Title: New Blood Thinner Effient No Better Than Plavix at Preventing Heart Trouble: Study
Category: Health News
Created: 8/26/2012 10:05:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/27/2012 12:00:00 AM

Title: Hantavirus FAQ
Category: Health News
Created: 8/30/2012 11:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/30/2012 12:00:00 AM

Title: Breast Cancer Drug May Harm the Heart More Than Thought
Category: Health News
Created: 8/30/2012 6:05:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 8/31/2012 12:00:00 AM

Title: Gene May Raise Diabetics' Chances of Heart Disease
Category: Health News
Created: 8/27/2013 4:35:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 8/28/2013 12:00:00 AM

Title: Migraines Linked to Changes in Brain Structure
Category: Health News
Created: 8/28/2013 4:36:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 8/29/2013 12:00:00 AM

Title: Climate Change May Bring More ER Visits, Deaths, Study Says
Category: Health News
Created: 8/21/2015 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/24/2015 12:00:00 AM

Title: American Kids Growing Fatter Than Their Canadian Cousins
Category: Health News
Created: 8/25/2015 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/26/2015 12:00:00 AM

Title: Many Young Adults Think Hookahs, E-Cigs Safer Than Cigarettes
Category: Health News
Created: 8/25/2015 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/26/2015 12:00:00 AM

Title: Liver Damage From Hepatitis C More Widespread Than Thought
Category: Health News
Created: 8/27/2015 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/27/2015 12:00:00 AM

Title: Teen Cyberbullies More Apt to Be Friends Than Strangers
Category: Health News
Created: 8/20/2016 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/22/2016 12:00:00 AM

Title: Fewer Cancer-Causing Chemicals in E-Cigs Than Regular Cigarettes: Study
Category: Health News
Created: 8/19/2016 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/22/2016 12:00:00 AM

Title: Climate Change May Prolong Smog Season in Southeast U.S.
Category: Health News
Created: 8/23/2016 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/23/2016 12:00:00 AM

Title: No More Than 6 Teaspoons of Added Sugars a Day for Kids
Category: Health News
Created: 8/22/2016 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/23/2016 12:00:00 AM

Title: More Than Half of Americans Will Need Nursing Home Care: Study
Category: Health News
Created: 8/28/2017 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/29/2017 12:00:00 AM

Title: America's New Dads Are Older Than Ever
Category: Health News
Created: 8/30/2017 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/30/2017 12:00:00 AM

Title: Pediatricians Sound Alarm on Rapid Weight Changes in Young Athletes
Category: Health News
Created: 9/1/2017 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 9/1/2017 12:00:00 AM

Title: Will Climate Change Bring More Highway Deaths?
Category: Health News
Created: 8/31/2017 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 9/1/2017 12:00:00 AM

Title: Take a Vacation, Your Heart Will Thank You
Category: Health News
Created: 8/28/2018 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/28/2018 12:00:00 AM

Title: Is Climate Change Draining Nutrients From Crops?
Category: Health News
Created: 8/27/2018 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/28/2018 12:00:00 AM

Title: Pediatricians Make Change to Child Car Seat Guidelines
Category: Health News
Created: 8/30/2018 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/30/2018 12:00:00 AM

Title: Climate Change Hiking Danger of Flesh-Eating Bacteria Infections
Category: Health News
Created: 8/23/2019 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/26/2019 12:00:00 AM

Title: Climate Change Raises Athletes' Risk of Heat Illness
Category: Health News
Created: 8/27/2019 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/27/2019 12:00:00 AM

Title: For Muslim Pilgrimage, Climate Change Poses Health Risks
Category: Health News
Created: 8/28/2019 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/29/2019 12:00:00 AM

Title: AHA News: Mysterious Stroke at 38 Changed How Popular Speaker Connects With a Crowd
Category: Health News
Created: 8/28/2019 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/29/2019 12:00:00 AM

Title: Why Some Gifts Are Better-Received Than Others
Category: Health News
Created: 8/23/2020 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/24/2020 12:00:00 AM

Title: Frequent Hand-Washing Tough on Those With Eczema
Category: Health News
Created: 8/21/2020 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/24/2020 12:00:00 AM

Title: AHA News: Preeclampsia May Double a Woman's Chances for Later Heart Failure
Category: Health News
Created: 8/24/2020 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/25/2020 12:00:00 AM

Title: Some Vegetarian Diets Are Much Healthier Than Others
Category: Health News
Created: 8/27/2020 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/27/2020 12:00:00 AM

Title: Clues to Why COVID-19 Hits Men Harder Than Women
Category: Health News
Created: 8/26/2020 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/27/2020 12:00:00 AM

Title: Changes to CDC's COVID-19 Testing Guidelines Trigger Concern
Category: Health News
Created: 8/26/2020 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/27/2020 12:00:00 AM

Title: AHA News: She Had a 20% Chance to Live First From a Stroke, Then From COVID-19
Category: Health News
Created: 8/27/2020 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/28/2020 12:00:00 AM

Title: FDA Warns About Hand Sanitizers in Food-Like Packaging
Category: Health News
Created: 8/27/2020 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/28/2020 12:00:00 AM

Title: No Change in Adolescent Drug, Alcohol Use During Pandemic
Category: Health News
Created: 8/24/2021 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/24/2021 12:00:00 AM

Title: Little Change in Number of Uninsured in Pandemic's First Year
Category: Health News
Created: 8/23/2021 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/24/2021 12:00:00 AM

Title: Women May Find It Tougher to Quit Smoking Than Men
Category: Health News
Created: 8/26/2021 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/26/2021 12:00:00 AM

Title: Change to Diagnosis of Gestational Diabetes Helped Women
Category: Health News
Created: 8/18/2022 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/18/2022 12:00:00 AM

Title: Why Is My Period More Heavy Than Usual?
Category: Diseases and Conditions
Created: 6/28/2022 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 6/28/2022 12:00:00 AM

Title: Changes in Menstrual Cycle Can Come After COVID Shot
Category: Health News
Created: 7/18/2022 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 7/18/2022 12:00:00 AM

Title: You Could Live 9 Years Longer in Hawaii Than in Mississippi, New Data Shows
Category: Health News
Created: 8/23/2022 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/23/2022 12:00:00 AM

Title: Hepatitis C Infection Can Kill, But Less Than a Third of Patients Get Treatment
Category: Health News
Created: 8/10/2022 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/10/2022 12:00:00 AM

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical role of genomic surveillance for guiding policy and control. Timeliness is key, but sequence alignment and phylogeny slow most surveillance techniques. Millions of SARS-CoV-2 genomes have been assembled. Phylogenetic methods are ill equipped to handle this sheer scale. We introduce a pangenomic measure that examines the information diversity of a k-mer library drawn from a country's complete set of clinical, pooled, or wastewater sequence. Quantifying diversity is central to ecology. Hill numbers, or the effective number of species in a sample, provide a simple metric for comparing species diversity across environments. The more diverse the sample, the higher the Hill number. We adopt this ecological approach and consider each k-mer an individual and each genome a transect in the pangenome of the species. Structured in this way, Hill numbers summarize the temporal trajectory of pandemic variants, collapsing each day's assemblies into genome equivalents. For pooled or wastewater sequence, we instead compare days using survey sequence divorced from individual infections. Across data from the UK, USA, and South Africa, we trace the ascendance of new variants of concern as they emerge in local populations well before these variants are named and added to phylogenetic databases. Using data from San Diego wastewater, we monitor these same population changes from raw, unassembled sequence. This history of emerging variants senses all available data as it is sequenced, intimating variant sweeps to dominance or declines to extinction at the leading edge of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Somatic mutations arise and accumulate during tissue culture and vegetative propagation, potentially affecting various traits in horticultural crops, but their characteristics are still unclear. Here, somatic mutations in regenerated woodland strawberry derived from tissue culture of shoot tips under different conditions and 12 cultivated strawberry individuals are analyzed by whole genome sequencing. The mutation frequency of single nucleotide variants is significantly increased with increased hormone levels or prolonged culture time in the range of 3.3 x 10^–8–3.0 x 10^–6 mutations per site. CG methylation shows a stable reduction (0.71%–8.03%) in regenerated plants, and hypoCG-DMRs are more heritable after sexual reproduction. A high-quality haplotype-resolved genome is assembled for the strawberry cultivar "Beni hoppe." The 12 "Beni hoppe" individuals randomly selected from different locations show 4731–6005 mutations relative to the reference genome, and the mutation frequency varies among the subgenomes. Our study has systematically characterized the genetic and epigenetic variants in regenerated woodland strawberry plants and different individuals of the same strawberry cultivar, providing an accurate assessment of somatic mutations at the genomic scale and nucleotide resolution in plants.

As a major type of structural variants, tandem duplication plays a critical role in tumorigenesis by increasing oncogene dosage. Recent work has revealed that noncoding enhancers are also affected by duplications leading to the activation of oncogenes that are inside or outside of the duplicated regions. However, the prevalence of enhancer duplication and the identity of their target genes remains largely unknown in the cancer genome. Here, by analyzing whole-genome sequencing data in a non-gene-centric manner, we identify 881 duplication hotspots in 13 major cancer types, most of which do not contain protein-coding genes. We show that the hotspots are enriched with distal enhancer elements and are highly lineage-specific. We develop a HiChIP-based methodology that navigates enhancer–promoter contact maps to prioritize the target genes for the duplication hotspots harboring enhancer elements. The methodology identifies many novel enhancer duplication events activating oncogenes such as ESR1, FOXA1, GATA3, GATA6, TP63, and VEGFA, as well as potentially novel oncogenes such as GRHL2, IRF2BP2, and CREB3L1. In particular, we identify a duplication hotspot on Chromosome 10p15 harboring a cluster of enhancers, which skips over two genes, through a long-range chromatin interaction, to activate an oncogenic isoform of the NET1 gene to promote migration of gastric cancer cells. Focusing on tandem duplications, our study substantially extends the catalog of noncoding driver alterations in multiple cancer types, revealing attractive targets for functional characterization and therapeutic intervention.

COPD and asthma are two of the most common chronic lung diseases, affecting over 545 million people globally and 34 million in the United States. Annual health care costs related to chronic lung disease are estimated at €380 billion in the European Union, and $24–$50 billion in the United States averaging to $4,000 in out-of-pocket costs per person in the U.S. A full-text literature search was conducted for English publications between January 1, 2005–March 18, 2024. It returned over 5,000 publications that were further narrowed using key search words, resulting in 172 peer-reviewed articles. Using their experience and subject expertise, the authors further narrowed the peer-reviewed articles to 55 that were in their opinion relevant. Also, 38 recently published industry reports and news articles specific to downstream effects of inhaler market changes and the future impact were included. The literature suggests that individuals with chronic lung disease face increased challenges with access to inhaled medication due to rising medication costs, discontinuation of branded medications, introduction of generic medications not covered by insurance, exclusionary preferred drug list tactics that force health care providers into non-medical switching of medication or devices, and ongoing medication shortages. Providers experience ongoing hurdles in prescribing appropriate inhaled medications for individuals with chronic lung disease, including increased time and costs spent on administrative tasks due to inhaler denials, a loss of patient trust, and limits on their ability to prescribe appropriate inhaled medication for individuals with chronic lung disease.

BACKGROUD:Lung volume measurements are important for monitoring functional aeration and recruitment and may help guide adjustments in ventilator settings. The expiratory phase of airway pressure release ventilation (APRV) may provide physiologic information about lung volume based on the expiratory flow-time slope, angle, and time to approach a no-flow state (expiratory time [TE]). We hypothesized that expiratory flow would correlate with estimated lung volume (ELV) as measured using a modified nitrogen washout/washin technique in a large-animal lung injury model.METHODS:Eight pigs (35.2 ± 1.0 kg) were mechanically ventilated using an Engström Carescape R860 on the APRV mode. All settings were held constant except the expiratory duration, which was adjusted based on the expiratory flow curve. Abdominal pressure was increased to 15 mm Hg in normal and injured lungs to replicate a combination of pulmonary and extrapulmonary lung injury. ELV was estimated using the Carescape FRC INview tool. The expiratory flow-time slope and TE were measured from the expiratory flow profile.RESULTS:Lung elastance increased with induced lung injury from 29.3 ± 7.3 cm H2O/L to 39.9 ± 15.1cm H2O/L, and chest wall elastance increased with increasing intra-abdominal pressures (IAPs) from 15.3 ± 4.1 cm H2O/L to 25.7 ± 10.0 cm H2O/L in the normal lung and 15.8 ± 6.0 cm H2O/L to 33.0 ± 6.2 cm H2O/L in the injured lung (P = .39). ELV decreased from 1.90 ± 0.83 L in the injured lung to 0.67 ± 0.10 L by increasing IAP to 15 mm Hg. This had a significant correlation with a TE decrease from 2.3 ± 0.8 s to 1.0 ± 0.1 s in the injured group with increasing insufflation pressures (ρ = 0.95) and with the expiratory flow-time slope, which increased from 0.29 ± 0.06 L/s2 to 0.63 ± 0.05 L/s2 (ρ = 0.78).CONCLUSIONS:Changes in ELV over time, and the TE and flow-time slope, could be used to demonstrate evolving lung injury during APRV. Using the slope to infer changes in functional lung volume represents a unique, reproducible, real-time, bedside technique that does not interrupt ventilation and may be used for clinical interpretation.

BACKGROUND:Practice on fasting prior to extubation in critically ill patients is variable. Efficacy of fasting in reducing gastric volume has not been well established. The primary objective of this study was to assess the effect of 4 h of fasting on prevalence of empty stomach using gastric ultrasonography in critically ill subjects who are fasted for extubation. The secondary objectives were to evaluate the change in gastric volumes during 4 h of fasting and to determine factors associated with empty stomach after fasting.METHODS:This was a single-center, prospective, observational study on adult ICU subjects who were enterally fed for at least 6 h continuously and mechanically ventilated. Gastric ultrasound was performed immediately prior to commencement of fasting, after 4 h of fasting, and after nasogastric (NG) aspiration after 4 h of fasting. An empty stomach was defined as a gastric volume ≤ 1.5 mL/kg.RESULTS:Forty subjects were recruited, and 38 (95%) had images suitable for analysis. The prevalence of empty stomach increased after 4 h of fasting (25 [65.8%] vs 31 [81.6%], P = .041) and after 4 h of fasting with NG aspiration (25 [65.8%] vs 34 [89.5%], P = .008). There was a significant difference in median (interquartile range) gastric volume per body weight between before fasting and 4 h after fasting (1.0 [0.5–1.8] mL/kg vs 0.4 [0.2–1.0] mL/kg, P < .001). No patient factors were associated with higher prevalence of empty stomach after 4 h of fasting.CONCLUSIONS:Most mechanically ventilated subjects had empty stomachs prior to fasting for extubation. Fasting for 4 h further increased the prevalence of empty stomach at extubation to > 80%.

BACKGROUND:PEEP is a cornerstone treatment for children with pediatric ARDS. Unfortunately, its titration is often performed solely by evaluating oxygen saturation, which can lead to inadequate PEEP level settings and consequent adverse effects. This study aimed to assess the impact of increasing PEEP on hemodynamics, respiratory system mechanics, and oxygenation in children with ARDS.METHODS:Children receiving mechanical ventilation and on pressure-controlled volume-guaranteed mode were prospectively assessed for inclusion. PEEP was sequentially changed to 5, 12, 10, 8 cm H2O, and again to 5 cm H2O. After 10 min at each PEEP level, hemodynamic, ventilatory, and oxygenation variables were collected.RESULTS:A total of 31 subjects were included, with median age and weight of 6 months and 6.3 kg, respectively. The main reasons for pediatric ICU admission were respiratory failure caused by acute viral bronchiolitis (45%) and community-acquired pneumonia (32%). Most subjects had mild or moderate ARDS (45% and 42%, respectively), with a median (interquartile range) oxygenation index of 8.4 (5.8–12.7). Oxygen saturation improved significantly when PEEP was increased. However, although no significant changes in blood pressure were observed, the median cardiac index at PEEP of 12 cm H2O was significantly lower than that observed at any other PEEP level (P = .001). Fourteen participants (45%) experienced a reduction in cardiac index of > 10% when PEEP was increased to 12 cm H2O. Also, the estimated oxygen delivery was significantly lower, at 12 cm H2O PEEP. Finally, respiratory system compliance significantly reduced when PEEP was increased. At a PEEP of 12 cm H2O, static compliance had a median reduction of 25% in relation to the initial assessment (PEEP of 5 cm H2O).CONCLUSIONS:Although it may improve arterial oxygen saturation, inappropriately high PEEP levels may reduce cardiac output, oxygen delivery, and respiratory system compliance in pediatric subjects with ARDS with low potential for lung recruitability.

BACKGROUND:This study sought to estimate the overall cumulative incidence and odds of Hospital-acquired venous thromboembolism (VTE) among critically ill children with and without exposure to invasive ventilation. In doing so, we also aimed to describe the temporal relationship between invasive ventilation and hospital-acquired VTE development.METHODS:We performed a retrospective cohort study using Virtual Pediatric Systems (VPS) data from 142 North American pediatric ICUs among children < 18 y of age from January 1, 2016–December 31, 2022. After exclusion criteria were applied, cohorts were identified by presence of invasive ventilation exposure. The primary outcome was cumulative incidence of hospital-acquired VTE, defined as limb/neck deep venous thrombosis or pulmonary embolism. Multivariate logistic regression was used to determine whether invasive ventilation was an independent risk factor for hospital-acquired VTE development.RESULTS:Of 691,118 children studied, 86,922 (12.4%) underwent invasive ventilation. The cumulative incidence of hospital-acquired VTE for those who received invasive ventilation was 1.9% and 0.12% for those who did not (P < .001). The median time to hospital-acquired VTE after endotracheal intubation was 6 (interquartile range 3–14) d. In multivariate models, invasive ventilation exposure and duration were each independently associated with development of hospital-acquired VTE (adjusted odds ratio 1.64 [95% CI 1.42–1.86], P < .001; and adjusted odds ratio 1.03 [95% CI 1.02–1.03], P < .001, respectively).CONCLUSIONS:In this multi-center retrospective review from the VPS registry, invasive ventilation exposure and duration were independent risk factors for hospital-acquired VTE among critically ill children. Children undergoing invasive ventilation represent an important target population for risk-stratified thromboprophylaxis trials.