z – were the first to spend their entire adolescence in the age of the smartphone. They’re also the first group of teens...

Joaquin Phoenix’s lips mocked – here’s what everyone should know about cleft lip

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS

Joaquin Phoenix’s lips mocked – here’s what everyone should know about cleft lip

After discussing actor Joaquin Phoenix’s appearance on her talk show earlier this month, Wendy Williams received near universal condemnation for mocking those affected with cleft lip – a common birth defect in which the upper lip does not form completely while still an embryo. To her credit, Williams was quick to apologize. Note that it is also unclear whether Phoenix has a cleft lip or simply a scar. Unfortunately, however, the incident was another reminder of how individuals with facial differences (and their families) often feel stigmatized and can face discrimination and social isolation. We have each devoted major portions of our professional lives to understanding what causes clefts and to the treatment and advocacy of those affected. We are geneticists and a pediatric craniomaxillo...

Are ‘vaping’ and ‘e-cigarettes’ the same, and should all these products be avoided?

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS

Are ‘vaping’ and ‘e-cigarettes’ the same, and should all these products be avoided?

As concerns over vaping continue to grow, researchers and public health officials are investigating the causes of more than 40 deaths and 2,000 illnesses. It’s confusing even for experts. The term “e-cigarette” refers to a battery-powered device used to inhale an aerosol that typically, but not always, contains nicotine, along with flavorings and other chemicals, but not tobacco. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recognize e-cigarettes as a broad category that includes a variety of different products that operate similarly and contain similar components. So, “e-cigarettes,” “vapes,” “vape pens,” “Juul,” etc., all refer to the same class of products, with “e-cigarette” being the product itself, and “vaping” referring to use of t...