#HealthDay News

[vikas7890]

AI Could Predict a Nonsmoker's Risk for Lung Cancer

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter (HealthDay) WEDNESDAY, Nov. 22, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Artificial intelligence (AI) can help assess lung cancer risk in nonsmokers, a new study shows. The “CXR-Lung-Risk” AI program evaluates routine chest X-ray images, looking for patterns associated with lung cancer, researchers said. People whose chest X-rays were flagged by the AI program had twice…

[covid-safer-hotties]

1 in 5 People Could Have Long COVID - Published Nov 8, 2024

By Dennis Thompson

FRIDAY, Nov. 8, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- More than 1 in 5 Americans likely suffer from long COVID, a new AI-assisted review has found.

The analysis suggests that nearly 23% of U.S. adults experience the symptoms of long COVID, according to results published Nov. 8 in the journal Med.

That’s much higher than the 7% prevalence of long COVID that’s been suggested by other studies, researchers said.

“Questions about the true burden of long COVID -- questions that have thus far remained elusive -- now seem more within reach,” said senior researcher Hossein Estiri, head of AI research at Mass General Brigham in Boston.

For the study, researchers developed an AI tool that can sift through mounds of electronic health records looking for the frequently subtle symptoms related to long COVID.

These symptoms can occur in a wide range of body systems, and include fatigue, chronic cough, heart problems and “brain fog.” They typically develop weeks or months after a person shakes off their initial COVID-19 infection.

“Our AI tool could turn a foggy diagnostic process into something sharp and focused, giving clinicians the power to make sense of a challenging condition,” Estiri said in a Mass General news release.

The AI specifically looks for symptoms that can’t be explained by a person’s medical history, have persisted for two months or longer and occur following a COVID infection, researchers said.

For example, the AI can detect if shortness of breath might be explained by pre-existing heart failure or asthma, rather than long COVID.

“Physicians are often faced with having to wade through a tangled web of symptoms and medical histories, unsure of which threads to pull, while balancing busy caseloads. Having a tool powered by AI that can methodically do it for them could be a game-changer,” said lead researcher Dr. Alaleh Azhir, an internal medicine resident at Brigham and Women’s.

Based on these parameters, the AI estimated that nearly 23% of Americans likely have long COVID, a figure that researchers argue aligns more closely with national trends.

The researchers plan to release the AI publicly on open access, so doctors and health care systems can employ and test it.

Study Link : www.cell.com/med/fulltext/S2666-6340(24)00407-0?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2666634024004070%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

[enchanted-moura]

They found that certain natural sounds provided more specific benefits. Bird song, for example, reduced stress the most. Water sounds improved positive emotions and health outcomes most.

Buxton said they also found that listening to natural sounds and human noise versus just human noise still provided some health benefits.

"I think that's really meaningful in an urban context, where it's almost impossible to go anywhere in a city without hearing some noise. If we're going to a park that also has a lot of natural sounds present over the top of that noise it could still be delivering some of those health benefits," Buxton explained.

"You can even get some of the health benefits by just listening, but spending time in nature and getting health benefits is about more than just sounds," Buxton said. "It's about the full sensory experience. There's also a lot of evidence that looking at trees and natural features is really good for you as well. It's always best to get outside if you can."

[planetofsnarfs]

Higher COVID-19 vaccination rates are associated with a lower prevalence of parent-reported childhood asthma symptoms, according to a research letter published online July 3 in JAMA Network Open.

"Higher COVID-19 vaccination rates may confer protection against symptomatic asthma," the authors write. "COVID-19 vaccination yields prophylactic benefits against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection for individual children and may also protect against other human coronaviruses through cross-reactive antibody responses."

[stephaneros]

Infant Mortality Up 7% Post-Roe v. Wade Overturn, Study Finds

[innonurse]

Scientists utilize AI to discover non-opioid alternatives for pain relief

- By InnoNurse Staff -

An estimated one in five Americans suffer from chronic pain, and current treatment options, particularly opioids, present challenges like addiction and side effects.

A team led by Feixiong Cheng, Ph.D., at Cleveland Clinic, in collaboration with IBM, is using AI to repurpose FDA-approved drugs and gut microbiome-derived metabolites to target non-addictive, non-opioid treatments for chronic pain. 

Their AI tool, LISA-CPI, predicts how specific molecules interact with pain receptors, aiding drug discovery. 

This approach could accelerate identifying pain treatments and even other disease therapies, with ongoing lab validation of their findings.

Read more at Cleveland Clinic/Medical Xpress

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Other recent news and insights

AI-powered model developed to diagnose Meniere’s disease (HealthDay/Medical Xpress)

Univa Health, based in the UK, secures £1M for AI-driven personalized care for eating disorders (Tech Funding News)

New K-12 Mental Health Tech Navigator offers a blueprint for schools implementing digital tools to support student well-being (Headstream/PRNewswire)

Rezilient Health raises $10M in Series A funding to expand its tech-enabled family healthcare model (Femtech Insider)

Addiction and support recovery: Empathy Health Technologies secures $2.8M in seed funding (FINSMES)

[charmstrangebeauty]

Context: https://www.healthday.com/health-news/pulmonology/5-25-are-lemons-super-bitter-to-you-you-might-have-lower-covid-risk-2653071406.html

[stanfave3-72217]

Free COVID Tests Are Coming Back by End of September

[covid-safer-hotties]

Long COVID Is Taking Big Toll on U.S. Workforce - Published Aug 19, 2024

MONDAY, Aug. 19, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Millions of Americans -- mostly younger adults -- could be unable to work due to the lingering symptoms of Long COVID, a new study says.

About 14% of working-age people with Long COVID symptoms hadn’t returned to their jobs within three months of their initial infection, researchers found.

“When we compare the rates observed in this study to the national population, it could mean as many as 2 million people may be out of work because of post-COVID conditions,” said lead researcher Dr. Arjun Venkatesh, chair of emergency medicine at the Yale School of Medicine, in New Haven, Conn.

Worse, the average age of those affected was roughly 40, Venkatesh added.

“This has big economic impacts,” Venkatesh said. “It also has impacts on those people individually in terms of their own income security and their ability to care for themselves and their families.”

Results also show that those most stricken by Long COVID are more likely to be unable to work.

The study focused on long-term data gathered on more than 6,000 COVID-19 patients at eight study sites in Illinois, Connecticut, Washington, Pennsylvania, Texas and California.

Among the nearly 3,000 participants who were employed prior to the pandemic, almost 10% reported having five or more symptoms of Long COVID months after their initial infection, researchers said.

“This number was important because we’ve shown in previous studies that the number of symptoms someone has after being infected with SARS-CoV-2 may be more indicative of how severe their Long COVID is,” Venkatesh said.

Those with five or more symptoms were more than twice as likely to not return to work than COVID patients with no long-term symptoms, results showed.

These findings, published recently in the journal PLOS ONE, suggest that people with Long COVID might need the same sort of economic relief and support that was provided to people during the pandemic, Venkatesh argued.

“Given the millions of people who have had COVID-19 in the United States and the millions of people that report prolonged symptoms, this is not a small problem,” said Venkatesh. “So, it does require big interventions.”

[nedsecondline]

Study: Medication abortion without ultrasound safe - UPI.com

Mifepristone is used in a regimen together with misoprostol to end a pregnancy less than 70 days in duration. Adobe Stock/HealthDay   Women don’t need an ultrasound to have a safe medication abortion, a new study says. Women who received abortion pills by mail without getting an ultrasound first did just as well as those who were examined and given the drugs in person, researchers found. Source:…

[andronetalks]

Texas Rancher Developed Anthrax From Butchered Lamb Meat

US News By HealthDay June 7, 2024, at 5:59 a.m. FRIDAY, June 7, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Anthrax disease in humans is rare and when it does occur, it’s usually during hot, dry summers. That’s why the case of a Texas rancher who developed anthrax in January of this year piqued the interest of investigators at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Read more…

[petnews2day]

Federal government announces new initiatives to monitor, prevent bird flu

New Post has been published on https://petn.ws/zVMgX

Federal government announces new initiatives to monitor, prevent bird flu

The illness is typically not fatal in bovines, but monitoring and prevention on the nation’s farms is costly, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture said the aid will make it cheaper and easier for farmers to deal with H5N1 when it is discovered infecting a herd. Photo by Adobe Stock/HealthDay News H5N1 avian flu […]

See full article at https://petn.ws/zVMgX #BirdNews

[ramtracking]

AI Breast Cancer Detection and Diagnosis [ Breast cancer screening ]

AI Breast Cancer Detection and Diagnosis [News Summary] How researchers are working to integrate AI and machine learning into breast cancer screening and diagnostics. The use of artificial intelligence in screening for breast cancers and a little used technique that can efficiently and economically find… THURSDAY, April 25, 2024 (HealthDay News) — A semiautonomous breast cancer screening system…

[innonurse]

Study: AI demonstrates robust clinical knowledge for eye-related conditions

- By InnoNurse Staff -

According to a study published on April 17 in PLOS Digital Health, Large Language Models (LLMs) are nearing the knowledge and reasoning abilities of experts in ophthalmology.

Read more at HealthDay/Medical Xpress

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Other recent news and insights

Singapore: Thrixen secures $7M in funding to enhance its diagnostic technology platform (E27)

Dutch healthtech startup MindAffect has obtained €1.1M in funding to streamline hearing diagnostics using AI (Silicon Canals)