Health & Fitness

You might want to stop filling your bird feeders. Experts warn that an outbreak of the avian influenza (HPAI) strain H5N1 is spreading among wild birds. And they say bird feeders and baths that encourage birds to congregate in your backyard allow the virus to spread. The risk of people catching the bird flu is low, with no cases reported in humans. However, the agency advises to avoid direct contact with dead or live wild birds and dead or ill domestic birds. “Not only will this action help to protect those beautiful feathered creatures that visit your yard, but will also help all wild bird species that are already having it hard this spring because of HPAI,” Dr. Victoria Hall with the Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota says. Hall added that all bird species are suscepti...

Rising coronavirus cases aren’t going to stop much of the country from continuing to move on from the pandemic, leaving many Americans to fend for themselves on the road to a new normal. Even as cases nationwide have jumped 47 percent over the last two weeks, on Monday a federal judge lifted the mask requirement for air travel and it doesn’t sound as if the Biden administration is putting up a big fight to reinstate it. When people who were literally on a plane heard the news, their response reflected this chaotic new moment in the pandemic, a mixture of cheers and fresh fears. But if you look at people’s attitudes broadly, Americans have been drifting toward normalcy. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s March poll, 27 percent of Americans say they have basically returned ...

Antidepressants are no better at making people feel happier than taking no medication at all, a study claimed today.  Patients on the drugs did not have a significantly better quality of life compared to depressed people who were not on the pills, the analysis found. Researchers looked 17.5million US adults with depression over 10 years, with around half on medication and half not. Results showed a slight improvement in mental health in both groups, regardless of whether they were on antidepressants.  The researchers from King Saud University, Saudi Arabia, called for more long-term studies on patients on antidepressants to evaluate their impact on quality of life. NHS doctors are already moving away from prescribing the drugs, which can cause a host of side effects. The health service no...

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Malaria Technique of reflecting sunlight back into space found to be likely to cause increase in population of disease-carrying mosquitos Wed 20 Apr 2022 05.00 EDT Geoengineering to prevent the worst impacts of climate breakdown could expose up to a billion more people to malaria, scientists have found.The report, published in Nature Communications, is the first assessment of how geoengineering the climate could affect the burden of infectious diseases.Geoengineering includes removing carbon dioxide from the sky so the atmosphere will trap less heat, and solar radiation management (SRM) – reflecting more sunlight away from the planet so less heat is absorbed in the first place. The latter could be done in various ways, including spraying particles into the sky to reflect the sun away f...

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY SCHERER / GETTY IMAGES As COVID-19 testing sites close and experts warn that case numbers are capturing a small minority of infections, many public health experts are turning to a newer source that might tell us what’s going on with the virus: our poop. In the past two years, scientists have developed systems that can detect COVID-19 in our wastewater. This is a great early warning system, since the virus can show up in people’s waste days before they begin to experience symptoms or are able to get tested. It’s also less biased than case data: Not everyone can find a COVID-19 test and not every positive result will get reported … but everybody poops. As w...

No new cases of avian flu have been reported two days after a Lancaster County poultry farm destroyed nearly 1.5 million chickens to stop the spread.The Kreider Farms Donegal egg-laying facility remains under quarantine, along with farms in about a six-mile radius. Those farms are testing for bird flu.Poultry is a $7 billion industry in Pennsylvania. The spread of avian flu could impact what you buy."If you start pulling birds out, production out, meat, eggs, clearly all of that - there are only so many chickens, only so many eggs. only so many chickens, eggs, poultry, so we have to be aware that there could be implications to supply if we do not contain this," said Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding.If you suspect live poultry is infected, you are asked to report it ...

Prostate cancer Scientists don’t yet know if the microbes are causative, but if proven it could save thousands of lives Scientists have discovered bacteria linked to aggressive prostate cancer in work hailed as a potential revolution for the prevention and treatment of the most deadly form of the disease.Researchers led by the University of East Anglia performed sophisticated genetic analyses on the urine and prostate tissue of more than 600 men with and without prostate cancer and found five species of bacteria linked to rapid progression of the disease. The study does not prove that the bacteria drive or exacerbate prostate cancer, but if work now under way confirms their role, researchers can develop tests to identify men most at risk and potentially find antibiotics to prevent the ca...

The Health Ministry on Wednesday reported 12 cases of a mysterious liver disease in children that has popped up in Europe and the US, puzzling health officials. Children have been diagnosed with hepatitis, or liver inflammation, in at least seven countries, including 74 cases in the UK, but the usual viruses that cause infectious hepatitis were not found. Scientists and doctors are considering other possible sources of the disease. The Health Ministry asked hospitals and clinics to report any cases of liver disease in children after the cases surfaced abroad. Hospital officials reported 12 cases in recent months in the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem and the Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Petah Tikva. Schneider said all seven of its cases were childr...

Cases of acute hepatitis have been reported in countries around Europe, following a mysterious spike in cases of severe liver disease in children in the UK. The UK’s public health agencies have been investigating 74 cases of hepatitis - an illness causing liver inflammation - in children since January. Health experts are trying to determine the causes of the cases, as the usual viruses causing the illness were not detected. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the EU’s health agency issued warnings to other countries to be on the alert and asked them to report any cases of unknown origin. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said on Wednesday that additional cases of hepatitis of unknown origin have been reported in Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Sp...