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I’m Brittany Trang, STAT well being tech reporter and your new Friday morning host.
One 12 months in the past at the moment, a number of of us from STAT dressed up in pink and noticed the Barbie film collectively. I’m nonetheless interested by the paradox of the film’s final line, and as you’ll see beneath, medical researchers are too.
Fowl flu instances in people now complete 13 in U.S.
The variety of confirmed human infections with the fowl flu virus related to the continued outbreak in dairy cattle has risen to 13, the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention introduced Thursday, because it confirmed three additional cases in Colorado. They’re at present designated merely as H5 and never H5N1 as a result of CDC labs are nonetheless engaged on typing the neuraminidase, the N quantity within the virus’ title, STAT’s Helen Branswell studies.
The instances — one in all which Colorado had beforehand introduced as a “presumptive constructive” — are in individuals who had been culling contaminated poultry on a farm within the state. Genetic evaluation of the virus in that poultry outbreak exhibits that it’s much like the virus circulating in cows; it’s believed that is one in all a number of situations the place H5N1 in cow herds has spilled over into close by poultry operations. Of the 13 human instances, 10 have been detected in Colorado, which additionally has the best variety of reported contaminated dairy herds — 51, in accordance with the state’s Department of Agriculture. Michigan and Texas have reported two and one human case, respectively.
A paradox of mastectomy for breast most cancers sufferers
Weighing therapy choices for breast most cancers is an agonizing alternative. New analysis printed in JAMA Oncology affirms the prevailing information that excising the cancerous lump, getting a single mastectomy, or a double mastectomy all return about the identical charge of survival: over 80% over 20 years of followup.
Nonetheless, STAT’s most cancers reporter Angus Chen writes, the brand new research turns up a puzzling discovering: Survivors who ended up growing a second breast most cancers of their reverse, or contralateral, breast had a better danger of loss of life from breast most cancers, although individuals who bought a double mastectomy died on the identical general charges.
“That looks as if a paradox,” stated Steven Narod, a breast most cancers researcher and doctor at Ladies’s Faculty Hospital in Toronto and the lead writer on the research. “In the event you get a contralateral breast most cancers, your danger of dying goes up. However stopping it doesn’t enhance your survival.”
Learn extra from Angus, together with potential explanations for the conundrum.
The hanging enhance in suicides amongst Asian-People
Latest U.S. information confirmed that whereas suicide charges decreased for younger white folks in 2018 and 2019, charges went up for Asian-American or Pacific Islander youths. In a latest JAMA Network Open study, researchers examined suicide tendencies in Asian-People ages 10 to 19 years outdated extra carefully.
Taking a look at codes for causes of loss of life in an information set starting from 1999 to 2021, researchers discovered that suicide charges began rising for women in 2004, peaking at practically 3 per 100,000 folks in 2020. For boys, the charges started rising in 2009 and peaked at 8 per 100,000 folks in 2019.
The authors couldn’t clarify what was responsible for the will increase, however steered this upward development might need stemmed from financial hardships in Asian-American households through the Nice Recession, in addition to elevated publicity to sexism and racism — particularly for Asian-American ladies and ladies — with the proliferation of social media.
In the event you or somebody you realize could also be contemplating suicide, contact the 988 Suicide & Disaster Lifeline: name or textual content 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. For TTY customers: Use your most well-liked relay service or dial 711 then 988.
How Kamala Harris’ late mother formed her well being care views
This previous Mom’s Day, Kamala Harris posted an image of herself and her sister in brightly coloured coats, standing subsequent to their mom on a sidewalk. “My mom, Dr. Shyamala Gopalan, had two objectives in life: to remedy breast most cancers and to boost my sister and me,” she wrote.
Gopalan was greatest recognized for her analysis on the connection between progesterone receptors and breast most cancers. She labored at establishments together with McGill and Lawrence Berkeley Nationwide Lab, served on the President’s Particular Fee on Breast Most cancers beneath Clinton, and peer reviewed for the NIH earlier than her loss of life in 2009 from colon most cancers.
It’s unsure what the way forward for Biden’s Most cancers Moonshot and the NIH is perhaps beneath an administration change. With Harris because the doubtless Democratic presidential nominee, it’s fascinating to see what she has stated about her mother, well being care, and considering like a scientist, whilst a policymaker. Go deeper with this story from STAT’s Rohan Rajeev.
Barbie, the search engine marketing queen of gynecology
Final summer season’s Barbie film spawned countless memes (that even the American Medical Association got in on), songs of the summer season from Billie Eilish and Dua Lipa, and a shortage of hot pink paint. However did the long-lasting final scene — Barbie’s very enthusiastic declaration, “I’m right here to see my gynecologist” — beginning a renewed curiosity in getting Pap smears?
Different high-profile medical mentions — resembling Katie Couric’s televised colonoscopy and Angelina Jolie’s breast cancer essay within the New York Occasions — led to increases in colonoscopies and genetic testing, so researchers in JAMA Network Open wondered if Barbie did the identical factor.
Taking a look at on-line search tendencies, researchers reported that whereas searches for “gynecologist” and “gynecologist definition” spiked 51% and 154%, respectively, on the time of the Barbie film’s launch, there was no change in searches for gynecologist appointments. It wasn’t clear to researchers whether or not folks needing the definition of a gyno had been the identical individuals who require gynecologic care, however the development general steered that an elevated consciousness didn’t translate to a rise in folks in search of out appointments.
Scorching mice unlock the mind’s secret to ache placebos
The placebo impact is mysterious and infrequently pesky in scientific trials, however new analysis in Nature provides new proof for which mind circuit is accountable for the placebo impact in treating ache.
A crew led by researchers from the College of North Carolina conditioned mice to anticipate ache reduction by placing them in a chamber with two rooms: one with a sizzling flooring and one with a comfortably heat flooring. They induced the placebo impact by making each chambers sizzling, however mice stored crossing into the one they’d been conditioned to anticipate to be much less sizzling. By finding out their brains, researchers pinned down which particular neurons appeared to be accountable for convincing the mice that they had been experiencing ache reduction. Injecting the mice with naloxone, an opioid receptor antagonist, removed the placebo impact, suggesting the mind’s pure opioid system is concerned with modulating these neurons.
Although there’s nonetheless extra work to be achieved, researchers famous that their outcomes point out that the pathway they recognized may very well be tackled by new pain-relieving interventions like medication or cognitive behavioral therapies.
What we’re studying
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With out federal oversight, nursing houses will put revenue forward of care, STAT
- The miseducation of America’s nurse practitioners, Businessweek
- Do medical errors creep up at hospitals when interns arrive? Sure, however the ‘July impact’ is minimal, Boston Globe
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We purchased all the pieces wanted to make $3 million price of fentanyl. All it took was $3,600 and an internet browser, Reuters
- The plastic business’s $30 million lie, Heated
- You don’t have to fret about poisonous metals in your tampons, Slate
