@palash Global deaths due to COVID-19 have dropped almost 90% since February, the head of the World Health Organization said Wednesday.

Last week, 9,400 deaths were reported linked to the coronavirus, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

That's down from 75,000 a week in February.

@prabir Virtual care was associated with estimated savings of 3.2 billion km in patient travel, 545 million to 658 million kg of carbon dioxide emissions, and $569 million to $733 million CAD (US $465 million to $599 million) in expenses for gasoline, parking, or public transit.

Carbon dioxide emission avoidance and patient cost savings were more apparent for patients living in rural areas, for those with higher comorbidity, and for patients older than 65 years.

@junaid-a The findings are based on data from the National Child Development Survey (NCDS), which is following all individuals born during one week in March 1958 in England, Scotland, and Wales.

The researchers focused mainly on data collected in 2003, when most of the roughly 12,000 respondents were aged 44, as well as data collected in 2008, 2013, and 2021, when they were roughly 50, 55, and 62 years old, respectively.

@raju The guideline builds on the work of Canada's other cardiovascular guideline groups, such as the Canadian Cardiovascular Society/Canadian Heart Rhythm Society. Many of these organizations published new, evidence-based recommendations in recent years. The revisions in these documents range from changes in medication management to new thresholds for lipid levels in secondary prevention

@abhila Chronic neuroinflammation secondary to either intrinsic or systemic stimuli is thought to play a key role in dementia development, especially Alzheimer's dementia (AD). Research showing a role of tumor necrosis factor–alpha (TNF-alpha) in the development of dementia has piqued interest in a potential protective effect of TNF inhibitors. "TNF-alpha is thought to have an important role in different stages of the pathophysiology and disease progression of Alzheimer's disease," study first author Sebastian E. Sattui, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh and director of the University of Pittsburgh Vasculitis Center, said in an interview. "Animal models have shown that TNF inhibition reduces microgliosis, neuronal loss, and tau phosphorylation. Cognitive improvement has been seen in two trials with Alzheimer's disease patients, but were not in rheumatoid arthritis patients."

@shaily The results agree with previous work, including a meta-analysis of 13 prospective cohort studies of 70,289 primary White individuals with an average age of 64 years, which found that subclinical hyperthyroidism was associated with a modestly increased risk for fractures, researchers note.

@chandi Anti-TNF-alpha agents are often prescribed to stop inflammation for chronic immune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), psoriasis, and ankylosing spondylitis. Prior research has raised suspicions of an increased risk of MS with use of anti-TNF-alpha agents in small samples.

Investigators accessed population-linked databases in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, which contain information about physician visits, hospitalizations, demographic data, and medication in those provinces.

@atharva Huang and colleagues conducted a multicenter, multiethnic prospective cohort study within the NASH Clinical Research Network consortium to examine the fibrosis progression rate and the fibrosis regression rate among patients with or without diabetes. The study included adult participants at eight sites across the United States who had biopsy-confirmed NAFLD and available paired liver biopsies that were at least 1 year apart.

@amina Some previous, small retrospective studies had suggested that AHSCT could benefit progressive MS. For example, a study published in Neurology looked at outcomes following AHSCT in 210 patients with MS and found a disability worsening–free survival of 85.5% at 5 years in relapsing-remitting MS and 71.0% in progressive MS. However, such studies are prone to bias, according to Bruce Cree, MD, PhD, who was asked to comment on the progressive MS study. Both studies were presented at the annual meeting of the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS).

@adrita Both weight loss and weight gain have previously been linked to subsequent dementia in elderly populations. However, the evidence linking early weight change and cognitive decline in PD is lacking, the researchers note.

To investigate further, they assessed 358 adults (66% men; mean age, 61 years) who had been diagnosed with PD an average of 2 years earlier. During the first year after diagnosis, 98 participants lost more than 3% of body weight, 201 maintained their weight (within ±3%), and 59 gained more than 3% of body weight.

@sumana A few weeks later, Teague says she began having black, tar-like stools and then diarrhea. She says whatever she ate went right through her within 10 to 15 minutes of eating, so she went back to the doctor.

Worried, she questioned if she should get a colonoscopy. She says she was turned down, being told she was too young to need the procedure. Desperate for answers, Teague asked for additional tests.

@debniv According to a 2020 report from the US Department of Health and Human Services, about 9.9 million Americans abused prescription opioids in 2018. That same year, almost 47,000 died following an overdose of the painkillers. In 2017, Appalachian counties experienced a death rate from opioid overdoses that was 72% higher than that of the rest of the country.

Ellison and her team, who presented their findings recently at the 2022 annual meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, examined rates of pediatric trauma injuries, injury severity, and results of drug screenings throughout West Virginia between 2009 and 2019.

@putin The new research takes the work a step further by revealing a population of T cells in MS patients that appear to be responding directly to EBV during active viral disease. That could be telling because most people who experience an EBV infection and experience mononucleosis recover, and some never even realize they have been infected. As a herpes virus, EBV remains in a latent state in B cells and other immune cells

@taniya It is important for clinicians to know that PTLD leads to real, quantifiable brain changes and that patients' cognitive complaints may be a direct consequence of these brain changes, rather than a side effect of other symptoms, such as fatigue, for example

@shutanu Liver histology is highly prognostic of liver-related outcomes in patients with NAFLD and NASH. Not just that, but liver histology is also accepted, and furthermore mandated by the FDA, as a surrogate endpoint in pharmaceutical trials for NASH

@kakali Identifying measurable electrical signs of lucid and heightened brain activity during CPR, coupled with stories of recalled near-death experiences, suggests that the human sense of self and consciousness, much like other biological body functions, may not stop completely around the time of death

@kanishka Anybody who's been to a hospital, or visited a loved one, knows how isolating it can be. The depression can be felt in the air, so you have to really try to give some joy to these people during tough times

@anshu Use of the decision-support risk calculator for thromboembolism in the IMPROVE-DD VTE trial significantly boosted use of appropriate inpatient thromboprophylaxis starting at hospital admission by a relative 52%, and significantly increased outpatient thromboprophylaxis prescribed at discharge by a relative 93% in the study's two primary endpoints, Spyropoulos reported at the American Heart Association scientific sessions.

@meghomala Larger top predators are more at risk than are smaller predators, as are fish species in areas where they are heavily fished by humans, with small, short-lived species at the lowest risk of all.

Greenhouse gas emissions affect the world's climate in two ways: raising the temperature of the atmosphere by holding in heat and, in the case of CO2 emissions, making water more acidic.