New study underscores the role of race and poverty in COVID-19

For decades, physicians and dieticians have urged people to limit their intake of high fat foods, citing links to poor health outcomes and some of the leading causes of death in the U.S., such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, dietary components high in saturated fats such as red meat are thought to be risk factors for colon cancer. Diet is thought to strongly influence the risk of colorectal cancer, and changes in food habits might reduce up to 70% of this cancer burden. Other known epidemiological risk factors are family history, inflammatory bowel disease, ...

Watching what was happening around the world in early 2020, University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers knew their region would likely soon be hit with a wave of patients with COVID-19, the infection caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. They wondered how the virus persists on surfaces, particularly in hospitals, and they knew they had only a small window of time to get started if they wanted to capture a snapshot of the "before" situation -- before patients with the infection were admitted. After a call late one Sunday night, a team assembled in the ...

MELVILLE, N.Y., June 9, 2021 -- In the evolutionary battle between hunter and hunted, sound plays an integral part in the success or failure of the hunt. In the case of bats vs. moths, the insects are using acoustics against their winged foes. During the 180th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, which will be held virtually June 8-10, Thomas Neil, from the University of Bristol, will discuss how moth wings have evolved in composition and structure to help them create anti-bat defenses. The session, "Moth wings are acoustic metamaterials," will take place Wednesday, June 9, at 1 p.m. Eastern U.S. Nocturnal moths ...

MELVILLE, N.Y., June 9, 2021 -- The prolonged impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the interaction restrictions created widespread lockdown fatigue and increased social tension in multiunit housing. But small improvements in quality-of-life routines may help people cope with the health restrictions better than they previously could. During the 180th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, which will be held virtually June 8-10, Braxton Boren, from American University, will discuss noise prevention techniques and the use of alterative acoustic stimulation to help those who find themselves in pandemic-related lockdowns. The session, "The Soundscape of Quarantine," will take place Wednesday, June 9, at 1:45 p.m. Eastern U.S. While there have been studies about ...

The SARS-CoV-2 papain-like protease (PLpro) plays an essential role in processing viral proteins needed for replication. In addition, the enzyme can cut and inactivate some human proteins important for an immune response. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Infectious Diseases have found other targets of PLpro in the human proteome, including proteins involved in cardiovascular function, blood clotting and inflammation, suggesting a link between the inactivation of these proteins and COVID-19 symptoms. Viruses like SARS-CoV-2 make multiple proteins as one long "polyprotein." Viral enzymes called proteases recognize specific amino acid sequences in this polyprotein and cut them to release individual proteins. ...

A cell-penetrating peptide developed by researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center can prevent, in an animal model, the often-fatal septic shock that can result from bacterial and viral infections. Their findings, published this week in Scientific Reports, could lead to a way to protect patients at highest risk for severe complications and death from out-of-control inflammatory responses to microbial infections, including COVID-19. "Life-threatening microbial inflammation hits harder (in) patients with metabolic syndrome, a condition afflicting millions of people in the United States and worldwide," said the paper's corresponding author, Jacek Hawiger, MD, PhD, the Louise B. McGavock Chair in Medicine and Distinguished Professor of Medicine ...

BRIEFING NOTE: Researchers will announce these results at the 238th AAS meeting on Wednesday, June 9 at 12:15 p.m. E.D.T. Press registration details can be found here: https://aas.org/meetings/aas238/press. Interested journalists can also tune in to AAS briefings streamed live at: https://www.youtube.com/c/AASPressOffice. Please note that you will not be able to ask questions via YouTube; to ask questions, you'll need to register for the meeting and join the briefings via Zoom. Recordings will be archived on the AAS Press Office YouTube channel afterward. To catch sight of a fast radio burst is to be extremely lucky in where and when you point your radio dish. Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are oddly bright flashes of light, registering ...

OAKLAND, Calif. -- The significant declines in heart attack hospitalizations and emergency care for possible strokes seen in Northern California at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic were not seen in subsequent surges, new research from Kaiser Permanente shows. The study, published June 2 in JAMA, suggests public health campaigns that encouraged people to seek care if they were experiencing signs or symptoms of a stroke or heart attack were effective. "In May 2020, we reported that, in the early months of the pandemic, the weekly number of patients admitted to our hospitals for a heart attack fell to nearly half of what would be expected," said the study's lead author Matthew ...

A new study identifies a novel biomarker indicating resilience to chronic stress. This biomarker is largely absent in people suffering from major depressive disorder, and this absence is further associated with pessimism in daily life, the study finds. Nature Communications published the research by scientists at Emory University. The researchers used brain imaging to identify differences in the neurotransmitter glutamate within the medial prefrontal cortex before and after study participants underwent stressful tasks. They then followed the participants for four weeks, using a survey protocol to regularly assess how participants rated their expected and experienced outcomes for daily activities. "To our knowledge, this is the first work to show ...

A new study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society suggests that survival rates after heart transplant surgery are similar in adults ages 18 to 69 and adults ages 70 and older. Researchers examined a large U.S. database of patients who were listed as candidates for surgery to replace their failing hearts with healthier donor hearts. The researchers found that: Only 1 in 50 people who are considered for heart transplant surgery and 1 in 50 people who receive a heart transplant are ages 70 or older. For older adults in the study, the likelihood of surviving one or five years after a heart transplant was about the same as for younger adults. Having a ...