Expanding symptom list in line with other countries could improve the UK's pandemic response The UK should expand its official list of symptoms for defining covid-19 to prevent cases being missed and help improve the UK's pandemic response, say experts in The BMJ today. They argue that limiting symptomatic testing to those with these official symptoms "will miss or delay identification of many covid-19 cases, hampering efforts to interrupt transmission." During the covid-19 pandemic the British public has been told to self-isolate and get a test if they have a high fever, a new continuous cough, or ...

Eating a diet rich in omega 3 (n-3) fatty acids reduces the frequency of headaches compared with a diet with normal intake of omega 3 and omega 6 (n-6) fatty acids, finds a study published by The BMJ today. Modern industrialised diets tend to be low in omega 3 fatty acids and high in omega 6 fatty acids. These fatty acids are precursors to oxylipins - molecules involved in regulating pain and inflammation. Oxylipins derived from omega 3 fatty acids are associated with pain-reducing effects, while oxylipins derived from omega 6 fatty acids worsen pain and can provoke migraine. But previous studies evaluating omega 3 fatty acid supplements for migraine have been inconclusive. So a team of US researchers wanted to find out whether diets ...

A diet higher in fatty fish helped frequent migraine sufferers reduce their monthly number of headaches and intensity of pain compared to participants on a diet higher in vegetable-based fats and oils, according to a new study. The findings by a team of researchers from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), parts of the National Institutes of Health; and the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, were published in the July 3 issue of The BMJ. This study of 182 adults with frequent migraines ...

New research being presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) being held online (9-12 July) identifies drugs that could potentially be repurposed for the treatment of gonorrhoea (Neisseria gonorrhoeae [Ng]): a sexually transmitted infection which is becoming increasingly resistant to existing antibiotics. The decreased susceptibility of the Ng bacterium to extended spectrum cephalosporin antibiotics has become an important public health issue as cases of this common infection become more difficult to treat. The study ...

New research presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) taking place online (9-12 July) shows that individuals affected by mental illnesses including depression and schizophrenia experience an increased incidence of tuberculosis (TB). TB and mental illnesses are both urgent global health priorities with a high prevalence across the world, and often co-exist. Although poor mental health is known to affect the immune system, it is not known whether mental illness plays a causal role in TB infection ...

COVID-19 is common in pet cats and dogs whose owners have the virus, according to new research being presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) held online this year. Cases of owners spreading the disease to their dog or cat have been documented before but are considered to be of negligible risk to public health. However, as vaccination and other measures reduce human-to-human transmission of the virus, it is becoming imperative that we understand more about the potential risk posed by animal infections. To find out more, Dr Els Broens ...

**Note this is a special early release from the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2021). Please credit the conference if you use this story** New research being presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID), held online this year, suggests that people with COVID-19 frequently pass it on to their pets. Cats that sleep on their owner's bed seem to be at particular risk of infection. Previous studies have shown that cats and dogs can catch COVID-19 from their owners but it wasn't clear how susceptible they were and what, if anything, increased their odds of becoming infected. Answering these questions is important from both a public health and animal ...

Individuals who contract COVID-19 even after vaccination are likely to have a lower viral load, experience a shorter infection time and have milder symptoms than people who are unvaccinated, according to research that includes data from ongoing University of Arizona Health Sciences studies. "If you get vaccinated, about 90% of the time you're not going to get COVID-19," said Jeff Burgess, MD, MS, MPH, associate dean for research and professor at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health and principal investigator of the Arizona Healthcare, ...

MINNEAPOLIS - Finding treatments for advanced multiple sclerosis (MS) has been difficult. But new research may help neurologists identify which drugs are best for people with the advanced form of MS called secondary progressive MS. The new study, published in the June 30, 2021, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, found that the more potent disease-modifying drugs are more effective in reducing flare-ups in secondary progressive MS than the less potent drugs that tend to be safer to take. However, the researchers found no difference in how fast the disease progressed between these two types of drugs. Most ...

MINNEAPOLIS - A new study suggests that even when differences in socioeconomic status are taken into consideration, Black people with multiple sclerosis (MS) may be more negatively impacted by the disease than white people with MS. The research is published in the June 30, 2021, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study found that Black people with MS had lower scores on certain measures of neurological health, like dexterity and walking tests and showed more evidence of disease progression on brain scans. "While lower socioeconomic status appears to be linked to doing worse on tests ...

June 30, 2021 - For most patients, the reasons for having a facelift are simple: to "turn back the clock" for a younger and more attractive appearance. Even during the pandemic year 2020, more than 234,000 patients underwent facelift surgery, according to American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) statistics. When considering facelift surgery, patients may ask, "How much younger will I look?" For plastic surgeons, that has been a difficult question to answer. Typically, the cosmetic outcomes of facelifting have been judged on a case-by-case basis, or with the use of subjective ratings. Now research suggests a new, objective approach to assessing the reduction in apparent age after facelift surgery: artificial intelligence (AI) networks trained to estimate age based on facial ...

Electron motion in atoms and molecules is of fundamental importance to many physical, biological, and chemical processes. Exploring electron dynamics within atoms and molecules is essential for understanding and manipulating these phenomena. Pump-probe spectroscopy is the conventional technique. The 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry provides a well-known example wherein femtosecond pumped laser pulses served to probe the atomic motion involved in chemical reactions. However, because the timescale of electron motion within atoms and molecules is on the order of attoseconds (10-18 seconds) rather than femtoseconds (10-15 seconds), attosecond pulses are required to probe electron motion. With the development of ...

A recent University of Arizona College of Pharmacy study suggests that Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) may be a valuable means of assesing clinical skills while providing learning experiences for pharmacy students in community pharmacy settings. While the OSCEs were designed to assess health care professionals in a clinical setting, there was limited data on its use in testing skills required in community pharmacies, until now. For pharmacists working in retail, guiding patients on the use of over-the-counter (OTC) drugs is a common part of the job. According to a recent survey from the American ...

Directing a meeting, dialing up an old acquaintance, dictating the perfect tuna salad sandwich across a drive-through window. For business and for pleasure, human beings are in constant communication.Our proclivity for socialization is lifelong, equally prominent in the lives of adolescents and adults. A recent study determined key differences in the ways that various age groups communicate, as well as one conversational component that stands the test of time: friendship. Specifically, bonds between individuals who identify as female. Led by former Beckman Institute postdoctoral researchers Michelle Rodrigues and Si On Yoon, an interdisciplinary team evaluated how interlocutors' age and familiarity with one another impacts a conversation, reviewing the interaction's ...

Elevated levels of three specific circulating proteins are associated with protection against kidney failure in diabetes, according to research from the Joslin Diabetes Center that will be published 30th June in Science Translational Medicine. "As well as acting as biomarkers for advancing kidney disease risk in diabetes, the proteins may also serve as the basis for future therapies against progression to the most serious types of kidney disease," said Andrzej S. Krolewski MD, PhD, senior author on the publication, senior investigator at Joslin Diabetes Center and professor of medicine ...

A 7- to 15-year longitudinal study of 358 diabetics has linked 3 proteins in blood with a slower progression of diabetic kidney disease and progressive kidney failure. The results from Zaipul Md Dom and colleagues suggest that the proteins could help researchers identify diabetics most at risk of kidney damage, potentially enabling earlier interventions and treatment. Despite advancements in blood sugar control and kidney therapies, patients with type 1 or type 2 diabetes still face a high risk of diabetic kidney disease. This condition can eventually progress to end-stage kidney disease, but some patients show slower kidney decline than others. In recent ...

Despite unprecedented advancements in technology and countless depictions of complex human-AI interactions in sci-fi movies, we have yet to fully achieve AI bots that can engage in conversation as naturally as humans can. Kushal Chawla, researcher at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) and a doctoral student in computer science, along with collaborators at both the USC Information Sciences Institute (ISI) and ICT are taking us one step closer to this reality by teaching AI how to negotiate with humans. The research, presented at the 2021 Annual Conference of ...

Although cardiovascular disease is the main cause of illness among women in the U.S., certain conditions such as coronary microvascular disease (CMD) cannot be easily diagnosed. In a new study, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have identified specific biomarkers for CMD, which might reduce future hospitalizations. CMD damages the inner walls of blood vessels causing spasms and decreased blood flow to the heart muscle. "Clinicians look for plaque formation in the blood vessels, which does not occur in CMD," said Zeynep Madak-Erdogan (CGD/EIRH/GSP), an associate professor of nutrition. "Usually, ...

The virus that gives rise to COVID-19 is the third coronavirus to threaten humanity in the past two decades. It also happens to move more efficiently from person to person than either SARS or MERS did. The first African case of COVID-19 was diagnosed in Egypt in mid-February of 2020. Four weeks later, the first lockdowns began across Africa. Steven Schiff, Brush Chair Professor of Engineering at Penn State, who already had established research partnerships in Uganda, saw an opportunity for his team to apply what they were learning from their ongoing efforts to track and control infectious disease and ...

Ten estuaries on the West Coast of North America have been identified as priority locations for expanding the use of conservation aquaculture in a study led by the Native Olympia Oyster Collaborative and funded by the Science for Nature and People Partnership (SNAPP). SNAPP is a research collaboration supported by the National Center for Ecological Analysis & Synthesis (NCEAS) at UC Santa Barbara. The study, published in Plos One, recommends locations and methods for the strategic expansion of conservation aquaculture to bring back Olympia oyster populations -- both to local estuaries where they have most declined, and into more local restaurants for oyster lovers to dine on. The authors propose using aquaculture in these estuaries -- ...

Even the mundane act of swallowing requires a well-coordinated dance of more than 30 muscles of the mouth. The loss of function of even one of these, due to disease or injury, can be extremely debilitating. For these people, nerve stimulation offers a ray of hope to regain some of their lost oral function. In a new study, researchers at Texas A&M University have delineated the minimum size of electrical currents needed to provide sensation in different parts of the mouth. The researchers said their study is a first but vital step toward building electrical stimulation implants that can restore essential intraoral functions that are lost due to nerve or brain damage. The results of the study are published in the journal ...

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is widely used in medicine to detect, diagnose and treat diseases such as cancer, while relying on experts' interpretation of images. Quantitative MRI, which obtains numerical measurements during the scans, can now potentially offer greater accuracy, repeatability and speed -- but rigorous quality control is needed for it to reach its full potential, according to a new study. Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) led the study by 11 institutions comparing measurements by 27 MRI scanners from three vendors at nine clinical sites around the country. To obtain reference values and disentangle sources of bias and variation, the study used a tissue stand-in, or "phantom," originally ...

A city's street names can provide a glimpse into its cultural value system and a way to quantify cultural indicators, according to a study published June 30, 2021 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Melanie Bancilhon from Washington University in Saint Louis, U.S., and colleagues. Ever since named streets have existed, they have been used as a form of social engineering, mirroring a town or city's social, cultural, political, and religious values. Building off this concept in what they term "streetonomics," Bancilhon and colleagues used street names as an alternative route to quantify cultural indicators in four influential Western cities: Paris, Vienna, London, and New York. The authors used multiple open data sources ...

The deep sea Pacific Salas y Gómez and Nazca ridges are highly biodiverse and host unique fish and invertebrate taxa, according to video surveys. INFORMATION: Article Title: Deep-sea biodiversity at the extremes of the Salas y Gómez and Nazca ridges with implications for conservation Funding: The expeditions were funded by the National Geographic Society and Pristine Seas donors with support to AMF. Conservation International, the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation, Tom and Currie Barron, and Alan Eustace provided additional support to DW, WG and JG. The Chilean Millennium Science Initiative Program grant #NC120030 ...

In the German population, a surprisingly high 6% of under-18s are at risk of cognitive decline, falls and more from the cumulative effect of anticholinergic medications such as antihistamines and antidepressants. INFORMATION: Article Title: Anticholinergic burden: First comprehensive analysis using claims data shows large variation by age and sex Funding: The authors received no external funding for this work. Competing Interests: UH, OR, MB and JR are working at an independent, non-profit research institute, the Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology - BIPS. Unrelated to this study, BIPS occasionally conducts studies financed by the pharmaceutical industry. Almost exclusively, these are post-authorization ...