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☆ Is your house making you sick? 3 things you might not realize are affecting your health at home—and how to fix them
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-25 | by ( Renée Onque | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

With so many things to worry about, it can be easy to overlook the small things, but even those small things can have an effect on your body. "Homesick" could take on a new meaning for you once you realize that some ordinary things around your house may be affecting your health. An uncleaned air filter can trigger allergies and offer less ventilation in your house, reducing your protection from respiratory viruses, he adds. Soft surfaces with mold on them, including dry wall and insulation, should be tossed, Bidwell adds. "It's a good thing to just walk around and check these things sometimes," says Bidwell.

Fungal infections are more widespread than doctors or patients realize, research suggests. People generally get fungal infections after breathing in spores. Thompson’s paper came just weeks after another study revealed high rates of fungal disease diagnoses far outside their traditionally understood geographies. A World Health Organization report in October also found that severe fungal infections became more prevalent among people with pre-existing health issues during the Covid pandemic. In some cases, fungal infections can take months of treatment to clear and may become chronic.

☆ Repeat COVID is riskier than first infection, study finds
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( Nancy Lapid | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

"Reinfection with COVID-19 increases the risk of both acute outcomes and long COVID," said Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "Even if one had prior infection and was vaccinated - meaning they had double immunity from prior infection plus vaccines - they are still susceptible to adverse outcomes upon reinfection," Al-Aly, the study leader, said. The higher risks were most pronounced in the first month after reinfection but were still evident six months later. The cumulative risks and burdens of repeat infection increased with the number of infections, even after accounting for differences in COVID-19 variants such as Delta, Omicron and BA.5, the researchers said. "We had started seeing a lot of patients coming to the clinic with an air of invincibility," Al-Aly told Reuters.

☆ Lower prostate cancer screening rates linked with more advanced cancers
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Nancy Lapid | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterThe benefits of screening for prostate cancer have been controversial. At individual facilities, higher rates of screening were linked with lower rates of subsequent diagnoses of advanced cancers. But for every 10% decrease in screening, there was a corresponding 10% increase in metastatic prostate cancer incidence five years later, the researchers said. Rose noted that while the USPSTF advice to limit prostate cancer screening has resulted in lower rates of prostate cancer diagnoses, rates of metastatic prostate cancer have increased "more dramatically." A spokesperson for the USPSTF said an update to its prostate cancer screening recommendation is not currently underway.

☆ COVID raises risk of long-term brain injury, large U.S. study finds
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-22 | by ( Julie Steenhuysen | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The year-long study, published in Nature Medicine, assessed brain health across 44 different disorders using medical records without patient identifiers from millions of U.S. veterans. Brain and other neurological disorders occurred in 7% more of those who had been infected with COVID compared with a similar group of veterans who had never been infected. That translates into roughly 6.6 million Americans who had brain impairments linked with their COVID infections, the team said. Compared with the control groups, people infected with COVID had a 77% higher risk of developing memory problems. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterReporting by Julie Steenhuysen Editing by Bill BerkrotOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Biogen says ALS drug shows clinical benefit in new data analysis
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-21 | by ( Mrinalika Roy | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The Biogen drug, tofersen, is currently under priority review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration with an approval decision expected by Jan. 25. Biogen last October had said the drug missed the main goal of the late-stage study, failing to show statistically significant improvement in the functional status of patients with fast-progressing ALS at six months. Biogen is seeking approval of tofersen for ALS patients with mutations in a specific gene that leads to accumulation of toxic levels of a protein called SOD1. Most side effects in both the late-stage study and the follow-on portion were mild to moderate, including headache and back pain, the company said. Nearly 7% of patients who received tofersen experienced serious neurological events, including spinal cord inflammation and swelling of the optic nerve.

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