Month: April 2022

What is the correct amount of grief? How much bereavement constitutes an appropriate portion? And when does the expected sorrow of loss cross over into something else to be reckoned with — a mental health problem? The newest update to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders arrived earlier this month with an expected — if long debated over — addition: the identification of a condition known as "prolonged grief disorder." The terminology has been over a decade in the making, spurred in part by inquiry surrounding the intersection of bereavement and depression. Yet it arrives now at a moment of uniquely fresh and widepread grief, a time of, as the American Psychiatry Association notes, "several ongoing disasters that have caused death and suffering, such as COVID-19, the w...

A new study found that an unexpected bodily feature may ultimately determine how sick one gets after contracting COVID-19. Researchers in the United Kingdom are reporting that one's fingers may be pointing toward a link between the severity of infections that could potentially lead to a COVID-19 patient being admitted to the hospital. According to the Swansea University study, low testosterone and high estrogen in men are linked to an increased risk of severe COVID-19 infection.  Researchers are reporting that smaller ring finger length in men, a sign of lower testosterone, was a predictor of severe COVID infection and an increased risk of hospitalization after contracting the virus. They noted that people who have larger size differences between the ...