by Victoria Tutag Lehr, The Conversation When you stop at your local pharmacy to pick up a toothbrush or an antacid, soon you may also be able to buy an over-the-counter drug to reverse an opioid overdose. The lifesaving drug, naloxone, currently requires a prescription, but it may become available as an over-the-counter purchase in...
by Eric Muraille, The Conversation The COVID-19 pandemic, which is disrupting our lives and shaking our health systems and economies, is at the root of what Dr. Sylvie Briand, director of the Department of Pandemic and Epidemic Diseases of the World Health Organization (WHO), rightly described as an infodemic– the viral circulation of rumours and...
by Rebecca S.b. Fischer, The Conversation The coronavirus is on everyone’s minds. As an epidemiologist, I find it interesting to hear people using technical terms—like quarantine or super spreader or reproductive number—that my colleagues and I use in our work every day But I’m also hearing newscasters and neighbors alike mixing up three important words:...
by Rebecca S.b. Fischer, The Conversation COVID-19 was first noticed in Wuhan, China, in late 2019 but quickly spread across the globe. This map shows all countries with confirmed cases on March 5, 2020. Credit: CDC The coronavirus is on everyone’s minds. As an epidemiologist, I find it interesting to hear people using technical terms—like quarantine or...
By Dr. Liji Thomas, MD The battle with obesity is now set to go digital, with the development of tiny brain chips that could alter the activity of the brain area involved in experiencing pleasure from food. The chip, called a responsive neurostimulation system (RNS), recently showed success in a trial using mice and is...
Nonmedical opioid users are more likely to start abusing the drug after getting them from friends or family members—not doctors—according to a new study. Many people may think heroin abuse begins after doctors prescribe opioids and patients become addicted to them. When the government cracked down on prescription opioids and drug manufacturers began making pills more difficult to get...
VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER Diabetes has reached epidemic proportions in Asia and has dramatically increased the risk of premature death, especially among women and middle-aged people, a multinational study led by Vanderbilt University researchers has found. There is an urgent need to implement diabetes management programs tailored to Asian populations, the researchers reported today in JAMA Network Open, a...
NANYANG TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY A team from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) and the National University Health System (NUHS) has developed a self-inflating weight management capsule that could be used to treat obese patients. Called the EndoPil, the prototype capsule contains a balloon that can be self-inflated with a handheld magnet once it is in the stomach, thus inducing a sense of fullness. Its magnetically-activated...
Downtown Los Angeles has been hit with an outbreak of flea-borne typhus, Pasadena being the hardest hit. What is flea-borne typhus and how can it be prevented? Flea-Borne Typhus In Los Angeles County Los Angeles County’s Department of Public Health announced this week that it is investigating an outbreak of flea-borne typhus illnesses in the...
