In severely malnourished Bangladeshi infants, restoring a strain of the bacterial species Bifidobacterium infantis promoted rapid weight gain and lowered markers of intestinal inflammation, researchers say. B. infantis is an early colonizer of the infant gut that consumes human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs).

Screening for human papillomavirus (HPV) in high-risk individuals may be done effectively and noninvasively using menstrual blood testing with target-capture sequencing, a clinical study suggests. The researchers collected 137 sanitary pads with menstrual blood from 120 women who had already had high-risk HPV detected using a traditional method, cervical HPV GenoArray testing. Researchers completed target capture sequencing of menstrual blood samples to identify high-risk HPV genotypes and see if these findings were concordant with cervical HPV GenoArray results. Overall, the concordance rate between menstrual blood sample sequencing and cervical HPV GenoArray testing was 92.7%, the authors report in JAMA Network Open.

@akhilesh Cirrhosis is associated with an altered gut–brain axis. It leads to organ damage in several parts of the body, including the brain, gut, pancreas, and liver. This makes changing the gut microbes "an attractive target," Bajaj said at the Digital International Liver Congress 2020. For their phase 1 double-blind study, he and his colleagues assessed 20 men from a Virginia veteran's hospital with untreatable alcohol use disorder who were not eligible for liver transplantation.

@preyashi Naima Covassin, PhD, a researcher in cardiovascular medicine at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., led the randomized, controlled study of 12 healthy, nonobese people randomized to controlled sleep restriction — 2 weeks of 4 hours of sleep a night — or controlled sleep of 9 hours a night, followed by a 3-day recovery period. The study was conducted in the hospital, monitored participants' caloric intake, and used accelerometry to monitor energy expense. Participants ranged in age from 19 to 39 years. The study found that the patients on curtailed sleep ate on average an additional 308 calories a day more than their controlled sleep counterparts (95% confidence interval, 59.2 - 556.8 kcal/day; P = .015), and while that translated into a 0.5-kg weight gain (95% CI, 0.1 - 0.8 kg; P = .008), it also led to a 7.8-cm2 increase in visceral adipose tissue (VAT) (95% CI, 0.3 - 15.3 cm2; P = .042), representing an increase of around 11%. The study used CT on day 1 and day 18 (1 day after the 3-day recovery period) to evaluate the distribution of abdominal fat.

There is clear and growing evidence that diet composition in childhood and adolescence, physical activity, and alcohol intake before birth of the first child are all importantly related to the risk for premalignant breast lesions and invasive breast cancer. Part of the motive in our trying to get this message out is the fact that 21% of breast cancers are diagnosed in premenopausal women, and yet most of our discussion about prevention of breast cancer really starts with screening. That is detection, not prevention.

Religious practices have been associated with healing for millennia. People pray for good health and for relief from illness. Prayer may result in health and healing through one or more of several mechanisms. Please leave your comments.

@insiya The best way for your friend to prevent pneumococcal disease, which can cause meningitis, pneumonia, and sepsis, is to get the pneumococcal vaccination. The CDC recommends the pneumococcal vaccination for children younger than 2 years and adults 65 years or older. In certain situations, older children and other adults also can receive the pneumococcal vaccines. There are 2 pneumococcal vaccines on the market: PCV13 (Prevnar 13) and PPSV23 (Pneumovax 23). The recommendations for PCV13 include children younger than 2 years and patients 2 years of age and older with certain medical conditions. PPSV23 is recommend for patients 65 years and older, individuals 2 to 64 years with certain medical conditions, and adults who smoke cigarettes. She is eligible for both PCV 13 and PPSV23, because she is immunocompromised due to chemotherapy. The CDC recommends that PCV13 should be followed by a dose of PPSV23 a year later in all immunocompetent persons aged 65 years or older who have not previously received the pneumococcal vaccine. Because your friend is immunocompromised, the interval between doses would be shortened to 8 weeks

@saptarshi This is an excellent question that raises important issues here. There are minor health issues which could be handled easily only by having access to the knowledge and experience of a medical professional without the need for travelling and waiting. No matter how efficient virtual care services can be, there will always be medical issues from mental health to sensitive topics such as an HIV infection or cancer, where the face-to-face meeting is crucial for the sake of the doctor-patient relationship. Also, when physicians need to examine the patient in a way that cannot be performed through data (measuring an ECG or taking a photo of a skin lesion are possible at the point of care) or have to use big machines, then in-person meetings are the only viable option.

Hello, I am suffering from pain in my benny button. I don't know why this is happening. This pain is migrating to the lower right abdomen. How to cure the pain of belly button? Please explain.

Hello, my neighbor is a 60-year-old white female has acute onset shortness of breath. Symptoms began approximately 2 days before and had progressively worsened with no associated, aggravating, or relieving factors noted. She had similar symptoms approximately 1 year ago with an acute, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbation requiring hospitalization. She uses BiPAP ventilatory support at night when sleeping and has requested to use this in the emergency department due to shortness of breath and wanting to sleep. She denies fever, chills, cough, wheezing, sputum production, chest pain, palpitations, pressure, abdominal pain, abdominal distension, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. She reports difficulty breathing at rest, forgetfulness, mild fatigue, feeling chilled, requiring blankets, increased urinary frequency, incontinence, and swelling in her bilateral lower extremities that are new-onset and worsening. Subsequently, she has not ambulated from bed for several days except to use the restroom due to feeling weak, fatigued, and short of breath. Her family history includes significant heart disease and prostate malignancy in her father. Social history is positive for smoking tobacco use at 30 pack years. She denies all alcohol and illegal drug use. There are no known foods, drugs, or environmental allergies. Doctor diagnosed it as smoking induced COPD. How to cure this condition?