Health & Fitness

Public health officials are alerting Sunlife Organics juice bar customers in West Hollywood of a possible hepatitis A exposure. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health identified hepatitis A virus infection in a food handler who worked at the location, officials said in a news release Friday. Hepatitis A is a liver infection caused by the hepatitis A virus, the department explained. It causes acute liver disease, which may be severe. So far, no additional cases tied to the juice bar have been identified. Still, the public health department recommends hepatitis A vaccination for patrons who got food or drinks from Sunlife Organics in West Hollywood between March 14–17. Vaccination is not necessary for people who previously completed the hepat...

Thirteen people in the Upstate are receiving medical treatment after coming in contact with a rabid calf, the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control said Friday.The calf was on property near Highway 28 South in Clemson, tested positive for rabies, DHEC said in a release. The calf was part of a rabies-vaccinated herd but was too young to have been vaccinated against disease, officials said. The calf was submitted to DHEC's laboratory for testing on Tuesday and was confirmed to have rabies on Wednesday, according to the release.South Carolina law requires all dogs, cats, and ferrets to be vaccinated against rabies and revaccinated at a frequency to provide continuous protection from rabies.The vaccine is approved by the department and licensed by the United State...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists have figured out why vampire bats are the only mammals that can survive on a diet of just blood. They compared the genome of common vampire bats to 26 other bat species and identified 13 genes that are missing or no longer work in vampire bats. Over the years, those gene tweaks helped them adapt to a blood diet rich in iron and protein but with minimal fats or carbohydrates, the researchers reported Friday in the journal Science Advances. The bats live in South and Central America and are basically “living Draculas,” said co-author Michael Hiller of Germany’s Max Planck Institute. About 3 inches (8 centimeters) long with a wingspan of 7 inches (18 centimeters), the bats bite and than lap up blood from livestock or other animals at night. Most mammals couldn’t ...

At 39, Jamie Jackson was the picture of health. The mother of three exercised, ate right and stayed active with family and church. But inside, she was far from healthy. Her first colonoscopy showed a 2 1/2-centimeter cancerous tumor, silently growing inside her large intestine. The news was a shock. "If I can get colon cancer, anyone can get colon cancer," said Jackson, who has since recovered. "I feel like I need to be the poster child for this diagnosis because I was so young." March: Colon Cancer Awareness Month An estimated 50,000 Americans died from colorectal cancer in 2021, said Dr. Sree Suryadevara of The Colorectal Center in Nashville. March is Colon Cancer Awareness Month, a reminder that early detection is key. "This is a potentially preventable disease through effective sc...

Enlarge / The three-dimensional structures of proteins provide many opportunities for specific interactions. Thanks in part to the large range of shapes they can adopt and the chemical environments those shapes create, proteins can perform an amazing number of functions. But there are many proteins we wish didn't function quite so well, like the proteins on the surfaces of viruses that let them latch on to new cells or the damaged proteins that cause cancer cells to grow uncontrollably. Ideally, we'd like to block the key sites on these proteins, limiting their ability to do harm. We've seen some progress in this area with the introduction of a number of small-molecule drugs, including one that appears effective against COVID-19. But that sort o...

On March 18, 2022, this report was posted online as an MMWR Early Release. Mark W. Tenforde, MD, PhD1; Wesley H. Self, MD2; Manjusha Gaglani, MBBS3,4; Adit A. Ginde, MD5; David J. Douin, MD5; H. Keipp Talbot, MD2; Jonathan D. Casey, MD2; Nicholas M. Mohr, MD6; Anne Zepeski, PharmD6; Tresa McNeal, MD3,4; Shekhar Ghamande, MD3,4; Kevin W. Gibbs, MD7; D. Clark Files, MD7; David N. Hager, MD, PhD8; Arber Shehu, MD8; Matthew E. Prekker, MD9; Anne E. Frosch, MD9; Michelle N. Gong, MD10; Amira Mohamed, MD10; Nicholas J. Johnson, MD11; Vasisht Srinivasan, MD11; Jay S. Steingrub, MD12; Ithan D. Peltan, MD13,14; Samuel M. Brown, MD13,14; Emily T. Martin, PhD15; Arnold S. Monto, MD15; Akram Khan, MD16; Catherine L. Hough, MD16; Laurence W. Busse, MD17; Abhijit Duggal, MD18; Jennifer G. Wilson...

Half of all women getting 3D mammograms will experience a false positive over a decade of annual screening, a study published Friday in JAMA Network Open found. Why it matters: False positives — when a mammogram is flagged as abnormal, but there is no cancer — have always been a problem. But 3D mammography has been aggressively marketed by hospitals, doctors and some patient groups for its ability to provide higher image quality images — and previous studies have found they result in fewer false positives. What they're saying: "Whenever you're called back for an additional workup, it's very stressful because women think they may have cancer," Diana Miglioretti, a lead author and professor and division chief of biostatistics at UC Davis Department of Public Health Sciences, told Axios. "...

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He wanted some post-op hops. A paralyzed man who was unable to move or communicate for months is now finally able to speak thanks to a state-of-the-art brain-computer interface system. His first words? “I want a beer.” The unnamed 36-year-old patient had been suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a progressive nervous system disease that affects the brain and spinal cord, resulting in loss of muscle control. As a result, the man was left unable to talk or even move his eyes, preventing him from communicating in any way, per a study published in the journal Nature Communications. While his first request is astonishing, his case might also be groundbreaking in terms of recovery. “Successful communication has previously been demonstrated with BCI...

Scientists in the United States say they have developed a male birth control pill that is 99 per cent effective in mice without causing side effects, and that could begin human trials by the end of this year. The findings, unveiled at the American Chemical Society's spring meeting, mark a key step in efforts to expand contraceptive options for men and better share the burden of birth control with women. While there are scores of options for women to control their menstrual cycle, there have been only two effective options available so far in terms of male contraception: condoms or vasectomies. But condoms are single-use only, and vasectomies aren’t easy to reverse, so researchers have been working on developing a male contraceptive that’s effective, long-lasting and reversible - simil...