Students returning home may have caused 9,400 secondary COVID-19 infections across UK

Variation in consumption of market-acquired foods outside of the traditional diet -- but not in total calories burned daily -- is reliably related to indigenous Amazonian children's body fat, according to a Baylor University study that offers insight into the global obesity epidemic. "The importance of a poor diet versus low energy expenditure on the development of childhood obesity remains unclear," said Samuel Urlacher, Ph.D., assistant professor of anthropology at Baylor University, CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar and lead author of the study. "Using gold-standard measures of energy expenditure, we show that relatively lean, rural forager-horticulturalist children in the Amazon spend approximately the same total number of calories each day as their much ...

Spiritualist mediums might be more prone to immersive mental activities and unusual auditory experiences early in life, according to new research. This might explain why some people and not others eventually adopt spiritualist beliefs and engage in the practice of 'hearing the dead', the study led by Durham University found. Mediums who "hear" spirits are said to be experiencing clairaudient communications, rather than clairvoyant ("seeing") or clairsentient ("feeling" or "sensing") communications. The researchers conducted a survey of 65 clairaudient spiritualist mediums from the Spiritualists' National Union and 143 members of the general population in the ...

Tokyo, Japan - Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have discovered that fruit flies with genetic modifications to enhance glucose uptake have significantly longer lifespans. Looking at the brain cells of aging flies, they found that better glucose uptake compensates for age-related deterioration in motor functions, and led to longer life. The effect was more pronounced when coupled with dietary restrictions. This suggests healthier eating plus improved glucose uptake in the brain might lead to enhanced lifespans. The brain is a particularly power-hungry part of our bodies, consuming 20% of the oxygen we take in and 25% of the glucose. That's why it's so important that it can stay powered, ...

The spread of COVID-19 in Brazil overwhelmed the health systems in all the country's regions, particularly in areas where they were already fragile, according to a collaborative effort involving the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), an institution supported by the "la Caixa" Foundation, the University of Sao Paulo, the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, the D'Or Institute of Research and Education and the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation. The findings, published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, reveal that a large percentage of COVID-19 patients that were hospitalised in Brazil required intensive care and respiratory support, and many did not survive. The COVID-19 pandemic has put an enormous strain on healthcare ...

BOSTON - The Study on Stress, Spirituality and Health (SSSH), a cutting-edge proteomics analysis, suggests that religious beliefs modulate protein expression associated with cardiovascular disease in South Asians in the United States. The research, published by investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) in Scientific Reports, demonstrates that spiritual struggles, in particular, significantly modify the impact of unique proteins on risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD) in U.S. South Asians, a community that has especially ...

One of the most vexing aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic is doctors' inability to predict which newly hospitalized patients will go on to develop severe disease, including complications that require the insertion of a breathing tube, kidney dialysis or other intensive care. Knowledge of a patient's age and underlying medical conditions can help predict such outcomes, but there are still surprises when younger, seemingly healthier patients suffer severe complications that can lead to death. Now, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown that a relatively simple and rapid blood test can predict -- within a day of a hospital admission -- which patients with ...

MIAMI--A group of more than 60 scientists have provided recommendations to improve the Indian Ocean Observing System (IndOOS), a basin-wide monitoring system to better understand the impacts of human-caused climate change in a region that has been warming faster than any other ocean. The group, led by Lisa Beal, professor of ocean sciences at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, provides a road map for an enhanced IndOOS to better meet the scientific and societal needs for more reliable environmental forecasts in the next decade. The 136 actionable recommendations from the three-year, internationally coordinated review were published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The scientists call for four major ...

A University of Saskatchewan study has found that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to significant worsening of already poor dietary habits, low activity levels, sedentary behaviour, and high alcohol consumption among university students. The findings of the study--the first to assess changes in students' dietary intake, physical activity, and sedentary behaviour before and during the pandemic--are published today in the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism. "Our findings are important because university students, especially those most vulnerable for poor nutrition and sedentary behaviour, should be targeted for interventions aimed at maintaining and improving physical activity and dietary practices during this pandemic and beyond," said lead author ...

As the vaccination of older adults against COVID-19 begins across the country, new poll data suggests that many of them don't yet have access to the "patient portal" online systems that could make it much easier for them to schedule a vaccination appointment. The poll finds that 45% of adults aged 65 to 80, and 42% of all adults aged 50 to 80, said they had not set up an account with their health provider's portal system. That's according to the newly analyzed data from the National Poll on Healthy Aging, based at the University of Michigan's Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation. The new number actually represents some progress: 49% of adults in the same age range hadn't set up patient portal access the last time the ...

Exactly what kills a person with COVID-19? How do those deaths differ from the deaths of people whose lungs fail rapidly because of other infections or injuries? And what can hospital teams pressed into service on overtaxed COVID-19 wards do to try to keep patients from dying, despite strained circumstances? All of these questions have sparked discussion - and even conspiracy theories - since the pandemic began. Now, two studies from Michigan Medicine may help answer them. The bottom line: COVID-19 deaths are indeed different from other lung failure deaths. But, the researchers conclude, the kind of care needed to help sustain people through the worst cases of all forms of lung failure is highly similar. It just needs to be fine-tuned to focus on the ...