Health & Fitness

Diabetes is characterised by dysregulation of blood sugar levels, resulting from an inability to respond to insulin, or a shortfall in the hormone. The eventual outcome of this is high glucose levels, which cause severe damage to the nerve endings if left unmanaged. One telltale sign that blood sugar levels are becoming chronically high may strike at night. Hormonal fluctuations can cause a boost in blood sugar levels, whether an individual is diabetic or not. It is only once that chronic high blood sugar levels are left unaddressed that the condition starts to produce clear warning signs, however. Because symptoms don’t usually appear before blood sugar levels are significantly elevated, many cases go amiss in the initial stages, when the condition is still reversible. A headache at nig...

The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Dr. Anthony Fauci categorizes the pandemic into five phases. The first being the pandemic itself, in which the entire world is in the grip of the disease. The second phase entails a slowdown in newly emerging cases and is called deceleration which is resonant with the present scenario. The third phase is called control and involves a considerable decline in the hospitalization and death rates with the disease becoming a part of everyday lives like the flu. The penultimate stage is that of elimination in which the disease is eliminated from certain parts of the world but not entirely. The last stage is that of eradication and it entails a proper, complete and global elimination of the disease which is quite unlikely...

Up to a third of all child deaths from COVID-19 in the United States have occurred during the surge of highly contagious Omicron variant, according to newly released data. “We saw a massive surge of hospitalized young children during Omicron that we didn’t see in the earlier months of the pandemic,” said Jason Kane, a pediatric intensivist and associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Chicago Comer children’s hospital told The Guardian. Since the beginning of the year, 550 children in the US have died from COVID-19, compared with 1,017 kids over the preceding 22 months, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Omicron was first identified in November, and within weeks it became the dominant variant in the country. ...

An estimated 10 percent of the U.S. population has been diagnosed with diabetes, a number that may be apt to rise in the near future. Peculiarly, the reason for that may have to do with the pandemic. Since the pandemic's onset, researchers have found a link between contracting COVID-19 and an increased risk of receiving a diabetes diagnosis months later — especially in children, as one study showed that COVID-19 receptors can reduce insulin levels and kill pancreatic beta cells. While there is still much to learn about the connection between COVID-19 and diabetes, a potential wave of diabetes infections comes at an unprecedented time for the disease — perhaps when a cure is on the horizon. Yes, not treatment, but cure. Long considered a holy grail of sorts for medicine, diabetes — one of ...

Vaccines and immunisation The celebrated US scientist and inventor on not being in it for the money, why diversity improves problem-solving, and his dedication to exercising Sat 12 Mar 2022 12.00 EST The chemical engineer Robert Langer co-founded Covid-19 vaccine maker Moderna, and his innovations have helped create more than 100 products from artificial skin to messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines. The 73-year-old has a mountain of research papers and patents to his name, on top of which he has started more than 40 companies and won more than 200 awards, including the Queen Elizabeth prize, which has been called the “Nobel for engineering”. Langer’s biomedical engineering lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he holds a professorship, employs more than 100 researchers. He s...

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As the Omicron coronavirus surge subsides, researchers are keeping an eye on a highly transmissible subvariant known as BA.2. Although it doesn’t appear to have the capacity to drive a large new wave of infections, the variant could potentially slow the current decline of Covid cases and make treatments more difficult. Here’s what we know so far about BA.2. It’s not really new. Scientists first discovered the Omicron variant in November, and it quickly became clear that the viral lineage already existed as three genetically distinct varieties. Each branch of Omicron had its own set of unique mutations. At the time, the most common was BA.1, which quickly spread across the world. BA.1 was almost entirely responsible for the record-shattering spike in cases this winter. At first, BA.1 was ...

More than two years into the pandemic, it would appear the COVID-19 virus is somewhat under control. But with many people still unvaccinated both in the U.S. and across the globe, the virus is still a very real threat. "I don't think we need any more scientific breakthroughs, we know how to stop severe Covid: vaccines," says Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos, assistant professor of medicine and expert in pulmonary and critical care medicine at Johns Hopkins Medicine. Here is what virus experts think will happen next. Read on—and to ensure your health and the health of others, don't miss these Sure Signs You've Already Had COVID. ShutterstockThe next few months may seem comparatively calm, thanks to the drop in COVID cases across the U.S. "COVID may appear to g...

Covid-19 now could be less deadly than flu in the UK, infectious diseases expert Professor Paul Hunter said, although he warned another variant could still change this. According to the Daily Mail, government figures indicate the virus had a mortality rate of around 0.2 per cent before the ultra-transmissible strain erupted onto the scene. But this has since plunged seven-fold to as little as 0.03 per cent, meaning it kills effectively just one in every 3,300 people who get infected. For comparison, seasonal influenza's infection-fatality rate (IFR) sits between 0.01 and 0.05 per cent, suggesting that the two viruses now pose a similar threat. Hunter, from the University of East Anglia, told Ma...

March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness month. During this month, it’s important to note that colorectal cancer remains the second-leading cause of cancer death in men and women. Only lung cancer takes more lives. However, one of the true success stories in modern medicine is the dramatic decline in the incidence and death rates associated with colorectal cancer. These rates have declined by more than 40% from peaks in the 1980s. The majority of this impact derives from the improved acceptance and utilization of screening tests for colorectal cancer. This has translated into both prevention of colorectal cancer and detection at earlier stages when the chances of cure are much higher. More:Here's how an Illinois law makes proposed hospital cuts in Rockford likely Unfortunately, only 70% of Am...