Public Health

Some people believe the immune system is dormant when you are healthy and only kicks into action when a threat is present. Biologically, nature is always trying to kill things, we are just evolved enough to dismiss most without issues, but your immune system is working even when you feel fine. A recent paper highlights how the immune system even causes the liver of the healthy body to produce an energy source called ketone bodies and how that takes place by letting the liver burn fat during fasting.  'Fasting' has become a diet fad but biologically fasting begins any time the body isn't…

In the last few decades more has been learned about the impact of oral health on the entire human biological system. And more is being done to reduce factors that lead to an estimated 15 million babiesborn prematurely or preterm (defined as delivery before the 37th week of pregnancy) each year. Preterm babies are at greater risk of experiencing serious health problems. Due to correlation between preterm births and poor oral care, researchers have looked at various ways to improve dental health during pregnancy, including “deep-teeth cleaning” like scaling and planing to remove plaque and…

A group of vegetarian activists argue that the COVID-19 Omicron variant is good reason for people to adopt a plant-based diet. Papers by members of the Physicians Committee have correlated giving up meat to reduced risk of severe COVID-19 and mortality. The authors of the new editorial in European Journal of Clinical Nutrition cite data touting the benefits of a plant-based diet for COVID-19, like one observational paper which claimed that a healthy plant-based diet was associated with a 9% lower risk of COVID-19 infection and a 41% lower risk of severe COVID-19. Another exploratory…

Do be careful, masks, distancing, get vaccinated, ventilation, avoid crowded places, test, trace, isolate, quarantine. #DOITALL - BE CAREFUL I am posting this after Boris Johnson announced - to much celebration - that the UK will end its mask mandate again because cases of Omicron are falling. This is not about the economy. Wearing masks has zero economic impact - who is going to be impacted economically by you wearing a mask in public transport or in a shop? It seems to be more about a concept of freedom that some have, that we are more free if we don't use masks to protect others from a…

A new study finds that oral stimuli during the chewing of food can help increase energy expenditure of body and prevent obesity. Chew your food well is ancient wisdom.  In the past, the belief was perhaps because there was less food anyway. Chewing it longer gave the brain and stomach time to catch up with each other. Many people have reported 'their eyes are bigger than their stomach' and feeling hungry until they were very full. Others said it made digestion easier. One thing is certain. You don't find obese people eating slowly so slow eating and thorough chewing became linked to less…

Early-onset scoliosis is a potentially deadly curve in the spine that can damage a child’s heart and lung function as it progresses. Adolescents with scoliosis are traditionally treated with a single spinal fusion, where rods and screws are inserted to fuse the spine in a straighter position. Parents want to make informed choices and a new study finds that preadolescent children with severe neuromuscular scoliosis who are treated with growth-friendly surgery prior to spinal fusion have more complications and unplanned subsequent surgeries than those who only have the spinal fusion. Young…

Smoking remains the most prevalent lifestyle disease in the world, and for people who want to quit, there are lots of options, from "cold turkey" to vaping to patches and gums. But among smokers who don't intend to quit, there is a clear winner in getting them to stop smoking anyway: vaping. A nationally representative cohort study of 1,600 adult regular cigarette smokers who did not use e-cigarettes and did not plan to ever quit smoking did - e-cigarettes as smoking cessation tools led to 8-fold greater odds of cigarette discontinuation. The data came from the longitudinal Population…

Some news stories suggest that if Omicron is mild it is a “blessing in disguise”. Should we let everyone get it as fast as possible? It might seem it would help - if Omicron is indeed a little milder, this may reduce pressure on the health system for a few weeks. However, large numbers of cases can still overwhelm us very rapidly - if it's half the severity, just one doubling of cases (which might take 3 days) overcomes all that advantage for the health systems., Then, longer term this is not a safe strategy because mild variants can revert - or evolve to severe. We have no guarantee…

Suicides and other mental health issues, as well as general deaths, went up during the pandemic in 2020 and veterans were not excluded. But they fared better than the general population, which is good news for Veteran's Day. In this century, it is no longer fashionable for anti-military groups to be overt so they instead became subversively pro-military; promoting the idea that being in the army is going to cause mental health problems and suicide so they cared about troops more than everyone else. That narrative is set back a little because veterans actually had nearly 50 percent fewer…

In response to increases in allergies, and then paralyzing schools and businesses because many parents conflate any allergic reaction with anaphylaxis, in 2017 allergists and pediatricians began recommending that parents start to introduce peanut product around the time their child begins solid foods to prevent peanut allergy. A new study presented at the year’s American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) Annual Scientific Meeting reveals that it makes sense to do the same with eggs. 14 of 2237 surveys (0.6%) reported egg allergy at one year and 11 of 1379 surveys (0.8%)…