By JOE PINKSTONE FOR MAILONLINE German hospital assessed the hormone levels of 45 COVID-19 patients in ICU Found that the vast majority of men admitted had low testosterone levels Testosterone may be able to stop the body’s immune system from going haywire Low levels of the sex hormone are unable to regulate the body’s immune...
Tag: <span>influenza</span>
Just how contagious is COVID-19? This chart puts it in perspective.
Matthew R. Francis February 20, 2020 Follow all of PopSci’s COVID-19 coverage here, including travel advice, pregnancy concerns, and the latest findings on the virus itself. Scientists, medical professionals, and governments around the world are working to understand how the new respiratory disease ravaging Hubei province spreads—and how bad it could be for the rest...
Pick of the coronavirus papers: ‘Dry swabbing’ offers a workaround to test-chemical scarcity
Nature wades through the literature on COVID-19 so you don’t have to. 28 April — ‘Dry swabbing’ offers a workaround to test-chemical scarcity Wide-scale genetic testing for SARS-CoV-2 has been hampered, in part, by shortages of the solutions used to store sampling swabs and extract viral RNA from them. To overcome this difficulty, a team...
A single dose of universal flu vaccine, FLU-v, may provide long-lasting protection against influenza
by American College of Physicians A single dose of adjuvanted FLU-v, a synthetic universal flu vaccine, may provide long-lasting protection across a broad spectrum of influenza viruses. Findings from a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial are published in Annals of Internal Medicine. Currently, the best available prophylactic treatment against influenza is annual vaccination with inactivated or...
Ketogenic diet helps tame flu virus
YALE UNIVERSITY A high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet like the Keto regimen has its fans, but influenza apparently isn’t one of them. Mice fed a ketogenic diet were better able to combat the flu virus than mice fed food high in carbohydrates, according to a new Yale University study published Nov. 15 in the journal Science Immunology....
Does the flu shot give you the flu?
By Rachel Nall, MSN, CRNA Reviewed by Debra Rose Wilson, PhD, MSN, RN, IBCLC, AHN-BC, CHT The flu shot will not give a person influenza, or the flu. Instead, it should help prevent the infection, which causes a significant number of visits to the doctor in the United States each year. According to research from...
By targeting flu-enabling protein, antibody may protect against wide-ranging strains
The findings could lead to a universal flu vaccine and more effective emergency treatments SCRIPPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE LA JOLLA, CA – A nationwide team of researchers has found an antibody that protects mice against a wide range of potentially lethal influenza viruses, advancing efforts to design of a universal vaccine that could either treat or...
Patients with type 2 diabetes who have flu more likely to be hospitalized
Paz L.D. Ruiz, from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health in Oslo, and colleagues used linked individual-level data from several national registers for all Norwegian residents aged 30 years and older to assess influenza-related complications among patients with type 2 diabetes(2009 through 2013). The researchers found that pandemic influenza hospitalization was more common in individuals...
Australia Just Had a Bad Flu Season. That May Be a Warning for the U.S.
In 2017, a terrible flu season in Australia presaged an American outbreak in which 79,000 died. Experts advise getting the shot soon. Australia had an unusually early and fairly severe flu season this year. Since that may foretell a serious outbreak on its way in the United States, public health experts now are urging Americans...
How antibiotics may render flu infections more dangerous
By Maria Cohut Fact checked by Isabel Godfrey Doctors already know that misusing antibiotics can cause antibiotic resistance, which can make it difficult to fight bacterial infections, such as pneumonia. Now, a study in mice suggests that antibiotic use could also make the lungs more vulnerable to viral infections, such as the flu. Antibiotic resistance has become a...