Month: August 2020

Growing up in north-eastern Ohio, Kimberly Byce spent much of her childhood running around in the woods, with the greatest threat being mosquito bites or sunburn. She can’t remember her parents ever uttering the word “tick”. And yet, in adulthood, disease-laden ticks now blight her family’s life. Byce’s husband Trent Beers has been struck down by Lyme disease twice in the past year, initially misdiagnosed after suffering back pain so bad he couldn’t emerge from bed, drenched from night sweats and his mind a fog of confusion. Their sons Arbor, four, and Abbott, seven, were struck down by raging fevers initially thought to be related to coronavirus, but subsequently confirmed to also be from Lyme disease. The family has been ravaged by the tiny black-legged, or deer, ticks, a creature...

“I said, ‘Look at this weird email I just got,’ ” recalled Price, an investigative journalist for NBC affiliate WFLA. A woman from out of state had seen a report by Price on the evening news a few hours earlier and had spotted something that troubled her, she said. “Hi, just saw your news report,” the viewer wrote. “What concerned me is the lump on your neck. Please have your thyroid checked. Reminds me of my neck. Mine turned out to be cancer. Take care of yourself.” Price, who had never noticed anything unusual about the appearance of her neck, said she didn’t think the message was worth taking seriously. “He said, ‘You know, you did say you’ve been feeling a little more tired than usual these last few months,’ ” Price said. “He told me that I should call my doctor and have it check...

In a recently published study, the researchers unveiled a simple method to evaluate the effectiveness of various types of masks, analyzing more than a dozen different facial coverings ranging from hospital-grade N95 respirators to bandanas. Of the 14 masks and other coverings tested, the study found that some easily accessible cotton cloth masks are about as effective as standard surgical masks, while popular alternatives such as neck gaiters may be worse than not wearing a mask at all. “You can really see the mask is doing something,” said one of the study’s co-authors, Warren S. Warren, a professor of physics, chemistry, radiology and biomedical engineering at Duke. “There’s a lot of controversy and people say, ‘Well, masks don’t do anything.’ Well, the answer is some don’t, but mo...

Infectious disease expert Michael Osterholm on Monday contradicted President Donald Trump’s fanciful claim that the U.S. will soon be in “very good shape” with the coronavirus pandemic, instead predicting “an explosion” in new cases starting next month.  Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told CNN’s Don Lemon that the U.S. is “just really beginning to get to the really large part of the problem” with an average of 45,000 to 50,000 new confirmed cases of the virus per day. “When school starts both at the high school level and in college and universities, we think we’re going to see an explosion of cases in September that will far surpass what we saw after Memorial Day,” Osterholm said. “And that this is just go...

Food and drinks that contain certain minerals, therapeutic herbs and tryptophan — an essential amino acid — can aid your body's production of serotonin and melatonin. Those are "important hormones in regulating your sleep," Dr. Matthew Schmitt, a doctor of sleep medicine at Piedmont Healthcare in Georgia, told CNN. Two general rules apply: Stop eating and drinking at least two hours before bed so you can avoid trips to the bathroom and heartburn throughout the night. Avoid caffeine past 2 p.m. and evening alcohol, since the downsides include bathroom runs and interruptions in the deeper stages of sleep, said Dr. Raj Dasgupta, a pulmonary and sleep doctor and an assistant professor of clinical medicine at Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. Subscribe t...

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