Health

You probably know a lot of sick people right now. Most parts of the U.S. are getting pummeled by respiratory illness, with 7% of all outpatient health care visits recorded during the week ending Dec. 30 related to these sicknesses, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).Many people are sick with flu, while others have RSV or other routine winter viruses. But COVID-19 is also tearing through the population, thanks largely to the highly contagious JN.1 variant. Just like every year since 2021, this one is starting with a COVID-19 surge—and Americans are getting a good glimpse of what their “new normal” may look like, says Katelyn Jetelina, the epidemiologist who writes the Your Local Epidemiologist newsletter.“Unfortunately,” she says, “signs are pointing to t...

January 12, 2024 9:47 AM ESTA preliminary review of side effects from popular drugs used to treat diabetes and obesity shows no link with suicidal thoughts or actions, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Thursday.But the agency also said officials cannot definitively rule out that “a small risk may exist" and that they'll continue to look into reports regarding more than a dozen drugs, including Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro. Patients taking the drugs should report any concerns to health care providers, the FDA said.The review follows a recent federally funded study that showed that people taking semaglutide, the medication in Ozempic and Wegovy, had a lower risk of suicidal thoughts than those taking other drugs to treat obesity and diabetes. The review came after European regulato...

Prescriptions for ADHD treatments surged among adults during the COVID-19 pandemic, helping to fuel lingering shortages that frustrate parents and doctors.New prescriptions for stimulants used to treat the condition jumped for young adults and women during a two-year window after the pandemic hit in March 2020, according to a study published Wednesday in JAMA Psychiatry.Prescriptions also soared for nonstimulant treatments for adults of all ages, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration researchers found.Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is one of the most common developmental disorders in children, particularly boys. The use of drugs like Adderall to treat it climbed in general during the pandemic.Telemedicine made it easier to get help, and regulators started allowing doctors to pres...

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is recommending new vaccines for adults and kids in 2024, according to its latest annual guidelines finalized Jan. 11. The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), a collection of medical and public-health experts who regularly review evidence and research about vaccines, compiled the new guidelines. Like it does every year, ACIP recommends that American adults receive an annual flu shot and several standard vaccinations, such as those for chickenpox (if they haven’t had it already) and tetanus. For infants and children, the pediatric immunization plan that includes shots such as the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine remains mostly the same.However, the 2024 schedule has some notable changes. Here are the v...

Too many seniors are prescribed too many drugs. About four of every 10 older adults take five or more medications, triple the rate from two decades ago. Almost 11 million Americans, or two of every 10 seniors, are on 10 or more drugs. As a career geriatrician, I've seen it firsthand: One of the best ways to improve your personal health is to work with your doctors to edit down your prescription list.Polypharmacy—when one patient takes multiple drugs—is responsible for a vast but underpublicized American tragedy. Medication overload will contribute to the premature deaths of 150,000 seniors over the next decade, one study found, while causing the hospitalization of 750 seniors per day. It’s a sad but true reality of the medical business: Doctors often prescribe new drugs without knowing how...

The actor Adan Canto’s death from appendiceal cancer—or cancer of the appendix—came as a shock to his fans. Canto, who died on Jan. 8 at age 42, had kept his diagnosis and treatment private, and his family has not publicly shared any information about how long Canto lived with the disease. Here’s what to know about the rare condition.What is appendiceal cancer?A rare form of intestinal cancer, appendix cancer—like colorectal cancer—is on the rise for unknown reasons. “In the last century, the rates were around one to two per million people, but more recently, it’s been nearly one per 100,000 people,” says Dr. Alok Khorana, a medical oncologist and colorectal cancer researcher at the Cleveland Clinic.Cases in people under 50, like Canto, are rarer still. That may partly be because they are ...

Hundreds of thousands of cans of Nutramigen Hypoallergenic Infant Formula Powder, a specialty powdered baby formula used by infants with allergies to cow’s milk, have been recalled in the U.S. due to a potential bacterial contamination. “No illnesses have been reported to date in connection with this recall, and it is likely most of the product that was distributed in the U.S. has already been consumed,” the FDA said in a statement on Dec. 31st. The recall, the second from manufacturer Reckitt/Mead Johnson Nutrition in less than a year, comes two years after a major formula shortage sent parents scrambling to keep infants fed and raised questions about oversight in the formula industry. Why was Nutramigen recalled?On Dec. 29, Reckitt/Mead Johnson Nutrition announced a voluntary recall of  ...

You get the dreaded text: the friend you just met for lunch tested positive for COVID-19. Now you’re left to wonder if you, too, will get sick in the coming days.But when should you expect symptoms to start if you do get sick? The answer has changed from the earliest days of COVID-19, experts say.“In the beginning of the pandemic, we were really looking at seven to 10 days as the window of time where people had to quarantine or isolate after an exposure,” says Andrew Pekosz, a virologist at Johns Hopkins University. “That has shortened significantly now.”How long does it take to develop COVID-19 symptoms?An incubation period is the length of time it takes someone to develop symptoms after exposure to a pathogen. The incubation period for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has shor...

The antiviral drug regimen Paxlovid can be lifesaving for people vulnerable to COVID-19’s worst effects, helping them avoid hospitalization or worse if they catch the virus.But what about adults who are young and healthy? Is there any reason they should take Paxlovid if they catch COVID-19?Right now, there’s “no proven benefit” to doing so, and even some potential downsides, says Dr. Roy Gulick, chief of infectious diseases at Cornell University’s Weill Medical College. Here’s what to know.Do low-risk people benefit at all from taking Paxlovid?Paxlovid—a five-day course of two different pills—is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for adults at high risk of developing severe COVID-19, such as those who are elderly, immunocompromised, or have underlying health conditions. (It ...

Pure, natural spring water, just as nature intended. Well, not exactly.Bottled water has long been marketed as a safer alternative to what comes out of the tap—if it doesn’t come straight from a mountain spring, it’s at least purified and chemical free. But a new study by scientists at Columbia University and Rutgers University demonstrates that bottled water may be far worse when it comes to microscopic plastic pollutants capable of passing into the bloodstream.For years scientists have raised the alarm over the global spread of microplastics, which form when plastics break down into increasingly smaller fragments. The particles, which range in size from five millimeters (1/4 of an inch) down to 1 micrometer (1 millionth of a meter, or 1/25,000th of an inch) have been found at the top of ...