Month: January 2021

JOHANNESBURG—Three new laboratory studies are raising concerns that the immune response triggered by a Covid-19 infection or vaccination may be less effective at protecting against the new strain of the coronavirus that first emerged in South Africa. The findings come from experiments done in the laboratory and only look at certain elements of a body’s immune response. Still, they reinforce the possibility that vaccine makers and regulators will need to update Covid-19 vaccines as the virus evolves. A fourth study, conducted by scientists at BioNTech SE and Pfizer Inc. and published by the companies, showed that their vaccine successfully neutralized a variant that was initially detected in the U.K. That study didn’t include the South African strain. ...

While our understanding of COVID and how it's transmitted has evolved over the last year, a solid consensus emerged early that aerosols, meaning contaminated droplets, are the most common way the virus spreads from person to person. So, if you've been around someone who's coughed in the last 10 months, you likely found yourself backing up quickly out of fear of being infected by COVID-19. But now, a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A on Jan. 20 has found that one behavior we're all doing on the daily is actually just as likely to spread COVID as coughing, if not more—and that's the simple act of talking. Read on to find out what this new research discovered, and for more on what you can do to avoid the virus, Stop Doing This Immediately to Avoid the New ...

People on a low-fat, plant-based diet ate fewer daily calories but had higher insulin and blood glucose levels, compared to when they ate a low-carbohydrate, animal-based diet, according to a small but highly controlled study at the National Institutes of Health. Led by researchers at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), the study compared the effects of the two diets on calorie intake, hormone levels, body weight, and more. The findings, published today (January 21, 2021) in Nature Medicine, broaden understanding of how restricting dietary carbohydrates or fats may impact health. “High-fat foods have been thought to result in excess calorie intake because they have many calories per bite. Alternatively, high-carb foods can cause large swing...

Dementia and Alzheimer's disease may not be an inevitable part of aging, according to a recent Dutch study, which identified 100-year-olds with high cognitive performance despite risk factors for decline. This six-year study of centenarians -- people who are over 100 years old -- found that despite high levels of a brain marker associated with cognitive decline, called amyloid beta, these centenarians were still sharp and performed well on cognitive tests. The researchers concluded these elderly subjects may have resilience mechanisms protecting them from memory loss. In fact, they said the risk of dementia may not necessarily increase once you pass your 100th birthday. "A person between 70 and 95 years old is exposed to the same dementia risk as a person who lives between age 100 and 10...