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Category: health – Page 159

Fungi is getting stronger globally even alerting the WHO due to its damage.

The World Health Organization created a list of fungi that it said pose a growing risk to human health, including yeasts and molds found in abundance in nature and the body.

The WHO said Tuesday that the 19 species on the list merit urgent attention from public-health officials and drug developers. Four species were designated as threats of the highest priority: Aspergillus fumigatus, a mold found abundantly in nature; Candida albicans, which is commonly found in the human body; Candida auris, a highly deadly yeast; and Cryptococcus neoformans, a fungus that can cause deadly brain infections.

“Fungal infections are growing, and are ever more resistant to treatments, becoming a public-health concern worldwide” said Hanan Balkhy, the WHO’s assistant director-general.

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Research at Boston University that involved testing a lab-made hybrid version of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is garnering heated headlines alleging the scientists involved could have unleashed a new pathogen.

There is no evidence the work, performed under biosecurity level 3 precautions in BU’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories, was conducted improperly or unsafely. In fact, it was approved by an internal biosafety review committee and Boston’s Public Health Commission, the university said Monday night.

But it has become apparent that the research team did not clear the work with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which was one of the funders of the project. The agency indicated it is going to be looking for some answers as to why it first learned of the work through media reports.

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“This year, parents are sending their children to daycare and school for the first time following two years of the pandemic. … Children who haven’t been previously exposed to respiratory viruses are getting sick,” Romano said.

Health officials in King County, Wash., are also alarmed as they brace for more cases once winter hits. Dr. Russell Migita with Seattle Children’s Hospital told King 5 News they are seeing about 20 to 30 positive cases every day, adding that those are “unprecedented” figures.

RSV symptoms are similar to a cold and can be harmless in adults, but the CDC says children under the age of 5 are the most affected group. According to the agency’s data, each year approximately 58,000 children in that age range are hospitalized for RSV. The next most vulnerable group are adults over 65, in whom the infection causes 14,000 deaths a year.

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“The project has certainly been a rewarding exercise in bringing art and science together.”

The magnetic signals from the ESA’s Swarm satellite project were turned into sound by researchers at the Technical University of Denmark. The outcome is quite thrilling for something that is supposed to protect us.

“The team used data from ESA’s Swarm satellites and other sources and used these magnetic signals to manipulate and control a sonic representation of the core field. The project has certainly been a rewarding exercise in bringing art and science together,” musician and project supporter Klaus Nielsen, from the Technical University of Denmark, explained the project in the ESA’s release. team used data from ESA’s Swarm satellites and other sources and used these magnetic signals to manipulate and control a sonic representation of the core field. The project has certainly been a rewarding exercise in bringing art and science together,” musician and project supporter Klaus Nielsen, from the Technical University of Denmark, explained the project in the ESA’s release.

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People who eat more foods with omega-3 fatty acids in midlife may have superior thinking skills and even better brain structure than people who eat few foods containing the fatty acids. This is according to an exploratory study that was recently published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Omega-3 fatty acids are found in fish such as salmon, sardines, lake trout, and albacore tuna. They are also found in dietary supplements as well as foods that are fortified with the fatty acids.

“If people could improve their cognitive resilience and potentially ward off dementia with some simple changes to their diet, that could have a large impact on public health.” —

“Improving our diet is one way to promote our brain health,” said study author Claudia L. Satizabal, PhD, of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. “If people could improve their cognitive resilience and potentially ward off dementia with some simple changes to their diet, that could have a large impact on public health. Even better, our study suggests that even modest consumption of omega-3 may be enough to preserve brain function. This is in line with the current American Heart Association dietary guidelines to consume at least two servings of fish per week to improve cardiovascular health.”

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The new research saw scientists follow 100,000 participants in the UK Biobank national cohort.

Smartphones could soon be used to predict populations’ mortality rates, according to a press release by PLOS Digital Health.

Previous studies have used measures of physical fitness, including walk tests and self-reported walk pace, to predict individual mortality risk. Now scientists are taking it a step further.

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Sound-diffracting walls and rubberised asphalt ingredients tackle the major environmental concern of noise pollution from traffic.

In cities across the European Union, noise is a significant health hazard along with air pollution. Efforts are under way to reduce a major source of both: traffic.

Noise is the number-two environmental source of health troubles, after air pollution, according to the United Nations World Health Organization.

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Over the last several decades, obesity has rapidly grown to affect more than 2 billion people, making it one of the biggest contributors to poor health globally. Many individuals still have trouble losing weight despite decades of study on diet and exercise regimens. Researchers from Baylor College of Medicine and affiliated institutions now believe they understand why, and they argue that the emphasis should be shifted from treating obesity to preventing it.

The research team reports in the journal Science Advances that early-life molecular processes of brain development are likely a major determinant of obesity risk. Previous large human studies have shown that the genes most strongly associated with obesity are expressed in the developing brain. This most recent study in mice focused on epigenetic development. Epigenetics is a molecular bookmarking system that regulates whether genes are utilized or not in certain cell types.

“Decades of research in humans and animal models have shown that environmental influences during critical periods of development have a major long-term impact on health and disease,” said corresponding author Dr. Robert Waterland, professor of pediatrics-nutrition and a member of the USDA Children’s Nutrition Research Center at Baylor. “Body weight regulation is very sensitive to such ‘developmental programming,’ but exactly how this works remains unknown.”

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A drug has been identified by researchers at Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) that replicates the benefits of exercise on mice’s bones and muscles.

You can look and feel better by keeping up a regular exercise schedule, but did you know that exercise also supports bone and muscle health? Locomotor fragility, which affects people who are unable to exercise, causes the muscles and bones to deteriorate. Recently, Japanese researchers discovered a new drug that, by producing effects comparable to those of exercise, may help treat locomotor frailty.

Physical inactivity can result in a weakening of the muscles (known as sarcopenia) and bones (known as osteoporosis). Exercise dispels this frailty by boosting muscular strength and suppressing bone resorption while simultaneously promoting bone formation. Exercise therapy, however, cannot be used in every clinical situation. When patients have dementia, cerebrovascular disease, or are already bedridden, drug therapy may be very helpful for treating sarcopenia and osteoporosis. However, there is no one drug that targets both tissues at the same time.

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