Noninvasive occipital and trigeminal neuromodulation technology cleared by FDA for the acute treatment of migraine

American Headache Society :Device worn as headset delivers stimulation to six branches of the occipital and trigeminal nervesOn March 2, Neurolief announced that it has received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance for its Relivion^® system, a non-invasive, multi-channel neuromodulation system for at home, acute treatment of migraine attacks. The device is worn as a headset and stimulates occipital and trigeminal nerves according to the company’s March 2 press release.

Socioeconomic Factors Account for Variability in Language Skills in Preschoolers with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Developmental Behavioural Pediatrics :Although no longer required for a diagnosis, language delays are extremely common in children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Factors associated with socioeconomic status (SES) have broad-reaching impact on language development in early childhood. Despite recent advances in characterizing autism in early childhood, the relationship between SES and language development in ASD has not received much attention.

How do you treat coronavirus? Here are physicians’ best strategies

Science :Ready or not, the patients were coming. This time last year, physicians around the world prepared, most for the first time in their careers, to treat a new disease—over and over and over again.

“There was a terrible sense of foreboding, like in a movie when the minor key music starts playing,” says Robert Arntfield, a critical care physician at Western University in London, Canada.

In Wuhan, China, the doctors who first encountered the pandemic coronavirus raced to share surprising symptoms and possible treatments with far-flung colleagues.

Simple Skin Swab Could Diagnose Parkinson’s Disease

 

Clinicalomics :Researchers at the University of Manchester have developed a test that can diagnose Parkinson’s disease from sebum collected by swabbing the skin.

The test uses mass spectrometry and was able to identify 10 chemicals in the sebum skin swabs from Parkinson’s patients that differed from those without the neurodegenerative condition. According to a press statement, it was able to diagnose the disease with 85% accuracy.

The Risks and Benefits of Running Barefoot or in Minimalist Shoes

 

RunningResearch :Nine formal systematic reviews of the evidence have so far been published looking at the evidence on barefoot or minimalist running having systematic benefits or not. Every single one of them concluded the same thing (reviewed here and here and here). Despite those conclusions, all by people from different backgrounds and published in a variety of different journals, you still see claims that the evidence is that there are systematic benefits. I can’t figure that out. Now we have yet another systematic review of the evidence:

Kinematic and Kinetic Risk Factors for Running Injury

 

RunningResearch :It is always good to see prospective studies on risk factors for injury. Prospective studies carry a lot more weight than cross-sectional studies and require a lot more work on the part of the researchers. This one caught my eye a few months ago, but all sorts of events prevented me getting to it until now:

A prospective comparison of lower extremity kinematics and kinetics between injured and non-injured collegiate cross country runners
Robert I. Dudley, Derek N. Pamukoff, Scott K. Lynn, Robert D. Kersey, Guillermo J. Noffal
Human Movement Science; Volume 52, April 2017, Pages 197–202

Breast Cancer: Sugar-Sweetened Soda Consumption May Impact Mortality Risk

MedicalResearch :  The literature suggests that sugars contribute to the incidence of breast cancer, but few exists on the prognosis after a breast cancer diagnosis.

MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings?

Anosmia, the loss of smell caused by COVID-19, doesn’t always go away quickly – but smell training may help

TheConversation : Julie Walsh-Messinger is a clinical psychologist who studies the effects of long-term smell loss. Her research has focused on smell loss in people with serious and persistent mental illnesses, but since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, she has also studied smell loss caused by COVID-19. In this interview, she talks about how COVID-19 can affect your sense of smell, the effects of long-term smell loss and resources that can help.

Julie Walsh-Messinger talks about the effects of smell loss caused by COVID-19.

Depressive Symptoms and Cigarette Smoking in Adolescents and Young Adults: Mediating Role of Friends Smoking

 

Nicotine and tobacco research :We examined the mediating role of friends smoking in the association between depressive symptoms and daily/weekly cigarette smoking from adolescence into adulthood.

Opinions and Attitudes Can Last When They Are Based on Emotion

Psychological Science : Researchers have found that emotionality—the degree to which an attitude is based on feelings and emotions—can create enduring opinions, shedding new light on the factors that make attitudes last.

Depending on the topic, people’s attitudes can change from moment to moment or last a lifetime. The factors that make one opinion long-lasting and another ephemeral, however, are not always clear.

Past studies have demonstrated that opinions based on hard facts and data can remain constant over time, but new research published in the journal Psychological Science reveals that attitudes based on feelings and emotions can also stand the test of time. This research has implications for both predicting whose attitudes are fixed versus fleeting and how to nudge people to form more long-lasting opinions.

Sleep maximizes vaccine effectiveness

 

Scimex : With the roll out of COVID-19 vaccines now underway, University of South Australia sleep experts are urging people to reprioritise their sleep, as getting regular and sufficient sleep is known to boost your immune system.

In Australia, four in every ten people suffer from a lack of sleep. Globally, around 62 per cent of adults  feel that they don’t sleep well when they go to bed.

COVID-19 in 2021—Continuing Uncertainty

 

JAMA : More than a year has passed since the first confirmed case of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the US was reported on January 20, 2020. What followed was an unprecedented year with nearly 30 million documented infections and more than 500 000 excess deaths in the US due to SARS-CoV-2. Alongside this devastation is the successful development and deployment of multiple safe and effective vaccines.¹

To date, almost 80 million doses of vaccine have been administered in the US with some experts suggesting that the extent of disease, including the number of deaths, will continue to decline between now and summer. Yet moving to the next phase of the pandemic remains a challenge; clinicians and patients have many questions that may not have clear answers. This Viewpoint summarizes the current best evidence to some of these complex questions.

SARS-CoV-2 on Ocular Surfaces in Patients With COVID-19 From Italy

 

JAMA : Question  What is the qualitative and quantitative presence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) on the ocular surface in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) hospitalized in intensive care units at a university hospital in Lombardy, Italy?

Findings  Using reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction assay, this study found that SARS-CoV-2 was present on the ocular surface in 52 of 91 patients with COVID-19 (57.1%). The virus may also be detected on ocular surfaces in patients with COVID-19 when the nasopharyngeal swab is negative.

What type of heart and blood vessel problems complicate COVID-19 infections, how common are they and what other medical conditions do these patients have?

Cochrane: Many people infected by COVID-19 have few or no symptoms. However, COVID-19 can make the blood ‘sticky’, clogging up both small blood vessels (capillaries) and large ones, which may cause heart attacks, strokes or blood clots in the legs or lungs. These can be fatal. People who have diabetes, high blood pressure or pre-existing heart problems are at greater risk of developing such complications if they get COVID-19.

Vaginal inserts for prevention of sexually transmitted infections

 

In this Cochrane Review we assessed the effects of topical microbicides (chemical substances that can be applied inside the vagina or rectum), compared to placebo (inactive substance), to prevent women who have sex with men and men who have sex with men from getting sexually-transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV.

WHO expert panel strongly advises against use of hydroxychloroquine to prevent covid-19

 

BMJ :The anti-inflammatory drug hydroxychloroquine should not be used to prevent infection in people who do not have covid-19, say a WHO Guideline Development Group (GDG) panel of international experts in The BMJ today.

Their strong recommendation is based on high certainty evidence from six randomised controlled trials involving over 6,000 participants with and without known exposure to a person with covid-19 infection.

Exposure to particulate matter before and after birth linked to heightened allergic rhinitis risk

 

BMJ :Exposure to the air pollutant fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) before and after birth is linked to a heightened risk of childhood allergic rhinitis, finds research published online in the journal Thorax.

Age of father affects offspring through an epigenetic mechanism

 

Heidelberg/Germany, 5 January 2021 - A team of Japanese scientists has revealed a mechanism associated with an increased risk of behavioural defects among offspring of older fathers in a mouse study, with strong indications similar processes are involved in humans. The researchers examined the link between behavioural defects in mice, specifically animal communication, and lack of DNA methylation—a major process for controlling the expression of genes with a critical role in cell development, ageing and diseases such as cancer. Attachment of methyl groups to the DNA (DNA methylation) is a major epigenetic mechanism that plays an important part in neurological development by ensuring that particular proteins are expressed by their coding genes in specific brain tissues, while being suppressed in tissue where their presence would be damaging.

Abdominal Fat Gain Tied to Heart Disease Risk in Menopause

 Women who experience an accelerated accumulation of abdominal fat during menopause are at greater risk of heart disease, even if their weight stays steady, according to a University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health-led analysis published today in the journal Menopause. 

Study finds no relationship between blood type and severity of COVID-19

 

Blood type is not associated with a severe worsening of symptoms in people who have tested positive for COVID-19, report Harvard Medical School researchers based at Massachusetts General Hospital.Their findings, published in the Annals of Hematology, dispel previous reports that suggested a correlation between certain blood types and COVID-19.