Health

Anthony Andrews, a 34-year-old training manager at a bank in London, had been candid from the very beginning, when he directed Jessica Lockett, an art director, to his Instagram profile, @ibdlife. They had matched on Hinge in January 2020, and he wanted to ensure that she understood what life with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and an ostomy bag meant before they got too involved. “Do you still like what you see?” he messaged. Back then, Andrews had been suffering with ulcerative colitis (UC) for 11 years and was days away from a surgery that would require him to wear a bag for the rest of his life. Lockett, intrigued and compassionate, scrolled through his posts, learning quickly exactly what that meant.“A lot of us [IBD patients] will probably feel like they can't necessarily open up, ...

If you’ve ever struggled to find a public bathroom in New York City, “Ur In Luck.” Mayor Eric Adams just announced that the city is embarking on a new effort to expand access to public bathrooms across all five boroughs.Adams launched the project, called “Ur In Luck,” on Monday. Over the next five years, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC Parks) will build 46 new restrooms and renovate 36 existing ones, according to the city’s press release.“Part of making New York City a more livable city is tackling the little things—the things we don’t think about until we need them,” Adams said in the press release. “Access to public restrooms is high on that list, maybe even number one or two.”The city currently has nearly 1,000 restrooms that serve its population of about 8 mil...

The next time you board a long flight and decide to enjoy an alcoholic drink before taking a nap, you might want to avoid the temptation.A new study, published in the medical journal Thorax on Monday, found that when people fell asleep after drinking alcohol in a low air pressure environment similar to that on airplanes, their blood oxygen decreased and their heart rates increased. Researchers observed this trend even in people who were young and healthy.“Even in young and healthy individuals, the combination of alcohol intake with sleeping under hypobaric conditions poses a considerable strain on the cardiac system and might lead to exacerbation of symptoms in patients with cardiac or pulmonary diseases,” researchers said in the study. “Higher doses of alcohol could amplify these observe...

Moderna says the same mRNA technology that fueled its COVID-19 vaccine is proving effective in fighting melanoma.The company presented the latest results from its trial involving 157 people with advanced skin cancer at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago. In the study, Moderna and Merck combined their cancer treatments—Moderna’s experimental cancer vaccine and Merck’s approved checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda)—to achieve potentially life-changing results for melanoma patients.In the phase 2 study of patients with stage 3 or stage 4 melanoma who were treated after surgery to remove the bulk of their tumors, two thirds received a monthly dose of Moderna’s cancer vaccine for nine months, along with pembrolizumab treatments every three weeks f...

New York — A nurse was fired by a New York City hospital after she referred to Israel's war in Gaza as a “genocide” during a speech accepting an award.Labor and delivery nurse Hesen Jabr, who is Palestinian American, was being honored by NYU Langone Health for her compassion in caring for mothers who had lost babies when she drew a link between her work and the suffering of mothers in Gaza.“It pains me to see the women from my country going through unimaginable losses themselves during the current genocide in Gaza,” Jabr said, according to a video of the May 7 speech that she posted on social media. “This award is deeply personal to me for those reasons.”Jabr wrote on Instagram that she arrived at work on May 22 for her first shift back after receiving the award when she was summoned to a ...

Slipping and sliding in the summer months is great—if you’re at a water park or in a pool, that is. Otherwise, it’s the miserable reality of sweaty feet.“I’ve literally had patients come in and tell me they’re sweating so much, they’ve fallen out of their shoes,” says Dr. Dee Anna Glaser, a professor of dermatology at Saint Louis University School of Medicine and president of the International Hyperhidrosis Society. “Or they can’t wear heels because they’re afraid they’ll slip and break an ankle. It can go from mild and a nuisance to very significant.”In rare cases, sweaty feet are caused by hyperhidrosis, a medical condition that triggers excessive sweating and affects different parts of the body, like the underarms, hands, and feet. It has a strong genetic component, Glaser says: More th...

If it feels like you’re suddenly seeing ticks everywhere, it’s not in your head. The U.S. tick population has exploded in recent years, largely driven by climate change, which means spotting one of these blood-sucking pests is an unfortunately routine event for people in many parts of the country. Ticks are best known for spreading Lyme disease, an illness that can cause flu-like symptoms, body aches, fatigue, and more. By some estimates, almost half a million people in the U.S. are diagnosed with Lyme each year, with the blacklegged ticks that spread the condition particularly prevalent in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and parts of the Midwest and Pacific Coast. Lyme isn’t the only tick-associated illness to know about, though. The creatures’ bites can spread a range of rarer illnesses, in...

Hendersonville, N.C. — A North Carolina aquarium that said it had a pregnant stingray with no male companion now says the fish has a rare reproductive disease.Thursday's statement from the Aquarium and Shark Lab in Hendersonville did not say what disease the stingray, Charlotte, has or comment on the status of her pregnancy. The aquarium did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking more information.“Charlotte has developed a rare reproductive disease that has negatively impacted her reproductive system," the aquarium said. “The findings are truly a sad and unexpected medical development. Our priority is to focus on Charlotte’s health and well being.”The aquarium in the Blue Ridge Mountains had announced Charlotte's pregnancy in February, stating that she hadn't...

Washington — A woman who received a pig kidney transplant is back on dialysis because surgeons had to remove the gradually failing organ after just 47 days.Lisa Pisano was the second person to receive a kidney from a gene-edited pig, and NYU Langone Health announced that she is stable after an operation to remove the organ earlier this week.The first patient to receive a pig kidney transplant, Richard “Rick” Slayman at Massachusetts General Hospital, died in early May, nearly two months after his transplant. Doctors there said there was no indication he died as a result of the experimental transplant.Pisano’s heart and kidneys were failing when, in a dramatic pair of surgeries in April, doctors implanted a mechanical pump to keep her heart beating and then the pig kidney.At first she seeme...

The bird flu outbreak in U.S. dairy cows is prompting development of new, next-generation mRNA vaccines—akin to COVID-19 shots—that are being tested in both animals and people.Next month, the U.S. Agriculture Department is to begin testing a vaccine developed by University of Pennsylvania researchers by giving it to calves. The idea: If vaccinating cows protects dairy workers, that could mean fewer chances for the virus to jump into people and mutate in ways that could spur human-to-human spread.Meanwhile. the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has been talking to manufacturers about possible mRNA flu vaccines for people that, if needed, could supplement millions of bird flu vaccine doses already in government hands.“If there's a pandemic, there's going to be a huge demand for va...